Eve was nine – exactly nine – the first time.

She was sitting in her windowsill. She was very scared. Her daddy had told her it wasn’t safe to be so close to a real window, but at that moment, she thought the windowsill safer than the alternative.

Stupid birthday party. Eve had wanted a Market theme, but her mother said “Absolutely NOT!” and it had been a Golden Chapel theme, instead, like all the other parties that year: just a way for the mothers to outdo one another. Well, there was weird music that didn’t have a melody or even words that made sense and even weirder food. The snacks were too spicy for most of the kids and, instead of cake, there were these sickly sweet little balls that stuck to Eve’s tongue. There wasn’t even any ice cream. Eve had not liked it all. She hadn’t pretended even one little bit that she did.

Oh, she’d known as she was doing it what the protest would mean later, but she also knew her mother would never reprimand her in front of the others, and so the party had continued. Eve was prepared, though. Muscles tensed and ready, feeling her heart pounding in her chest and her ears as she stood there, she set herself to run at the click of the door closing. Her mother’s grip on her shoulder, holding her to waving “thank you” and “goodbye,” was strong, but Eve was sure she could duck beneath it easily – as she always did - and run. She’d been surprised. The door hadn’t even clicked.

Vision popping white, ears ringing, pain bursting along her temple and then her knee and hip and elbow as she fell, she slid across the polished stone floor. The room spinning, the white replaced by an ever-lengthening tunnel, she struggled, scrambled, to follow the one command in her brain: Move! A burst of pain along her side.

“You ungrateful little witch!” her mother screamed. Eve rolled, found her knees. A burst along her jaw. Another in her shoulder as she hit the stone again. “Don’t you ever defy me like that again!”

And still the command: Move! Eve fought the blackness, fought to discern up from down. Then to her knees again and scrambling on all fours. The door at the end of the tunnel.

“Come back here, you bitch!”

Then through the door, diving, sliding on the stone, screaming, “House, close my door! Close my door! Lock! LockLockLockLock!” as the door slid shut and her mother’s heels clacked closer.

And were barred. Even when her mother yelled at the House to open it.

A moment’s relief as she scrambled to her bed’s far side, listening to her mother scream hate, each word accented with a rattling pound on the door. She’d planned to hide in the wall, through the flaw in the corner. It was just big enough, still, to squeeze into, and if she climbed up on the cross brace, her mother’s arms weren’t long enough to reach her, but once in her room, once faced with that tiny opening, she’d remembered what she’d learned about regens, and couldn’t do it. She’d panicked then, unsure of what to do.

Her mother screamed the house override. The lock held. Eve was relieved. And so proud.

Then more than her mother’s fists began to hit the closure, and Eve saw the Arcs race across its face, a spreading red stain, shimmering until their dust fell to the floor, even as more were called to service by the pounding on the other side. Eve pressed hard against her back wall, wanting to get further away, pushed her head into her animals piled there, covered her ears to block out the hurtful things her mother was shouting. Then she thought of the windowsill. It was deep, as real windowsills are, and she climbed up, fit completely on the sill, and pressed against the cold of the window so she could pull her animals up with her, over her, hiding her, in case the Arcs lost their fight.

Then she’d looked outside.

She had looked out the window before, of course, but she’d never taken the time to actually see what was there. It certainly wasn’t as nice out the real window as it was out the display windows, or in their garden, or the park down the hall. Besides, she knew that the orange-yellow glow out there meant it would burn skin and lungs as she died in it. It was only really safe below one hundred, she knew. Atmosphere was a big topic with ‘school.

The view, however deadly, was really quite lovely, and she imagined what it would be like to float in that evening’s half-setting-sun / half-caustic-atmosphere glow. She imagined her animals in the lofty cloud several stories beneath, stretching far away, beyond the buildings across. She imagined she was walking on that cloud, lying on that cloud, playing with her animals-come-to-full-size there.

Eve leaned her head against the glass, wishing it were so, that she could flee the vicious, terrible thing on the other side of the door, and then she felt herself slipping through the glass. Between the molecules of it. Falling. Almost pushed. It was very scary. And it hurt, too, like a little electric shock where her skin passed through. She cried out at the feeling, at the fear of what was happening and where she was going, but then she was out and floating, softly, slowly, to the cloud below.

She looked back to watch herself sitting in the window, forehead white where it pressed against the glass, and was happy to see she was still in her room, too. But it was very weird being in two places at once. It made her very dizzy looking out of two sets of eyes, until she was able to “split” her view, like in the video games she played. It was still weird hearing and touching two things, but the orange-yellow air outside didn’t smell bad or sting her eyes or burn her lungs. And she didn’t die.

