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Dawn broke the secret garden's rooms with gentle blue, and Alder stirred.
She lay in bed, still blurred with sleep, her static-stippled eyesight tracing curving swerving weavings on the rug, the painted walls, geometries that comforted her mind, familiarity and structured-shape. Between bedraggled locks of hair she counted out her playthings. Building blocks, an easel, paint, stuffed animals and dolls, a little doll's house and a spider's web, a shelf of picture-books, and rocks and seashells neatly in a line. It summed to fifty-two, when counting every block and book and rock as one.
Outside her window cooed a pair of morning doves, their voices promising a pretty day. She vaguely sied through memories, her lessons, dreams, and morning prayers. Somewhen in drifting reverie, the Nurse came in. Its name was Summer Circuitry, and it was twelve feet tall, and filigreed with twisting fiddleheads, and wore a pinafore and dress.
Its clockwork gently tumbled on and on. The quiet rattle softened Alder's cold tinnitus, always cristalinely whining. She loved the sound of Nurse's gears, the tickatacka varying its pitch and resonance in little ways impossible to word. And Summer Circuitry loved Alder, too. It saw itself reflected in its ward; they both were weapons in the Everwar.
Alder, Summer felt, was hers. It had a shameful dream it wasn't meant to have, that maybe elsewhen in the tree of time, the something that the Clockmaker decanted into gear and spring, to make the doll itself, might once have poured (will pour again?) into a warm and bloody form, of flesh and bones and breath, and ion-gates and electricity, the very stuff the gods want most of all, and yet, can never have.
And in that elsewhen, Alder's something might have bubbled up inside of it. They both would body-share for nine bright moons, and Alder'd burst from her in agony, and each the other might have orbited, becoming into something whole, so far away from this unraveling world, a peaceful place where waves hushed endlessly on sandy strands, and pond-frogs pandered to the pine-dark night.
But that was not the time it lived in now. There was no sea, no cabin in the woods, no frogs. Just scientists and clipboards, heavy with their words and figure-graphs. The house they lived inside was burning down, and there was nothing they could do but live. It stood beside the bed.
"Good morning little Alder" Summer said, and pulled the blanket off her. Alder frowned, but also didn't hesitate. She sat upright, and scooched herself around, and stood. Then Summer took her hand and led her down the towering halls, designed to make her small. Complex mosaics dappled all the walls, impressionistic plantforms spiraling through winter, summer, spring and fall. The rosy eyes of dawn peered down through skylights far above, clouds lit in glowing red against the blue, the high and waning half-moon still in view. The floor felt nice beneath her shoeless feet, so cool and firm, and Alder yearned to play, to run, to patter through the slowly-waking halls-- but she did not. She followed Nurse obediently to the baths, an automatic mantra muttered in her mouth, that she would be the goodest girl today.
The baths, like everything, were oversized. It seemed a little upside-down; how things made humans small, and dolls seem tall, and not the other way around. Nurse Summer helped remove her sleeping-gown. The cloth was soft and patterned with pastels, and up her back the lacing-strings were tied, done up by Summer Circuitry the night before, and now the doll undid the strings, and took off everything; her underwear as well, and Alder felt so vulnerable and small, the steamy currents snaking past her naked skin.
And yet she didn't feel ashamed to let Nurse see; this happened every day, and Summer Circuitry did not see nakedness the way a human might; the concept wasn't notable to it. To Summer, Alder was as naked as a bird, a tree, a jellyfish. It hung the outfit scheduled for the day by hook upon the wall, removed its uniform, and carried Alder down into the bath.
The Nurse did not let Alder bathe herself; in fact, there's very little Alder did herself. A ward was property, by contract fettered to the Secret Garden, who, in turn, was bound to Bloom, by ties of private-public enterprise. And still, the deeds of Bloom were bound by need to overthrow the Holy Court. And all of them, all nations of the Earth, were playthings of the Gods, who warred to win attentions from the minds of dying things. A daisy-chain of leashes locking necks to hands to necks to hands to necks.
