With spring delayed, she is caught in a perpetual state of unguided motion. She spends her days re-arranging furniture without direction; removing paintings from the wall, only to replace them again moments later. She stares out the window at the melting snow, willing the moon to pull back its white coat as it would an ocean tide, revealing its murky brown underbelly; mud replacing the jagged edges of ice. The house sparrows have begun to sense the change in the air, far sooner than the girl. They no longer sit perched near the heat escaping from the foundation of her home; their endless chatter no longer fills the silence of her days and has been replaced by the constant drip of icicles sacrificing themselves to the sun. She dreams of grass between her toes, dirt embedded under fingernails, and the smell of freshly scattered rain; things easily forgotten in the winter of her imprisonment. She is a wild beast, pulling at the tethers that are holding her in place. She fights the restraint; she no longer belongs here.
