No Cage for a Crow

One - Into the Storm

One toe found purchase, so I worked my numb fingers free of the window sill and dropped them down to seek the next handhold. One hand, one foot. Slow and steady.

'Morrigan!' Again, the voice from inside, barely heard over the thundering rain. I slid a little more and again was left clinging to the outer wall, my heart pounding in my ears. Again, I slowly recovered, inch by inch, regaining my hold and my safety. I felt like snapping at the owner of the voice, but what good would that have done? 'Don't distract me while I'm trying to run away'? He would not have heard me, anyway.

The other foot followed the first, and now I was stretched awkwardly at my full height, pressed hard up to the masonry, spanning the space between my window and the next, one arm extended straight above my head, the other drawn in tight against my side and grasping at the decorative brickwork. Addled though I was by strong emotion, I saw at once the danger of this position. While the majority of my weight rested on my toes, only the hand grasping the windowsill above prevented my toes from becoming a pivot. For the moment, in this in-between stage, the other hand served no purpose at all. Four fingertips only prevented me from tipping backward and tumbling headfirst to the street.

'God,' I thought, for the first but certainly not the last time that night. 'This is idiotic.'

I could hardly turn back, though. Going down was a challenge, but going up would have been impossible. Would have been unthinkable. The tone of the voices from within told me clearly that I was no longer wanted in that place, and even if they could eventually find it in themselves to forgive me, nothing would ever be the same. The life I had known was over, no matter which way I decided to go; down, at least, gave me a chance at deciding for myself how things would be in the future.

One hand, one foot.

Lightning flashed just above me, followed less than a second later by a thunderclap that shook my bones.

I cried out in startlement.

And I fell.

I felt my fingers clench, and I lost whatever grip I had managed to secure. I began to slip. But I was not so numb in body or in mind that I could not anticipate the consequences of such a fall.

At first, I panicked and scrabbled uselessly at the bricks with both hands, clawing at the rough surface as though I could catch hold of the tiny irregularities and hold myself fast. That was no good, though, and I knew it. In a moment, I would overbalance, pushed further and further by my own efforts at holding on. It was much too cold, much too wet, and much too late for me to catch myself. My best, my only hope, was to make my inevitable fall a good one.

I arched my body forward, pushing away from the wall with both hands and feet so that I would fall straight, land on my back with room to roll, disperse the force of the impact so it would not shatter me.

As if time had slowed, the brick and mortar floated away from my fingertips, and though I thought I knew what I was doing, I was frozen by a moment of consuming panic. I had avoided the deadly somersault that would surely have killed me but the fall could still break me, all the same.

And what then? What if I were too badly hurt to cry for help? How long would it take before someone intruded upon my privacy and found me missing? How long before someone came to look?

The moment passed as quickly as it had come upon me. I tucked up my body and bent my knees and hips, spreading my arms for balance. I had fallen as far before, and I knew how to fall well.

The pavement greeted me without any regard for what I did or did not know.

Falling to irregular cobbles was nothing at all like falling to the shrubbery beneath my window at home or like falling to soft grass beneath my favourite reading tree. No, London was out to kill me.

On any other surface, even overwrought and in the pouring rain, my landing would have been flawless. The cobbles thwarted me. I landed squarely on my two feet, but my two feet did not land squarely on the ground, and the left flew out from under me, leaving the right to bear my full weight. My ankle rolled, despite the support of its boot, with a horrible sensation like a creaking hinge. I gasped and fell to one side, striking my hip and my elbow.

For a moment, I could only lie beneath the downpour.

All right, girl, analyse.

Finding myself not-dead was a relief, of course. I had not broken my neck or my back or my skull, which was honestly one of the best things that had happened to me all day. The ankle, however, was almost definitely sprained, and I did not look forward to finding out for certain when I tried to stand on it.

There were bruises, too, but bruises were nothing new to a girl who climbed trees.

No, the worst of it was the ankle, which, even as I lay, began to ache fiercely.

I should have gone back, of course, and I knew it. I should have called out for help until someone came, or hobbled to the door and knocked. I should have mustered the courage to explain what peculiar circumstances had led me to the pavement beneath an open window amidst the blasted storm, wet and hurt and - now - sobbing, as well. I should have admitted that I was an idiot girl who did not have the good sense not to jump from great heights or to keep my mouth shut or to mind my own blasted business. An idiot unworthy of her own name.

I knew it. I considered it. I shied away from the eminent sensibility of it. What sixteen-year-old girl has ever had the grace to admit stupidity? If I was to be a fool, then by God, I would be a fool, and to the hilt!

And besides, I reasoned, I had not actually killed myself, and that had to count for something. Had to mean something. If I had been doomed to fail, then I ought to have failed immediately and completely, but I was still alive, and, deliberately forsaking reason, I chose to take that simple coincidence as a sign from above. Surely, I was fated to go.

Strengthened by that absurd conviction I pushed myself upright, shivering at the cold that crept up my legs and trickled down my back. The ankle screamed in protest, and I nearly screamed as well, but a quick rearrangement of my posture shifted my weight to my good leg, and I was able to take a few strange, hopping steps.

The drumming of the rain echoed strangely in the gray little courtyard of that house I had so come to despise. Before me, the gate yawned wide, resembling nothing so much as a huge, gaping mouth, with the dead branches of wisteria that stretched down from its arch becoming the fangs. I had the impression of waiting, of languishing in the rumbling belly of a beast that was finally about to spit me out.

Beyond the monster's teeth, the great, dismal city sprawled. If the house was a monster, then the city was its home, a jungle of brick and smoke and throbbing humanity.

I wiped the tears from my face, only to have them replaced at once with streaks of sooty rain.

Trembling now as much with terror as with cold, I stepped out into the wilderness.

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