“Ow! Why are we doing this?” Lily asked as she squirmed.

“Either two things are happening right now. First, Kessel could have figured out how to start the plane, in which case I’d have heard it, but I didn’t. So that leaves the second option: He couldn’t figure it out and he’s coming after me. You saw how friendly that lot was. I’m sure they can track a scent and we need to lose ours,” she said. She had led Lily all around the industrial sector of town leaving their scent all over and acquiring new ones before picking an inn to rest in for the night. “All clean. Now, put those new clothes on.” She pointed Lily to the garments laying on the bed. Alicia finished scrubbing herself, toweled off, and dressed in an itchy wool dress too. Alicia threw her necklace over her head and tucked the keys under her collar. She shoved her pistol and her university seal into a satchel and dumped their old clothing into a burlap sack and asked Lily to bring it below to be incinerated.

While Lily was away, Alicia drew the curtains shut and checked her gun. She loaded a fresh magazine into the Luger and holstered it. As soon as Lily walked through the door, Alicia said to her, “Get some rest. I’ll keep watch.”

While Lily slept, Alicia stayed by the window watching the city. In the early hours of the morning a cacophony of howls broke the night’s silence. Lily awoke and joined Alicia at the window sill. In the distance, men, transformed into wolves, stood on rooftops calling to one another. Atop their inn they heard the scratching of claws against the stone as one of them ran and jumped off the rooftop to another. Lily gripped Alicia by the shoulder; she was shaking and mumbling a prayer in a tongue Alicia had never heard before. All through the night Alicia could see silhouettes of the wolves running and crawling about the roofs trying to place their scent. “Go back to bed.” Lily slept against her shoulder for the rest of the night.

When dawn broke, Alicia and Lily dressed in traveling cloaks that Alicia had purchased the night before, and headed to the pub below for breakfast. As they ate bread and cheese, several men entered the pub. The muscular man leading the troupe pulled up to the bar and in a boisterous voice announced: “Round of drinks for me and my men!”

“What’s the occasion?” The barkeep asked as he filled a stein.

“This fat fellow, some Doctor, asks us to move this big ruddy thing that he’s got hidden under a tarp. He says he’ll pay us double to do it now instead of in the morning. I say fine. He won’t say what it is. So I ask for double that. We’re moving it through the town square to the train yard, my men are tired and we stop. Hey, it’s late, right? Well he triples the double on the double. We’re rollin’ in it!”

Lily and Alicia made eye contact but neither girl said anything. When they finished eating, Alicia led Lily past the drunken movers and headed down the noonday street. She dragged Lily through a bazaar and then to the cobblestone streets of the main part of town and followed the signs to the train yards on Morgan Street. Across the road, Alicia recognized the human form of one of the wolfmen from the previous night. He entered a door with the number “137″ whitewashed over it.

“That must be the warehouse,” Alicia said as she put her coin purse in Lily’s hands. “There’s a train coming for Atolari. I want you to buy two tickets. I’m going to take a look inside. Go on.” Lily hid herself beneath her hood and walked with a brisk pace down the street. In front of Alicia was a growing queue of horse-drawn carts with boxes of merchandise. They were heading into warehouse “134″. Alicia walked alongside one of the carts and kept her eyes peeled. Once she was certain that no one was looking she jumped into one of the covered carts and tucked herself under the tarp. She waited to be caught but no one noticed.

Once inside, Alicia took a quick glance around, but everyone was busy working to notice her. She made a beeline for a door with the number “134″ over it. She exited into the train yard. Locomotives whistled hello and goodbye as they sped by one another blowing big billowing towers of steam. Warehouse “137″ was a couple of buildings down. She pressed herself against the the brick wall, and spied on two bald men in cloaks guarding the door. The guards growled as they pushed the doors open to allow a flatbed car inside. Alicia winced as the metal doors scraped their way along the rails, but she took the opportunity to open the side door and slip inside.

From behind some shelves, she saw her plane, wrapped and tied, hovering over the floor held up by several ropes. Underneath, Doctor Kessel gave instructions for loading onto the flatbed. She counted a dozen bald men in traveling cloaks – all wolves in sheep’s clothing. She had enough bullets but one shot would give her away. With the plane loaded and wheeled out, Kessel and his men left the warehouse. Alicia hurried to the train platform and found Lily.

“Did you find it?” Lily asked.

“Did you get the tickets?”

“I had enough for two. I saw Doctor Kessel board one of the noble cars up front.” Alicia peeked over Lily’s shoulder at the green cars at the head of the train.

“His entourage?”

“He was alone,” Lily said.

Alicia took both train tickets. “You’re not coming aboard. I want you to fly after the train. Keep an eye on the last car. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“But where are you going?”

“To test a theory.” Alicia hid under her hood and boarded the train. She took a seat on a bench by the window. It took another twenty minutes to fill the car to maximum capacity before it pulled out of the station. Alicia turned her eye to each passenger. Most of the travelers were families with young children – she hoped that she could pull this off without causing anyone harm. Not a sign of the bald men that guarded Kessel were in sight. The train cut through the woods surrounding Lebenwald, but as far as Alicia could see much of the wood was floating down a river to a lumber mill. Alicia waited a little longer for the train to pick up speed and did some mental calculations. “That ought to do it,” she mumbled and excused herself. She pushed the door open for the next car, a cargo hold filled with boxes and luggage. Two of Kessel’s guards turned towards her.

“Ladies room?” she asked. The guards snarled. Alicia backed out of the car and opened the door leading outside. The trees whipped by in a blur. Alicia found a ladder on the side of the train, swung herself onto it and climbed up. On top of the car she crouch walked across the flat center of the roof. She could see her beautiful mechanical bird on the flatbed at the end of the train.

Two giant claws gripped the side of the car and a wolfman swung itself onto the rooftop. It roared at her, narrowed its eyes, and swiped at Alicia. She fell backwards; the wolfman shredded her cloak sleeve. Alicia pulled out her Luger and fired twice. The wolfman twisted left and right as the bullets impacted in his chest. She closed one eye and shot him in the foot. His foot slipped, split his legs, and he slid off the curved side of the car’s roof crying all the way down. Alicia crawled along the top to the end of the car. As she climbed down the ladder, she saw the other wolfman on the roof heading towards her.

On the flatbed, Alicia undid the knots tying her plane down to the car.

“Hold it right there!” She turned to face Doctor Bartram Kessel and his Luger. He stood in the doorway of the luggage car.

Alicia kept working. “You won’t shoot me!”

“What makes you so sure?”

“You can’t fly the plane.”

“Because you still have the keys! All I have to do is shoot.”

“I’ll fall off the train. How will you find my corpse?”Alicia undid the last of the bindings and the tarp billowed and peeled off the plane and flung itself into the distance. “I’ll be taking this now.” The wolfman jumped down onto the flatbed and growled at her.

“She’s got the keys, get them from her!” Kessel screamed before closing the door.

The wolfman’s mouth salivated for her flesh and the claws glistened in the high sun. Alicia fired two rounds at him but the wolf was faster and shucked and shimmed around them and lunged at her. Alicia dived under the plane’s fuselage and the wolf smacked his head hard against the wing. He shook it off and reached for her with a claw. She dodged and rose on the other side. As she stood, the wolf crashed on her and flattened her to the floor again. The gun popped from her hand and bounced across the flatbed.

