(Continued from this snapshot).


As shadows stretched from the woods and over the fields, and a rosy golden glow lit the sky, a woman fell out of the sky with a faint pop.

She hung onto a low tree branch, her feet dangling several feet from the ground. She landed in the shrubs with a thump. Birds flew up, scattering, and critters scurried deeper into the small patch of woods bordering the fields.

The woman felt frantically around the grass and roots and twigs, finding a wand. Her shoulder felt light, as if she'd been carrying a satchel or a purse moments ago. She stared at her hands, long and lean, a callus on the index finger where a quill might rest. The wand balanced in her palm like it fit there naturally. Her pale gray dress swept over her knees in no-nonsense folds, the edges so perfectly tailored she could cut her finger on them.

It all felt wrong.

Where had she come from? Where was she now?

The woman curled her long legs in, rested her head against the trunk of the tree and closed her eyes.

She remembered a world of sepia tones, sharp edges, and glass. The same world day after day, where the sun was a distant flickering flame. Two giants stalked the land and made her world tremble, one trailing white petals, the other full of thunderous song.

She remembered two smaller giants. The shattering of glass, and her world torn.

Freedom. Hope. Despair. Flight!

"Hello!"

The woman opened one eye. Two tiny giants - children - with shaggy brown hair peered at her. They both held sticks out like wands, though the girl's hand was splotched in dried paint and the boy's sleeve was covered in a patch of coarse fur.

"Hello?" She tested out her voice. It sounded low and refined, and as clear as if she'd casted the Sonorus charm.

They asked her questions she couldn't answer. If she was hurt, where she'd come from, if she'd seen a cloud shaped like a cow on her way down.

Small hands offered to help her up. The woman rested one hand in the little boy's palm and used her other hand to push herself off the ground. He looked pleased.

As she stepped out from under the shade of the trees, the sun warmed her face and her hair and seemed to lift her weary shoulders. She tilted her face to the sky and breathed in the smell of earth and wind and the faint memory of fire. She stood as tall as the clouds.

Papa will know what to do, the twins decided. And just like that she was following them, both her hands tugged forward by tiny ones. Perhaps they would know where her children... perhaps they would find... but wait, they were going the wrong way!

"What's your name?" Sophie asked shyly.

She did not know.

"What do you think my name is?" She smiled to mask her anxiety.

They did not know.

"Let's make it a game. You tell me names, and I'll tell you which one sounds right."

They listed names, many of them French, and rattled off in an adorable accent. None of them rang a bell.

"Gertrude."

She wrinkled her nose. "Absolutely not."

Anri laughed, pointing out the sheep in the fields and changing the game to one in which he named all the sheep, while his sister, Sophie, offered corrections. The woman squinted at a horse grazing in the distance, struck by the familiarity of the sight. The rocks jabbing under her feet felt like old nuisances, yet the thin suede shoes she wore offered little protection, meant for polished floors and smooth cobblestones.

They stopped in front of a large country house with a traditional thatched roof and a front garden. She had a home like this one, didn't she, though it was more garden than house, and she waged a constant war with the gnomes, matching them in language and spirit.

"Papa!" The children let go of her hands and ran inside. "We found a lady asleep in the woods!"

Their voices rang from the open windows.

"No, she fell from the sky!"

"She fell, and then she slept!"

The man exited the house. He had long, pale hair and one eye.

The woman regarded him with open curiosity. Buried deep, a strange distaste rose to the surface and then faded.

"I'm sorry, sir. Is this your land? I must have apparated here accidentally."

She touched her pounding head, then glanced down at the single strand of wavy blond hair tangled in her fingers. Blond! Her mouth lifted in a small, befuddled smile.