She isn’t hurt, said the midwife. Wei felt the separation.
Leit led you to a warmed bed with comfortable linens. He helped you into a garment you had seen other mothers wear. The bodice was loose and open. The midwife placed Wei on your chest. Without a word, you shifted the infant against your arm. She turned with purpose to nurse.
The midwife served food a friend had delivered. She kissed you all, Makha as well, and left to enter the cold and the morning light. Leit secured the curtains around the bed. Your friends who were skilled with cloth and thread had made them, embroidered with animals, plants, and symbols. The gift was a traditional one. Leit peeked into the bed space. He asked whether you wanted to be alone.
You were exhausted, but you wanted him near.
Then the twins were in the room in cribs out of reach. For a moment, you were alone when you did not wish to be. Wyl hadn’t been allowed in as you labored, only a brief visit after you had delivered. You had wanted him but were told it was better for each of you to rest apart.
Leit touched you. You knew where you were. He had been present every moment for every breath. He let you be. He let you cry moan scream with his full attention. Within, you had felt the fullness at the depths and edges of your flesh. What contained Wei, from which Wei would spill. You were aware of the being who liked her father’s voice, rhythmic drums, and sunlight experienced through your skin.
He fell asleep before you did. He lay on his side. His arm cradled your neck. The other stretched over your stomach, under his newborn’s back.
Wei slept. You wondered what she thought of the journey to your arms.
A QUARTER MOON OF SOLITUDE WAS WHAT YOU ASKED TO HAVE. Friends came with food and clean clothing and went with brisk warm kisses. You felt no urgency to leave the house. You felt no compulsion to leave Wei alone. Where you were, among the Guardians, you were willing to be Wei’s mother because you didn’t have to be.
Among the gifts you three received, one surprised you above all others. The gift was dolls within dolls.
A woman you didn’t know had crafted them with her own hands. They were carved, painted, magnificent.
She said a meaningful encounter had occurred with you a few months after you arrived. You didn’t recall. She did, vividly. She was learning to use a lathe. She was slow at the skill. You appeared at her side for a moment. You asked, Do you want to be adept? She said she did. You said, Then you will be. Your kindness touched her and encouraged her to find her confidence.
They nest within one another, said she.
She separated the two halves of the first one. You revealed the ones hidden.
We were both born away. I was a foundling, said she.
You asked if she remembered her life before. She did not, in mind. She had been an infant.
I made this to honor you and your child, those who came before, and those who will follow, said she. I made this for you because I did become adept at the lathe. I have you to thank.
You hugged the woman and kissed her cheeks. Thank you for sharing your own gift, you said.
YOU WEREN’T DISTRACTED WITH WEI. NO OTHER WORRY OR DUTY gnawed for your attention. Had you wished to, you soon could have resumed your work in the bakery. She could have slept near you. She could have stayed with tenders in the nurseries. Instead, you chose to be with her day and night those first weeks. Your friends taught you how to wrap her against your chest. Wei rested with contentment. You experienced deep peace, unexpected and welcomed.
She was a calm, cheerful infant. She enjoyed being with others and hearing their voices. In the evening, Leit built steady fires and gave her his full attention. He soothed her skin with ointments and massaged her tiny limbs. Wei lay between her father and Makha and played with her toys.
You watched him with her. Your spouse, a man of extremes, so gentle with his child. He loved her with a fullness of heart. You didn’t linger, but you wondered if your own father had looked at you, or touched you, the way Leit did with Wei.
You wanted no more than you had in those moments. Loving spouse, beloved child, a safe and peaceful place to live. Your needs met, your wants granted. You sensed this would not change but somehow would be shattered.
THE DREAM FROM WHICH YOU ROUSED WAS NO DREAM.
You were no longer asleep, yet not quite awake. Clearly, you heard the unmistakable singing of notes. A melody high and sweet as birdsong. You were alone in bed. At the window stood Leit. His naked branded back and shoulders were rounded. You knew he held Wei. Yet you couldn’t discern the song’s source.
You called his name. He turned with your daughter against his bare chest. The song quieted to silence.
What do you know of your mother’s mothers? asked he.
What do you mean? you asked.
What were you told of them?
Little. Nothing. My grandmother died before I was born, you said.
How?
I was told she was found dead one day.
What was she like?
My mother said she was clumsy and quiet. She often left for long periods of rest.
Come to the window, said Leit.
You wrapped yourself and stood next to him.
Our daughter is a Voice, said he. See for yourself.
Wei seemed unchanged. You stroked her cheek. She blinked and lifted her face.
Her eyes turned to here in the night, said he.
A baby’s eyes don’t set color for some time. She’s far too young, you said.
Hers will not change.
How do you know?
Sing for your ahpa, Wei, said Leit. He cleared his throat and strangled forth the melody you had heard. His tone was thin, wavering, but the sounds were on pitch. Wei pursed her pink lips.
The song trilled through her alone. Wordless and beautiful.
You reached for your infant. She quieted at your breast. She rooted for her morning meal. You sat in a cushioned chair to feed her.
You have Voices in your blood, said he.