She twisted to the side and got a face full of the wolf’s teeth and a nose full of a rotting flesh stench from its mouth. She tried to move but the wolfman sat on her. The wolf raised its arms ready to dig its claws into her. She shut her eyes. Was this the end?

A whiny, whimpering yelp came from her executioner. Alicia opened her eyes to see the wolfman flying into the blue sky. Caw! Caw! Alicia stood up. “Lily!” She smiled. The wolf thrashed at the bird but the giant talons held on to it. Lily reached down with her beak snatched the wolf’s head and rent it from the body and spit it into the woods below.

Alicia got to her feet, gripped the side of her plane, and climbed into the cockpit.

“Kill her! Kill her!” She could hear Doctor Kessel scream. Alicia pulled the two keys from around her neck and insert them into the dashboard and fired the engine up. The propeller at the nose spun up. A new wolfman jumped onto the nose of the craft. Alicia glanced out the slide window. The trees were whipping by fast now. Maybe seventy miles per hour she figured.

“You’ll never get away!” Kessel shouted. “You’re trapped. You’re dead!”

The wolfman growled at her. There was no time to check the flaps to make sure everything was working. Now or never. Alicia grabbed the yoke and pulled back. Up, up, they went off the flatbed. She glanced out and saw the wolfman panic and latch onto the hull of the plane. They were flying. It worked! “Bye,” Alicia said as she flipped the plane upside down. Everything inside crashed against the roof of the plane. The wolfman yelped and disappeared from her view. Alicia righted the plane and put on her goggles. She saw the train below and an angry Kessel shaking his cane at her. Between the train and the plane was Lily. Caw! Caw! Alicia turned the plane around and with Lily at her side they flew back to the Watchmaker’s home.

“Unfortunately, no,” the Watchmaker said. “But, I’ll think of something.” He left the room. Alicia finished pulling the last of the splinters out from Lily’s fingertips and set the pliers aside. She picked up one of the Watchmaker’s journals and began poring through the pages on bird anatomy.

For the past month, Alicia committed herself to studying under the Watchmaker. Before he allowed her to step foot in the laboratory and try anything, he handed her his journals and notebooks and commanded her to read them. Alicia absorbed herself in his theories on building calculating machines — it was the basis for all of the Watchmaker’s creations. She picked it up in no time, and now, she was ready to construct her own mechanical toy.

She choose to build a canary. As a child, she had seen live ones when traveling merchants visited their village, but her parents never had any money left over for one. While waiting on Lily, Alicia had built the bird’s wireframe body and tinkered with building the core calculator to run it. All of the bits and pieces sat on Lily’s nightstand.

At noon, Alicia took her lunch in the mansion’s courtyard. The sundry machines, that surrounded her, went about their business watering the garden, pruning the bushes, or cutting the grass.

CRASH! Alicia glanced skyward and jumped to her feet. CAW! CAW! A massive black bird blotted out the sun, and with a few flaps, it zoomed right over the walls guarding the house. Alicia scrambled up the stairs to Lily’s room. The Watchmaker stood by the remains of the wall in which the bird burst through. He pulled a brick from the side and dropped it on the floor. The bed had been snapped in two, and the nearby walls and nightstand were shredded and poked apart. Alicia picked up the gears and mashed wireframe body of her toy canary and set them back on the nightstand.

“That giant bird took her,” the Watchmaker said.

Alicia surveyed the damage. “Funny,” she said. “Most of the glass is on the outside. The bird would have had to break into the house some other way, fly here, and then carry her out.”

“There’s no way, I would have heard it.”

“In either case, I need to take the plane out.” Alicia said picking up a black feather.

By mid-afternoon, Alicia was back in the skies. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen and the sun shone brightly. She opened the canopy to let the wind rush over her skin. “It’s been a long time,” she told herself with a smile. Alicia flew over the ground low enough so she could keep an eye to the skies and another one on the land ahead for any sign of the bird. A black feather twirled across her sights. A mutilated cow in a fallow field caught her eye along with more black feathers. Alicia landed in the nearest dirt path and drove back to the farmhouse. With her rifle in hand, Alicia ran to the fallow field to find the farmer cursing and fuming over his dead cow. By the farmer’s side was a man and his horse examining the dead bovine too.

“What happened here?” Alicia said. As the words slipped out of her mouth she saw the black feathers against the white of the cow’s hide and the red of the cow’s blood. She picked up one of the feathers.

The farmer scratched his head. “A giant bird, larger than anything I ever seen. I heard my cows cryin’ and saw it fly away trailing blood n’ feathers all over.”

“It took my friend,” Alicia said. Alicia tightened her fist. It probably ate Lily too. “Did, did you see her? A young girl, just coming of age?” The farmer shook his head. She turned to the other man. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and slung his rifle back over his shoulder.

“Which way?” The hunter got back on his horse.

“That way,” the farmer pointed.

“Lil’ Miss, how ’bout you go back home and let me handle this. I’ll bring your–”

Alicia cut him off, “You head off on the ground. I’ll meet you in the air!” She jumped back in her plane and revved the engine up. The hunter’s horse neighed and reared its front legs almost throwing him off. Alicia turned the plane around and sped down the dirt road and took off. She brought herself a couple hundred feet off the ground. Below her, the hunter rode fast and hard. Alicia pulled her plane back and allowed the hunter to go ahead of her. It was easier to keep an eye on where he was going and then keep her other eye to the sky. At times he glanced back at her — she could imagine the disdain on his face but thought nothing of it. The hunter pulled his rifle out. Alicia saw what he was aiming at. To her right, a giant black bird broke out from the treetops and cawed.

“Spawn of a demon bird,” Alicia thought, that was the name Lily had been called in her hometown. If that were so, the scratching against her headboard made sense. Maybe Lily’s cries and screams in her sleep were really caws that a raven made. Crack! The giant raven shuddered and its wings failed to keep it aloft. It plunged back through the trees. Alicia saw the puff of smoke trailing behind the hunter. “Oh, no, Lily!” Alicia barreled the plane down and made a hard landing on the ground. The wings wobbled as she cut through a field of tall grass. The raven cawed and cried loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. The plane slowed, Alicia hopped out, tucked and rolled into the grass. She winced as the plane slammed into a nestle of trees growing by the edge of the forest, but a second shot sent her running. “Don’t shoot!” Alicia ran through the forest. The hunter took aim for his third shot. Alicia put her shoulder forward and rammed him. They toppled over together.

“What are you doing?” The hunter yelled. He pushed Alicia off and aimed again. He searched down the barrel of his gun. “I had a perfect shot!”

A girl’s cry came from across the small opening. “Lily!” Alicia found her leaning against a tree with a bullet hole in her left leg and another bullet shot just above her. Alicia checked her wound. From the air it looked like the hunter shot her left leg since the the giant raven was flying to the right of them. “You’re the Black Bird Witch.”

“Alicia! Help me!” Lily cried as she grabbed Alicia’s hand.

“She’s my black bird witch,” the hunter said with his rifle pointed at Alicia. “She’ll make me a fortune. Her heart alone is worth a hundred thousand gold pieces. Step aside.”

Alicia stood between Lily and the hunter. She had left her rifle by the tree.

“Your life isn’t worth that much girl,” the hunter said taking aim at her.

