If These Wings Could Fly - Kyrie McCauley Page 0,1

it. Even at thirteen, Campbell is the picture of control, her face calm, her voice even. She understands the danger we’re in. She also knows how to hide it from Juniper.

“Not at all.” I climb out my window, onto the roof that covers our porch. The air is still heavy, laden with things it cannot hold much longer. I know how it feels to carry something that isn’t yours. Soon the sky will break.

Outside I pause, assessing. Maybe he won’t find them out here. At least not right away.

“Come out here,” I tell them, and point to the far corner of the roof, where it meets the house and forms a little nook. “It’s okay. It’ll be an adventure.”

Campbell swings her legs over the windowsill and crawls to the corner of the roof.

Juniper hesitates.

“Leighton, I’m scared,” she says. Some twisted little part of me is grateful she’s scared. That she could spend so many nights of her nine years tucked into shadows like this, and still know it’s not normal.

“Hey, babe, look at me. It’s gonna be okay. You are just going to snuggle up with Campbell for a few minutes. Here, take Ava-bear.”

I move into the room again, doubling over the windowsill and reaching for the foot of my bed. Soft down fuzz fills my hand when it finds the toy. I lean out the window and offer my beloved stuffed bear to Juniper.

She shakes her head no.

Something rumbles downstairs besides the music, and my stomach tightens in response. He’s so angry tonight. I drop the bear and crouch at the window, finding Juniper’s dark eyes filled with tears.

“How big is your brave?” I ask her.

I’ve stolen it, right out of our history. I’ve cannibalized it from my own gentler early years, when Mom would use the phrase to get me on a bike or a roller coaster. And I’ve brought it here, into this awful night. But I need it, for Juniper.

“So big,” Juniper says, and climbs out the window. I walk her over to Campbell.

The tree in our yard sways, though there’s no breeze.

Crows.

Birds fill the branches. There must be a hundred of them. More. Juniper’s soft whimper forces the crows from my mind. I swing my legs over the edge of the roof and drop before I can think about it. It’s a short fall, but I hit the ground hard and lose my balance. My hands scrape the walkway where I catch myself, drawing blood. I look up and find Campbell peering down. “I’m fine,” I say. “Get back.” I melt into the shadows of our yard, just as he passes the kitchen window.

When he turns away, I run. There’s only one other house on our road. If we always felt safe in our home, I might call it scenic, with the mountains as a backdrop and nothing but idyllic Pennsylvania farming hills for miles.

But we don’t feel safe, so instead I’d say it’s isolated. Detached.

Alcatraz.

But there is one neighbor. Mrs. Stieg. Just a few hundred feet away in a farmhouse that’s easily a half-century older than our house, but meticulously maintained. Racing across the road, I steal a backward glance at my house. I check for two shadows on the porch roof, but my gaze is drawn higher.

Crows cover the top of our house. Dark shingles shrouded in even darker feathers.

When I reach our neighbor’s house, I close my fingers over the sting of my freshly skinned palm and slam my fist on the door. When a light flickers on upstairs, hope swells inside of me.

The light turns back off.

I knock harder, but I don’t think she’s coming.

Fear claws inside my chest, wanting out. No one else lives close. I can’t leave my sisters long enough to walk a few miles into town. I cross the road again. Back in our yard, I start to sidestep the dozens of crows on our lawn, when the front door swings open.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He fills the whole doorframe. Two-hundred-plus pounds of anger now directed at me. I run through the answers in my head, playing outcomes as fast as I can. Which response is the safest?

“I called the police,” I lie, and it’s a big one. He will know in minutes that it’s untrue.

My father stares me down for a moment, as though he’s daring me to speak the truth. Then he turns into the house. The music finally cuts out, and the silence is surreal. Like everything before now was