hold on tight. When he clicked his tongue, she felt the bird’s wings brush her cheeks and the wind swallow
them whole.
Theo urged Maggie to open her eyes and look down. She did as she was told and saw the roads and
cars, trees and buildings growing smaller beneath her. Theo turned back to her, but his smile disappeared as
he saw her feet. He asked where her yellow clogs had gone. Maggie shrugged and wiggled her toes, feeling
the current of cold air in between. She looked down at the world beneath them—everything as finely detailed
as a painting— and thought of Neal. Down below, at home, perhaps Neal was already up, trying to put his
easel back together. He would be sitting on the floor, looking for the missing screw. He would find it near the
couch, and when he picked it up he would see the thread coiled around it, with Maggie’s yellow clog tied to its
end. It would be hardly bigger than a grain of rice, but what falls on his palm would unmistakably be a shoe.
As the bird took her still higher into the sky, Maggie smiled and imagined how, at last, she would loom large
and everlasting in his memory.
16
Cauldron Anthology