Most people call me Ludi, or Lud, even though my name is Ludik. Or they do call me Ludik, but I don’t catch the k on their lips. No, it doesn’t bother me—being deaf, that is. Still, if given the choice, I would’ve gone with ugly.

There are many misconceptions about deafness, but the oddest to me is that we are void of sound, which is simply not true. Something I know all too well. And it’s with a sound that my story begins.

I was eight years old at the time, playing in Dad’s shoe shop—a cozy little place if you ignored the macabre shoe molds of all sizes lining the walls like bundles of severed feet. Dad hunched over his work like a frightened roly-poly, meticulously sewing the body of a shoe to its sole. He glanced at me every now and then, saying something with keen eyes, while I played with bootlaces and different leathery materials, testing their textures and flavors. He got up from his bench, cupping something in his calloused hands like it was alive and could escape at any moment—his apron dangling as he walked. It resembled the curtain of an abandoned house more than anything else. Dad extended his hands toward me, unveiling what he had brought. I peered inside and found what seemed to be the clipping of a giant’s toenail. Dad rubbed it with his fingertips, suggesting I do the same.

“What is it?” I asked.

A half-smile grew in his sturdy jaw. “This is the future, Lud. And I’m the first one doing it.” I loved watching Dad’s lips. So confident and excited. He poked my nose with his rough finger. “Maybe one day, I’ll teach you all about it.”

I didn’t know about that. I wanted to be an explorer and go on grand adventures, just like the heroes in the stories Mom and Dad read to me at night.

Dad returned to his workbench, focused on finishing his shoe. Snipping away the extra leather and then branding it with a hot wire—an encircled mountain with three peaks, the right one slightly bent, along a few swirly leaves and flowers in the bottom. He marked every shoe he made that way. That was another thing other shoemakers weren’t doing. But Dad always said quality work requires branding until your brand becomes your name.

Intrigued by this new material in my hand, I began to test it further. I pulled and pushed. It was strong yet very malleable. I prodded with teeth and tongue and found it tough and chewy, tasting of oil and hand soap combined. “Can I keep it?”

Dad didn’t answer, engrossed in his shoemaking. He had said he needed to get this order done, just like the ones before, so his new product could have a fighting chance in a very traditional market.

I did not wish to disturb him further, and I had other things in mind, too. Careful not to get too close to the bundles of feet hung on the wall, I passed the door leading directly into our home at the back of the workshop. I found Mom folding laundry and did my best to look innocent, heading straight for the kitchen and the door to the garden.

A rolled-up towel hit me on the back of the head. I turned.

Mom had a hand on her hip. “Where do you think you are going?” she asked from the living room. Living room is an overstatement. There were only three rooms: the kitchen-dining-living-room, the bedroom, and the bathroom. Though calling the bathroom a room was another overstatement in itself. I guess I should be grateful it was indoors, unlike most neighboring houses.

My eyes darted between her and what lay beyond the back door.

“You are not to go anywhere, remember?” she continued, her lips moving precisely and deliberately so I could read them while her hands repeated in sign language. Mom’s persistence in teaching me how to read, sign, and lip-read would prove crucial in the years to come—though I certainly didn’t appreciate it back then.

“Unless you have decided to apologize to Mr. Harin, you are staying right here with me. He is furious about that business with his fence, and I would too if I had spent all night looking for my stone-hens. I know you are listening. Don’t pretend you’re not. Here.” She pulled a notebook and a pencil from her vest pocket and scribbled something on it. She tore the paper and handed it to me.

Stay, it read. I guess my go-to “but I didn’t hear you” excuse had outgrown me quickly.

I slumped on the floor, legs crossed, pouting. Mom got back to her chore. And I got right on with scheming my exit. And as she took a rather large bed sheet from the laundry basket, perfuming the room with hints of mountain lilies and fresh mountain air, I took my shoes off.

Mom grabbed yet another bedsheet, and I found my chance. I slipped away as carefully and softly as I could, reached the door, and tip-toed out into the garden.

Beyond our garden’s stone fence, more stone fences mazed endlessly around green farming fields until they ended abruptly at the mountain’s foot. The Aureberg mountain conquered the whole northern horizon, its three peaks still covered in winter snow, one slightly bent.

