The Labyrinth has been strange before, but today its silence breaks in a way Christopher cannot ignore. What begins as an argument between husband and wife turns into something no ordinary library could contain.
─── ❖ ────── ❖ ────── ❖ ───
He did not storm toward me with the jealousy of a man guarding what was his. No, Richard's weight pressed in like a storm that had already broken within his home. His eyes burned, not with suspicion, but with the exhaustion of one who has argued the same point too many times.
"You too?" he said, his voice rough. "First her, now you. Everyone wants this child to be... different. Special." He spat the last word as if it tasted bitter. "Do you know what comes with children like that? Needs. Expectations. Burdens no family should carry."
Bianca reached for him, her fingers brushing his sleeve. "Richard, please. Not burdens. Blessings. You know I feel him stir, more than I should at five months. It isn't a weakness. Its strength."
Her calm only sharpened him. "Strength? Or trouble? You want to call him chosen? Gifted? Then what happens when he cannot live up to it? What happens when the world crushes him under that word 'special'?"
His voice rose, echoing against the shelves. I tried to speak, to cool the fire. "I only meant..."
But the Labyrinth answered first.
A rush of wind tore through the aisle. Books ripped themselves free and hurled past us, spines cracking against stone. The floor misted, a pale silver vapor curling from nowhere, swallowing our feet in its tide.
It was not fog. It was heavier, denser, and alive in some way. The air thickened until every breath burned my lungs, as though the library itself had begun to breathe through me.
It coiled upward, surrounding Bianca in its softness, but when Richard raised his hand in frustration, it struck, not with harm, but with warning. He was lifted clean off his feet and pressed against the shelving, his coat pinned as though by invisible hands. The shelves groaned but did not yield. He froze, wide-eyed, caught between fury and fear.
He tried to protest, words spilling harsh and defiant, but the library silenced him in its own way. A tome ripped itself free above us and crashed to the floor at his feet. The sound was more than a weight hitting stone. It was final, heavy, decisive, as if something unseen had slammed it down to punctuate his struggle.
Bianca's face shone with both terror and awe. She pressed her hands protectively to her belly, and in that moment, I understood: it was not she who summoned this force. It was the child within her. Protecting itself. Protecting her.
The weight of the air eased. Richard slumped to the floor, shaken, not broken. He would not speak of it, I knew. Pride would not allow him. But he had seen. We all had.
I write this now with a trembling hand, unable to still the thought: the air had moved like a living thing, and it had chosen to shield mother and child. What kind of child commands the very atmosphere before it has drawn its first breath?
─── ❖ ────── ❖ ────── ❖ ───
Christopher meant no harm with his words, yet the air itself seemed to rise against Richard's denial. What he witnessed was not rage but protection, fierce and undeniable. For the first time, the unborn child revealed its presence, and not with a cry, but with power. Christopher may not yet understand it, but he knows Heaven is weaving threads no man can cut.