Kei

  A peace settles over me in the afternoon, and I breathe like I’m that piece of soft velvet again and again. Somehow whatever woke inside me is asleep again, or at least silent, but I’m so much more awake. And my senses seem sharper than they ever have. My mind, also.

  I am in Kestrel’s garden. Her house is next to ours, though she’s rarely there. Dad is talking to her while I play with our new kitten in the space where our gardens meet. We just let puppy out, so he’s still running around, sniffing everything. There’s a fence around us, but none between our houses, so he just walked across. They are on her deck, but facing away from me as I play.

  She hands him a cup of coffee. He takes it, but doesn’t drink. He just watches her as she sips her own.

  “What are you trying to do here, Kestrel?” Yoshi, Dad, asks. My ears perk up in the garden.

  She laughs, and her voice is musical. “Just giving our daughter everything, Yoshi.” She glances back at me, at the kitten I didn’t have this morning, until Dad found out I wanted one. “Everything you’ve ever dreamed a child should have, we’ll give her here. If we don’t, tell me, and we’ll do it.”

  “Seriously?” Dad sounds doubtful.

  “Seriously.” Kestrel suddenly sounds blunt, like she’s laying down the law to a kid who hasn’t grasped the obvious yet. Or the truth to a parent who can’t take a hint. “I didn’t get the resources behind this place to play mindgames with you. Everyone with a child here wants what’s best for them. They want opportunities the rest of the world can’t even dream of. Yet.”

  “Yet.” Yoshi leaves the word hanging there. I imagine him watching her intently, searching her face and body for meaning more than her words.

  “Of course.” There is a smile in her tone. “We do well here and we can expand. Eventually every child will benefit from what we find on the island.” Her voice lowers. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Not just for Kei, but for all of them?”

  They move down the deck, speaking more softly, and I return my focus to my kitten as their voices fade. A feathered lure at the end of a stick and a string has him dancing and darting and bouncing into backflips, and we play until he is exhausted. Then I pick him up and gently hug and pet him again, until Dad comes back for both of us. He snaps his fingers, and puppy rushes to join us.

  It’s been a long afternoon, and kitten needs a nap.

  ***

  “Naptime!” Miss Elle announces breathlessly the next day as she strides into the room. “Everyone pick a nice, comfortable bean bag and put your legs up the way I showed you last time.”

  I glance at Dante and he nods at the pair of bean bags near the table full of puzzles we’ve been playing with. One bean bag is deep blue, the other deep purple. I hop on the purple one, and he grabs the blue. He lays down on his, throwing his legs over the raised part we normally lean back against, and in a moment he’s in his napping position, only with his lower legs slightly elevated. I see the rest of the class doing the same thing, and copy them.

  I can feel the blood rushing to my head, but not in the extreme way it does in a headstand, something one of the other girls, Shae, taught me to do last week with our feet propped up against the wall.

  Now I’m not propped up so far, but it does feel strange.

  “Now imagine your head is an inch larger in every direction, and an inch further from the center of your body.” I do as Miss Elle says, imagining my head expanding like a balloon steadily blowing up like a cartoon character inhaling too much air or something. We’ve done this before, and it also feels strange.

  “And now imagine your brain lighting up again, as much as possible.” Suddenly I imagine my expanded brain filled with brilliant lights and more and more tiny lightnings, super-energized and getting more energized all the time. Her voice drones on, somehow insistent yet fading into the background, telling us imagine more and more of our brains lighting up. Finally we lay back in silence, and drift off in that position.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I’m not sure how long our ‘nap’ lasts, but not long, I think. I feel different when we slowly rise from our bean-bag beds, oddly alert as I glance around.

  “You do this a lot?” I ask Dante.

  “All the time, lately.” He looks like a practical little man, resigned to the situation, as we head back to our block puzzles. We’ll figure them all out, or let them go.

  ***

  The next naptime is a little more unusual than the last. Same bean bags, same daydreams - expanding heads and lighting-up brains. But Miss Elle has us breathe velvety smooth after all that, and then carries around goggles and headphones and has us put them on.

  Eerie, beautiful music plays through the headphones as I slip them on and glance over at Dante, laying back with his feet propped up on his usual bean bag. He manages a big shrug before we both slip on our goggles. And we are staring into blank fields of color. Or at least I am. Purple, again.

