Suddenly, I was eager to be alone.
As soon as I was tucked in for the night by the nanny, I undid my coverings and sat cross-legged on my sheets. I closed my eyes and concentrated, not really knowing what I was looking for. I knew basic meditation techniques. I'm pretty sure anyone does – at least, anyone who suffered from anxiety as I did in my past life. My therapist had walked me through meditating during some of our few sessions that I attended before giving up and deciding to just handle my mental health on my own.
But I remembered the breathing exercises, now. In through the nose, hold. Out through the mouth, hold. Straight back, relaxed shoulders. Clear the mind. At first, intrusive thoughts would interrupt me, breaking my concentration. And sometimes I wouldn't even notice I was daydreaming until I was half-way through a scenario in my head. I would groan and try and clear my thoughts once again.
I woke up in the morning, not even knowing when I had passed from mediation into deep sleep.
The day lasted forever, even more so than usual, as I urged the hours to pass by more quickly so that I might be left alone in my room once again.
Finally, I resumed the lotus position and began to steady my breath. This time, I tried to focus entirely on my breathing, rather than attempting to visualize an entirety of nothingness in my head. In, and out. I kept my breaths shallow, breathing in for as long as I could, then out as long as I could, keeping my breathing steady.
It took about a week before I was able to consistently breath like this for any substantial period of time without falling asleep. Curse this toddler brain!
But I celebrated to myself the first time I saw the sun rise, peeking into my bedroom through my window. I had meditated through the entire night. This reality surprised me. The night had barely felt like any time had passed at all. I had thought that it was lucky I was a toddler at the moment, as I would undoubtedly be exhausted from a night of not sleeping.
But then the day went by, and I felt no such exhaustion. In fact, I almost felt more invigorated than before! Was this what true meditation was like, or was this some bullshit rule of this world explicitly? Either way, this was good. This was progress.
I often wondered during that time, did my mother notice anything. Occasionally, I would catch her giving me odd looks. When we would read together, sometimes she would stop in the middle or end of a passage and look at me to ask, "What do you think of that, A' Zhong?" or "What would you have done differently, A' Zhong." Surely, nothing a normal parent would ever ask a toddler. At least, not ask and expect an answer to. Nevertheless, I was pleased by this development. So I would answer honestly.
"If I were the writer?" I asked her. "Or the character?"
She looked amused, but also considering. "Let's discuss the writing, then."
"I would scrap the whole idea. It's stupid."
"Oh?"
"Clearly this author has no idea how to further the plot without adding on some new and random ability. They want to achieve character growth in the protagonist, but instead of focusing on his character they just keep making him stronger! It's ridiculous. Maybe it would be different if the story itself were interesting enough to carry a lackluster main character, but it isn't; it's boring and cliché!"
My mother laughed outright and agreed with me. She then put down that book and picked up another one from her shelf. "And let's see what you think of this one, then." And she would then start to read.
Sometimes, she would even request that I read to her. At first, I thought about maybe hiding my proficiency. But, well, I realized fairly quickly that I didn't really want to. Clark sometimes sat in with us, and watched me read in fascination, sitting there with wide eyes and mouth agape.
My father, on the other hand, was over the moon.
He scooped me up and twirled me around. "Huizhong! You miracle baby!" he cried. "You're going to go so far when you're older. I can see it now! College graduate at nine years old!"
"He's not allowed to go to college until he's sixteen," my mother told Roger, archly. "He's my baby, not yours."
"He's our baby, Li Na." Roger retorted. He rubbed his nose against mine. "Half of me wants to test him, see what he's capable of."
"No," my mother said, with no room for argument.
"And there's my other half," Roger laughed. "I know, I know, darling. I wouldn't."
"I don't want to be experimented on," I told my parents. "But I don't mind answering questions."
"Well, I mind," my mother said loftily, taking me from my father. "This is family business, so only family should know until we are ready to introduce you and your mind to the world. You are a baby. Be a baby for a while, my love." She kissed my forehead and set me down on the floor.
Samsam, from his playmat, babbled at me. I waved at him.
♡ღ‿ღ♡ ʕ•̫͡•ʕ*̫͡*ʕ•͓͡•ʔ-̫͡-ʕ•̫͡•ʔ*̫͡*ʔ-̫͡-ʔ ♡ღ‿ღ♡
My mother and I were left alone with Grandmama. Grandfather and Uncle had gone off to parts unknown for a "conference." Whatever that entailed. Father was busy working, and the Aunties were also gone. Of course, no one really communicated their plans to me, as I was a toddler. But however it might have come about, there came a day that found my mother, my grandmama, and myself alone with the servants in the manor.
