AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s this way.” The little girl’s hand tightened around her lion’s neck as she climbed through the window.
Mean ole lion? I will show Lunita who is the mean ole lion.
We clambered out of the window, one by one, onto the rusted rungs of a fire escape.
Cold metal bit into my hands.
The little girl led the way, agile as a cat.
Pavel followed like a silent shadow in the twilight, and I brought up the rear, my heart thumping in my chest not from the climb but from the anticipation of what lay ahead.
What will Lunita say and do when she sees me here?
I gazed around at the world outside of this building.
In Emily’s painting, she had created a surreal deserted landscape around the building.
But as I climbed the fire escape, Harlem unfolded below us like a living movie. Distant sounds of upbeat music spilled from a bar, mixing with the occasional shout, the laughter of children playing in the fading light, and the relentless rhythm of life that pulsed through the city’s veins.
The scents of frying fish, sweet pastries, and the indefinable smell of densely packed humanity wafted up to us.
Why didn’t she capture this too? This is amazing.
And the more we climbed, the more I could see above the jumble of other fire escapes and back alleys.
Soon, a surreal panorama caught my breath.
Wow. Now this is. . .breathtaking.
Beyond the Harlem skyline, I spotted the unmistakable silhouettes of buildings from my homeland—buildings topped with gleaming golden cupolas that shimmered like mirages against the dusky sky.
My mouse has Russia in her mind too.
I beamed.
It was as if a chunk of Russia had been carved out and dropped into this alien yet vibrant landscape.
Oh.
To my left, the Eiffel Tower pierced the sky, an iron lattice standing oddly among the New York skyscrapers. Its presence was as bewildering as it was majestic.
I stopped and leaned forward.
There, melding into the cityscape as if it had always belonged, was the steam clock from Prague. The gentle puffing sound of steam and the soft chimes carried faintly on the breeze.
The realization hit me then; these visions, these fragments of other places, were not random—they were tied to Emily, to her mind, her memories, her fears.
They’re pieces of her past and present.
I wondered if I went out into those places if I would see memories of us within the buildings.
Is this how my mind is too?
The little girl gazed down at us. “What are you doing?”
“This looks amazing.”
She stared off in the direction of buildings. “What looks amazing?”
