Time frayed and tied itself again after that first week: wake, cry, milk; train the little body; try a word; poop; sleep; repeat.
At first the training barely counted—neck lifts that died at two heartbeats, baby crunches that trembled and quit, blanket presses where she shoved up only one edge of the fur while Mama watched, half shocked, mostly amused. Her legs did their own program, thumping the foot corner of the blanket for kicks, then—on a brave day—head and heels together, a stubborn U-shape for three counts.
By the end of the second week, the inches began to add up. One wet afternoon, winter surrendering to rain while Mama sewed tiny sleeves by the hearth, Lili made the roll. It wasn't pretty—an elbow under, a heave—and she nearly kissed the floorboards until Mister Terminator, too dignified to admit concern, leapt to the bedside and glared her back to sense.
She nodded solemnly and tried the prop: elbows under chest, the world suddenly higher by two fists. The house changed shape even on that rise. "Yah… keep fighting," she announced, aiming for a school mantra she remembered from exam days; it landed as a baby gurgle with opinions.
Mama squealed as if Lili had cured a plague and smothered her in kisses. Lili did it again on command and was paid again in warmth and delight.
In that embrace the realizing finally arrived, quiet as a bead of water finding its groove: you can be loved for just standing up. Not for a long coat and sunglasses, not for lifting too much with a face like a shut door, not for helpfulness that made strangers edge away. Here she could simply be—and be loved for it. They weren't two people fate had stranded; they were family. This mother didn't look through her; she saw her, as if Lili were the most precious thing in the room. Frank and his family had been kind, yes—but this was different. This was blood.
Week three learned their names in rain. Lili added back-lifts on her belly—chest and legs rising together like a very small boat in a very serious sea—and a tripod sit that held for the length of a breath before wobble became collapse and laughter. She trained like a calisthenics baby, blanket for barbell, rooster for coach; and when she failed, Mama praised her anyway. Praise landed like sun on a cold stone.
Time passed peacefully after that, and the days arranged themselves into a drill Lili could count: fingers open–close; toes flex–release; neck up for three heartbeats, then five; breathe in, out, steady. She learned to let the burn come and go like a tide. Getting stronger felt good—better than anything had in her past life. It struck her that all this was body-weight work (if you didn't count the blanket), and that technically she was becoming a calisthenics baby—not so far from a real gymnast. That dream was a long way off, but she could train at home: add stretches alongside the crawling, keep the reps honest.
Meanwhile, winter had long since begun to loosen and warm. At her birth the storms had been brutal; she wondered if it had anything to do with being flung from the afterlife into a new life—baby-god style—spending power that came with visions and a cruel white squall. But the snow went quick; then came the rains; then spring, and with it a sun that remembered how to shine. At last Mama could stop shivering and falling sick so often—there were no medicines here, no phone to call a hospital, just the fire and grit.
The wind calmed. The door stayed where it should. Now and then the chickens went out to forage with Mama while Lili, exiled to the hearth for warmth, watched. In her own tongue Mama would point at her and say be good; bíð—wait—until I come back. Lili understood that much and kept the watch.
When Mama returned with goodies and wood, she'd warm up by the fire with the hens, hands already busy—knitting, patching, mending—and Lili noticed those hands growing thinner.
Winter stores ran low. Mama started picking at meals, moving like someone walking under an invisible weight, resting often, looking away so Lili wouldn't see the shake. Lili reached the only way she could—catching a finger in both her hands, gripping as if she could anchor her mother to the room. Mama smiled and said sweet things, but sadness lived in her eyes. It wasn't just poor food; something deeper gnawed. Some nights Mama cried in her sleep, calling names in her own language and words Lili recognized anyway: home, sisters, mother, father. For whatever reason Mama was alone in these woods and missed her people. Sometimes she called a lion's name—Leo—and when she said it she was pleading, as if the name itself might answer. Maybe he was the knight from Lili's first day; maybe he was father. If fathers here were like overworked men in suits there, perhaps he was simply gone a lot. She hoped so. In the meantime the only help she could think to give was to make Mama happy: hug, stick close, be company, babble through the language barrier until the room felt less empty.
