The old woman stopped spinning and took a couple moments to regain her equilibrium.  “You’re talking about the song, I assume?”

“Of course.”

“Well, let’s find out.  Run into that wall.”

He stared at her.  She stared back, seemingly watching for some kind of response.  She didn’t get one, though; he simply stared right back, wondering when his life would start making sense again.

The old woman broke the silence.  “Hear anything?”

“No . . .”

“Then I guess you’re free.”

He searched the corners of his mind, but there was no trace of the Song of Mastery.  Then, unable to restrain himself, he raised his flute to his lips, and there it was again—not a series of notes but a series of breaths and finger patterns.  He lowered the flute, and once again it was gone.

“There must have been a better way to test it than that.”

She shrugged.  “I still don’t know how it got you in the first place.  How am I supposed to know when it wears off?”

“I’m not really free, you know,” she said, while Peter was still trying to come up with an appropriate farewell.  “I’m not handcuffed to a garbage can anymore—and don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for that.  But I’m still stuck in here.”  She lifted her hands to encompass all of Simon Park Station.

“Show me,” Peter said, before his brain could catch up with his tongue.

“What?”

“Show me that you’re really trapped here.”

“You’re seriously asking a fragile old woman to throw herself against an invisible wall?”

It did sound cruel.  She had caused him a fair amount of suffering that day, but he wasn’t interested in revenge.  The woman was right: he had to see it to believe it.  “Just once.  And anyway, you just told me to run into a wall.  It’s only fair.”

“If I do, will you agree to help me?”

“Sure.”

More often than not, it is the shortest words that are the most life-changing.