I WAS NOT BOLD.
It simply wasn’t my nature. You see that. You have guessed, perhaps, that at some point in the orphanage’s baby box, after the hot urine that soaked my swaddling had chilled in the cold and then warmed again from the heat of my small body, that I came to like it in there. The ventilation holes became stars in the close dark. I stopped crying. My fist found my mouth. I sucked. I turned my face into the metal corner. Maybe you know already that I didn’t cry again until someone opened the box, drowning me in light. Then I wailed. I didn’t want the hands to take me out.
Maybe, because you pity me, you will say, But you climbed to a roof, though you were afraid to fall.
You didn’t confess to a judge. You betrayed no one. You kept your secrets.
You went beyond the wall. Is that nothing?
They were exceptions.
At heart I was a coward.
At heart I took comfort in what I knew, the sure things of the world: stones, hot bread, old wood, and yes, the wall—how high it was, how small it made me feel, as though I were at the bottom of a great bowl. The wall kept me in, but it also kept the unknown out.
It was another me that told Annin to disobey Sid, and stay exactly where she was.
I think it was an infection in my blood. A need that rioted in my heart.
It was something that had crept inside without me knowing it: a parasite, a pale ribbon worm that must be pulled out little by little from a slit in the skin, so intent it was on remaining in my flesh, making me do things I normally would never do.
Like abandoning the task I had been assigned.
Like sneaking through the tavern, hoping Raven wouldn’t see me.
Like knocking on Sid’s door and—when she didn’t answer—pushing my way in.