“Don’t you shoot her!” Lily’s scream turned into a raven’s caw. Alicia and the hunter covered their ears and dropped to the ground. The raven jumped over her and onto the hunter. It cawed and pecked at the hunter’s body. Alicia backed away. The hunter screamed as the bird pulled his intestines out and gulped it down. What it couldn’t eat it tore to shreds and threw it all over the grass. Alicia grabbed her rifle and ran behind the tree. She raised her rifle and thought, “Please don’t make me do it.” She aimed but couldn’t put her finger over the trigger. Alicia slumped against the trunk, closed her eyes, and tears streaming down her face.

“Alicia!” It was Lily. Alicia got to her feet and peered around the tree trunk. She took baby steps into the field where the hunter had been. Lily sat crying in the middle of the field. Her nightgown was stained with blood and the hunter’s remains were splattered all over the grounds. “I couldn’t help it!” She didn’t turn to Alicia when she talked. “Y-You must be disgusted with me.”

Alicia bent down and raised Lily’s chin with her finger. “You protected me,” she said in a quiet tone.

Lily sniffled. “Of course, even the raven knows you’re a friend!”

Alicia didn’t know whether to smile at the sentiment or not. “Up we go,” she said. She helped Lily to her feet and back to the plane.

Each time Alicia began to explain, Lily found her eyes glazing over and her mind wandering. Partially, she didn’t understand. The other reason was her rumbling stomach. She had eaten just fine, but half of her was still starving. Caw! Caw! She clung onto the matted fur and closed her eyes. The Black Bird was always looming in the back of her mind. Sometimes it slept but not always. It needed to feed right now. Her parents had tried to help assuage the hunger by allowing her some of the old pigs and goats. They kept her confined to the farm as much as possible hoping that the stimulus was enough to tire her out and not excite her, but Alicia’s arrival changed all that. A blessing and a curse.

The up-and-down swaying of the beast slowed as they approached a tall stone wall. Lily was afraid that the machine was going to walk straight into the wall but it stopped about an arms length away. Even standing on the back of the machine monster, Lily estimated that the wall was still at least four times higher than they were. Alicia jumped down from the top of the beast. Lily had to lower the mechanical boy to the ground first and then climb down the side.

She carried the mechanical boy to Alicia and found her crouching to the side of a giant, metal door. “What’re you looking at?” Lily asked as she peered over Alicia’s shoulder. She was holding a metal plate in one hand and inserting and pulling pegs out of it with the other.

“I think it’s the key to the gate,” Alicia said. “It fits this slot.” She tapped her finger against a long rectangular slot with grooves lining the top edge.

As Alicia began to slide the plate into the slot, Lily snatched her arm. “What if it’s a trap?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Alicia said as she slid the plate in. The wall churned to life. Lily backed away. A whirling sound came from inside of the stone wall and when her fear subsided Lily pressed her ear against the wall and listened to the ticks and clicks of the gears sandwiched between the bricks. A spring snapped and the large metal doors responded with a thunk. But the gates did not open. The slot spat the metal plate out. Alicia took it and wandered away studying it.

Lily knocked on the gates and hollered for someone to open the door. She kicked around the nearby rocks and torched tufts of grass in her hand as she waited for Alicia to find the right combination. She sat against a tree stump trying not to think of the raven’s hunger pangs. Try after try, Alicia failed, but she kept trying. Lily smiled. “I would have given up a long time ago,” she said to herself. Klong! The gates started to swing open. “You did it!” Lily said jumping to her feet.

Alicia scooped her rifle up and Lily did the same with the broken boy and they walked through the gates. Together they entered the courtyard of the mansion, and in front of them machines bobbled, wobbled, and hobbled all around. The courtyard’s lawn was being trimmed by a machine that looked like a metal sheep. It rolled along the grass stopping to chew every so often. After it traversed a distance the metal animal deposited a small bale of trimmings from its rear and resumed chomping away.

“This place is amazing!” Alicia said with a laugh.

“I’m glad you think so.” Lily glanced around but didn’t see anybody. The sound of the voice seemed to come from a black cone mounted at the corner of the wall. “I see that you have carried my son back.”

“I found him wandering through a town miles away from this forest,” Alicia said. “An accident befell him and I’ve brought him back to you. Please, I wish to meet you. I have much I’d like to ask.”

“You seem worthy. Very well, please accompany my daughter!”

The doors to the main house opened and a white faced girl wearing a baby blue, lacy dress appeared and marched towards them like a toy soldier. Instead of a rifle in hand she held a matching baby blue parasol. Lily and Alicia followed behind the girl into the main foyer and down a long and wide hallway.

The interior of the house was even more bizarre. A railing ran against the upper and lower halves of the walls. Little wheeld carts raced along those tracks dusting as they went. A machine walked across the floor dragging spinning arms made out of mops to clean the marble tiling. As they closed on a large set of double doors the sound of a piano grew louder. To Lily’s astonishment the piano player was a giant wooden spider dangling from the ceiling using its eight legs to tickle the ivories. A small pipe filtered a gust of air over a pinwheel powering the piano player.

The mechanical girl stopped and pushed open a set of giant doors. The room she revealed was the largest Lily had seen yet. The walls were packed with full bookshelves. There were rows of long tables cluttered with half finished gadgets, loose papers with doodles, and a myriad of tools. A cacophony of gongs and chimes went off to Lily’s right. That wall was covered in clocks all announcing the arrival of a new hour each in their melodic and artistic way.

“Bring him here young lady.” Finally, there he was, the Watchmaker. He was an elderly yet fit man. He was clean-shaven and his gray hair was combed back. She laid the boy on the empty table. The Watchmaker walked around the boy examining him through his bifocals. “His entire head must be replaced,” the Watchmaker said rubbing his chin.

“How can I help you?” Alicia asked. “I wish to know how he works.”

“Do you?” the Watchmaker said. “Then, follow me.”

Lily followed behind them to a table covered in a white cloth. The Watchmaker pulled the sheet off to reveal legs, arms, and a child’s disembodied head. All the parts looked real to her, but he began to explain how he built them. The eyes in the head seemed to follow Lily where ever she stood and finally she backed away from the table altogether and bumped into the mechanical girl. The machine, in a jerky fashion, raised its hand over its mouth, snapped its jaw down and giggled. Its soul-less eyes stared at nothing in particular. Lily left the scientists and the girl and explored some of the other nearby tables. On one workbench sat a wooden skull filled with gyros, gears, and wheels spinning and ticking like a watch. Eyes of all colors sat in a row staring at her. A jawbone with fresh teeth lay on the table. By it was a stand with a hook holding a disembodied arm wrapped in spongy stuff and next to it was a drawing of human muscles wrapping the arm bones. Lily smelt the dots of fresh blood staining the drawing.

A stronger, foul scent permeated the air where she stood. Lily followed the scent to a closed door behind a bookcase in the corner of the room. She peered behind her to make sure no one was following and pushed the door open and threw her hand over her nose to block the pungent scent of decay. Her eyes grew wide at the sights inside. Human bodies lay on surgical tables. A man with his skin sliced off — it was stretched out next to him — and his arms neatly removed and hanging from a hook just like the mechanical one on the workbench. Other parts: eyes, brains, and organs sat in putrid smelling vats lining a nearby shelf. The stone floor and walls were clean of any blood.