I hopped to the peach tree in the middle of our garden and sat against her trunk, shaking loose more petals, which added to the growing pink carpet covering the grass.

You’re sneaking out again, the peach tree said. Not said exactly. Trees can’t talk like we do. But if they wish, and if you are willing to listen, they can make themselves heard.

“I want to hear the rest of the story.”

Do you, now? Its leaves rustled in the wind preceding another cascade of dying blossoms, from which delicious peaches would soon grow. Very well. Where did we leave off?

I pinched my chin, browsing through my memory. “So you told me how in the old days magic was everywhere, right until the Shatter, and then... oh, I know, the Worldroot tree.”

The peach tree pondered in silence—an eternity for me. So long, I thought Mom would find me before I could hear a single word of the story. Or perhaps, I should be digging another hole instead. I shouldn’t, though, not after all the trouble I got into for digging that hole under Mr. Harin’s fence. On second thought, I could not stop feeling sorry about the scaled worm I’d severed in two. Mom says they grow back, the halves becoming two distinct worms, and that what I should really feel sorry for was Mr. Harin’s fence. I wasn’t too sure about that.

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Oh, yes, the Worldroot tree, the peach tree finally said. Pure magic ran through her roots, deep into the world, binding it with another.

“Another world?” I couldn’t believe it. This world was already so big no one had seen it all, and there was still another?

Yes. Another world. If you held magic in your heart, you could travel between them. Don’t give me that look. One world is quite enough for a little boy. Think of me. Unlike you, I will never gaze over more than what you see now. Here is where my roots are. Here is where I’ll grow, where I’ll blossom, and where I’ll wither.

“Don’t worry, Peach. One day, I’ll take you to see the world.”

Don’t be foolish. This is the fate of trees. It’s how we are. It’s what we are—our nature. And to go against one’s nature is as productive as fighting a mountain. It does not matter to trees if we move or not. But we do wonder. Same as man dreams of flying.

“What happened to her?” I asked. “The Worldroot?”

A long time ago, so long that this story only survives among roots, passed on by long-living trees to long-living trees. Trees who live far longer than I, or stubborn little boys who disobey their mothers.

I giggled. Giggling always made me feel like I had hiccups, and I could never tell when others were giggling or in need of a scare.

A mage, all-powerful, tried to make this a better world. Using magic given by the old forces that guide the universe, the mage waged a long and deadly war to defeat the evils that lurked in the shadows. But such a war left deep scars in the land and held back the prosperity of life for thousands of years. It shattered the world, all in the hopes of making it a better one. The problem is, you see, no living creature will ever agree on what better means. Not now, not then, not ever. What is better for some does not necessarily mean it’s better for others. They couldn’t even agree on which evils so desperately needed to be destroyed.

Drained by the wills of the mad, the Worldroot withered, her leaves fell, and her body was left to rot. It is said she did not die, not completely; that her roots still live underground, waiting for brighter days to come when the Leohirin flourish and once again bathe in the sunlight that is their right.

“The Leo... huh?” I said.

Oh, oh. I think you are in trouble. Again.

“Me?” I spun around and met Mom’s glare, arms crossed. “I was just…” I said, failing to come up with any proper excuse. “I wasn’t doing anything. I swear.”

“I should have never told you that I speak to trees,” Mom said. Even when angry, she would take her time and speak slowly and sign to me. “If you thought you were in trouble before, wait and see—” She turned abruptly, head poking back inside the house.

Dad emerged and hastily grabbed her by her shoulders. He hugged her tightly and let her go in a heartbeat. He said something, though I could not read his lips from that angle. His face was white; his eyes desperate. Pointing at the mountain, he said something else, making his lips visible to me. “Borik just told me. They are mad,” I think he said.

I could not see what Mom replied. Her hands were all over the place as if seeding a crop or feeding birds.

The ground shook.

Mom and Dad squatted. Then it shook again, breaking their balance, and forcing them to sit down. It shook a third time. So violently that for the briefest moment I wasn’t touching the ground.

“Ludik!” Mom said, dimples appearing on her face. Dimples meant she was shouting—that’s what shouting sounded like to me back then. “Come! Quickly!” her hands shouted along.

