Fate walked among them. It breathed the same air, followed the same paths, watched the same sunsets, and was as real and present as the sand and the sea, yet only Banni knew It for what It was. Only Banni saw.

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Born without feet, Banni could only sit and watch the lives that were lived around her, unable to participate in them, for she was admonished if she tried to crawl along the sand. “You are human, Banni, not animal,” her parents told her. “You have a soul. Don’t behave as the soulless do.” Sometimes the other children would sit with her, but they quickly became bored of the kinds of games she could play and left to go run and jump and climb and swim, and the echoes of their laughter stayed in Banni’s ears until someone came to fill them with a new sound. Not many people had the time to spend with Banni.

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Because she spent so much time alone, watching, she began to notice the patterns of life in the village, how the others moved around each other and how they moved through the world. Then she saw the patterns of the world itself. Some everyone knew, of course: the changing of the seasons, the moods of the tides, the faces of the moon. But Banni had more time to see and to think than anyone else, and she began to realize that she saw something that no one else did. For sometimes the village was alive, and sometimes it was not.

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Oh, the people always went about their lives, working and playing or resting and learning as the seasons dictated. Food had to be harvested, prepared, stored away; homes had to be built, repaired, or torn down; children grew and elders withered. The wind blew in the trees and the waves lapped against the shore. The world went on. But there was no life to it. Something was missing.

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Banni could hardly explain it even to herself, so it was of little surprise when no one seemed to understand what she was telling them. Elder Laito, one of those who had the most patience to spare Banni, told her, “Life ebbs and flows, like the sea. Sometimes it is still, or seems to be, but life is always happening. It only stops when we die.”

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Banni’s mother thought she was complaining of boredom and gave her a stern lecture. “Your life is hard, my child, but it is also easy, for you may rest while we all must labor. Don’t let your imagination run with the tides. Ground yourself in what you have and what you can do. Life will satisfy you if you don’t ask for more than you are allotted.”

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What she did not understand, the girl thought, was that watching was what Banni could do. It never occurred to her to think that what she saw might only be her imagination. No, Banni was certain that it was real, and that it was somehow important. She decided that she needed to know more before she shared her thoughts again.

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