  I can’t remember most of the music later, but I wake groggily some time later as it ends. I do remember the faint, gentle voice of a woman who began talking to me midway through. Her voice was comforting, but I can’t recall exactly what she said. Other than to… relax.

  ***

  “Hypnosis?” I hear Dad asking Kestrel as he works in the garden while I play there. She’s strolling through hers, and eyeing us both openly.

  She shrugs as he addresses her. “Only the simplest kind, the kind children can grasp. All of them have a great vocabulary for their ages, but we’re still mostly working with five and six-year-olds here. Small steps.” Kestrel glances over at me, watching Misty stalk a butterfly. “But ones taken early.”

  I catch kitten’s back legs before she can pounce, and the shimmering creature soars away safely to an overlooking branch. Misty gives me a confused look, and mewls plaintively. I have no sympathy. She gets plenty of treats and toys without hurting anything, much less anything beautiful.

  But I pick her up to soothe her anyway.

  ***

  “You remember how to breathe velvety smooth?” Kerry asks, handing me the big book. Kerry’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, she and her sister Lyra, and she’s much older. Like eleven, or something. And so smart.

  I take it, then drop it to the wooden table with a heavy thud. I nod, vigorously.

  “Great,” Kerry says, settling into a chair next to me. “Just start with that, before you do anything.”

  I sit, and I breathe. My body, my thoughts, become still. The world becomes still around me.

  After a couple minutes, I notice Kerry murmuring next to me. “Soft and smooth and gentle as velvet.” The words are a soft song on the girl’s lips, a smooth river of reassurance, and I feel myself drifting in their currents.

  Another minute passes, perhaps two. And Kerry’s palm comes down on the great leatherbound book, fingers splayed out. “So why,” she asks, “do you want to read this book, Kei?”

  I give it a moment’s thought, but no more than that. I mean, the answer’s obvious. “To enjoy the story,” I say, “and the pictures.”

  Kerry nods. “That’s a great reason.” She lifts the top of the book off the table with one hand, and smoothly slides a stack of other big books under mine, propping it up. Between their weight and their soft leather covers, they do not move, and I notice Kerry’s leather bookmarks are under the bottom of my book, so it does not slide either.

  A tangerine appears in the older girl’s hand, like magic. “This isn’t for eating,” she tells me, then holds it on the top, back part of my head. “Not yet. Can you imagine I’m holding a tangerine right here?”

  I tilt my head, and give Kerry a dubious expression. “But you are.”

  “Should make it easier, then,” Kerry says solemnly. “Close your eyes.” I do so.

  Kerry moves my hand to the back of my head, and slips my fingers around the fruit. “Hold this. Now imagine the feel, the weight, the smell of the tangerine.” I do as I’m told. It’s not hard, after all.

  Kerry pulls it away. “Now imagine it’s still there.”

  I sniff. Easy enough to do, especially since I can still smell the faint scent of citrus in the air.

  “Can you smile just a tiny bit for me? And stay relaxed?”

  I nod. And smile.

  “Can you open your eyes?” I open them, and blink. Kerry is holding a book in each hand just to either side of my face, making a narrow path for me to see down. For a moment, I can only see her propped up storybook right in front. As soon as I see them, Kerry slides each book slowly away from my head, widening my view. “And can you imagine your field of view opening up?” Kerry asks from behind me, spreading the books apart as she widens my view.

  I try not to laugh. My field is opening up because she’s opening it, and she knows it. But I play along.

  So I nod, just glimpsing each book out of the corner of my eyes as I stare forward. Almost as though I’m meant to. They disappear, and Kerry slips back into the chair beside me.

  Kerry thumps the cover of the book with her open hand. “You told me before you wanted to enjoy the story in this book, and the pictures. Is that still true?”

  I nod again.

  “Good reasons. Now tell yourself, softly, ‘I will read this book now to enjoy the story and the pictures.’”

  “‘I will read this book now to enjoy… the story and the pictures.’” I glance sidelong at Kerry, who is picking up her own book.

  “And now,” she says, “just read.”

  So I do.

  And somehow everything is clearer. And faster.

  ***

  The hour of floating seems to last forever, yet is over too quickly.

  Still, there’s no sense of loss as it ends. Somehow the dream-memory recedes and I am simply floating, drifting in the dark, when a chime sounds to rouse me, and the lights slowly turn on.

  I shower again, dress, and join everyone back upstairs.

  “Where have you been?” Joey asks as I stumble in.

  “Naptime.”

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