Caw! Caw! The black bird begged for a meal. She had starved him for so long. Her mouth watered. The raven within wanted to be free of her body and to feed on the decay and dead in the room. Lily slammed her eyes shut and hurried to leave but bumped into the Watchmaker. He put his hands on her shoulder. She shrugged him off. “My dear, don’t fret. The bodies come from a nearby village, they all died of natural causes or accident.”

The cawing of the raven inside of her mind was growing fiercer still. Lily’s stomach, which she shared with the raven, grumbled and gurgled.

“Lily,” Alicia began. “I know its disturbing. I also studied anatomy at the University of Aeterall. We learn how to heal people by dissecting the dead.”

Lily shook her head. “You don’t understand. I can’t stay here anymore.” She broke into a run. In her mind, she could hear the giant raven’s invisible wings flapping and see its shadow looming in every dark corner of the house as she ran. Alicia’s calls for her to stop were drowned by the noise of the bird’s cawing. Lily ran as hard and fast as she could to the house’s doors but stumbled over the machine mopping the marble floor and crashed against the floor smacking her head. Caw! Caw! The sound drowned everything else out. Alicia running toward her was the last things she saw.

Chapter 0: Alicia and the Mechanical Bird

Here’s the original story in which my current short stories are all based off. This story follows the life of a young woman named Alicia, who believes that her past life was one as a bird. She’s born again without the ability to fly and goes on a journey through her life to recover it. The world she inhabits is 19th century-like. The stories that come after it are her journeys beyond her homeland. If you think they feel like Kino’s Journey after you read them or remind you Grimm Fairy Tales, then you’re not far off the mark. Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Alicia and the Briar Rose

Chapter 2: Alicia and the Broken Doll

Chapter 3: Alicia and the Black Bird Witch

Chapter 4: Alicia and the Watchmaker’s Forest

Once on the ground, Alicia stretched her arms out, took in the fresh air, and walked out to a warm sunlit rock and started cleaning her rifle. Lily lugged her pail across the field to a nearby stream to clean it out. The broken mechanical boy was lying in the back of the plane with a tarp over his body.

“All this for a doll?” Lily asked, setting her damp bucket on the ground. She sprawled out across the grass besides the airplane.

A loud crack came from the forest. Birds scattered from the rustling treetops. Alicia aimed her rifle towards the trees. Lily jumped to her feet but took hold of the plane’s wing to steady herself. A roar followed the gunshot along with a sudden, loud thunk.

The girls looked at each other. Lily shook her head in protest but Alicia slung her rifle over her shoulder and ran for the gaping, black maw of the forest. She hopped over the rocks, brushed aside the gnarled branches, and sidestepped the overgrown roots as she followed the constant thumping noise of the beast marching away from its kill.

Lily caught up to Alicia and planted her hand on the closest tree trunk she could find. Panting she said, “Wait, wait for me.” Alicia hushed Lily and waved for her to stay low. Her eyes followed the strange animal. Each leg of the beast moved one after the other as it marched over the the forest floor. It looked like a ten men walking side by side, goose-stepping. Alicia pushed Lily out of her bewildering stare and dragged her by the hand through the woods in the opposite direction from the monster. They found the bloody body of a man wearing hunting gear up against a tree with a circular indention in his chest. A journal lay next to him. Alicia picked it up and flipped through the pages skimming the entries.

Alicia stood in a lone patch of sunlight reading the journal. The chirping songs of birds and gentle rustling of tree branches replaced the thumping, regular footfalls of the animal. “He’s been looking for the Watchmaker,” Alicia said. “Seems like stories of the forest have spread far and wide. This hunter was going to kill one of the creatures that roam this forest and return him for a handsome reward.” She opened the man’s backpack to reveal tranquilizer darts and a bottle of chloroform.

“Is that why you’ve come?” Lily asked studying the dead man with wide, startled eyes. She looked ashen and ready to throw up again.

“No,” Alicia said. “The Watchmaker can repair the mechanical boy. I want to learn from his engineering techniques.”

A crackling static filled the air and a roar blasted out from behind both of them. Startled, Alicia raised her rifle in the direction of the noise. Lily snapped her fingers and flickering flames sprung from her fingertips. The birds stopped whistling and the breeze died away leaving a crackling noise all around them. Trees to their right shook; Alicia studied them from behind her rifle’s sight. Twigs snapped to their left and a small grove of trees swished in the air raining green and yellow leaves down upon them. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Alicia pointed between where both noises had come from. Footfalls fell one after the other. The trees Alicia pointed too parted and flattened as a rectangular, brown-furred beast broke through them. The creature was all legs – it looked like a twenty legged spider.

Lily arched her arm back to hurl a fireball but Alicia grabbed her wrist. She took a deep breath and stared her enemy down. Where was the face? The eyes? Arms? A mouth? Alicia counted only the twenty legs and they moved one after the other down a row. Once the last leg moved forward the first leg stepped again and the wave-like pattern of moving legs repeated. It roared and crackled at them as it approached.

“Alicia!” Lily tried to break her hand free of her grasp.

“It’s too regular moving to be an animal.” Alicia said. “Allow me.” She stepped in front of Lily and studied the monster barreling down on her and steadied her sight against the stalker’s central leg right where she thought it would meet the body. At the moment when the leg in front of her barrel was about to step forward, Alicia fired.

Crack! The bullet splintered the leg. It twisted and smashed into the next moving leg tripping the creature. Each leg afterward rubbed up and snapped against each broken appendage and the animal fell over. The legs continued to move and jut out of the creature’s backside in every direction tearing and mangling its fur coat.

“W, what kind of possessed creature is this?” Lily asked.

Alicia ran across the field and jumped up on top of the body and avoided the moving legs. Wooden limbs jutting out of the back gyrated back and forth. Alicia grabbed some of the loose flesh and tore it away. “Look! It’s just a fur rug!” Underneath the rug was a cone and the crackling noise came from inside of it. “A vibrating cone to make noise, interesting.” With her knife she unhooked it found wires running from it into the body of the animal. With a sharp pull, she yanked one of the wires out of the cone silencing it. Deeper within she could see gears spinning and pistons gyrating. “Ha!” Alicia wadded up the rug and stuffed it into the gears and the legs stopped moving. “Just like the doll!”

Alicia smiled at Lily. She stared back and dropped to her knees.

“The Watchmaker must have built this to keep intruders out of the wood,” Alicia said jumping down from its back. “There must be more than one. This is a large forest.”

“In that case, we’ll never find this Watchmaker,” Lily said.

“Actually.” Alicia smiled at the fallen monster. “I have an idea.”

“It’s the Black Bird Witch! She’s returned!” My ignorant younger brother Erol said. “We need to tell mom and dad!”

“It is not,” I said to him. It was just a legend. A hundred years ago, a giant black bird flew into town. With a flash of lightning and clap of thunder, it revealed itself to be a witch. She asked for refuge and in return she would perform magical acts for the town. They took her in, and she stayed true to her word with one exception: as a monstrous bird, she needed to feed. In the dead of night, she stole children from their bedrooms and gobbled them up. The village watch caught the witch and burnt her at the stake. She swore revenge upon the villagers.

