Climbing the Tower

It was so stupid to climb the tower.

Halfway up the ladder with the ground so far away and only morning dew-slick metal between her and it wasn't the best place to have that epiphany either.

Why am I doing this again? thought Leigh even as she reached for another rung above her.

It wasn't for a dare.

It was just...

...just...

...she just wanted to reach the top. To see the world stretch out beneath her by the light of the full moon, to feel like she could reach out and touch the tops of the nearby trees.

She wanted to just reach it and feel that just once.

Absently Leigh wondered if her sisters and brother were still asleep back at their aunt and uncle's house, all curled up in the same big bed that she had crawled out of an hour before. The warmth and all too familiar sense of family that she had left to walk barefoot out into the cold to this tower.

Just so she could climb it and feel just this once.

It was crazy. She was crazy.

But she wasn't about to let that stop her.

She was going to reach the top of this tower come Hell or high water.

Leigh smiled and looked above her, seeing that she was closer now. Then she focused on her climbing again, ever so careful to make sure her hands and bare feet were secure before she moved on to the next rung of the ladder, determined to make it to the top. And then, ever so suddenly, she was there.

Pulling herself up, she laid across the top platform of the tower for a long time, shivering in a mix of terror, joy, and anticipation. When her frantic breathing finally evened out, she carefully pushed herself to her knees and looked around.

The velvet dark sky pin-pricked with pinwheels of bright stars loomed above Leigh and she felt like she could stretch out her arm, touch out of those brilliant lights, and drag it down to earth. Her mouth stretched into a grin at the sensation, even though she knew she couldn't pull down a star, and she shakily stood up with the curved top of the ladder as a crutch so she could look around better.

On one side the trees were taller than her tower but on the other... In that direction everything went downhill and she could see the trees going on for what felt like miles, making little humps and vales as they went that were only just visible by moonlight. They were swaying too with the wind, filling the air with a rustling noise, and she imagined that they were dancing. Dancing just for her.

Leigh didn't know how long she stood there, watching the trees dance and listening to the crickets and nightbirds ponder about the girl up on the tower. When she did finally come back to herself, the pinwheels in the velvet darkness above her were starting to disappear, replaced by the yellow-gray light of dawn. She had been up on the tower for most of the night yet she felt more alive than ever.

It was crazy.

And now she had to go back to earth.

She sighed heavily and took one last look around before she knelt, slowly lowering herself onto the ladder. Going downward with the same care she had gone up with, Leigh made it safely to the ground and paused with one hand still on the dew-slick metal. Tilting her head back, she looked up at the top of the tower and closed her eyes, cementing that feeling of being able to do anything that had come to her up there inside. She wanted to keep it and never lose that feeling, not when she turned fourteen in a year nor in twenty or more.

The crowing of a rooster broke her out of her reverie and Leigh cursed before breaking away from the ladder. She took off in a sprint towards her aunt and uncle's, bare feet pounding across the ground and heart hammering in her chest because she knew both usually got up with the crack of dawn to tend their small farm.

Yet, somehow, she managed to make it back into the house before they woke.

With a smile still on her face and the feeling of possibility warming her, Leigh wriggled back into bed between her brother and older sisters. As she settled down, she felt her brother Robert shift and went stiff as he whispered, "You went to climb the tower, didn't you?"

Turning her head, she stared at him in shock, not knowing how he knew she'd gone since she had made sure they were all still asleep. Then she caught a look in his eyes and knew.

He had climbed the tower too.