It is raining. The sound reverberates from the slate roof, dropping onto the stone patio around my home. It fills the room with an empty echo. I hear it hiss through the pine needles outside in the forest. If I really listen, I can hear the Dhazoh flooding its banks and roaring into the fjord.

Yihn came by this morning to check on me, bringing me sweet rice from her garden. Seeing her happiness drawn in the faint laugh lines on her face brings me such joy. It took so long to argue for her marriage. I feared I would be bitter, but instead I feel warmth. Her joy is mine.

But this pagoda is empty. I am wind. Maybe the wind is empty? I should go to the other villages and check the gifted children. All still live with their families. They are too young to stay in a pagoda alone.

It is a difficult life ahead of them. I should go and show them it is not a painful path. There are sacrifices for our gifts, but they can bring joy too. I lose the ambition before I rise off the woven mat. I would have to go and ask for a boat to take me down the fjords. No one would refuse me the request, but I can always see that there is no pleasure in the accepting. My presence brings a stiffness to features that erases laughter.

It is nearly the same look the parents of the other children give to me. But on their faces there is also pain and fear. Fear that their other offspring will show skills as well. And the pain is for the things their gifted children will not have. Things like marriage or babies of their own.

Only a few people in my life have warmth in their eyes when they are near me. My sister, her husband, and once a girl who gave me such joy that I felt my chest aflame. I do not speak her name now. I wish it were so easy to not think of her.

The other villages do not expect me until the fall equinox. I will not visit now and disrupt the fragile balance of peace in their lives. There is only silence around me. This room echoes the sounds outside: the rain in the needles of Yisha trees, the roar of the Dhazoh, the squeal of a child playing in puddles. Nothing disrupts the silence of my life.