It’s not often that a bird is afraid of flight. But this particular girl, soon to become a winged and many-feathered creature, had been beaten and bruised and injured beyond trusting, whether it be others, the forces of nature, or herself. After her ordeals, the quiet solitude of the tower was a welcome respite—better than the life she had left behind...and a gateway into a new one.
It all started when she was young, innocent and carefree in a harsh and unforgiving world. Even the best cannot escape unscathed. She especially weathered the storms. Fighting to keep her head above the bucking waves, she bailed water from her quickly-sinking ship until her muscles ached and she was sure that she’d drown. Then, miraculously, it stopped. But she was only in the eye of the storm; worse was yet to come.
The other side of the storm saw her battered with sails torn, stranded and at the mercy of the sea. The sea was cruel and it capsized her ship, sending her and everything she knew tumbling powerless into its fierce embrace. No matter how much she struggled, there was no escaping her fate. It was easier to simply give up, to relinquish her control, to let the sea drag her down into its depths, to never again see the light of day.
And that’s what she did—or tried to do. Having had its fun, the sea spit her out onto dry land and left her for dead...or so it intended. But the universe had other plans, it seemed.
Fate sent a patrol of soldiers the girl’s way, who helped in the only way they knew how: they deposited her just within the threshold of a nearby tower. Now, the towers have a reputation for being prisons, wicked and inescapable, but they can also be sanctuaries. This is what the tower was to the poor, half-drowned, and nearly-dead girl.
When she finally awoke, it was in a strange bed, foreign to her yet pleasantly soft. She had been healing for months, wrapped in comatose and blanketed by the tower’s magic. Though she knew there was no way out—for she had tried all probable exits—she did not feel trapped. In fact, for the first time in her life, she felt completely and utterly safe.
Years passed and the girl was safe in her tower home—safe and happy. Any feelings of loss she might have had for her former life were long gone, and she had settled into a comfortable routine devoid of any unpleasant people or endeavors (for there were no people and very few endeavors to be undertaken). The tower kept her fed and healthy, and she had grown quite fond of it. It was the one thing that had never let her down, and so it was a thing to be treasured.
There came a time, however, when the tower began to fade. Like so many other things in the girl’s life, it failed her with increasing regularity. A missing meal one day, a freezing night the next. Soon the girl found herself malnourished and weak, dumbfounded by the prospect—nay, the fact—that the thing that gave her life for so long could be losing its own. It was at that time that the birds began speaking to her.
“Come with me,” said an eagle one morning, dropping its delivery of fruit on the windowsill after the tower had once again failed to meet the girl’s needs. It had taken the form of a human female and was watching her with proud eyes. “Your tower is dying, and soon you will too.”
The girl thanked the eagle for its gift, but declined its plea, reluctant to leave the solidity and assurance of the ancient brick walls.
Next came a hawk, struggling under the weight of a blanket on a particularly cold evening. Its request was the same, and it offered the girl great comfort and endless freedom. Though the thought of comfort appealed to the girl as she draped the blanket over her thin, shivering frame, she turned the hawk down. Its offer was generous, but taking it would feel to her like betraying an old friend.
An owl visited in the dead of night, waking the girl with its long, sorrowful cries. “Your tower is dead,” it lamented, in the form of a small, sad-eyed girl perched atop the footboard of the girl’s bed. “Its magic can no longer sustain you. You must leave before you too wither away and die.”
The girl placed her hand flat against the cool stone of the wall and found it silent and still where it had earlier been buzzing with the (quickly fading) energy of life. That night she wept, mourning the tower’s death as only a beloved could.
It didn’t matter that the tower’s magic no longer conjured food for her to eat, for the girl felt no hunger; what fruit the birds brought sat on the table in the center of the room, neglected and rotting. It didn’t matter that the tower’s walls began to crumble and the nights bit with an increasingly bitter chill, for the girl could not sleep. She spent her minutes, her hours, her days in a binding numbness, an incapacitating apathy that left her capable of doing no more than running her fingers across the walls or staring idly out the large, open window at the sky above. Mourning occupied her time, and depression occupied her mind.
