LQ was an uncannily happy sprite. He never cried or fussed. He could be left unattended for long periods of time. He did not seek the company of other children, and he seemed content to be alone. In contrast with his long gestational period, his infancy was brief. He had the behavior and size of an eight-year-old by the time he was two. LQ was such an easy child that, to Emily, he sometimes seemed more like a doll than a human being. “He is easier to grow than a carrot,” she remarked.
The house in the Upper Foglands was by the water, and as soon as LQ was old enough, Emily taught him to swim. LQ easily got the hang of swimming, and each time they went out, he wanted to swim farther. “You must always check your hearts, and make sure you use no more than half of them, before you return,” Emily warned.
“Yes, Mama,” LQ said.
LQ and Emily would swim exactly two screens out, and then they would return.
“How many screens is the ocean?” LQ asked.
“Nine or ten screens deep.”
“How do you know?”
“I have swum to the end.”
“And what is at the end?”
“A sort of fog, and then a nothingness that is like a wall. You shall grok it when you come to it.”
LQ nodded. “Is it awfully frightening, Mama?”
“No, it’s nothing to fear. It’s just the end.”
“I want to see it,” LQ said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Because I have never seen it.”
“One day, when you are a stronger swimmer, and you have more hearts.”
That night when LQ was sleeping, Emily reported this conversation to Daedalus. “What do you make of it?”
“I think it is natural to want to know the boundaries of your world,” Daedalus said. “We should encourage him in his explorations. He is a strong child, and he cannot hurt himself very badly. Shall I get out the Go board?”
In most respects, it was an ordinary marriage, punctuated by competitive rounds of Go. Indeed, Emily felt the greatest intimacy with Daedalus when they were playing games together.
She confessed to Alabaster, “There must be more to life than working and swimming and playing Go.”
“The boredom you speak of,” Alabaster said. “It is what most of us call happiness.”
“I suppose.”
Alabaster sighed. “This is the game, Emily.”
“What game?”
Alabaster rolled their lilac eyes. “You are happy, and you are bored. You need to find a new pastime.”
“Did I ever tell you that I used to build engines?” Emily said.
“No, I don’t think you did.”
“Once, I built one that made the light of the sun. And I built another one that made the fog.”
“Impressive. I did not know engines had these Promethean capabilities. Perhaps you should return to doing that, then?”
SPECIAL EVENT: SUPER BLIZZARD TERRORIZES FRIENDSHIP
At the end of March, Daedalus went to Eidetic Bluffs to perform eye examinations for the settlement’s school. “It takes an entire day to get to the Bluffs,” Emily grumbled. “If they want glasses so badly, why shouldn’t they come to you?”
“It is thirty children, Em,” Daedalus said. “What if it was LQ who could not see?”
“You are soft-hearted.”
The blizzard began not long after Daedalus had left for the Bluffs. Emily didn’t worry too much about the doctor because the worst that happened in Friendship was that one ran out of hearts. Even if Daedalus had gotten caught in the storm, eventually, the doctor would recharge and then she would return.
Three days after the blizzard, Daedalus still had not returned. The snow had begun to thaw, so Emily left Ludo Quintus with Alabaster, and she rode out to Eidetic Bluffs, where they informed her that Daedalus had never arrived.
On the fourth day, Daedalus’s horse returned to the stable in the Valley without her mistress.
Emily spoke to the Editor, and despite her aversion to posting, she had him put a notice on the Friendship Hutch about Daedalus’s disappearance. “Ms. Marks,” the Editor said, “there are times when people leave our world without explanation. We must—”
“Skip.”
On the fifth day, Emily searched again. This time, she took only roads she had never been on before. This led her to southwestern Undiscovered Friendship, where the land was cheap and sere. She rode past several ranches, an aviary, an exotic plant nursery, a piano store, a spa, a small amusement park, a museum devoted to old technology, a horse breaker, an arcade, a casino, an explosives warehouse, and other businesses that were too large, anachronistic, or aesthetically inappropriate to be contained downtown. No one that she encountered had seen Daedalus. At the arcade, a man in a seersucker suit suggested she try the caves, as people sometimes took refuge in them. “It’s hard to find the entrance,” he warned. “Some people say it moves.”
She circled the perimeter of the mountain. The sun had gone down, but some light remained. She decided she would search until the light was gone before turning back. In the final moments of dusk, when she had almost given up, a reedy voice called out, “I’m here.”
“I’m coming!” Emily turned Pixel around, and they backtracked slowly. She spotted an oddly shimmering place in the rocks. She dismounted her horse and she walked through the nebula, into a cavern. Inside was Daedalus, barely alive and her right hand a disturbing shade of black. Daedalus said her horse had been spooked and had thrown her, just as the blizzard had begun. She had gone into the cave for shelter. “I think there may be an injury to my hand,” Daedalus said before she passed out.
Emily nursed Daedalus through recovery. Before long, it became clear to Emily that if Daedalus were to survive, her hand would need to be amputated. Daedalus said she would rather be dead than lacking her hand, to which Emily replied that she would be dead if she had both hands. The amputation could not be avoided.
The recovery was short physically, but long emotionally. Daedalus was quite despondent and refused to leave her house or even her bedroom. For a time, she would neither speak to nor even see Ludo Quintus.
“I honestly didn’t know this could happen here,” Emily said.
“You should leave me,” Daedalus said. “I am now a useless person. I shall never be able to make lenses again.”
“I don’t think it’s possible for me to leave you.”
“Then I’ll leave you. I’ll swim to the end of the ocean, and I’ll never come back.”
“With whom would I play Go?” Emily began setting up the pieces on a table by Daedalus’s bed.
“I don’t wish to play,” Daedalus said. And yet, when Emily placed the first white stone on the board, Daedalus could not help but place the next black one. Each afternoon, Emily would move the Go board a little farther from Daedalus’s bed. In this way, Daedalus joined the world again, though she would not concede to leave the house or return to her optometry practice.
Several weeks later, Emily came to Daedalus with a proposal. “It is almost Christmas, and I was thinking how much I enjoyed making that Go board for you. I had a thought that we could make games for other people in Friendship. Even with the loss of your hand, I feel certain you could craft the pieces—the making of pieces requires a less precise craft than the making of lenses, I imagine. LQ is older now and he is fit to be your apprentice. I could make the boards, and we could sell our wares for the holidays. What do you think?”