14 Steps (2/2)

”Come on! Crawl for dada,” he cooed.

Mother let out a snort of laughter at my flailing limbs. Now she was the one crossing her arms.

”Carlo, you're being ridiculous.”

”Come on Osci! Come ooon,” father continued, paying her no attention.

I felt slightly embarrassed about the sorry state father was putting himself in. It was definitely my fault. He hadn't dreamed it at all.

I decided to play along a bit. I let my elbows and knees down and pushed myself up.

”See? See!”

Father took away his hands, and I teetered from side to side. I had to make this seem difficult.

”Come to me Osci! Come here,” he beckoned. Mother was silent now, watching intently.

I pushed my right arm forward and collapsed a bit.

”Stop this, he's gonna hurt himself!”

”Don't worry. He's got it.”

I brought my left leg forward. Then my left arm. Then my right leg. I made small, bumbling steps toward father. After three steps, I pretended to collapse, and he caught me.

”Haha! Did you see that? Now that's impressive,” father cheered, letting out a long, rumbling laugh.

”Sure. But that was so hard for him!” She sounded embarrassed. ”There's no way he could do that two months ago.”

Father laughed again.

”It's the northern blood in him!” He stood up and brought his face close to hers. ”He gets it from me you know?”

Mother sighed, ignoring him. She took me from his arms and put me in the cot.

”It's bedtime now!” she called. It sounded forced, and father noticed. He strode out of the room, humming a little victory tune.

After father left, she planted a kiss on my forehead.

”Well done sweetie. Sleep tight.”

When she left, I did my cultivation for the night, then settled into light meditation. By now I had explored my whole body, so all I had to do each night was find any new pathways.

Over the next week, I built up my parents' expectations of my crawling ability. By the end of the week, they knew that I could at least crawl from the nursery to the study.

Finally, I could explore the house! Being stuck in two rooms and the courtyard had long since grown dull. I wanted to see something new.

Unfortunately, mother kept a watchful eye over me at all times. I understood her reluctance to let me explore the courtyard, but she didn't even let me go into other rooms.

One morning I stopped meditating early. I wanted to explore before she woke up. I pushed open the latch and jumped out of the cot. For big movements, I just had to channel some qi.

I tried to jump and reach the door handle, but I fell just shy of it. I channelled qi into my fingertips and prised the door open instead.

Looking around me, I wondered where to explore first. I didn't want to accidentally meet mother, so the left wing of the house was a no-go area.

First on my agenda was the room behind the study. I saw father pull a chair from there once before and wanted to know what was inside.

I crawled over to the study, staying quiet so I wouldn't alert anyone. I prised open this door and crawled in.

To my surprise, the sliding door was already open. I crawled over, into what looked like a library. The library didn't interest me one bit, because something else captured my attention.

At the opposite end of the library, there was another open sliding door. Through it, I saw a hulking beast of a man, dancing on a flagstone patio.