And after a couple of centuries stuffed under a low bridge, she’s on the move. Looking for headroom. Relief from the crick in her neck. Somewhere to unfold. Thinks she’s found it in this lighthouse, rising tall from the cliff.

​

But it’s lined with its own stuffing, a dizzying wonder-winder, cold stone, not light at all.

​

She climbs to break free of the weight, up and around, heaving her aches skyward. Her troll-mutters raise echoes in the narrowing tower. At a slit window with a view of the horizon, the earth’s curve made straight, she presses her face to the gap where the ocean’s morning breath snags a song that moans in her belly, in the empty mounds of her breasts.

​

She turns back to the stairs.

​

This tower seems taller on the inside. She fears its magic, fears her climb may never end. On all fours she gropes and scrabbles. Woodlice skitter. A black story spider spins a web in her hair, baby fingers stroking. She pushes and pushes, and bursts out of, and into.

 

Light.

 

Slow as the winking lamp, she uncurls. She can see it all. Caught in the beam, in the dark. Found and lost. Lost and found. 

 

After a time, an age, an aeon, she tips the memory bag from her back. The contents spill, and she bathes her feet in the warm pools, dips her fingers in the sorrowing streams. She spreads her arms wide, and the glass walls are beyond reach. She stretches her arms above her head as far as they will go, and they touch only air.