She wants to ask how her mother can be here, and how she found her. She wants assurance that her mother really is here, despite the seeming solidity of her arms, and to be certain this isn’t another of Peter’s tricks. But she can’t get past those first words. Her mother—teller of stories, healer of wounds, setter of bedtimes and rules—can also fly.

And of all the responses her mother might make, the one she chooses surprises Jane. Her mother throws her head back and laughs.

“Yes, I suppose I did.”

Strands of her mother’s hair escape the braid trailing down her back. Her cheeks are flushed, her clothing smudged with dirt, and the lines at the corners of her eyes crinkle.

“Jane!” Timothy’s voice rises from below, sharpened by panic, and fear rushes back in, kicking Jane in the ribs. She looks to her mother.

“That’s Timothy! We have to help him.” Jane takes a step toward the cliff edge, but her mother catches her, holding her back.

“Stay here. I’ll get him.” Without a moment’s hesitation, her mother steps off the stone ledge. Jane squeaks, but her mother doesn’t fall. She soars like a bird, swooping down to gather Timothy in her arms and carry him to where Jane stands. Timothy immediately plasters himself to Jane’s side. She touches his head to reassure him and herself both and feels the sweat-dampness of his hair.

“Are you all right?” Jane asks. “You’re not hurt?”

Timothy nods, then shakes his head in rapid succession, remaining buried against her side. Jane feels his muscles quiver as if they were her own.

“One more,” her mother says with a wink, and she spreads her arms, jumping into the wind once again.

It’s no less frightening this time, but Jane watches more closely now, allowing herself to be amazed as her mother’s clothes ripple around her. She’s studied the way birds’ and bats’ wings work, and this is nothing like that at all. It isn’t even like a kite, gliding on the breeze. It’s like nothing Jane has ever seen before. Her mother skims almost to the ground before she swoops back to the ledge with someone else wrapped in her arms.

Jane thinks it’s a woman, but she can’t make her out properly until her mother lets go and steps away. When she does, Jane can’t help the startled kick of fear against her heart that makes her back up a step. The woman looks like the pictures of preserved mummies she’s seen in books. Yet she’s clearly alive, even though her skin is the color of bark, dried and clinging close to the bone. She looks fragile, as though she might crumble at any moment. Instinct makes Jane put a protective arm around Timothy, and she almost tells him not to look.