She stared so long unblinking that her eyes burned with dryness. She stared a while longer, because the ceiling was equally dry. She’d done it! She almost cried out “Ma!” but caught herself, fighting back the tears that threatened. It would be a welcome surprise for her mother’s homecoming on the morrow.

A welcome surprise indeed.

She awoke to a sense of panic, blinking away sleep and the light that was much brighter than it should’ve been for the pre-dawn hour.

Why had she slept so long? And so deeply?

Rain pattered on the rooftop, and her eyes automatically shifted to the bucket, half-expecting to find it overflowing and ruining her mother’s favorite rug. It was bone dry. She remembered, but any sense of accomplishment was chased away by the realization that she’d overslept. But by how long?

She didn’t bother to change her dressing gown as she flew out into the pale morning light, feet bare and gathering mud between her toes as she ran toward the jail. Ma! she cried in her heart. Ma! she cried in her soul. Rain soaked through her hair and clothes, until they both stuck to her skin.

A crowd was gathered in front of the stone structure. Of course they are, she thought. A bunch of busybodies. Prolly there to apologize fer not visitin’ Ma in jail, fer not believin’ her.

Except no one was saying anything, all staring away from where Perfidy was running. “Out of the way!” she hollered, breathless, and heads began to turn, bodies began to angle away to open up a corridor through the throng.

“Ma!” she said aloud, searching the press of the bodies for her best friend, the woman who’d given her life and raised her, who’d dried her tears when her pa had abandoned them both.

An acrid stink lingered in the air.

“Ma?”

Dead-eyed stares circled around her, and then, one by one, they came to her, touching her shoulders tenderly and offering useless words she couldn’t comprehend. Until she was alone once more.

The base of the pyre was ash and charred wood. The iron stake and chains had been blackened by the fire. Bile rose in Perfidy’s throat, and she turned and let it out. Tears mixed with the vomit. “Whut am I s’posed to do now, Ma?” she said to the bones. The story of the jay and the cardinal floated around aimlessly. “I don’ e’en have wings, Ma, an’ ye think I’m gunna fly?”

“Maybe not fly,” came a familiar voice. This time, it didn’t startle her. There was nothing left to be scared of. She turned to find the same woman as the night her mother was arrested, her odd-looking walking stick planted in the mud, her golden-marked cheeks gleaming in the sunlight. Where had she come from?