The first rain of summer came with the smell of copper and crushed leaves. I liked standing beneath the eaves, watching the water gather in thin threads before falling. Mira said only strange kids liked rain. Maybe she was right. But there was something in the rhythm—like the world was trying to remember a song it had forgotten.
At seven, I had learned enough of the village's rhythm to predict it. The baker's boy rang his bell at dawn; the shepherds called across the fields by midday; the lamps in the square flared at dusk with a faint hiss. People lived by repetition. I pretended to, but every now and then something invisible tugged at the edges of my mind—a whisper reminding me that somewhere else, life had been measured in sigils, not seasons.
That whisper grew louder the day Master Havel brought in a new assignment."Write about what you want to become when you're grown," he said, chalk squealing against slate.
Around me, my classmates grinned and whispered. Mira wanted to be a healer. Toma, naturally, declared he'd be a knight. I stared at the blank page.What did I want to become? I'd already been two people. A man whose life ended in antiseptic light. A girl who swung a scythe at phantoms. Becoming something new felt greedy.
Still, I wrote.
"I want to understand why the stars are quiet."
It wasn't the answer Master Havel expected. When he read it, his brows furrowed, then softened. "That's… poetic," he said, uncertain. I smiled, and didn't explain.
The next few months blurred into a gentle pattern: lessons, chores, the occasional market day. But sometimes, in the still moments—when sunlight struck dust motes at the right angle—I'd feel it again. That pressure behind my eyes, as if the air itself carried a pulse.
Once, I followed it. Out past the last fence, into the hills where the fog gathered. I found a stone buried in moss, carved with faint markings—too weathered to read, but their geometry stirred something old inside me. I traced them with a fingertip, whispering syllables I didn't remember learning. For a heartbeat, the world leaned closer. The air shimmered. Then it was gone, like a held breath released.
I told no one. Not even Mira. Especially not my parents.
But that night, my dreams changed. I saw the winged deer again, bowing before a figure I couldn't see. And behind them, the shadow of a train gliding silently across the stars.
By eight, the memories were no longer fragments—they were maps. I remembered his voice now, calm and tired:"Magic is not power, Gray. It's communication. Between you and the world. Between life and what pretends to be it."
I repeated those words to myself like a prayer, even though this world didn't seem to have "magic." Or maybe it did, just in another dialect.
One evening, I sat by the hearth with my parents, whittling a small figure out of scrap wood. As I carved, I imagined the form before I shaped it—a focus, a channel. The knife slipped, and for an instant, the grain moved, bending beneath my thought. My heart stopped. The next blink, it was just wood again, but the mark it left was too smooth, too deliberate.
I didn't sleep that night. My hands tingled like they were remembering something my body had forgotten.
Maybe this world did have magic. It just hid better.
The next morning, the sky broke open with rain again. I walked to school under an oilcloth cloak, feeling the cool sting of droplets on my face. Mira met me halfway, umbrella wobbling above her head.
"You're weird," she said, grinning. "Who smiles in the rain?""Maybe the rain likes me," I said.
She rolled her eyes but stayed beside me. We ran the rest of the way, shoes splashing through puddles, laughter echoing through the street.
For a little while, I forgot about old memories and other worlds. I was just Gray, a strange girl from Tirna, racing her best friend to class under a leaky umbrella.
And yet… when lightning cracked over the hills, I swore I heard a sound between the thunder—a deep, resonant hum that didn't belong to the storm.
A vibration that made my heartbeat falter, then match its rhythm.
I looked up at the clouds, and for the briefest instant, saw lines—like rails of light—stretching across the sky before fading into gray.
I didn't know what it meant yet. But something was drawing closer.
Something vast.