Days went by. Crawling got easy. Then came standing practice: hands down to get into crawl, knees set, a push onto her stubby feet and a wobbly, heroic three-step shuffle across the bed blanket before collapsing into panting laughter.
"Ó!" Mama gasped, needle forgotten, eyes wet with pride she tried to blink away. "Lítla mín." Careful hands gathered Lili, kissed her brow, and set her back on the starting line. Lili went again.
They practiced together, and Mama dressed her in the new little leather-and-cloth dress that made her look like a very serious medieval baby. With steps and clothes the world widened—at least to the front door and the yard beyond, all mud and shine. She didn't go out at first; Mama feared colds. Lili watched from the two wooden steps.
There wasn't much to see. Their house had no real windows; one front door; two steps down to a patch of ground cleared into a garden plot with straw-and-stick fences. Inside, soil already pushed green even this early, and Lili spotted strawberries—her favorite—tough little plants that had slept under winter and woken anyway.
Beyond the garden came some kept grass, and beyond that the forest: tall oaks, a spill of shrubs and herbs, a few early mushrooms Mama took when she could. That was it. No neighbors, no plane-song in the sky, no road unwinding from the door, no cars, no bikes—nothing but quiet. One day Mama let her off the steps to wash at the lake, which lay right behind the house: a grassy shore Mama tried to keep trimmed, a small drop—almost Lili's height—down to the water. The shallows went out a long way, then darkened. They didn't venture far. They bathed once—it was still chilly—and Mama caught a cold for her trouble. The lake was no larger than a few football fields, ringed with reeds and lily pads where frogs hopped; little fish ghosted in and peered at them, curious.
After Mama got sick again she stayed inside for a whole week, and Lili's own adventures began. One morning she looked at Mama in bed and, seeing how she sagged, told her confidently she would be all right, so Mama should stay. She said it with the few words she had, in Mama's tongue:
"Mama bíð. Lili góð."
Even in her haze Mama's eyes went wide. Before she could answer, Lili clambered off the bed in her dress, wrestled on her little leather shoes, and marched three steps toward the door like a tiny badass—then fell, decided crawling was wiser, and went that way instead. Mama watched, mouth open, and managed, "Lili—my little Lili—be safe, please," in her soft, frayed voice.
Lili looked back and nodded. She shouldered the door with effort, let the chickens loose, and crawled into the garden to do the first order of brave business—responsible people start where they must.
The rooster stalked at her shoulder like a very small captain. The reeds breathed. Overhead the sky stayed empty—no contrail, no road roar—only the soft hiss of wet that said this world was it for now.
The garden smelled like wet iron and plant breath. Lili chose a furrow like a general chooses a hill, did her brave business, and scraped soil over it with both hands—serious work, serious face. She made sure it was well away from the lake path, patted the mound flat, and nodded at the leaves.
"Food," she told the plants, in case they needed the briefing.
Then she got on with the assessment.
The beds
There were six tilled rows in all, with two side-strips.
Row 1: overwintered cabbage/kale; new pale ribs pushing from tough cores.
Row 2: neat stitches of onions and a few garlic spears.
Row 3: broad beans shouldering up; seedlings tight in places.
Row 4: peas meant to climb twiggy pea-sticks; half the sticks had slumped in the rains.
Row 5: a thin line of carrot and beet seedlings, too crowded where the seed had been generous.
Row 6: a mix row—leeks recovering from winter, and a handful of early potatoes Mama had set to chit in a basket, now tucked in at one end.
At the edges:
A low berry strip of strawberries already showing brave crowns.
An herb fringe by the steps—parsley, chives, a stubborn tuft of thyme; mint trying to pretend it lived everywhere.
The fence & sun
The fence was wattle and wishful thinking—light hurdles woven of hazel and willow, patched with straw where storms had shaken them. It would keep hens in and the neighbor's goose out (if neighbors existed), but a fox would laugh and step through. Lili tested the weave, found two hand-wide gaps, and filed them in her head as "fix soon."
She studied the treeline. Oaks and alder held their own gloom, but they sat far enough back that midday sun still found the beds. Morning brought shade, afternoon gave mercy. Good enough.
