I crumpled my hand against the cold wet wall and fell to the floor, moaning.

Sticky with fresh paint. Smeared now on my hand and forehead. I shook my hand and winced in pain. Had I broken a finger? I cradled my hand and felt like an idiot. Of course there was no knob to grasp. Of course there was no magic door in the wall. There was never a magic door, anywhere, ever. There was no such thing as magic, not in this world. Not for me and not for Jasper.

Then I heard a faint mew and turned to see Mr. Face’s paws, scrambling for the slick window ledge across the room. I ran back to the window and reached over, scooped him up in my good left hand, thin and soaking.

But when I saw the mouse in his teeth, I screamed and dropped him again. He landed on his feet, glanced up at me, and laid the mouse neatly at my feet, next to my slippers on the little rag rug beside my bed. I shuddered. I stared at the little mouse, and Mr. Face stared up at me. Proud of himself.

I nudged the mouse with my foot. He didn’t move.

Then I looked out, past the cat and the window and the porch. I stared out into the wind and the rain and the lightning and the trees moaning and bending and cracking in the night. The storm warned me. It cried danger.

But Jasper was there, trapped in that storm, alone.

So I climbed out into it.

Real Magic

The real magic was that I could run.

Or the real magic was that I decided to.

I ran quickly, with the wet pavement shredding my bare feet and the rain beating hard on my head and back. I was soaked immediately, but I didn’t slow down, or stop to rest, or glance around, even though my heart was pounding and the thunder was bursting and rolling and the lightning was splitting the sky above me. I ran.

Once I’d started, I don’t think I could have slowed down. I couldn’t have stopped, not even for a car, if I could have even heard it over the thunder and the rain. Something inside me, stronger than any logic, knew it needed to run. I dashed down to Hemlock and then up Berne and straight into the creek. I waded across as fast as I could. I couldn’t see anything, and I stumbled over roots and rocks and jagged bits of bottle, but it was like I couldn’t feel it, and my feet knew the way.

Then I was at the embankment, at the opening in the vines and brush, and I was grabbing for kudzu and pulling myself up the slippy rain-soaked hill, scrambling at the red clay incline, and I was falling, but climbing too, covered in scratches and brambles, plastered with mud.