I dashed through the trees into the open field where the thing sat; My brother screamed for me to stop. Alicia, the self-proclaimed pilot of the “airplane” (that is her word for the machine), descended down a small step ladder from its head. We talked and I found her articulate, well-learned, and well-traveled. I brought her back to my house and asked my parents to give her a room. We conversed long into the evening about the things she had seen on her travels. I told her, despite being fifteen years of age, I had never been any further than confines of the farm except for one trip to town when I was very young.

“Why did you come here?” I asked her.

“I need to rest for my long journey ahead,” Alicia said. My mother interrupted us and sent me off to bed before I could ask where she was going.

That night Erol woke me from my sleep and bade me to come with him to the plane. By the fire light of our little lantern we trekked through the fields back to the mechanical bird. He was always spying on people and their private property. He showed me the body of a young boy lying in the back of the airplane.

“She’s the Black Bird Witch!” Erol said. “I’m going to get the constable and arrest her.” His eyes were burning even fiercer than the lamp light. Erol left me in the dark by the airplane, but I ran for the house. I crept up the stairs and tip-toed to our guest room. The old wooden floor creaked and betrayed my every silent step. Once I was at Alicia’s door I knocked. No answer. I opened the door and stepped into her room. The rim of a cold tube of steel touched my head. The hammer of a gun clicked into place. “I mean you no harm,” I said.

“I saw both you and your brother go down to my plane,” Alicia said. “I take it you saw what I was carrying.”

“Did you kill that boy?”

“No. I’m going to fix him.” She put her weapon away and picked up a duffel back from the bed. “Thank you for letting me stay the night.” She passed me by and hurried down the stairs. I went after her but once we stepped out the front door, the constable and his deputies had us surrounded. He approached us first. “Black Bird Witch,” he said. “If you try any of your tricks my men will kill you.” Half his square face was in shadow the other half was lit red and yellow by the flame of his torch. His faceless deputies stood behind him shielded by the darkness, but I saw their guns gleaming in the moonlight.

Alicia raised her hands.

“Arrest her, and take the girl too.”

“What!” Erol said. “No! Lily’s no witch!”

“She certainly is. She’s one of the demon bird’s spawn.”

The next day, the constable and mayor proclaimed that the curse of the town would be lifted because they had caught the Black Bird Witch and me. We would both be purified by the priest and burnt at the stake. Alicia and I sat together in the jail cell.

“What did he mean that you were the ‘demon bird’s spawn?’” Alicia asked me.

I raised my hand. “Watch.” A flame like one at the end of a candle flickered to life over my index finger. The flame bounced from fingertip to fingertip and then my entire palm lit on fire.

“Astonishing! I didn’t think magic still existed in the world,” Alicia said.

I closed my fist to put the flame out. “A maiden born of ever generation will inherit the dark arts of the Black Bird Witch and hunger for the flesh of the innocent.” I opened my hand. It was red and raw looking and smoke smoldered from my palm, but otherwise I was fine.

“Thank the King, I’m far from innocent these days.”

Once night blanketed the sky, I could see the stars shine over a large pile of wood and tinder. To the side, a man dressed in clerical robes stood with his holy book and a torch. Children were dressed in witch hats and black cloaks and ran around with faux black wings. They pelted us with rotten vegetables and curses as we were led to our pyre. The people were ready to celebrate our demise. Alicia and I were lashed to a pole on top of a pile of layered logs. The town priest gave us our purifying prayers and once he finished, he dropped his torch in a bundle of tinder under the logs. The villagers cheered and chanted and the fire licked at our feet.

I chanted too. Incantations from old passed down from my true mother.

Clouds formed overhead but not a soul standing in this barbaric mob noticed. Flashes of lightning and claps of thunder broke their chanting. I envisioned every drop striking down each one of them. I grew the thunder to a deafening roar and the lightning struck nearby houses. The rain washed the fire away from our feet, flooded the streets, and drenched the townspeople. Alicia broke her bonds with a razor she had tucked under her sleeve and she cut me loose too. “Let’s leave this place!”

Houses and stores burned because my lightning bolts. People scurried and ran like rats and no one gave us a hint of trouble as we raced through the streets. The constable and his deputies busied themselves with fire fighting and didn’t notice our escape. We returned to Alicia’s plane. She opened the back hatch where I saw the machine boy. “Quick get in!”

“Lily!” It was Erol. “Stop where you are! Both of you!”

“Erol. Please.” He had an arrow in his bow and aimed it for me.

“I know mom and dad lied to me now! The constable told me everything about you! You’re not my sister. You’re just a monster!” Tears streamed down his face. “And I have to kill you to save everyone!”

“Killing her will do nothing!” Alicia exclaimed.

“It will! You’ll see!” Erol retorted.

“Erol! Do what you must!” I closed my eyes but a loud bang from behind startled them open again. “Erol!” He was on the ground. His bow splintered into pieces.

Alicia holstered her smoking gun. “He’ll be alright.” Sure enough, I could hear Erol whimpering and shaking. I wanted to hold him. At least a final hug, but I turned my back on him.

“Goodbye brother.” I wiped a tear and got into the plane.

“If you don’t mind, there’s one place I need to stop before you can disembark,” Alicia said. “And I could definitely use your help there.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“The Forest of the Watchmaker.”

She was the first traveler in months for these people. A mother and her gaggle of children had approached her first — the youngest, a yellow haired girl with crooked teeth, gave her a charm, a small four-leaf clover she picked from a tuft of grass. An elderly couple had offered Alicia food and lodgings for her stay in return for news of the world beyond their vertical village. On the first night, Alicia was the guest of honor at the church festival. They sang hymns, danced to flute music, and feasted on the plumpest pigs and chickens Alicia had ever seen.

The next day, she explored the town on her own. Alicia weaved her way up and down the inclined streets admiring the engineering that went into the town’s architecture. Buildings looked as if they were chiseled out of the rock. These people lived with nature instead of destroying it. In her journal, Alicia opened her journal and drew the view of the farms from the cliff.

A strange whirling noise passed across Alicia’s back. She jerked her head to the side and caught the sight of a boy with a basket. He marched like a toy soldier going down the street. She studied each rigid step and scrutinized the back of his head. Did his skin look somewhat paler than everyone else’s? The boy stopped at a cart, produced a list for the shopkeeper, and stood by silently to receive his wares. After he paid, the boy raised his arm and waved it side to side before marching away.

As the boy approached the next cart, several rowdy children ran by and bumped into it. A support beam holding a rack of pumpkins snapped and the shelf collapsed.

“Watch out!” Alicia called. She tucked her journal back into her jacket and weaved her way through the throng of people shopping in the market district. She broke through the crowd, but by then most of them were gawking at the sight of the boy laying on his back with his legs making a walking motion in the air. The pumpkin that hit the boy’s head was smashed open and bleeding seeds. “Are you hurt?” she asked him. “Is there a doctor here?” She called to the crowd.

“Oy, who’s gonna pay for that pump-” The cart owner stooped down besides Alicia and the boy. “What’s with is head?”

Alicia turned from the cart owner to the child. Her eyes widened. Inside the boy’s head gears rotated and a metallic belt of bumps moved cams up and down. The whirling noise she heard earlier was louder now that it wasn’t fully encased by the boy’s skull. Around the wound laid brass gears and copper cogs.

“What’s wrong with his legs?” Alicia recognized the yellow-haired girl’s voice. When she glanced at them, the mother pushed her daughter behind her cloak. Murmurs and whispers grew amongst the bystanders.