Until a certain blue jay came along, that is.
It would perch on her windowsill for hours, brightening her room with its color and brightening her mood with its song. It wasn’t the prettiest of all birdsongs, but the girl liked it best because it reminded her of herself and what she could be: scraped and scratched and imperfect, but still making an effort to live—to be free.
She began living for the little bird’s visits, eating only the food it brought her, and sleeping only when its harsh lullaby swept over her in the dark of night. Neither said anything to the other, but they both knew that the blue jay, as small as it was, had become the girl’s new sanctuary. With each passing day she grew stronger, healthier, more alive, all thanks to the respite she found in the little bird’s company.
The tower, meanwhile, was falling apart. Far from being the refuge of old, it was a hazard to the girl’s very life. The once-sturdy bricks of its walls fell like raindrops onto the grass far below, and the wooden boards of its floors creaked and sometimes gave way with the lightest footstep. The girl had nearly fallen to her death several times, and it was only a matter of time before the weight of the bed went crashing down through the floor. The blue jay visited with increasing frequency, indicating with a sweep of the wing or a bob of the head that it wished for the girl to follow, but it never broke their unspoken rule against talking. Today, however, was different.
The blue jay took form of a woman, gently shaking the girl awake. “It’s time,” the woman said, jaw set and eyes determined. “You must leave today, or you will surely die.”
The girl sat up in her bed, alarmed. Her lips parted in silent panic and it took her a moment to formulate a sentence. “But you said—”
“I never said,” interrupted the woman, reaching to help the girl out of bed. “I have asked nothing of you until today.” Her gaze softened and she pleaded, “Please, just come with me. It’s for your own safety.”
The girl recoiled from the woman’s hand, shrinking back against the headboard of the bed. She shook her head violently, fear shining bright in her eyes. At that moment the weight of the bed and the suddenness of the girl’s movements became too much for the splintering old floorboards to support. They gave way, dragging the bed—and the girl—down with it. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as she began to fall, clawing at empty air in an attempt to save herself.
Then, suddenly, she wasn’t. The woman had plucked the girl from the bed and hauled her onto the (only slightly) more stable ground in the blink of an eye. Abandoning all powers of speech, the girl flung herself into the woman’s arms and began to cry.
“We’re not quite clear yet,” the woman said, stroking the girl’s hair gently. “The tower is still collapsing.”
A quick glance around proved her to be right. The gaping hole in the floor where the bed had been (and its destructive fall down through the stairs) had absolutely shattered whatever integrity the tower had had left and set it trembling.
“We need to get out of here—now!” The woman had to shout to be heard over the groan of the crumbling tower. She pulled the girl—who had stayed her tears, for the most part—to the window, which had expanded into a large hole in the wall. Holding the girl’s hands, the woman looked straight into her eyes. “We’re going to jump. Do you trust me?”
The girl’s eyes widened in horror and she shook her head furiously. She would have pulled away, save for the fact that they were sharing the only remaining patch of floor; the rest had fallen away.
The woman began whistling a tune—the blue jay’s song—as she cupped the girl’s face in her hands. “This is the only way,” she said once the short melody was finished. “You’re going to have to trust me.”
The blue jay’s song resonated in the girl’s heart and she nodded, steeling her nerves. She allowed the woman to position her on the edge of the yawning hole, to be steadied against the wind by her hands. And, at the woman’s nod, the girl allowed herself to fall forward, away from the tower that she held so dear—away from the tower and into the sky.
Following the woman’s example, the girl spread her arms wide and felt them sprout feathers, felt herself shrink and change until she was a bird, just like her savior. A blue jay. She was, in that moment, everything she aspired to be: alive, free, and at peace.
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