Excerpt:
Old Marjorie nodded, signaling that the tale was done, but there was no response. She peered down. In the dim light she could just see that Ardwin’s eyes were closed. She could hear him breathing rhythmically. The potion had worked at last. I could have ended the tale sooner, she thought, and saved my breath. Ah well, what’s done is done. If I had stopped too soon, he might have waked and then I’d be up all night telling him tales.

She rubbed her elbow, always stiff in damp weather. Her eyelids grew heavy and slowly drooped shut. Her head swayed until her chin settled on her chest. The torch stub gave off one last, dying puff or smoke, then guttered out. Marjorie began to snore.
But Ardwin was not actually asleep. He was drifting back and forth, like a leaf in the tide, between the world of his bedroom and the world of his dreams.

It always began in the marshes, with him feeding beside his five older brothers.
Lifting his beak from the weeds and muck, he’d say, “We have no house, but have wings. Let’s see how high they can lift us! Who will come?” When the others showed no interest, he went alone.

He set off, wings beating, running along the surface of the water. When he treaded only air, he tucked his webbed feet under his body and began climbing. Stretching his long neck, he pushed on, flapping his wings, rising higher still, up and up to where the air was cold and thin and the horizon spread forever. Mountains rose from beneath the world’s rim and grew tall and forbidding. The wind roared. Still he flew on, striving higher.

Thousands of swans, looking like white midges, swarmed over the blue sea far below. The pale marshes looked like sea foam; the glacier glistened like a blue-green gem. Even the highest mountaintops were beneath him, pennants of snow rippling from their peaks, white and sheer.

Black spots swam before his eyes. His lungs burned, yet he was filled with joy. At this great height, the world seemed his alone. He felt like a god, wild and free!
For a time he floated, wings outspread, the world below. Then he dove. The wind clawed his eyes, buffeted his shoulders and chest, and bent his wings dangerously. He folded his wings in tight, lest the hollow bones break, and then he plummeted like a stone.

In warmer, rising air, he began a series of shallow dives to bleed off the terrific speed. He glided down until river again foamed over rocks, the blue sea splashed against a solid shore, the glinting marshes formed his narrow horizon, and the tiny specks he had seen from so high above were once more his own swan brothers. Back down he flew, landing among them with a splash exhilarated and exhausted.

Once he had been caught in a powerful storm. An updraft flung him high into the great black thunderhead, boiling overhead. His rain-soaked wings were soon glazed with ice. Nearly frozen, he was tossed about helplessly by the furious winds. He was bruised, battered, and terrified. Lightning seared the air, and thunder split the sky with an ear-shattering BOOM! My wings will be ripped off! My bones will shatter! he thought in panic. Then, somehow, by the merest chance – or was it? – the madly churning winds tossed him free. He flew on, dazed, ears ringing. When he made it back down, he collapsed on the shore of the lake. It took him days to recover.

Ardwin lay in his bed now, half awake, trying to recapture that world of mountains, forests, rivers, and seas that had been his, so recently, and once upon a time.

Outside his window distant thunder rumbled faintly, and lightning flickered. The storm had almost drifted away.

Old Marjorie’s snores were fading too. Ardwin, letting go at last, tumbled into sleep.