“It’s a machine like a music box or pocket watch, but he’s broken now,” Alicia said. She bent back over the boy and removed a cloth pouch from her belt and unrolled it on the street revealing a set of slender wrenches, tiny tuners, chisels, awls, and mallets. Taking a wrench, she probed the boy’s head and with great care she slid the tool against the cams to keep them from rolling over the bumps. The boy’s legs froze in mid-air. Cries of “Heretic!” rose from the stunned audience.

A small stone hit Alicia in the small of her back. She yelped. Another stone hit her on her arm. “Stop!” She cried. She drew her luger and raised it against the crowd. Several more townsfolk had rocks in their hands ready to launch them.

“Stay your distance! Lower your weapons!” An elderly man forced his way through the crowd with his cane. Alicia recognized him as the husband of the couple that she was staying at. He approached the boy and tapped his cane against his chest. “My child,” he said turning to Alicia. “I know you mean well, but allow us to take care of this.”

“What will you do to him?” She said lowering her gun.

“It. We will destroy it. All the works of the Devil must be destroyed.”

“Where I come from scientists and philosophers believe the human body is nothing more than an intricate machine full of minute gears and wheels that allow us to live. If I’m no longer welcome here, let me take him with me!” The yellow-hair girl began to cry and latched onto her mother’s side.

“Very well,” the elderly man said after a long pause. A ruckus of cries and yells bellowed from the surrounding people. “Silence! You will obey your elders just as it says in the scriptures! Allow her to pass. I shall walk with her.” Alicia picked up the boy and all the mechanical parts laying around him she could find. She bought a tarp from a nearby cart and wrapped the boy’s body and slung it over her shoulder. Before Alicia left the market, she crouched down by the yellow-haired girl and plucked the clover from her pocket and held it out for her. The girl swiped it from her hand and crushed it in her fist. Alicia smiled anyway. “Goodbye,” she said.

The elderly man guided her back to her plane. His wife had brought her suitcase to the plane already. She frowned and bid Alicia adieu. Alicia laid the boy in the plane’s trunk and buckled him down.

When the elderly man was alone with her he said to her: “There was once a great inventor that lived in this town. He was a watchmaker. A master of the craft. He build more and more complex watches and toy dolls that drew pictures and danced to ditties. Now, he is beyond the farmlands hidden away in the forest never allowed to return here.”

“Thank you.” Alicia climbed into her cockpit and closed the canopy. She saluted the man, turned the plane around, and took off into the clear blue sky.

My brother and I talked over winter break about trying to do a project together. I wanted to write; he wanted to draw. I thought we might be able to do a comic strip of some sort, but really that’s a lot of work and we’re both very busy. I proposed to him the idea that I would write a short story and he could illustrate a scene from it. This is the first of those short stories and hopefully you’ll see a new one every two weeks. I was hoping for every week, but really, that might be too much. This is based off a short story I posted on here a year ago called “Alicia and the Mechanical Bird.” If you recognize the fairy tale of the “Briar Rose,” then you’ll have an idea as to the type of stories I’m shooting for. Enjoy.

“Legend speaks of the beautiful, sleeping Princess Rose. I’ve come to kiss her and lift the curse from this city,” said the Prince from Anterfield, a country to the north with a burgeoning military and few towns and villages to conquer. This Prince must have rode out to seek glory and validation, neither of which he could earn under the watchful eye of his father and the shelter of Anterfield’s high walls and crowded hierarchy of princes and lords. “What does a girl seek in a city like this?”

“How did this curse come about?” I pulled my hammer from my belt and began to board the windows up with planks from the tea counter and chair seats. I reloaded my rifle and ensured that all the rooms were locked tight. The wolves would be back soon and no doubt they were clever enough to find other ways into the tea house. This is what the Prince told me while I worked:

“Once the princess was born, the King, in his joy, held a great celebration. He invited men of fortune and grandeur and twelve of thirteen wise women of his kingdom. Each woman bestowed a gift upon the newborn. When the eleventh had graced the child, the thirteenth woman forced her way into the castle and cursed the newborn with death from a spindle needle. The twelfth woman blessed her with a chance to survive. The young princess turned fifteen and true to the prediction she pierced her finger on a needle and collapsed into a deep sleep. As did all the people of this city. For one hundred years, it has been so. Today is the day that the Princess will reawaken, that was what the local people told me.”

The story accounted for the half-eaten bodies I found in the streets. The wolves and bears had gotten to those intrepid men. Not all of them were princes but men seeking fortune and power.

Above us a window shattered. Claws scrapped against the wood floor. I counted three wolves by the sound made by each animal entering through the window. They must have found a way through one of the abandoned buildings adjacent to the tea house.

“Can you run?” I asked. The Prince’s leg was bandaged the blood soaked through the cotton gauze wrapped around it.

He clapped his hands on the counter and heaved himself up on his feet. He drew his saber. “Let them come.”

Pitter-patter. The trio of wolves sauntered about upstairs biding their time. I imagined them panting and growling at one another, speaking in their own tongue, and plotting the best way to ensnare us. One of the wolves departed from the others and trotted down the stairs. He scratched at the door and growled.

I quietly moved to the window. The wolf on the other side of the door barked and scratched the door as if it were trying to dig the wood away.

I peeked through the cracks of the boarded up windows. A blurry thing jumped at me from the other side. I screamed and fell backwards onto the floor. Chips of wood flew into the room and a snout full of yellow, sharp teeth gnashed at where I stood. Both of us stayed still and listened to the click-click of the wolf’s teeth biting at the empty air and the scratching on the door. Before I could regain my footing and fire my rifle, the Prince stabbed the beast through the boards. A whimper and thump announced its death.

The wolf at the door scurried back up the stairs to confer with his partner.

“Look at this,” said the prince. I peeped through the cracks again. The two wolves had jumped down from the second story. They circled the wall watching their fallen comrade.

The idea struck me right when I saw them. “They’ll be well fed. Let’s go.” I pulled the Prince back from the window. At first his feet didn’t budge but we were soon by the door. We listened a moment longer and soon I could hear the wolves dragging the body away.

“Let’s find your castle,” I said.

“You didn’t answer my question from before,” the Prince responded.

“I didn’t know what my answer was until you told me.”

* * * * *

The architects of this town packed the buildings tightly. Bad for the citizens — if a major fire broke out or some other disaster, they would all be consumed by it. Good for us — it made it easier to climb from one roof to the next. Plus, traveling this way made it harder for animals to hunt us.

There were still dangers to contend too. We nearly fell to our deaths when one of the rooftops we stepped on cracked and crumbled. Someone had planted an entire garden and after a hundred years of exposure to rain and sunlight dandelions and moss carpeted everything. The roots grew into the concrete and wood splintering it just enough for our weight to do it in. We tread carefully through the thicket of overgrown herbs and spice plants. The fragrance of those plants brought me back to my days living in Aeterall and leisurely spending time with friends and classmates at the local taverns and cafes. As we walked I stuffed my coat with the aromatic leaves — they would make some of my canned meals a little more flavorful.

When we had to cross the street to move in between blocks of buildings, we’d hurry down the building and made sure that the path was clear of animals. I would draw my rifle and the Prince unsheathed his saber as we crossed the street, but aside from the wolves in the teahouse the animals that we came across left us alone.

