The Glass Garden

Her mother used to say she was born from the rain.

The night Eilonwy came into the world, lightning veined the sky with fire, and the river beside their home rose until it kissed the doorstep. Her mother would tell her she cried as if trying to outmatch the thunder.

Eilonwy never outgrew her love for storms, how the sea seemed to rebel against the sky's fury. Even as a child, she would stand barefoot on the porch, hair plastered to her cheeks, watching water slide down leaves and glass.

Before she learned to speak, Eilonwy learned to listen. There was a rhythm to the world that no one else seemed to hear, the language of rain, the hum of distant thunder, and the gentle shifting of wind. To her, they were lullabies.

She spent hours by the window, collecting moments the way others collected stones: a bird's call, the drip of rain, the way light folded around her fingertips. When the world grew too loud, she would close her eyes and imagine another place, one that listened back.

She thought of those moments often, long after childhood had faded. In her quiet house at the edge of town, surrounded by books, herbs, and half-written stories, she sometimes caught herself humming.

And on the night the Garden awoke, the rain sang louder than it ever had before.