There was nothing I could do about it. It was harder than usual to keep my mind on my work. Doggedly, I forced myself to complete the lessons I’d set. Despite my day’s rest, sleepiness kept creeping up on me. Only the strictest self-discipline kept me to my routine. I followed my book work with an honest entry in my journal, confiding to that page my fear that disease might be threatening Widevale. When I closed my journal, I gave in to sleepiness and immediately went to my bed. I knelt and more by rote than by faith said my evening prayers. I prayed for Burvelle’s Landing rather than myself, no longer certain that I believed in the strength and power of the good god so much as hoped that he existed and would hear my pleas for mercy. As I pulled up my blanket and closed my eyes, I wondered what I truly believed now. I thought of the Poronte family and their ghastly chandelier of dead and dying birds. Could their older gods have protected me from this fate? At what price would such protection come? Despite these thoughts, sleep reached up and pulled me swiftly under its waves. I did not dream.

When light first crept in my window, I came to awareness of it. I did not bother to dress. If anyone came to my door, that would be soon enough to rise. Instead, I got up only long enough to push my bed across the room to where the first rays of light illuminated it. Then I lay down again and once more plunged into something that was not sleep. I could feel how my body now conserved all things—water, food, and even the energy I used to breathe or move. I was like a mighty tree, standing silent and bare of leaf, life seemingly suspended until spring might come again.

That day, I arose only at intervals to move my bed to keep it always centred under the light. When the light finally faded from the sky and darkness poured into my room, the same servant once more tapped at my door, opened it, and brought me my loaf and water. “What tidings from the Landing?” I demanded of him as I sat up on my bed.

“Sickness,” he said brusquely. Before I could rise, he was out the door, shutting it firmly behind him. For a moment, dread paralyzed me. Were my worst fears coming to pass? Or, as my father had said, was it merely some lesser illness that would pass like a summer squall? I rose, I ate, and I returned to my bed. I slept again.

The next day was identical, save for one thing. The evening passed with no servant and no food. The hour for it passed, and then another. At last, I swallowed my dignity and pounded on my door and shouted. After some time had passed, I heard a maidservant’s voice outside my door. “Sir, please! People are trying to take their rest.”