In a quick frenzy of events, we were back inside the house. Mom was in our room stuffing clothes in a bundled bedsheet. At the same time, Dad hastily shoved as many supplies as he could into a canvas bag. Then the floor tossed us up in the air like vegetables in a frying pan.

Oddly, that did not scare me. Almost like when Dad threw me up in the air, and I felt safe because I knew he would be there to catch me.

More questions came to mind than fear. Where were we going? When would we be back? Should I bring a toy? I had some toys Dad made for me, but I always enjoyed playing with plants and dirt much more. I was reasonably sure that wherever we ended up that day, there would be plants and dirt to play with.

I looked back at the garden. I could not leave without saying goodbye to the peach tree. I tried to voice my concern, but no one was listening. So I raced toward the back door, and before I stumbled out into the garden, a massive hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. Naively, I tried to fight it.

“I want to say goodbye to the peach tree,” I protested, but Dad slung me over his shoulders as if I weighed as much as a feather pillow.

From there, I got a full view of the back window. I couldn’t quite make sense of what I was seeing. At first glance, I thought the house was falling. But falling from where? It’s a house; it’s already on the ground. Then it dawned on me it was not the house that moved. It was the mountain.

The ground trembled; pushed and pulled; contracted and stretched. The tiles from the walls came loose and shattered against the stone floor, where patterns like lighting trails spread.

Mom ran outside, and we shot out behind her. Aureberg was moving, the snow from its peaks sliding off, leaving a trail like a cloud in the sky.

And the noise. Immense. Unnatural. Terrifying. So loud it broke through my deafness and exploded in my gut.

The ground shook with brutal force—without concern for those who populated it. Wherever I looked, I saw only bedlam and chaos. People ran, tripped, fell, and cried. If I wasn’t afraid before, I was then.

The ground waved like water on a lake during a windy day. Dad fell, and I with him, sprawling aimlessly across the dirt and gravel. I scraped my face and my hands, and despite the pain and numbness, I got back to my feet. Dad did not bother with the supply bag and grabbed me by my shirt like I was the bag.

The river overflowed behind us, engulfing the village, gurgling over houses and cattle. We would not escape it. Dad lifted me back onto his shoulder, hurting my ribs. My stomach tightened like a wrung towel. We were going to die. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. The Wellers, our neighbors, whose son I used to play whilp with, disappeared under the deadly brown froth pursuing us. Their house, our house, Dad’s shoe shop, the peach tree… gone.

Mr. Harin sat casually on his porch, walking stick by his side, tea mug cupped in his hands. He didn’t try to escape. He sat there as if dying that morning had been in his plans all along. Then the bakery, the smithery, the school… They were there, and then they weren’t.

I hated myself for not understanding the urgency. I should have helped Mom and Dad instead of trying to say goodbye to the peach tree. That delay would cost our lives, the water rushing ever closer.

Then, the mountain rose higher, lifted half of the village in the air, and pushed the water out of sight. I don’t know if it’s the way time distorts memories, but I could swear I saw houses flying like the forces that bind us all to the ground had no say in it. Homes, boulders, and trees kept going up and up until they seemed to hover for a second before they all came crashing down.

We hit the ground hard. I landed on my back and hit my nape against a rock. It almost knocked me senseless. My vision blurred, head woozy. I got up with my elbows, but I couldn’t find Dad. The ground before me had parted as easily as opening a cabinet door. I forced air back into my lungs and got to my feet, but as I lurched toward where I’d last seen him, something caught the collar of my shirt and yanked me away. I witnessed in disbelief as the section of land I had just stood on crumbled into the crack, spewing thick columns of dust into the air.

“We have to help him,” I cried, fighting Mom’s clutching embrace. I wasn’t thinking, no longer in possession of a mind. “We have to help him!” I flailed, scuffled, tussled, kicked, and slapped. “Let go of me!” But Mom held on. I struggled until there was no fight left in me. She hugged me tighter, her cheeks wet against mine.

We stood there, beyond the point of uncertainty, watching Aureberg continue its path, unconcerned, inconsiderate as it plowed across the land and everything on it—mountains, deceitful things, lying with their stillness.

“Why?” I said into Mom’s shoulder. “Why did it do this? What’s it running away from?”

But Mom said nothing. For there was nothing to be said. She just hugged me close, letting her tears fall as we watched our world, our whole life disappear like it had never been.