Ch. 181 The Space Between

Chapter 181: The Space Between

I asked Aurelia before breakfast.

“Have I already begun?”

She stood beside the sitting-room window with a cup between her hands.

Outside, the gardener was breaking the ice on a water butt.

Aurelia watched him finish before turning to me.

“Your power is changing.”

“Toward becoming divine?”

“Yes.”

The answer settled heavily.

Evelyn stood beside me.

Neither of us spoke.

Then Aurelia set down her cup.

“But a direction is not a destination.”

We sat together.

I had expected reassurance.

Perhaps an explanation that hearing Sella had been some lesser thing with no bearing on the question that frightened me.

Aurelia offered neither.

“I cannot promise that you will never hear another call,” she said. “Even if we stop the lessons today.”

“Did the lessons cause it?”

“They may have helped you notice what was already becoming possible. I do not know whether you would have heard her without them.”

Evelyn leaned forward.

“Then what can he choose?”

“What he does with it. What he develops next. Whether he seeks the change that would make that reach part of his nature.”

I looked at her.

“What change?”

Aurelia held out one hand.

A small light formed above her palm.

It had no flame.

I could feel the strength within it, clear and familiar.

She closed her fingers.

The light remained.

Then she withdrew her hand.

“Your body still gathers and holds your power,” she said. “Even when you send it elsewhere, you return to that.”

“And you?”

“I can gather myself elsewhere.”

I thought of her appearing in the passage after visiting Lethmere.

Her room.

The road.

The house where Hanne had asked her to peel turnips.

“You learned to do that?”

“After I changed. Before then, there were moments when I could feel farther than I could act.”

“Like hearing someone.”

“Yes.”

The light faded.

“Ascending was more than becoming able to hear,” Aurelia continued. “It changed how I existed. It changed what could sustain me, where I could be, how much I could hold.”

I rubbed my hands together.

“Did you choose it?”

Aurelia was quiet for a long time.

“I chose to reach when I might have withdrawn. I did not understand everything that choice would bring.”

That hurt to hear.

She seemed to know.

“I want you to understand more than I did.”

Evelyn took my hand.

“Then we begin there.”

We changed the lessons.

The heavier work would wait for a few days.

I would continue learning how to recover strength without hurting myself.

How to notice a call.

How to keep it from filling every part of my attention.

Aurelia would tell us what she remembered of her ascension, including the things she was uncertain about.

I listened to the arrangement.

It felt like something I could stand inside.

“I don’t want to stop learning.”

“You won’t.”

“I also don’t want to be carried into this because I was too frightened to ask where we were going.”

Aurelia met my eyes.

“Then keep asking.”

Breakfast had cooled.

Garrick had not.

He was halfway through an argument with a sleeve when we arrived.

Helena held the shirt.

Our son held the conviction that he could get away if he turned quickly enough.

I took him.

He immediately stopped struggling and reached toward the table.

“That is infuriating,” Helena said.

“He respects me.”

“He wants your bread.”

She was correct.

I surrendered a piece.

Evelyn sat beside Carol and began telling her about the porridge.

Our daughter appeared unconvinced by the description but willing to examine it personally.

The next lesson took place in the western observation room.

No basin.

No stones.

Aurelia asked Evelyn to stand at the other end of the room and call my name silently.

My wife looked at me.

I watched her mouth remain still.

Nothing happened.

We tried again.

Nothing.

I began to feel foolish.

Evelyn folded her arms.

“Perhaps you’re improving at ignoring me.”

“That would be a dangerous talent.”

Aurelia smiled.

Then asked us to stop trying so hard.

We waited.

A cart passed below the windows.

The dog from Evelyn’s drawing crossed the yard without stolen property.

Someone on the stair sneezed.

I heard my wife’s voice.

Uriah.

Faint.

Almost lost beneath the ordinary sounds.

I turned.

She was already looking at me.

“That time,” I said.

Evelyn’s expression changed.

“What did I say?”

“My name.”

She nodded.

Aurelia asked her to write down what she intended to call next.

Then turn the paper over.

The second message did not arrive.

Neither did the third.

On the fourth, I caught only a feeling of impatience.

Evelyn showed us the page afterward.

Your tea is getting cold.

I laughed.

“So there are practical uses.”

“There may be,” Aurelia said. “But you felt her reaching toward you. You did not hear everything she was thinking.”

I looked at my wife.

“Good.”

She nodded immediately.

“Very good.”

We spent the rest of the lesson learning to stop.

That was stranger than learning to hear.

When Evelyn called again, I could feel the slight tug.

I wanted to follow it.

Aurelia asked me to keep my attention on the edge of the table beneath my fingers.

Then the window.

Then the sound of my own voice as I answered aloud.

“I’m here.”

The tug remained for a moment.

Then eased.

I had not shut Evelyn away.

I had simply stopped reaching for more.