Spacing & health
She crawled Row 3 first, where beans crowded like a family secret. Pinch—tuck—press: she lifted doubles, set the spare a hand-span away, and firmed the soil around each with small, decisive pats. Row 5 got the same treatment: carrot twins made into neighbors instead of bullies; beet seedlings thinned to a sensible distance.
She checked leaf color (brave), stem bite (good), soil feel (wet-wet on the north edge, crumbly-center on the crown). A slug trail silvered the far row. She wrinkled her nose and marked it for the hens.
Pests & poultry
A pale grub unwound under her finger; she held it up.
Mister Terminator arrived like a verdict and took it with a civilized snap. Lili pointed down-row, clucked twice, and the flock—suddenly enlightened—fanned out through the cabbages. She pointed and named in baby Norse—"þar… þar"—and the hens hunted where she aimed, neat as soldiers. Tiny leatherjackets, cutworms, and bold beetles vanished beak-first. When the hens left little gifts, Lili flicked soil over the small ones and dragged the hefty ones to the berry strip, burying them with two determined scoops. Fertility where fruit would want it.
She righted the fallen pea-sticks, tapping each once as if to swear it in, and checked the onions for nibbles. Aphids had opinions on two leaves—she pinched and smeared them without ceremony.
No magic. Just work.
Fixing what can be fixed
She pressed at the wattle where it gave, then crawled to the hedge fringe and dragged back thorny trimmings—hawthorn and blackthorn. She wove them into the loose places until the fence looked like it might argue back. At the step-gap she rigged a noise twig across two stakes; the first nose through would rattle and tell on itself.
When she looked up, Mama stood on the top step, blanket around her shoulders, hair damp, eyes wide. She didn't speak at first. Her face said enough: astonishment, then pride, then a laugh at the absurdity of a baby bossing chickens and gardening like someone's old aunt.
Lili, suddenly aware she was a muddy goblin in a tiny dress, lifted both hands and wiggled her fingers: caught. Mama smiled anyway and came down one step to watch.
"Lítla mín… snjöll," she said softly. Little one… clever.
Lili beamed, then remembered the fire. Sticks weren't just for fences.
"Komdu," she told Mister Terminator, and crawled to the treeline. He followed with the air of a foreman—pecking a beetle here, prodding a twig there—while two hens trailed her like gossip. Lili gathered an armful of small dry sticks—nothing heavy, nothing foolish—and crawled them home. Mama made approving noises, patted Lili's head, scratched the rooster's neck on principle, and shepherded the parade back inside.
The rest of the day folded into the usual: stew stretched thin, a breastfeed with that set, gentle look of you are my whole world, and Lili asleep against Mama's ribs for a while as the fire worked.
The first light
Night put its ear to the thatch. Mama tucked them together. "Sofðu, litla mín," she breathed, and her hand—work-worn, bone-thin—rested across Lili's back.
The praise should have been enough. It always was when the day was only rows to space and sticks to fetch. But lying there in the hush after the fire, Lili could feel the other thing—the thing no stew or blanket would mend.
Mama's sickness wasn't just cold and thin food. It had a shape like absence. It lived behind her eyes when she stared at the door too long. It pressed into her breath the way grief makes lungs smaller. Sometimes, half-asleep, she said the names Lili knew now—mother, sisters, home—and the lion's name like a prayer said through teeth. The words came soft, but the body answered hard: the hands trembled; the warmth retreated to the edge of the blanket and stayed there as if it had been told to leave.
Lili could weed beds and boss hens. She could make the fence argue back. None of that moved the absence.
There were no doctors. No bitter bottles. She could, maybe, take leaves from the treeline and ask hot water to be kind—but tea felt like a small answer to a large loss. She needed something larger.
Her mind went where it always went when the world asked something impossible: inventory. Fire—banked. Food—thin, but there. Blankets—two. Hens—four. Rooster—one. Mother—breathing, but not better. And then the last item, the one she pretended not to list because it felt like cheating: the little heart of light the baby god had set under her ribs.
It had kept her warmer than she deserved in a damp house. It had kept her whole when any baby should have caught a cough. It answered without being asked. Maybe it would answer if she asked.
She put one hand to Mama's cheek—cold—and the other to the hollow where songs live. "Heitt," she promised softly, and then, because promises require work, she went to find the thing that could make it true.