We made it to the city’s center and the castle. Ivy, vines, and moss covered the edifice of the castle’s walls. The iron and wood gates were shut.

The Prince raised his hand. “Do you hear that?”

I listened and speedily unslung my rifle. The growls of wolves meant that we had more company. I peeked through the scope and tried to pick the little monsters out from the trees, but the forest concealed them.

“We climb,” I told him. I wrapped my gloved hands around the thickest vines and hoisted myself up the side of the great stone wall. The prince, grunting in pain, followed behind me. The wolves arrived below to sniff the ground, but we were already atop the wall on the narrow catwalk.

Two guards were slumped against the wall in the tower we had climbed into. No carnivores had scavenged these men; their bodies were mostly intact. Time though had made their skin brittle. The skin of their cheeks clung to their skull and their eyes sunk in their sockets.

“What will happen when you kiss this princess?” I asked.

“She will awaken from her slumber. Unlike these poor chaps.”

“But if the same curse has effected everyone, wouldn’t they awaken as well?” I pulled a sprig of mint from my coat pocket and held it under the guard’s mummified nose. I steadied my hand and watched for any signs of breath. I hoped and prayed that his eyes stayed closed. The sprig fluttered gently. “By the King!” I whispered. “He’s still alive!” I drew my hand away as quick as I could.

“Let’s hurry. The sooner I awaken the princess the sooner this town will be saved.”

Down the spiral stairs and across the courtyard we went. The manicured lawn and pruned trees had turned wild without a gardener. A monstrous tree with water engorged roots tore up a circular fountain and absorbed all of the water.

The Prince pushed the double doors apart to the main castle entrance. Dust danced in the first rays of sunlight it had seen in a century. My nose wrinkled at a hundred years of unwashed clothing, unwashed bodies, and rotted food. Vines, weeds, and moss broke through the marble floor and reclaimed the interior as its own. We climbed the grand staircase and entered through another set of double doors in to the throne room.

Before us sat the sleeping King and Queen. The King’s beard and Queen’s hair had grown long and gray over these hundred years. I lingered with the centennials studying them as the Prince searched from pillar to pillar and room to room for his prize.

“At last!” I heard the Prince cry. I stood away from the ancient royals. The room was filled with sleeping men. Knights slumbered against the pillars of the great hall. A fat jester splayed out on the floor snoozing away. Men and women dressed in noble suits and gowns huddled by one another. I did not want to see them reawaken. “Come quickly, girl. Witness as I take this fair princess to be my own.”

I followed his voice, it came from behind the throne room and out of an open door. The room had belonged to a maidservant but now it was overrun with cobwebs. Laying in a bed of hay was a young woman with lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as gold as flax. Her blue silk dress fluttered in the breeze coming from the open window. She kept her youth of fifteen years. The Prince was cleaning the cobwebs away from her and he gently caressed her heart-shaped face.

He leaned over her and mumbled words I couldn’t discern (a prayer I assumed). He kissed her.

The princess’ eyes opened. They were a serene and beautiful azure. All at once she appeared radiant and majestic. Her lips parted as to smile, but her hands clapped over her belly. She arched her back and gasped for air. Spiders poured from her nose, ears, and mouth. From under the haystack more of the wretched things crept away from her reanimated body. She thrashed and screamed but the volume of arachnids pouring from her mouth silenced her.

In the courtyard I heard rustling and movement. I brushed the cobwebs from the window and opened it wider. Just as I thought, the near-dead were awake. People walked and crawled about. If souls still inhabited those bodies, I felt them poorer for it.

“My eyes! My eyes!” A man lamented. He stumbled and crawled. “Why can’t I see?” Other moans and howls of distress emanated from every corner of the courtyard.

“My Princess! My love!” I turned to see the Prince helping his Queen-to-be to her feet. She vomited more of the spiders. “Help me!” A prince asking a common girl for help? “Save her!” This was his kingdom slipping through his hands. I backed out through the door, but I was greeted by a man covered in mangled hair and bugs crawling all over his face. It was the King! He had staggered down the hallway. When he saw me, his lips moved and he tried to speak but the noise came out as low moans. Once I gathered my senses again and put some distance between myself and the King, I realized what he was saying: “My daughter, my daughter.” His bony fingers clawed at the walls and tore to pieces as he fell towards the room I had departed. His Queen came lurching after. Her jaw hung slackly and she rolled against the wall whilst her head lolled about as if it had become unhinged from her neck. Behind her a parade of horror continued as far as my eyes could see.

“Do something for her!” The prince exited the room but at the sight of the monstrosities in front of him he drew his sword.

“No!” I took his arm and held him back. I turned my eyes to the King’s daughter. She choked and sputtered. Her eyes bled red. If these people were alive and crying in pain, then what about the townspeople? After a hundred years they would be defenseless against the beasts of the wild, absolutely famished, and completely dehydrated and only the King knows what kind of agony they would be in.

I pushed past the Prince and raised my rifle. The girl lumbered towards me with outstretched arms. The spiders swarmed out of her mouth and over her pristine flesh. She didn’t move from my sights. “Go back to sleep,” I whispered as I pulled the trigger. The cries stopped except for the Prince’s.

It was the only humane thing I could do.

* * * * *

I came here for fuel or food, neither of which I found. My plane was packed and ready for takeoff. I remember how pretty the city looked from the air. The buildings covered over with greenery and overtaken by trees. It excited my imagination. I believed I would find wonders that I had never seen before, and I suppose, I did.

As for the prince, I left him in the castle. He would not part from his beloved.

When Alicia was old enough to be aware of herself, she found that her pretty wings had been replaced with stubby jointed, featherless, bony arms. At the end of them were five digits and when she flapped her arms she could not fly. When Alicia’s mother began to home-school her, Alicia asked her: “Can we fly like the birds? I want to soar up in the sky!”

Her mother smiled politely and said: “Humans cannot fly.”

Undeterred, Alicia’s games often had her trying to go higher and higher off the ground. There was a swing her father had put up for her on a thick branch of an oak tree. Alicia would swing herself as high as she could go and jump with her arms out. To her dismay (and her parents) her flights never lasted very long and caused her a great deal of pain and eventually her father dismantled the swing for fear of further injuries.

Alicia’s other love was to draw on parchment with wax sticks. As a toddler she drew birds that she saw perching upon the clothesline outside, but her renditions were mostly shapeless blobs. She also drew jumbles of squares and lines that neither of her parents could make heads or tails of, but loved all the same. As she grew older, the squares and lines became cottages, city walls, and castle towers as seen from high above. Her birds became more than shapeless blobs. They had gorgeous beaks and feathers. She went from drawing them from the clothesline to depicting them as she recalled them in her memories: her brethren would be flanking her and she could, from the corner of her bird-eye’s view, see one of her own cruising next to her with his wings spread.

At ten, Alicia knew everything there could be to know about birds. She was gentle enough that wild birds would perch on her finger and they would not peck or bite at her. She had friends amongst the bluejays, nightingales, ravens, and any other bird that would fly down to greet her. Often times she was surrounded by them and watched them fly circles above her as she laid in a grassy hill by her home. Between her daily chores, she ran along the fields, her arms outstretched, and she pretended to be high above the ground with them. When the leaves fell off the trees, the birds all bid her farewell. Sadly, she waited for her friends to return in the spring.

