Freedom

'Mom!'

My daughter's voice serrates through my head. I grit my teeth and force a smile. It's not her fault she's five and her voice is high, and nasal, and grating.

I march through the red leaves and the dark clayish mud over to little Maria. She points excitedly at a monarch butterfly that wheels in circles above a dwindling handful of flowers before alighting on one for some nectar.

'Oooh, a butterfly! That's pretty!' I force myself to say, making sure to pitch my voice up to an excited soprano lilt that I don't really feel.

I don't have time to finish thinking a thought. Just five seconds or so later, the word 'mom' pierces through my head again, and she wants me to emote over something else. This time, it's a red squirrel, looking very serious as he gnaws at an acorn.

'Wow, a squirrel! He's cute, isn't he?' I make the effort to say in bubbly, cheerful tones. Once upon a time, as a young girl, I’d have been excited by a butterfly or squirrel, too - but a dreary world of dishes and homework has sapped that from me.

Barely another five seconds passes, and again the word 'mom' lances into my brain. This time she's pointing at something dark and grey beneath willow branches that pour themselves down to the ground as if in surrender. I know how the willows feel.

I tread cautiously closer. Light shoots through a small opening in the thick tree canopy and strikes glass. I see the vivid red and deep dark blue of a stained glass window.

A flutter at the back of my neck, fine hairs standing up on end.

I'm looking at the ruins of some tiny chapel.

What on earth is this? I think to myself. A church?

But this is the middle of a forest, where believers would have to traipse through mud and between stout oaks - and this little building is so small, it could barely hold more than three people...

My heart quickens with an excitement I for once need not strain every muscle and nerve to fake. I step inside.

***

I duck to fit through the doorway. I am a tall woman and the ceiling is low; I hunch to avoid hitting my head. The little building is made of rough dark grey stone cemented together with some silverish substance I cannot quite identify. It's bare in here except for a tiny altar by the window. I kneel down for a closer look.

My heart beats faster still as I look at the figurine on the altar. A woman with an expression of profound concentration on her face, halfway through some sort of transmogrification: half her body is that of a human, half contains the brutal talons and powerful wings of an eagle.

A battered and ancient book lies next to the figurine. I cannot help but pick it up. Ghoulish blue light sparkles faintly at its edges; when I touch it, some jumps to my hand like electricity. I let the book spill open in my hands.

I speak no Latin and cannot understand the text, but I understand the drawings. In a grand scene exquisitely sketched in dark purple ink, a woman transforms: feet give way to scimitar-like talons, a nose and jaw become a fearsome hooked beak, arms give way to mighty wings.

Without thinking, I mutter the incantation to myself: Domine, pennas aquilae da mihi.

I have barely uttered the word 'Domine' and there is a flash of blue light and a glittering sensation at the fingers of my left hand. For a fraction of a second, my fingers begin to disappear, and in their place form the bronze flight feathers of an eagle. My blood blazes with adrenaline and shock. I quickly shut my mouth. The blue light fades and dies. My fingers are rightfully back on my hand.

'Mom?'

I heave a deep sigh. I paste that false lilt hastily back onto my voice.

'Let's go, Maria, time to get home for dinner now.'

***

I wrestle with the familiar guilt as I trudge back through the leaves and mulch.

I never wanted to marry, or to have a child. I wanted to ride my motorcycle down distant highways, to see Finland and Russia and Norway, to hear the rasping tones of Inuit throat singers. I wanted to sit peacefully in the evening by a gentle yellow lamp and sip tea. I wanted to wander off on owl-watching trips at night, unhindered by the need to avoid waking a sleeping husband.

You're damaged, they said. You need meaningful relationships, not 5am trysts with razor-cheekboned strangers in a nightclub toilet. It's different for women. Why don't you go to therapy? Then you can figure out what's wrong and meet someone special and be happy ever after.

Then he wanted a child, and there was a fresh onslaught of pressure from everyone in my life. You'll regret it when you're older. You'll be so glad you had a child. Life would be meaningless without one.

I'm still waiting for all that glorious meaning and poetry and starstuff to kick in.

I open my front gate. I unlock the door.

A veritable Everest of dirty dishes towers nearly to the ceiling. He's happily playing World of Warcraft.

***

'Mark,' I wail, not meaning to yell but too frazzled to handle one more thing, 'what is this mess?'

He sighs. 'Oh, for God's sake. I can never do anything right.'

I can't find anything to say to this. I stammer out a high, thin, desperate, 'b-but there's mess everywhere!'

It was partly my fault in the early days, I admit. I'm a neat freak. I'd yell at him for not noticing that a small area on the very topmost shelf had a patch of dust on it. I tried to be better and meet him halfway...but this isn't halfway. There are dishes lying around from two days ago. Some of them are gathering greyish green mold.

'Oh great, now you're mad at me. You're always mad at me for something.'

'But...' I take a deep inhale and struggle to keep my heartbeat from racing too fast. 'There's green mold on this one...green mold...'

Maria is crying now, and as much as I strain to even tolerate the sound of her voice, I find myself scooping her up for a hug. 'Everything's okay, little one. It's not your fault...'

***

I tell Mark I'm going to the store to buy some cigarettes. I smoke so much these days, I sound old before my time. My speaking voice used to be high and soft. Now it's a rasping sound akin to rusting metal grinding on other rusting metal.

My blood pounds in my ears. I’m doing something terribly selfish, aren’t I? But I have given up my life in the name of Not Being Selfish. I gave up the roar of my motorbike engine, the snows of northern Russia, the pounding of Inuit skin drums. I’m tired of Not Being Selfish.

I don't go to the store. I take a detour left and out to the forest where the red and gold of autumn oak-leaves catches the moon and lights the dark the color of iron ore.

I accelerate to a run. It's here somewhere, that eerie little chapel to God knows what strange eagle-spirit. I wish I had brought a flashlight. I dig into my pocket for my phone. It's a crappy little bare-bones Nokia dumbphone, but it mercifully has an inbuilt torch. I switch it on. A dim beam lights the red and gold leaves cold white.

A vivid burst of red and blue glows in the low-powered torchlight. It's the stained glass window of that strange tiny church.

I duck my head beneath the arch of the doorway. I rush to the altar. I pick up that ancient spellbook and I rifle through it. I find the page where a woman's body is replaced step by step in a series of drawings from that of a human being to an eagle.

I hold the book high. I take a deep breath. I open my mouth and utter the incantation.

Domine, pennas aquilae da mihi.