Leit told you there were women in your past who’d had the gifts your daughter would soon reveal. They knew the father of such a child must have Guardian blood as well, but no one had determined how thick it had to be. The mother’s bloodline held the promise.
He tucked a quilt around you and the baby, then dressed himself. He placed a kettle on the hook in the hearth. He stoked the embers that had survived the night.
My daughter is a Voice, whispered he, through tears.
YOUR FAMILY MOVED TO A LARGER HOME WITH AN EXTRA ROOM FOR Aza. You remembered the Voice from the settlement far away and the little girl in her care. So it would begin for your daughter, a life you couldn’t imagine.
Soon after she began to sing, she started to babble in a way unlike any you had heard from a baby. Aza explained those were the languages coming through. You were to speak to her as you would any other child. She would learn which tongue to use with those around her.
Wei grew well and happy. For years before she was born, you had watched others with their children. You tried to learn from observation. You wanted to be a loving mother.
You had come from a place where people thought children were animals to be tamed. Willful savage creatures who required sternness and punishment. The Guardians treated their children with love and guidance. They believed them to be born full of joy, compassion, and kindness. The brutal part of human nature wasn’t denied. There was patience given for the dark moods and nurturance for the light ones. They were shown how to treat others by what the adults did and said, and didn’t do or say.
Despite your embarrassment, you asked friends to help. I wasn’t born among you, you said. Please show me how to raise a peaceful child.
So often it was a matter to pause and breathe. Think before you act. Consider how new the experience of life is for the child. Understand she must test her will to discover what it is. Wei was an older girl when you finally realized she wasn’t yours to control but to love.
WEI SAT UPRIGHT BY HERSEL
F. YOU RECLINED NEAR HER. HER HANDS explored what you gathered along the way to find rest in a forest glade. Stick stone leaf petal. She burbled quiet sounds. Streams of language converged. She chose one.
Ma ma ma ma, said Wei. She patted your knee.
Wei Wei Wei Wei, you said. You clapped her feet together. She laughed.
The story returned as you played with her. Your mother had told you few as a child. One you had long forgotten resurfaced when Wei began to babble. You sensed a connection no one in your family remembered.
An ancient tribe wished to have a weapon so powerful that they could not be defeated. So one of the leaders made a ring of stones surrounded by a shallow circular trough filled with dried grasses and burned it. His wish was to have spear points that seared like fire through an enemy’s flesh. Another leader arranged an elaborate pyre in the shape of a tree and burned it with the hope that the spears and clubs made from wood could bend like boughs and never break. Another leader drew the shape of a man against the face of a hill and wished that the warriors were strong as the forces of nature. The stones were left alone, the ashes allowed to mix with the wind, and the shape on the hill to blend into the grasses. The shape remained as clear as the day it was dug into the hill. In summer, along its head, draping from its crown to below its shoulders, were beautiful yellow wildflowers. On the morning that the leader noticed that the drawn man now looked more like a woman, a girl child was born to his wife.
A great drought forced them out of their village two years after the child was born. They began to travel to find a new place to live. It was during this time that the girl child began to speak strangely, not a baby babble, but another tongue altogether.
A sickness fell upon the tribe the following year, which all blamed on the strange new child. But on their travels one evening, the child approached an old woman and spoke to her in a language that no one could understand. The old woman nodded and spoke back to her in the same tongue. As the old woman gathered the women and began to point to plants they were to harvest, the child’s father realized that their wish had been granted. The weapon was words.
WEI LEARNED TO CRAWL. HER MOVEMENT WAS UNPREDICTABLE. SHE collided with obstacles as if she had no awareness of them. Other instances, she stopped as if startled. Her coordination seemed delayed.
You wondered about her unusual gaze. Wei looked through or past what was in front of her. She followed a moving object with ease one day, difficulty the next. You didn’t remember the twins’ development this way.
You shared your observations with Aza. Her response shocked you.
Wei is blind, as you understand it, said she. We Voices don’t see as you do.
Some mothers feel sadness for their children, said Aza. I understand they wish their children could see as they do. I assure you, Aoife, Wei sees the same world but with different senses.
She explained her experience of vision and her sensation. With her physical eyes, Aza perceived broad gradation of light and dark and movement of shapes. She touched the skin between her eyebrows. Her point of focus was there. She received images within that space. Colors were distinguished by temperature. Wherever she was, she noticed flows of air currents and sounds. Both gave her indications of space, what was near or far, what was open or closed. All physical objects vibrated. Those that were inert, such as walls, furniture, clothing, or tools, were less intense. She said you might have noticed that she moved slower than most people. She did so to accept the sensations around her. She had to orient herself to act with purpose. She could move with ease among water and rock, plants and trees, animals and people. Those vibrations were stronger. Her awareness received more feeling.
But some see the unseen as well, you said.
Aza nodded.
Tell me of my daughter’s mystery, you said.
She sat next to you.
The Voices announced themselves with singing before they could talk.
They spoke languages they had never heard.
Most had the gift of insight into hearts and minds.
Some had the gift of foresight into what could be.
