That feeling again.

I felt a wave spreading out from the pulsing flame in her palm. It was not shockwave. It was definitely not an electromagnetic wave. Instead of pushing me away, it felt like the wave pulled me downward, or made me feel lighter.

I dropped the wooden ball at that moment and observed it with my slow-mo ability.

The acceleration rate of the ball fluctuated.

It was… gravity wave.

Noticing my attention waned to the falling ball, the woman stopped her magic. She picked the ball up from the floor.

I absolutely didn’t want to play catch with her, ever again. She threw like a baseball pitcher. A fast-flying wooden ball felt like a tank shell on an infant’s body. In other words, it hurt like hell. I had to avoid that at all cost, except crying. I did not want to cry like a baby. I didn’t even know how to.

I opened my tiny mouth.

“Mee… meejick!”

The maid tilted her head, then grinned. The smile looked genuine and affectionate, but I just wanted to punch into her white teeth and scatter them all over the floor. Fortunately, she resumed her magic show again.

Out of all the way she “played” with me, the magic show was the most harmless. And I had noticed that she would get tired if she used magic long enough. Then she would stop playing with me, which was a good thing.

I studied the flame diligently. I longed for the day I could throw a fireball at her face. I had made it my personal mission.

The woman had killed me many times, and it hurt every single one of the occasions.

That must have been gravity wave.

Gravity is caused by the presence of an object, bending the spacetime fabric. She was manipulating some invisible matter.

Matter that I couldn’t see, couldn’t touch, but could feel its gravitational pull.

Dark matter?

According to string theory, which was the most plausible theory about the fabric of reality in the 21st century, all matter was isolated vibrations. Planets, humans, atoms, quarks were all composed of tiny vibrations in the spacetime continuum.

Dark matter was theorized to be vibrations in an axis incompatible with the world we were used to. Like how radios couldn’t be tuned to receive light signal, we couldn’t interact with dark matter. It was physical substances of another dimension.

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Supposedly, creatures of this world could interact with dark matter. It should be a sensory organ that humans on Earth did not have.

At night, when the vile woman had finished the bedtime story that I could barely understand and left my side, I stopped pretending to sleep. I lifted my eyelids, in my vision was a row of wooden bars at the side of my crib, with the wall of the dark nursery room on the background.

I searched all my senses. What was new? What wasn’t there before?

After two hours of ‘meditating’ without any result, I felt exhausted. Looking for something when you didn’t know where to look was difficult. I had been too used to my old human body after a near century inside it.

I decided to cease my fruitless experiment and try it once more during the magic show tomorrow. I would try to sense the waves with my hands of legs lying flat to the bottom of the crib, to minimize the feeling of gravity.

So, I succumbed to the sweet dreams full of high-pitched screams of the maid while I poked her with all manners of pointy things. An unnerving smile blossomed on my puffy baby face.

***

It was a new day, and maid Sofie woke up as soon as she heard the first crow of the roosters in the garden.

Her morning schedule started as usual. When the matter of her personal hygiene was done, she left the house to fetch water from the well in the center of the village. Her feet skipped on the dirt road cheerfully.

She enjoyed the fresh, cool air of the rural morning.

“Miss Sofie, good day to you.”

“Good day to you too, Mister Rando!”

A burly lumberjack with an axe on his shoulder greeted Sofie. Many others who were heading to the well heard the man and also said nice words to her. She replied to all with a cute grin.

She carried two jugs back to the house and let out a tired breath. It would be so much better if she had been able to do water magic, she thought. Thankfully, the well was not too far from the manor of the lord.

She tended the chores and cooked a hearty breakfast, then brought a big potion to the madam’s room.

Sofie woke the madam with a soft voice while bowing. Madam Jean slowly opened her eyes, and gave her a gentle smile.

The two women had meal together while chatting about trivial things, like the how the weather was getting colder, or the upcoming marriage of the young tailor in town. Sofie enjoyed the conversation with the kind madam. Normally, a servant should never eat on the same table with the lord of the house, but madam Jean insisted it was fine.

“What do you think about Kyle?” The madam asked an unusual question. There was uneasiness in her expression.

“He is very cute, madam! He will certainly grow up to be a handsome man!” Sofie enthusiastically answered, despite heavy feelings in her heart. “Recently he has become more energetic! He’ll grow well, madam should not worry.”

“Perhaps because you showed him ‘that’?” Jean giggled.

Sofie’s face turned red. How did madam know? She dropped her head, mumbled with guilt in her voice.

“I am sorry, madam. Should I not have done so?”

“It’s okay. I think it’s wonderful that Kyle showed interest in magic. And I have told you, Sofie, you don’t have to mind the servant’s etiquette too much in this house. I’m fine with you showing Kyle magic, just be careful with it.” Jean waved her hand dismissively.

Kyle had been a strange child from birth. He had never cried, and always had a dull look in his eyes. Jean had constant uncertain thoughts in her mind about her son’s mental health.

Sofie shared the same concerns. She had been secretly trying to make the young master cry, to no avail. She had never tended an infant before, and she found that babies were… surprisingly durable.

His intelligent look when she showed the magic flame made Sofie feel that the young master was not mentally incapable.

The child even spoke his first word a few days ago. Although his baby speech was hard to make out, but madam Jean shed happy tears when she heard the news.

He was just a bit weird. He still had a lot of time to grow and change, and Sofie vowed to make sure that he would become a man in the right direction.