She looked in.
The Light was where it always was—small, shy, steady. Not a lantern; more like a second heartbeat with opinions. In her mind it sat white and round and patient, and when she paid attention it brightened like a thing that is pleased to be seen. Around it ran faint threads like rivers on a map—one toward each shoulder, one along the spine, one down into the belly—white veins that felt like roads no one else knew.
Please, she thought, not with words so much as with wanting. Help her. Not me—her.
The Light answered the way a bird answers an outstretched hand: testing, then trusting. It pulsed once, twice, and moved. Warmth gathered under her sternum, slid down both arms, and pooled in her palms. Her fingers glowed milk-white through the blanket for a breath, then for two. Mama's skin met it and changed temperature the way a stone changes when you turn it into the sun.
At first, nothing else happened. Lili held both hands there and listened, counting because counting is a kind of rope you can pull yourself along.
One. Mama's breath eased from tight to long.
Two. The waiting cough decided it could wait a little longer.
Three. The cold beneath Lili's hand thinned to cool.
It was working. Not a miracle, not a spell with trumpets—just a small motion toward better. Lili felt a fierce, ridiculous joy rise under her ribs. Oh, she thought, it's real. I'm a magic baby. Thank you, baby god.
She held the glow steady and asked it to stay.
That was when the cost arrived.
It came like the end of a long plank when you've crawled to the edge and only then look down. First, a heavy in her arms—as if the bones had been replaced with wet wood. Then a slow, syrupy pull in her chest, as if her own flesh-heart had chosen to keep the Light company and was pacing it—beat… beat… beat. Her ears filled with a soft rush, like reeds talking under water. The room's edges nudged in.
Four. Her hands prickled; her fingers cooled; the little roads of light down her arms felt thin, as if someone had stretched them farther than they wanted to go.
Her body gave her good advice: stop now. Her head gave different advice: a little more. Determination is just stubbornness that learned manners; she had both.
Five. The flesh-heart sped for a handful of beats in a frightened gallop—boom-boom-boom-boom—trying to haul the wagon faster; then, tired of being clever, it lurched into a slower step to match the work. Blood felt heavy, as if it had rocks in it.
Her skin cooled with sweat. Her mouth went dry. Her belly gave a slow, unhappy twist—the baby version of the low-blood-sugar nausea Bruce had learned the hard way under a different sky. The space between thoughts lengthened. Even the warm patch where her palms met Mama felt far away, as if someone had slid a pane of glass between them.
Six. The Light under her ribs made a sound she couldn't hear but could feel: a fine whine, like a thread pulled taut across too wide a room. The little roads from chest to hands thinned to wires. Her tongue floated; the tip of her nose went cold. A black vignette crept in from the corners of her vision, even with her eyes shut.
Stop, said the good part. Stay, said the loyal part—the part that had once told a lie in a burning stairwell because it was the only way to keep a rope of people moving. She stayed.
Seven.
The thread snapped.
The glow pinched out like a wick between two fingers. Her arms dropped where they were. The flesh-heart, suddenly unyoked from the Light's work, stumbled—a skipped beat, then another—before finding a slow, trudging cadence. Her breath, which had been obedient, forgot its count for one small, terrifying space and then remembered.
Mama breathed in, then out in a better rhythm, the cough no longer crouched at the end of the exhale. The warm trace Lili had left along her chest lasted the length of a lullaby note and then dimmed to ordinary.
Lili meant to count eight. She meant to lift her hands away, to see if Mama's forehead felt less like river stone. She meant to whisper good in whatever language would come.
Instead, the room tilted once, as if the whole house had shifted on its foundations to make room for her falling, and the world narrowed to a safe, dark hallway with a light too far away to reach. She fell toward it very gently, in the bright middle of seven, with her mouth half-open on a sound that might have been sorry, or sofa, or just the start of a breath she hadn't earned yet.
On the step, a rooster shifted his feet twice and decided the bed was a wall and he was a watchman. In the rafters, the thatch ticked as if counting for her. The fire lifted and settled, keeping the time the three hearts had tried to make agree—Mama's, Lili's flesh one, and the small, brave one that had spent itself for the night.