Little Cori squinted as the living room formed around him. He had slipped over the railing of his bed and, clutching the teddy, had followed his feet to the room `porter. Ma and Da should be in their silent room, but little Cori's feet were showing him different. He knows this deep rumble in his belly that always comes just before they go away to "The Work."

* * *

Corin pressed a sideways frown into his pillow, realizing now just how much intention little Cori was attempting to redirect.

* * *

Though he knows that he shouldn't be there, the living room comforts little Cori. The growing room has streams and trees, sometimes with cherries, and animals that go on their way without minding him. But he finds comfort now in the way that, as he walks forward, the chairs and tables of the living room come apart into bushes, flowers, and stumpy trees and then remake themselves into just the way that they should be. It is as though they know where he is going and show the way.

Cori sees the place in his inner sight. In the center of the room is a round crystal floor with a standing circle-block. The floor and circle-block are see-through, and underneath is a large roundish ball (like when he squishes his red ball against the floor) that could be crystal, but it isn't entirely see-through. It seems to hold thin sheets of milk and dots of colors inside of it.

Dr. Treyvon is telling him that it is "an and a log" (that was a funny way of using "an" and "a") of the fabric of space. Cori pulls at his tunic and wonders what she means.

He likes Dr. Treyvon, who gives him things that stay the way that they are, but he doesn't like the "an and a log." He remembers when it is made. Ma and Da are busy and happy for days and days, talking things that he can't follow, and then they just go away. Not away like he can't see them with his eyes, but away even that he can't see them in his mind sight. The absence around his bed scares him.

Cassie brings him food and reads him books, but mostly little Cori sits against the corner with his eyes closed, trying to find them inside. Dr. Treyvon comes and carries him into the living room and shows him Ma and Da sitting on pillows with their legs folded in front of them, one on either side of the round floor. He buries his head in her shoulder, not wanting to see.

Cori continues walking, getting the tingles as he does. His hair floats about his face, and he knows that it is getting cut because it drifts across his eyes as the scissors go "snip, snip."

He can see Da now, a dark shadow, standing on one side of the crystal floor with his arms held up and legs braced. It feels like Da is trying to keep something in place that he knows would break if he touched it.

Da's eyes are fixed on a white woman standing with her hands against the circle-block. Little Cori wonders if it is Ma, but cannot be sure. It looks like Ma, and Ma is there, like the leaf is still there when the sun shines through it, but she is somehow more and less than Ma.

Fear grips him. Cori drops the teddy and hurries, hands pushing on the backs of the white chairs until he finds an aisle between the three rows. As he runs between, he can see Ma again. Something grows from her belly. Light is gathering there. It forms milky sheets and bright spots.

Little Cori feels her slipping away. An openness is emptying into him. He screams, commanding "No, Ma! Stop it!" and runs forward faster and faster until he trips on the raised edge of the floor. The world turns sideways, and he stiffens, but the pain doesn't come because Da catches him and lifts him up, murmuring weakly "No, not you, too" as he kneels and presses little Cori carefully against his breast.

But a wind is blowing through him. Little Cori fights against the embrace, pushing with his legs. Da is strong, though, and presses him closer, pressing him all over his body, pressing against the openness until he is the shape of little Cori again. For a moment he is like the things that Dr. Treyvon gives him.

Da murmurs, "I will bring her back." Little Cori begins to fight, and Da takes back the untrue thing. "Hush. Shhh," Da soothes, stroking his hair, "We will find her." Cori feels wetness on his neck, and for a moment Da's muscles are all fighting against each other, and little Cori knows his bendy bones.

He is being carried now. His muscles are all like a board, and little Cori keeps his eyes tight shut. Other voices move around them, asking questions, but Da bumps through them. Cori feels the world tilting sideways, until he comes to rest on Da's legs. The teddy presses against little Cori's ear.

Ma is handing it to him, telling him that the teddy is to help him with togetherness, with that funny, gentle smile she uses when saying things that Cori shouldn't think he can follow.

His hands are his hands again. He takes the teddy and buries it in the safe place against Da's chest.

Corin came back to his pillow and then the sheets and then the sunlight bleeding through his eyelids, inwardly chiding himself for going so deep. The intensity of the memory had come upon him for a reason and that reason was a warmth at his back that was different from the warmth of his father as they had rested together the night that his mother lost herself. The warmth surrounded a feminine fragrance named Leelay and a connection to last night.

This beautiful moment came between them when he pushed into her once again, and she, fighting against herself, was finally overcome. Something had shifted inside her, and she was no longer teasing him to batter against her but embracing him with every part of her womanhood. Corin had paused in genuine surprise until Leelay's thighs encouraged him to continue, and every thrust was like a plunge into joy. As she came over the top and began to relax, he had taken her nipple between his lips and then kissed her over her heart and in the soft space above her neck, doing everything that he could to draw out the sensation.

He had tripped then over a moment of regret, projecting her realization of discovered power and the trouble it would create for the men in her life. Withdrawing, Corin had kissed her down her belly until he could play with her clitoris, gently drawing away her excitement until she drifted off with exhausted promises of "more later."

Corin knew from the depth and pace of her breathing that Leelay awaited a choice. In a detached manner, he gave cognizance to the pulsing call of her skin. At dinner last night, she had thus offered herself as her wine swirled lazily in the glass against her cheek. Corin was taken by the grace of her pose, the hypnotic rhythm of the light reflecting off the tilting surface of the liquid—a counterpoint to the silent gloss of her lipstick in the soft lighting. It was absolutely transparent and uncontrived.

Corin found himself now wishing that he hadn't accepted. Sexual liaisons were unavoidable in the sequence of his lives. Intimacy with a caring woman was the best means he knew for taking the pulse of a culture. Last night's choice was spontaneous, though, driven by some inner need that he could not justify, not even in the context of the personal goals that his introspection had raised. Yes, he had seen some aspect of Ma in Leelay, but she was not unique in that way, and from long-established experience he should have known better than to let a thrill-seeker tie her ambitions to him.

With a disciplined finality, he slipped deftly from under the covers and stood,...