All had a gift to heal. Some were great listeners. Some sent light through their hands. Some used sound and song.
An uncommon Voice was born with a rare gift that required much restraint.
Only the strongest among them were invited to serve on the trails.
You glanced at your sleeping daughter. Your blood carried the possibility of a child like her, and there she was. What other secrets within would be wrought upon her, from you, her unwitting mother?
When will Wei show her abilities? you asked.
Sooner than you might wish, said Aza. We reveal our gifts by our seventh year. You will have an adult Voice to help you at all times. We will guide and teach Wei. You and Leit will be taught as well.
What do I do until then? you asked.
Love her, said Aza. In most ways, she’s no different from any other child.
She told you to give attention to Wei’s emotional reactions in your presence or that of others. Your daughter would begin to show her sensitivities to others soon. You were not to be surprised if she spoke to you in your native language. You were cautioned that Wei might say strange things or ask odd questions, as if she knew your thoughts, your secrets.
So it was. When you were pregnant, you gave thought to the kind of child you might have. Healthy, you hoped, with a good disposition and ready mind. You hadn’t cared whether you had a boy or a girl. You hoped Leit was wrong about the dark legacies you might bear.
For several weeks after your talk with Aza, you felt numb. Tricked, almost, as if you were the object of a joke. How could you have a child like this? How could you raise a daughter you thought you would never understand? Why you? You kept your silence, then shared your feelings with Leit, Aza, Edik, and close friends. Aza and Edik assured you that you wouldn’t be alone. If you and others recognized Wei’s abilities as gifts, not afflictions, she would grow into them with confidence.
Tell the truth.
At first you wished Wei had not been born that way. A typical child was what you wanted. Instead, you received a little being who defied reason. Then on impulse you spoke to your daughter in your native tongue. | you had not forgotten it | She squinted her eyes as if they were pierced by a bright light. You asked her a question. She smiled and answered in the words of your life before. Impossible, but there it was. You couldn’t deny what you heard.
You resolved to accept her as she was and would be. You would do your best to remember the promise you made in your heart.
BY THE TIME WEI WAS THREE, YOU OFTEN WITNESSED WHAT AZA HAD PREpared you to expect. Happiness was her usual condition. But in the presence of others that could quickly change. Wei became tangled with other people’s emotions. Aza and Edik explained that she perceived the feeling as part of her. She couldn’t separate as most did. Wei collapsed in laughter as well as tears. She ran away in fright or screamed with rage. You often couldn’t determine the impetus. Aza told you what stirred under people’s skin was as powerful as what Wei could observe.
The Voices were aware of what cannot be seen. Most people understand what is said beyond words. They apprehend an expression or posture or tone of voice. For Voices, the experience is deep within themselves. They feel within their bodies sensations like ripples in a pond or a strike against a hard surface. The Voices perceived that most people had the potential to experience in this way. Most, however, were distracted by what they saw and the discomfort of intense feeling. The Voices couldn’t see as others did. They had to learn to move with the feeling rather than block it. They had to learn it was not theirs to keep.
Wei’s earliest lessons were for centering and separation. All Guardians were taught to focus themselves, and you learned the power of pause breathe repeat. However, the Voices needed to concentrate on the practice with urgency. Aza taught Wei as well as you and Leit. In calm moments, the training mimicked play. When Wei was upset, the training wa
s part of her survival. Wei had to become still and breathe. She had to place her feet on the ground and look at her hands. She became aware of herself and those around her. Aza told her to notice how far her feelings reached away from her. Aza told her to observe if she felt too full. Wei learned to imagine herself as a large pot that could hold much water but preferred enough for one cup of tea only for herself. What was too much left her in a vision of steam. Wei’s little body and mind became quiet. She remained calm.
You needed the same skill on the days when Wei’s behavior wore you thin. In the beginning, you had outbursts of your own. If you didn’t catch the moment before frustration became poisonous, Wei faced a screaming mother. You could barely contain the urge to shake her. Your reaction worsened hers, and you knew it. Ashamed, you spoke to Edik. He asked what you thought she needed in those moments. Patience, and love, you said. Respond with that even as the anger fills you, said he. You must practice, as everyone does. Every time. You practiced and practiced for your sake and Wei’s.
Soon after she turned four, a new stage of training began.
When Leit told you | warned you | of what was to come, you thought it cruel. You protested to him and Aza. You wanted to protect Wei from the worst of human feeling, the worst of human horrors. Leit understood. He, too, wished his daughter to be spared. Yet her encounters would be inevitable whether she joined the trails or served within the settlements. As a warrior, he knew this well.
He explained the warriors’ role in the training. The men reached into their memories to recall specific sensations and emotions. The young Voice stated what she felt from them. What would trouble you, Leit knew, was the task that followed. The warriors remembered experiences of their lives in detail. They were given no restrictions. The young Voice’s response would hint at the depth of her gift. Some could feel emotions only. Others could describe pieces of the event. In any case, no child could comprehend fully an adult experience. There would be mental blanks, although the emotions could be overwhelming. An adult Voice gave immediate care to heal any wound to the child.
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