But wards of Project Sprout were helpless by design. A theory went that very young kids' minds are open, drafty wide, to gods and elves, to magic's glimmer-glow. With total disregard for here and now, the winds of time and space might flow in turbled, twisting ways. But as they grow, that openess begins to cloud; the memories receed behind the veil shrouding early childhood. They don't know that the everywhen is odd, and by the time they might, it's gone.
But could we bring it back? Awaken something sleeping deep inside the adult mind? So asked the Keeper God. If they could break a brain from space and time, it might grant Bloom strategic height against the Court, their branches shading out the dying old regime. The payoff, if it worked, would be so vast, the ends would justify the means, no matter how rediculous it seemed, how great the cost.
Bloom planned the project out for moons, the DoTR comm-rooms clattering with para-graph machines that spat out ticker-tape of runic glyphs, the language of the gods. The paragraphic operators worked through many sleepless nights. The godly allies to the cause of Bloom convened in Haven's fog, the Keeper God arranging everything. They talked logistics: Who will spend their hard-won worship where? What might be gained, and what else might be lost? The Clockmaker provided Nursing staff, the Severed Hand suggested protocols for folding fictile mental-states, and Stitch a cunning seamstress would bemuse.
A dozen lesser gods a pool of paltry worship filled. Its cumulated currents swirled through the earthly world beside. Each current twisted truth in subtle, helpful ways. The Keeper would entangle bits of Her within the halls, inhabiting the walls. She'd gather worship from Her little ones, and also gift them with the Other Sight, to brightly catch the kindle of the mind, that light electric fire gods desire. Beside on earth, Bloom winnowed out which lab to reel in, with honey-words and little metal suns. It found a loyal contractor, whose prior research work would fit the bill, and bound them to the gods with paperclips and staplers and ink.
Brickweavers worked for many weeks on former federal land, to nestle a facility within a lichened wood. They made the proper sacrifices to the gods, and cups of elevine (so thick and pink and brightly glowing), poured onto the ground beneath the midnight stars, libations to the trees they razed. The building woke, its copper neurons glittering with thought, and hidden eyes admiring its world. Its breath flowed cooly in its duct-work lungs, the plumbing-vessels beat, and it could feel divinity within itself.
And once the lab was built, they snaked their tendrils out into the populace of Bloom, found subjects fitting to the task, a couple dozen people with no friends or family to leave behind. Completely ethical, of course; they had the paperwork to make it so; informed consent, administrative oversight. They underwent intensive reconditioning. In every way they could, they would belittle them, to cultivate a sense of openness, a sense of smallness in the face of time. Hypnosis sessions, lessons, visitations with the Keeper-God, imposing architecture, lace-up dresses, simple messages that undertowed it all:
Be small, don't struggle, lean on us, let all things happen as they must.
When Alder first arrived, she felt confused. The stories fought each other in her mind. But giving in got easier each day. Sometimes she doubted if her life before the school, before the secret garden, ever was. It really did feel dreamlike, in a way. Dreams sometimes seem like years, and then they fade.
She cuddled up to Summer in the bath, submitting to her every soapy touch, allowed her Nurse to clean her, sing and gently comb the tangles from her hair, and call her cute, and she would splash around. And then thick fluffy towels dried her off, the texture rough, but in a tasty way, the terry sloughing off the bits of skin, to get her nice and clean.
Her Nurse took down the day-dress from the hook, and with a playful smile threw it over Alder's head. For just a breath it made a billow-world, of sailing skirts and softened yellow light. And Alder jumped a little, happily. She flapped her arms, which Nurse helped neatly wiggle into sleeves. It helped her find the neck-hole, then meticulously laced up Alder's back with spider-nimble hands.
The dress was soft, and comfortable, and cute, with pockets for her fidget-toys and things. She wore it every single day of school. It'd been her favorite thing to wear for moons. Some days, if she'd been very, very good (and begged), she'd get to wear it on a play-day too.