The cloud was springy and she jumped and bounced as she’d done so many times on her bed, except this time it was in slow motion. And this time, her mother didn’t throw open her bedroom door and berate her. Her door was locked. And her mother was not outside. And then her animals formed in the vapors and she ran and played with them until she heard her daddy.

“Adina! What the hell are you doing? Look at this place!”

“That little witch did it on purpose, Jonah! She made me the laughing-stock of the level! They’ll be talking about it for weeks! And she’s locked the door! Not even the override works! You had to teach her to use the house controls, didn’t you? Didn’t you!”

“I take it the party did not go well.”

“You can just go to hell, Jonah!”

Eve cocked her ear to listen, trying to ignore the wind whistling past her outside, looked down at herself on the cloud, now standing, looking up, waiting. She heard the crash. Something expensive, no doubt. If there was anything expensive left. Her mother had an uncanny knack for choosing the most costly things to throw. She imagined her daddy ducking to get out of its way.

“Adina!” His voice nearly rattled the door as much as her mother’s pounding. “That will be enough!”

Eve floated back up to the window - happy that she could even do it - and slipped through and back into herself. It still shocked her as she went through the window, but it wasn’t so bad when she was prepared for it. She climbed from the sill, replaced her animals along the wall, then slid beneath the covers of her bed. Her daddy would fix her mother now. He always did. He was a doctor.

That thought made her shiver and nearly startle with fear. Eve covered her head with her pillow, remembering the one time she’d seen her daddy give medicine to her mother.

She’d been very little – four or five – and trapped, up against the real windows, caught in the draperies, far from her room. No recourse. Eve had been curled up in a ball, her mother screeching and kicking at her, the pain bursting everywhere at once. Then she’d heard her daddy yell, and she looked up. Daddy had reached over her mother, swung down – hard - across her chest, stabbed her below where she should have had breasts. His eyes had been glowing almost, his face all scrunched up and ugly. Eve had screamed with her mother. Then her mother’s surprise had become a smile and she’d slumped against Daddy, reached up and caressed his face. He’d pulled the injector out and looked down at Eve. He’d told her to go to her room, told her it would all be fine. Eve had run.

Yes, her mother wouldn’t be mad anymore.

Eve waited, happy but anxious, too, trying to concentrate on all she’d done on her trip out the window, but she couldn’t not listen to the muffled sounds coming from her parent’s suite. Not long, and the house was quiet. Still, she waited, listening.

“Eve, honey?” her daddy asked through the door. Eve startled (she must have drifted off) even though she’d known it would come. He must have taken his shoes off. She hadn’t heard him approach.

“Ye--” she tried to ask, but it was just a squeak. Her throat was dry and tight. She milked saliva, swallowed and tried again: “Yes, Daddy?”

“Are you alright, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine, Daddy.” Eve turned to see the light coming under her door and the shadows of her father’s feet.

“Will you unlock the door?” A shiver overcame her again. She was very nervous.

“No, Daddy. I’m fine, really,” she offered, and thought to end the conversation quickly: “I’d really like to go back to sleep, now.”

“She didn’t… hurt you?”

Eve buried her head deep under her pillow when he asked that question. Another ripple of fear coursed through her. The first couple times, after her mother got mad like that, Eve had cried and run to her daddy after, and he’d given her medicine, too, though not a stab like her mother. She was pretty sure it was supposed to make her happy too, but it hadn’t. It had made her walls wobble and her bed float and she dreamt horrible nightmares about her daddy. About her daddy in her room. She didn’t have any full memories of the nightmares, thankfully, but she’d been afraid of the medicine after that, and she’d always said, “No, Daddy. She didn’t hurt me,” no matter what.

Sometimes he came in anyway and gave her the medicine, and she had the nightmares again. But he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. She was so proud, even though she was scared, too.

“She didn’t hurt me,” Eve lied.

“It’s not safe for Daddy to not be able to use the house controls, Eve. I have to know the code. What if something happened?”

It felt like every single one of Eve’s muscles jumped then, the realization scared her so: her father had tried to change the override. She pulled the pillow tight around her head, but a smile crept across her face. She was still happy. And still proud.

“I’ll change it back in the morning, Daddy. I promise.” It had only been a little lie. She did mean to change it in the morning, just not “back.” It was only a part-way lie.

Her daddy didn’t speak for a long time, but Eve could still see his shadow under her door. She began to wonder if he would just stand there all night when he finally spoke. “Fine. Well… Fine. Goodnight, darling.”

“Goodnight, Daddy.”

Eve watched as the shadows of his feet receded, then she relaxed the pillow and peeked up at the window. She felt a swell of happiness. She’d done it. Escaped until it was over. And she’d found a new haven.