The sun is at last appearing over the horizon, bleaching the sky and waking up the world. I feel so awake and ready. Part of me is terrified, but a whole lot more of me can’t wait for what happens next. To steal the words of the Bard himself, “Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.” So I shall lay myself down in front of the hands of fate and embrace every last second of this so-called life. This is me, Catriona Mairi Robinson, eighteen and counting…

CMR

7

PIGEON

Columbidae

People. Everywhere Emily looked, there were people. Walking, talking, zigzagging through and around one another. Like worker ants, busy, busy, all with somewhere important to be. The sound of so many footsteps, voices on phones that expanded and retreated over and over. Station announcements of platform changes, train departures, and safety procedures. Music from dozens of brightly lit shops selling things that no one really needed.

So she stopped, placed her suitcase on the ground, and looked up to see the latticework of steel overhead, interspersed with sections of sky. Pigeons marched up and down the long lines of black, and if she listened carefully, she liked to think she could hear their coo-cooing communication.

Birds are constant, she thought to herself. Pigeons will be here, long after humans have expanded and destroyed everything all over again. It provided a token of comfort to go over something familiar, stopped her heart and mind from racing even more.

They swooped down, one by one, to perch on the train’s roof. One of them looked at her, head cocked as if recognizing an old friend, then came to land by her feet, walked full circle around her, pecked at her shoe once, twice more.

“Hello.” She crouched down, held out her hand, and waited for him to come close, then ran the very tip of her finger over his head before he gave a soft coo and fluttered away. One of the villagers, a Spitfire pilot named Fred, always sat next to Emily in the back row of the church and told her stories about how homing pigeons were used as messengers during the world wars, saving lives by carrying messages across enemy lines.

Emily had liked to think of those birds wearing tiny little helmets, carrying guns or dropping bombs on the enemy as they flew across the Channel, back home. Now she thought of home, of Milton, and whether he sat by the back door, waiting for it to open. For her to share her slice of cake, or scrap of cheese, and she wondered if the birds really cared for her at all.

“Emily?” Tyler was walking back toward her. He picked up her suitcase and gave her no more than a token glance before turning around and heading toward an escalator, all the while scanning his phone.

“Wait,” Emily called out to him, but he was gone, sucked up by the never-ending stream of people that appeared from all sides. She could turn around, get back on the train and disappear into the countryside. Return to Norfolk, her village, her home. The vicar would take her in, surely, look after her, provide her with shelter until she figured out what to do.