"Return is a kind of motion the world forgets to count."
— Unknown, unknown
When the door shut behind us, Richard looked at it for a long while. I think he was hoping that it would open again, or that he would be able to listen in on what the grown-ups were saying, but that was hopeless - the seals in the room would have stopped that. Maybe he was hoping he'd suddenly turn invisible and be able to sneak back in. Soon enough, he stopped staring and turned back to me.
"What now?" he asked, still sort of stuck in that voice he made around adults. The kind that sounded younger and less mature, as if he was pretending to be a child and wasn't one already.
Well, I knew what now. I'd been waiting to show him.
"This way," I said, leading him past the kitchen and through the living room into the study, where we used to spend all day reading.
The study wasn't as magical as the inner room, but there was magic in the words - magic in the books we read together: the ability to paint pictures in our minds. I went straight to the low drawer under the corner desk - my desk, also known as the one that mother never locked because "anything that's in there is too boring to steal." That's what she said, but that's where I kept that gift she got me.
I reached in and pulled it out: a thick, dark blue cover without a title, and a little bend at the corner from where I once dropped it. The golden trim had somewhat faded, but still shimmered if you tilted the book at just the right angle.
Richard raised an eyebrow.
"That's your secret treasure?"
"Found it on the Day of Wits. Mother took me to some cultivator market - don't tell anyone - and there was this old man with a crooked cane and one leg. Mother said I could choose anything in the market, but I thought a book would be best - that way we could read it together, and you can't grow out of a book, can you? Anyway, we circled back after buying the book, and the stall vanished. Like actually vanished."
Richard didn't laugh. He just frowned a little and came closer.
"It's a cultivation book," I said, opening it to the first page.
But it wasn't a normal cultivation book. Not to me.
The pages were blank, but, occasionally, the pages would get warmer, and some writing would slowly appear. Faint, at first, but would deepen in colour after a while. The writing looked familiar - the letters were all the same, but I couldn't understand what was written. There were also a couple of drawings, or runes, or something on there - I wasn't too sure, since it made no sense to me.
But I could still feel something in it.
The pages hummed. Not out loud, but in my chest. Like wind whistling past your ribs when you run too fast downhill. Like the book wanted me to move, to run, to go. And, sometimes, when I flipped a page, I felt a push. Like the book was teasing me, like it was saying "go on, then, try."
I held the book out to Rich.
"You can read it, right?"
He blinked, and his face for once had a sense of surprise.
"How did you know?"
I didn't know. Not with proof, but something to me screamed that he knew. His eyes were already halfway down the page before I gave it to him, his eyes tracing each line just too quickly, too perfectly. Like he was remembering something, like the words meant something to him, rather than just a couple of nonsensical scribbles.
Plus, I once fell asleep trying to read the book, and dreamt of Richard reading it. It was like the book was telling me to give it to him.
"You just can," I repeated.
Slowly, Richard took the book, and stared at the pages.
Not like when people read hard books with big words, but like someone had opened a window to a place he thought was gone forever.
He didn't move for a while, but his eyes starting to tear up. I didn't mention it though - people don't like it if you do that.
So I sat there, on the floor, crosslegged. Waiting.
"What does it say?" I asked, after the silence stretched far too long for my patience.
His mouth moved a little before the words came out.
"It's about cultivation techniques... speed ones, I think. Wind steps, and something called 'Return Cadence.' Fancy name for a kind of running techniques."
That was all? Wind steps?
I tilted my head. "Show me."
So he read the book out loud to me, faltering every now and then, or explaining concepts to me because "they don't have an exact translation." The words didn't sound like any cultivation book I'd asked mother to show me. They were strange and flowy, like poetry with teeth, and, as he read them, the room changed - I felt a tickle in the air. Some sort of shift. Like the planks in the floor remembered being a tree once.
He didn't read everything. I could tell.
Some parts he flipped past too quickly, and his voice hesitated for a bit when he did, like he'd just remembered something sad.
I pointed out a small section which I was sure he had skipped, and asked him what it meant. He just shook his head, and said it was "some stuff about the philosophy about motion - boring stuff, trust me."
But I didn't trust him, not really at least. It wasn't a lie-lie, but more like when someone hides a sweet in their pocket and pretends they ate it. But this sweet felt a bit heavier, like it had a secret inside. Like the way people hide something when they're scared someone will take it away. But, still, I let him. Because if I couldn't trust Rich, I couldn't trust anyone.
And, besides, the parts he did read were beautiful.
Words like "wind-born balance" and "momentum memory" and "the art of leaving before the world notices you were there." He made them seem real, and I could feel them in my bones.
And, sometimes, just sometimes, the page flickered. Only for a second, but I saw it. The ink shimmered, not like gold, but, like... like a memory trying to become real.
He carried on reading all the way to the end of the chapter, slowing down nearer to the finish line. He read one part softly to himself, almost like he didn't mean to say it out loud.
"This text drifts only into the hands of those who share memories of the same sky I still miss."
Silence.
A lone tear dropped from Rich's eye onto the page, but I looked away. It was better not to press or ask him, or he'll start avoiding me again like he did at daycare.
But he looked so sad. Much worse than when I first met him. Much sadder than anyone I had ever seen before.
He coughed, eventually, no longer looking into the distance.
So I asked him a question.
"Can you teach me the running bit?" I asked.
He smiled, faintly. "Yeah, I think I can."
We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to copy one of the techniques - Return Cadence. He explained it like a dance - step lightly, fall forward, twist your breath, and snap back as quickly as you can. So that it looks like you never moved in the first place.
I couldn't get it right. But he said I was closer to it than he was. He wasn't light on his feet, after all.
"Twist your breath," Rich said. I tried. I hiccupped instead. He laughed so hard he fell over backwards.
After a while, my feet felt lighter, like I could almost feel the air pushing me back up. I could almost feel the air pulling at my sleeves, like the wind wanted to help me.
Eventually, I managed to get the beginning steps right, but would spin too far and tumble onto the cushion pile. We both laughed when that happened. Rich laughed a little too hard. Like he needed to laugh to forget something.
All that practice ended up draining my Qi, and I soon leant my head against the bookshelf and closed my eyes for a bit. The lantern in the hallway hummed softly, and the sound reminded me of wind through tall grass.
When I sat up again, he was staring at the book. Not reading, but staring at it. Like it was his book, made for him.
I didn't know what kind of book it really was, but I knew it was strange, important, and definitely sad.
Maybe, just maybe, the book was meant to find him.
Because some books wait for the right person.
And some people wait for the right book.
And this book had been waiting a very long time.
Rich soon looked up and saw that I had awoken. He crawled over towards me with a piece of paper containing scribbly diagrams and arrows and words I couldn't pronounce. But the lines made sense, like some sort of map.
"A map for my feet," I said.
He grinned. "Exactly."
We sat there for a while longer, still waiting for our parents to be done talking. To be done strategising. The world around us may have suddenly changed, but, here, in the study we both consider a second home, it was like nothing had happened. Here, we could forget about fear and danger. Here, we were safe.
I didn't know what tomorrow would be like, or even this evening.
But for now, I had a book full of wind, a friend who could read it, and a map for my feet.
That was enough.
That was everything.