For some odd reason, my grandmama had never seemed to like my mother. Not for as long as I could remember, which to be fair, wasn't all that long. She would give Mother side-eye looks or correct her English when it wasn't technically perfect. She would sometimes mock her accent, or scoff at things she said. Especially when the things she spoke about were related to her "old country."
It was irritating to say the least.
It was the quiet type of racism that tried to pass itself off as jokes or personal slights. It was the sort of attitude one might expect at a stuffy old church filled with nosy busybodies who spent their lives with their neck craning over their backyard fences to spy on the neighbors. Grandmama didn't like Mother, she didn't like Aunt Raisya, and she didn't like that they married her children.
And, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure whether or not she liked Samsam and I. She went back and forth between ignoring me and acting like a stereotypical doting grandmother. As though she couldn't quite make up her mind about us. Today was one such day. I was fastened to a booster seat at the kitchen table. Seeing as how it was only the three of us, Mother didn't want to bother the servants by having them tend to us in the dining room. Rather, she wanted to cook something herself. Grandmama, for her part, had sniffed in distain and muttered something along the lines of, "Of course you'd want to act like the help."
Grandmama, who I suppose no one had filled in about my advanced mental development, was seated beside me with a toddler's book of colors. "Look here, Henry, this is blue. B – L – U – E. Blue. Specifically, this is royal blue, though some people mistake it for patriotic blue. This blue is a tad more vibrant than delft blue. Look over at Grandmama's china," she pointed out a glass cabinet on the far side of the room. "Delft blue is a common shade for dishes." Grandmama looked at the red and brown deep plastic bowls that Mother had lined on the countertop beside her. "At least, dishes of high quality," she sniffed. Grandmama sniffed so much; you'd think she had a cold. Or was allergic to Asians.
"It's very pretty," I told her obligingly. I considered telling her that my favorite shade of blue was cornflower blue, but then I reconsidered. Unlike with my mother, I didn't actually want Grandmama to know how intelligent I was. I didn't really care to know how she'd react. Instead, I only smiled and pointed to the next image. "What's that?"
"That is yellow! Y – E – L – L – O – W! Yellow. Specifically canary yellow. Do you know what a canary is, Henry?"
"No," I lied.
"Well, it's a very pretty bird. Here, wait one moment." Grandmama set the book down, then stood to her feet and drifted airily out of the room. Grandmama always seemed to glide everywhere, as though walking like a normal person with normal posture was beneath her.
Mother threw me an amused glance over her shoulder as she tended the soup. "It's a bird," she said succinctly. "A loud yellow bird."
"I know," I replied. "What are you making?"
"Slow cooked watercress soup," she said. "It will help you."
"Help me?"
She gave me a knowing look. "When I was very young, my mother would make me food like this every day, in hopes that I would grow strong." She sighed. "Of course, no matter how good the supplements, it can never make up for a disordered root or closed veins."
My eyes widened. Veins. Spirit veins? "Wh-what do you mean, Mother?"
Mother only turned back to the pot, saying nothing. Just then, Grandmama came back in, hefting a large reference book. "Let's see, Canary, canary, ah!" She flipped the pages until she found what she was looking for. She turned the book towards me. "Look here, Henry. This is a canary. C – A – N – A – R – Y. Canary. See how it's yellow? It says they're originally found in Africa, but Grandmama had one when she was a little girl. They sing a very pretty song."
"Is that your favorite bird?" I asked her. She shook her head.
"Goodness, it's hard to pick a favorite," she said loftily. "I raised so many breeds in my youth. There's merit to them all, I suppose."
"Why don't we have birds now?" I asked her.
Grandmama sighed, as though very put upon. "Your cousin is allergic," she clucked. "Poor dear." Just then, Mother set a bowl in front of me. Out of a plastic container she pulled from the fridge, she scooped out rice.
"You're using old rice?" Grandmama asked, scandalized. "Why ever for!"
"There's no sense in wasting," Mother replied in her stern, no nonsense tone that never failed to make Grandmama bristle.
"Well, I never."
Mother ignored her, ladling the hot soup over the top of the rice. She then handed me a spoon and, after a brief moment of deliberation, a pair of chop sticks. I looked at them, and then picked them up.
In my previous life, I'd used chopsticks on the occasion. I was proficient with them, though I didn't use them very often, and I was sometimes clumsy due to that fact. And, now, it had been over two years since I last touched them. And with my tiny, disobedient toddler hands, it was hard to maneuver my fingers correctly. I kept dropping them back onto the table whenever I tried to adjust my grip.
