RYKER
I did not know where I was taking her until we got there.
My feet knew before I did, which was typical of the decisions I made involving this woman. I had asked to talk and she had followed and I had walked us through the pack house and up two flights of stairs to the door that opened onto the east wing roof, the one I had found when I was eleven and never shown anyone.
She came through the door behind me and looked out at the view and said nothing.
The roof was flat and wide, the surface rough underfoot, a low stone parapet running along the edges that had always made it feel like the edge of something without quite being dangerous. The wind up here had a different feel than it did on the ground, cleaner and cooler, carrying nothing except itself. I had come up here as a boy when my father's voice got too loud and the walls got too close and I needed somewhere nobody was going to find me.