Unable to go outside most of the winter, Alicia spent her time studying, doing household chores, and daydreaming about flying. Her father allowed her access to his small library of books in his trunk. There she found one about the history of the world. As she paged through it, she came across some very familiar places. She easily recognized the drawings of the castle towers at Aeterall, because she had sat upon them a lifetime ago. That city, according to the book was south of their village and it was the capital of their great country, Maedrellaedan. In fact, Alicia found her old drawings, and compared them to those of the book. Her renditions were lacking in details, but the buildings and shapes were exactly the same. She compared other drawings with those of the book, and found that she knew most of the places of the known world.

And, through her drawings, she knew of the places of the unknown world as well. On a sheet of parchment she had inked the shapes of buildings that sat atop clouds and towered high into the blue sky. Sometimes the city drifted over oceans and sometimes over land. The buildings had circular wooden window frames, the houses had arched roofs, and many bridges crisscrossed between the clouds. People packed the streets and wore colorful clothing and greeted one another with smiles and grace. If she had more colors she would have painted the city in shades of gold and red like the rising and setting of the sun. It was a favorite place for birds because there was much to see and do and the city was always moving through the sky.

She told her mother these reoccurring dreams, and asked, “Do you think a city flying in the sky can exist?”

Her mother smiled politely. “No, I don’t believe that such a city exists.”

When Alicia was fifteen, she had learned much about the world through books. She had even gone to see Aeterall with her own eyes. The city, according to her father, was a dangerous place to go, filled with thieves and crooks and too much hustling-and-bustling, but Alicia begged him to go. Begrudgingly, he prepared a horse for her. As they traveled, they came to the gleaming city of Aeterall and she stood upon a hill and basked in its glory. She could see the white towers of the King’s castle just as she remembered them.

Together she and her father entered the city’s outer wall. He was off to take care of some much needed business. Alicia was never to be apart from him, but she managed to tear her father away from his list of duties to see the city. At the University she saw all her hopes and dreams come true. From a high tower overlooking a field, a man jumped from a window holding in his hands a bar attached to a large triangular cloth sheet strapped over a frame of wooden rods. He soared through the air, making a circle, and then crashed into the ground. His friends whooped and cheered as they closed in on him. The man stood up, he was alright.

“What was that?” cried Alicia.

A man next to her said reproachfully, “A waste of the King’s money. These so called scientists do this all day. A load of rubbish, I say.”

From that day henceforth Alicia was determined to study there if it would allow her to fly again. To her dismay her parents could find no way to finance it. The amount of gold that would be needed was more than they could make and everything they produced went to keeping the family alive.

At nineteen, she parted ways with her parents. If they could not provide her the means to go, then she would have to find her own way. Tearfully, her mother and father hugged her one final time before she rode off on her horse for the city of Aeterall. Her plan was to find a benefactor that would allow her to study at the prestigious university. For more than an entire year, she could find no one to sponsor her, and learned that the university had stringent requirements before they would accept her – she would have to pass a battery of tests before they would admit her onto their hallowed grounds. The library in the city gave her access to more books then she could imagine, and at night she consumed book after book on varied subjects from art history to the sciences, and during the day, she worked in the tavern below waiting tables and tending to the kitchen.

In the spring of her twenty-first year, several very fortunate things happened: Alicia passed the entrance exams and Professor Elana Bellafore agreed to sponsor her studies into mechanical sciences. The third came as a technological marvel. The school was the first to invent a piston engine that relied on a new form of power: steam.

Alicia spent the next four years of her life devouring everything she could get her hands on concerning science, engineering, and mathematics. She studied biology to understand how birds, bats, insects all flew. By Professor Bellafore’s urges the school skipped her beyond basic physical sciences so that by her second year she was learning how the steam powered engine worked. Even after she graduated from all of her classes, Professor Bellafore kept her on as a researcher. One evening, while helping to clean out several old labs, she came across the triangular piece of cloth attached to wooden rods that she had seen as a child. The cloth was moth-eaten and the rods moldy. The inventors of the contraption called it an “air sail” and it laid in the corner forgotten for all these years.

At age twenty-six, Alicia fashioned her own air sail in between her work on the steam powered engine. Alicia perched on a plank sticking out of an attic window overlooking the courtyard of the university below. Her friends waved to her. Without fear, she held tight to the bar of her glider and jumped off the plank. By luck, a gust of wind carried her sail upwards. She stiffened her body into a straight line and her artificial wings carried her over the fence of the university and over the streets of the city. She was high above all of the people and the buildings. This was the feeling she had been missing for her entire life, but she lacked the words to describe it. When she touched down, she was greeted with stares and wonderment from all those around her.

Flight after flight, she became better at controlling her air sail. She felt the movement of the air around her and guided her sail to pick up up-drafts and send herself into turns and dives. She kept notes on her flights and built new sails each time. She traveled higher and further, but she could never go as high as the birds, and she could not go as far as it would take her to find that city drifting in the sky.

Through her study of birds, and her own gliders, she came to understand the principles of flight intimately. She left her study of steam engines and pursued and built the first of its kind a solid wing made out of the lightest wood material she could find. She tested it in miniature uncertain if she should jump out the fourth story attic window with a piece of wood strapped onto her back – it just didn’t seem very prudent. The miniature winged things flew, but not without its flaws. She learned that a vertical wing placed on the tail of the wing’s body could help it stay steady. The more she added to allow the wing to move stably, the more she realized that it was no longer something she could strap to her back. She devised a seat sitting low within the wing, similar to the row boats she saw university students racing on a sunny afternoon. Even with her careful plans for the vehicle, there would be no way that she could push the beast fast enough to make it soar into the air, but the steam engine could. Within a decade’s time she built the first of its kind, an airplane.

At thirty-seven years of age, Alicia tested her mechanical bird. The plane failed to lift off for the first test, and the second, and the ones after that, but each time she was undeterred by failure. She refined the structure of the wings, lightened it further and tried again. A year later the machine she had so lovingly built took off into the sky.

In the next five years to follow, she helped the university refine plans for the mechanical bird so that they could find a means to reproduce her work. Alicia flew home to see her parents, and found only her father waiting for her. She had not been home for so long, that she hardly remembered it, but in the backyard was the swing she had used when she was six years old. She found the grassy hills that she used to lay upon when she was ten years old. She located the old books that had taught her that her dreams were transcendent when she was fifteen years old, and she had found her mother buried in the earth and talked to her about all the things she wished she could show her.

In her room she found the drawing of the city drifting in the sky that she had drawn so long ago. She loaded up her mechanical bird and went to her father.

“You always did want to be amongst the clouds,” he told her tearfully. “Go as far as you can go.”

She threw her arms around him one final time, seated herself into the plane she had built to do the very thing her body was incapable of, and took off into the heavens. As the sun set below the horizon, she could see birds flanking either side of her just as she remembered from a lifetime ago and they sailed majestically by her side. For nights and days she had traveled over the land and her friends landed and took off with her. She passed over the snow-capped mountains to the south and knew that she had gone beyond Maedrellaedan. As she refueled and traveled further, the land where her home lied disappeared behind her and a blue ocean sprawled once again before her. She circled thunderheads and marveled at their great strength. On the dawn of the seventh day, the red and gold of the rising sun shimmered against the clouds, and sitting on them she could see circular windows, arched roofs, and crisscrossing bridges.