Then, moved by an impulse I did not understand, I pushed my bed across the room into the slowly moving rectangle of sunlight from my window. I took off my shirt and lay down again, basking in the warm light on my skin. I breathed out again and once more sank my consciousness to the dim and comfortable place where my other self reigned. He took me in and sheltered me with dreams of deep-reaching roots questing for water. I dreamed of flowers turning toward the sun and of leaves absorbing light, their stoma shut tight to conserve moisture. The forest waited for me. It called me to become one with it. My breathing became an occasional wind that barely stirred the reaching leaves.

My heartbeat was a distant, random drumbeat.

I awoke to darkness and the rattling of the hasp that secured my door. I sat up immediately, swinging my feet to the floor, and then felt a sudden wave of vertigo. Before it could pass, a kitchen servant entered bearing a tray. He lifted the branch of candles he bore, scowling round my dark room. He set down his candles and his tray on my desk. “Your dinner, sir.”

The simple words could barely contain the contempt he filled them with.

“Thank you. Where is my father?”

He stooped, full of disapproval, to lift the tray of soiled and broken dishes that I had left by the door on the floor. He was a tall fellow, pale as a mushroom, an unmuscled house servant. He sniffed loudly as if the smell of the stale food scraps disgusted him.

“Lord Burvelle has a guest this evening. He directed me to deliver this tray to you.” He turned away, dismissing me as beneath his notice. I stepped between him and the door. He recoiled from me as if I were a threatening bear. At least my bulk was good for something, if only intimidating servants. “Who is my father’s guest?” I asked him.

“Well, I scarcely think—”

“Who is my father’s guest?” I repeated, taking a step closer to him. He backed away, now holding the tray of broken dishes as if it were a shield.

“Dr. Reynolds from the Landing has come to call today,” he said hastily.

The mention of the doctor and my recall of the messenger I had glimpsed early in the day mingled and awoke an urgent fear in me. “Is there sickness in the Landing? Is that why the doctor is here?”

“Why, I’m sure I don’t know! It’s hardly my business to question why Lord Burvelle has a guest at his table.”

“What did they talk about?”

“I do not eavesdrop on my betters!” He seemed incensed that I had even suggested such a thing and poked the tray toward me as it he were trying to intimidate a dog. “Out of my way. I have my work to do.”

I stared at him, slowly realizing that he spoke to me as if I were nobody, an underling, a beggar. Not as if I were a son of the household. Would a time come when everyone treated me with such disregard?