"Mother," I said in frustration. "I can't use these yet." Mother laughed. Grandmama frowned at her.
"Of course, he can't use those," she said, irritated. "This is soup. Why would you use those things for soup?"
Mother demonstrated, delicately plucking some of the vegetables out from the broth, blowing on them, then holding it in front of my nose. "Ah," she instructed. Obediently, I opened my mouth, and she inserted the food. It was delicious. We both ignored the face my grandmother pulled.
"What on earth are you feeding him?"
"Watercress," she said, shortly. "Good for health."
"Good for health," Grandmama scoffed under her breath.
"Would you like some, Gertrude?"
"Of course, not," she said. "I'll have the servants prepare me something, later."
Mother didn't respond to that, only crossing the kitchen to rummage in a drawer. She pulled out something bright purple and handed it to me. It was a pair of training chopsticks. The two sticks were connected at the top by a figurine of an elephant. It was cute. I took them from her and found they were much easier to use. She winked at me.
Mother put together her own bowl, and sat down beside me, across from Grandmama.
"Oh," Grandmama waved a hand in front of her face. "Well, it's certainly… pungent. Is it safe for Henry to be eating all of those spices? It seemed a bit much for a child his age."
"Huizhong will be fine," Mother said around a mouthful of food, making Grandmama grimace and look away. "Every small child from my village eats like that at his age."
"And where is your village," she asked.
"Oh," Mother said, with wide, ingenuous eyes. "It's in China."
Grandmama gave Mother a flat look, then collected the books and rose again from the table. "I believe I'll go take my own lunch, now." She said, nose in the air. "Somewhere else. I can't stand… whatever that is. It smells to high heaven." Then she was gone.
The food tasted good. We ate in silence, the only sounds being our slurping. Because I was enjoying the bursting flavors so much, it took eating about half the bowl to realize that the warmth from the broth was… lingering. It wasn't like how a spice might warm your throat or your belly. And it wasn't that kind of warmth that came from eating warm soup on a cold day. The temperature, it being late spring at the time, was fairly warm. There was no reason why eating my mother's soup feel so impactful. But it was. It was the strangest sensation that hung on, and almost pulsated. It was as though I could feel my body breaking down the food and turning it into energy. It made me feel exhilarated, like a could run a marathon on my stubby little legs.
I looked at my mother with wide eyes. "What is this, mother?"
She smiled at me, pressing a finger to the tip of my nose, lightly. There was a mischievous light in her eyes. "It's magic."
After we ate, instead of putting the leftovers in the fridge, Mother spooned it into a container and took it out of the room with her. I'm not sure where she put it, but it was almost as though she was afraid Grandmama would change her mind and eat some after all.
♡ღ‿ღ♡ ʕ•̫͡•ʕ*̫͡*ʕ•͓͡•ʔ-̫͡-ʕ•̫͡•ʔ*̫͡*ʔ-̫͡-ʔ ♡ღ‿ღ♡
I made a habit of meditating during the night. Unfortunately, it did not negate my need for sleep, though it did reduce it extremely. Rather, there were some mornings that I would find myself waking up naturally, not having purposefully fallen asleep the night before. There were some days that I found myself nodding off during reading session or play time. But, I knew for a fact that I was doing something.
Something was happening during my meditation sessions. I just didn't know what or how to utilize it to do anything other than essentially fast forward through the night.
One night, however, during the fall after my second birthday, I felt the urge to wander the manor, again. I hadn't really done so since I'd begun my meditation exercises, so I felt as though a nightly walk was overdue. As I had so many times before, I slipped from my little bed, reached up and finagled the child lock, then slipped out into the hallway.
I nearly walked right into Mother's book room but froze and backtracked once I caught a glimpse inside. She was already in there, talking to somebody on the phone.
"…it's hard to explain, but the way he looks sometimes. It's like he knows. And I don't know how." She paused, likely listening to the other person's response. "That will be easy. Raisya and Lorraine will jump at the opportunity. You'll have a chance to meet little Samsam as well. He's not as… advanced as my Huizhong, but it would be ever more odd if he were."
Mother turned and paced, I ducked even further back into the hallway.
"Thank you, Grandfather. Perhaps you could see if there is a seal on his soul, if he is an old disciple come back. That would explain a few things." A pause, and then she laughed. "I look forward to it. I will see you in a few weeks." My mind was racing with the possibilities of what was happening, of what that conversation meant for my future and how I should prepare for it.
Something was about to happen.