My shoulders lowered.

Aurelia watched me.

“Again?”

I considered.

“One more.”

By midday, I was ready to do something that involved ordinary numbers.

This was an error.

Beatrice brought the cost of the east warehouse drain.

The work had uncovered rotten supports beneath a loading platform.

Eleanor wanted to replace them before anyone put another wagon there.

The warehouse owners wanted to know why clearing a ditch had become expensive.

I read the estimate.

Then read the note beneath it.

“Because their platform is falling down?”

Beatrice nodded.

“I thought you might prefer to tell them.”

“Why?”

“They have already heard it from me.”

We went to look.

The platform sagged at one corner.

A broken piece of timber lay beside the exposed ditch.

Eleanor tapped it with her boot.

I could see daylight through places that should have been wood.

One owner stood beside her, arms folded.

“It has held for a long while.”

Eleanor looked up.

“It has finished.”

I bit the inside of my cheek.

We agreed that loading would move to the other side while repairs were made.

The work would begin the next morning.

No magic was required.

Only money, timber, and a conversation nobody particularly enjoyed.

I found that comforting.

Mary’s second message arrived near evening.

The four villages had chosen people to speak for them.

Three wished to continue toward joining Greykeep.

The fourth wanted more time.

Mary had told them they could have it.

Fen had discovered that the quarry belonged jointly to several households rather than the village itself.

Their use of the stone would require a separate agreement.

Eliza had spoken with the collector who came from the lower valley.

There had been raised voices.

No drawn weapons.

I read that line again.

Then continued.

The collector had brought a list of dues.

Fen had asked for the document establishing them.

The man had promised to return.

Mary’s account became very precise after that.

Eliza had neither seized the money already collected nor recognized the demand as valid.

She had told him that any further collection during their meetings would need to be explained in front of the village representatives.

I passed the letter to Evelyn.

“What do you think?”

“I think they are doing what we sent them to do.”

“Yes.”

My wife looked at me over the page.

“You can still worry.”

“I was hoping that remained allowed.”

There was a smaller note inside.

Hanne says Aurelia’s letter was too short. She has enclosed questions.

Aurelia read the enclosure after supper.

Her expression grew progressively more attentive.

“What does she want to know?” I asked.

“Whether I have been sleeping. Whether the children are walking. Whether the gardener received the cuttings.”

“That seems manageable.”

“And whether I intend to visit before she becomes too old to argue with me.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Does she believe that will happen soon?”

“Apparently not. She has written that I should not use it as an excuse to delay.”

Aurelia took out fresh paper.

I went to the nursery while she wrote.

Carol stood beside the low table.

Garrick sat on the rug, turning the wooden boat over in his hands.

He had become interested in its underside.

I chose to believe he was appreciating the workmanship.

Our daughter looked toward the boat.

Then released the table.

I held very still.

One foot moved.

Then the other.

She reached her brother, sat down abruptly, and took the boat.

Garrick objected.

Loudly.

Evelyn appeared in the doorway.

“What happened?”

“Two steps.”

She stopped.

“Carol?”

I nodded.

Our daughter held the boat against her chest.

Our son reached for it.

Evelyn came to sit beside them.

“Of course,” she murmured. “You needed a reason.”

I found the little horse and offered it to Garrick.

He rejected it.

The boat had become the only object in the kingdom worth owning.

For several minutes, neither parent had time to consider the larger mysteries of existence.

Later, we told Aurelia.

She added a line to her letter.

Then read it aloud.

Carol has begun walking. Her first journey ended in a dispute over a boat.

“That is accurate,” Evelyn said.

“Will Hanne approve?”

“She will have an opinion,” Aurelia replied.

I laughed.

Our teacher folded the page and set it aside.

Then she looked at me.

“How was the rest of your day?”

“Quiet.”

“Nothing more?”

“No calls.”

She nodded.

I had expected relief to feel larger.

Instead, I found myself pleased that the day had contained a ditch, a letter, and my daughter’s first steps.

When Evelyn and I went upstairs, the western room still held a little evening light.

We stopped there.

Below us, lamps were being lit along the street.

I rested my hands on the windowsill.

“I heard you today.”

My wife came beside me.

“Yes.”

“It didn’t feel like the wayhouse.”

“No?”

“That felt as though something wanted to take me somewhere.”

“And this?”

I considered.

“It felt as though you knew where I was.”

Evelyn slipped her hand into mine.

“I usually do.”

We stood together until the room darkened.

I could have asked her to call again.

Part of me wanted proof that the morning had happened.

Another part wanted to see how far away she could go before the thread disappeared.

I left the questions for tomorrow.

“Shall we go down?” I asked.

“Soon.”

So I stayed.

When she said my name a little later, it was aloud.

I turned toward her.

She kissed me, and for that evening, hearing her in the ordinary way was everything I needed.