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Cleo was always climbing things. It was almost rarer to find her on the ground than precariously perched somewhere, laughing at the wind. Everybody always said she ought to have wings, and she didn’t disagree. To fly – Cleo could imagine no better thing.
Cleo was fifteen when she first found the book, tucked away in the back of a used bookstore. It was a beautiful thing, old-looking and smelling like the sky. Ex Altiora, read the title, and on the inside front cover there was a nameplate: From the Library of Jurgen Leitner. She picked it up and began to read, marveling at the beautiful artwork of the endless sky, whole pages painted blue somehow managing to evoke wind. It made her feel an odd sense of vertigo, as though she were falling from a ledge.
She closed the book alarmedly and walked out of the bookstore, breathing rapidly.
Over the next few days, she kept thinking of that book. She had been startled, of course, and afraid of it, but – she wanted to fly. She had always wanted to fly.
She went back to the bookstore and looked for Ex Altiora, relieved when it was right where she’d left it, sitting on that same back bookshelf. She bought it – for only five dollars! – and brought it home with her. She started reading it, expecting the feeling of falling this time.
And then it seemed she was falling for real, the wind rushing past her with nothing but blue sky to be seen in any direction, and she screeched in fear and surprise. And she fell, and fell, and fell, until surprise turned to awe and her startled shriek turned to a giddy laugh, and she fell and she flew and there was no difference, with no ground in sight.
And all at once she was on the ground again, right where she had been, reading from Ex Altiora. And Cleo felt relief to be on the ground again – and sadness at the loss of that beautiful falling flight. She glanced at the clock on her phone and was surprised to see that only ten or so minutes seemed to have passed.
If Cleo had climbed things constantly before, it was nothing next to how she was now. Always climbing as high as she could, always jumping off anything she could reasonably jump off of, chasing the feeling of falling forever. She read Ex Altiora over and over again, back to front, reveling in the falling feeling of the artwork – but it didn’t take her back to that endless blue sky.
And then one day, Cleo woke up and felt light, and realized that she could step off any little thing and be there again. She climbed the banister on the stairs, jumping off the side –
And found herself falling.
And falling.
And flying.
And knew she could choose when she would return, this time.
She did return, eventually, hoping that she would be able to find that place again. After that, it never abandoned her again – she could take any fall and fall and fall and fall and return unharmed.
She gave Ex Altiora to a used bookstore, hoping that it would help someone else find the glory of falling as it had helped her.
(She did not think through, perhaps, that not everyone would be so glad to fall.)