Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
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Esmera hadn't used an alarm clock in years. She didn't need one when she had a little visitor who awoke her at the same hour every morning, just like clockwork.
She opened her eyes to the unmistakable beating of wings. She sat up to the tap of tiny feet on the windowsill. At the delicate whispers drifting from the flower as its petals brushed against the windowpane, Esmera threw her worn butterfly-print comforter off her body.
The lark was here.
Esmera had moved in and out of countless apartments, on the run from disgruntled landlords demanding rent she couldn't pay and possessive boyfriends who wouldn't take no for an answer. Nobody could find her if she didn't want to be found.
Nobody except the lark.
Ever since Esmera's eighteenth birthday, he always seemed to know where she was.
She had thought his visits were a coincidence until he started coming every day, always bearing little presents from nature.
Try as Esmera might, she had never been able to identify his species. He was definitely a lark, with his straight beak and tufts of feathers like horns on either side of his head. It was the green sparkle to his feathers that puzzled Esmera. She had never seen anything like it on the lark pictures the internet offered her. It was like someone had sprinkled glitter over the bird.
There weren't any accounts of larks who left gifts for people on any of the online chat threads Esmera had perused either. There were many fond stories exchanged of crows and magpies presenting people with their treasures, but never larks.
So, Esmera kept wondering.
The lark's visits were never a surprise to her, but his presents were.
As she had done for the last five years, Esmera rushed to her window. She threw open the faded pink moth-eaten curtains in time to see the lark take flight, a brown-green streak of motion.
Esmera's breath caught as she gazed out at the day's delivery. She couldn't be sure whether it was the morning sunlight that gave the gift on her windowsill a warm glow or whether it was her imagination, but she had never seen anything so wondrous, almost magical.
The lark had been generous. Usually, he left a flower, a pebble or a particularly pretty branch laden with bright berries, but never more than one item. He must know today was a special day.
It was Esmera's 23rd birthday.
The thought wiped away the faint smile that rested on her lips.
There was no one to sing for her. No one to buy her cake. No one to call or text her, not since she ran from Stephan in the dead of the night two months ago.
The scar beneath her ribs throbbed at the thought of him, and it was like he was driving the broken bottle into her again. Esmera didn't need to touch it to know that it was still there. Stitches could heal, but they couldn't make her whole again.