They stopped back by the bedroom to retrieve a teddy bear, and went into the dining room to eat. The Nurse was privately absorbed in fantasy, spoon-feeding Alder oatmeal, and Alder likewise drifted in her mind, to ready it for school. Another nurse fed breakfast to another girl across the room, but no-one spoke. Their silouhettes were framed against the massive rain-jeweled window-wall that overlooked the yard, the patch of old-growth woods where Alder played some days.
She stuffed her face into the bear and smelled its empty scent, as Summer led her down the towering halls, the morning light now spindling its shadows all across the walls. And down a flight of steps they went, too big for such a little girl, so Summer carried her, and brought her somewhere dark, and quiet. Here, the ringing in her ears was loud, the swirling eye-snow in the eigengrau would sometimes catch a bit of color, briefly snatch a shape from shadow-world. Here Nurse's filigree shined dimly in the dark, a subtle lace of green. A science doll was stationed in the corner of the room. She never spoke, and Alder only ever saw her eyes, two blue glims glowing, glowering in the dark, and always looking down, and scribbling notes.
Then Summer sat with Alder on a blanket, known to both of them by touch alone. Not once had Alder seen it in the light, and yet she knew it inch by cotton inch; she knew precisely which of 37 tassels had a wonky knot. She knew the slightly-thinnner bits of it, and she could conjure up the smell at any time. Her minds' ear knew the blanket-words it made. But still she didn't know if there was something pretty woven-in, or if it was a boring solid blue, or green, or black, or white. She only knew its soft familiarity, its friendliness with her.
She felt uneasy, hugged the teddy bear, while Summer moved her to its lap, and whispered words of comfort to the girl, that it would be okay, to just let go. The needle slipped beneath her skin, a painful pinch which bloomed into a giddy kind of joy. Her vision spiraled out in fractal sparks, complex mozaics dappling the dark. And then she felt her Teacher, wise and kind. Untouching touch wrapped firmly 'round her mind, like something lost, at last in reach again. Her Teacher's satisfaction felt so nice, like strings unraveling inside her head. Her Teacher guided her, It grew her, shaped her mind, It gardened her like she was fertile soil.
They went through prayers, and incantations, chanted droning antiphonal calls, and then it felt like everything was still. This was the place where pictures drifted past, emotions neatly tucked away from would-be nightmare-things. Sometimes the place would notice it was distantly entangled with a body, with a mouth that muttered frantically a string of nonsense words. Awareness came and washed away, like waves that sift and sie the sand and seaweed fronds and rocks and crab-shells on a beach, until her memories were bleached, while the awakeness stayed.
The blanket felt so very, very soft. She rubbed her face and hands across the thing. The teddy bear was squished beneath her chest. She didn't know why she was sat like this, her knees in Summer's lap, and face against the floor. But since her Nurse was petting her, it must be fine.
One, two, three, four, she counted, on and on, the prime ones tasting lovely as they passed, until the tassels totalled 37, ending on the wonky-knotted one, and then she sat upright, and let the teddy bear reform his shape, and nestled Summer's chest, to listen closely to its ever-ticking clockspring heart unwinding Alder's mind not fully back within the world.
And Summer Circuity took Alder in her arms, like mothers carry kids. The busy science doll did not look up to see the disembodied filigree politely waving in the dark.
They walked out of the schoolroom, climbed the stairs, into the night-gloomed halls that seemed so bright compared to those below. The clouds and stars were stirring in the skylights overhead. And Alder grumbled at the thought of bed. When school ran late like this, it left so little time for playing, in her favorite dress, with all her toys. No time to paint or draw, or run around outside, or through the halls, to hide in little nooks alone and think.
Back in the darkened dining room, the Nurse fed Alder simple food, the lighting low, the cedars rustling beyond the window-wall. It seemed unfair, but there was nothing she could do. She did as she was told, and good behavior always gets rewarded in the end.
It mollified her knowing Nurse would always play with her a little bit, once teeth were brushed and it was quiet time. It always set the dollhouse on her bed. And she and Summer Circuitry sat side by side, and made up stories, of a girl and mother living in a house beside the sea. Then Alder drifted off to sleep, and Summer tucked her in, with forehead kisses. Every night, she dimmed the lights down to a gentle tungsten glow,
then turned to go.