Excerpt
THE CHILD LAY STILL; ANYONE OBSERVING IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CERTAIN it was sound
asleep. But it was not, for long ago—so long ago that there was no memory of
how it began—the child's mind had learned to defend itself from the agony that
the body it inhabited was forced to bear. Someday—in a future so far away that
the barely formed mind could not even begin to comprehend it—it might be able
to defend the body too.
But not yet.
For now, all the mind could do was retreat from the enemy, hiding deep inside
the body, leaving the body to bear the pain as best it could.
Now the child's mind hovered on the fringe of consciousness, neither fully awake
nor fully asleep, but lurking furtively in some shadowy nether region, ready to
drop back into unconsciousness if it sensed that the enemy was near.
Beyond the eyelids—which the mind had learned very early to keep carefully
closed—a growing brightness hinted that the terrors of the night would soon
succumb to the onset of dawn.
But what about the terrors of the day?
The mind shifted its attention to the ears, sifting through the sounds, sorting
them, searching for signals of danger.
Nothing threatened: only a voice, laughing; a bird, singing.
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