All day she felt a pressure in her abdomen as she dug around in the garden and painted the sides of the cottage a cheery, pastel yellow. When she finally went to lay down in bed, she felt that the feeling had grown slightly more pronounced and as she drift off to sleep she mindlessly felt around her belly button and felt a little nub. This did not startle her. She mindlessly thumbed at the growth until it was no longer a nub at all but that it had grown to a thin spiked tip that had grown out and onto the flat of her stomach. Through all of this she remained unfrightened and over the course of several days Dorcas lay in bed with her shirt slightly lifted as she watched whatever it was burning an amber glow, crawl against her stomach until it grew tall enough to lift its open end up as if it had asked a question and received a difficult answer. It grew taller and taller, winding its way in the air until it reached the window sill directly above her bed. It curlicued gracefully up, made itself into something like a fist and knocked gently at the window uncurled itself and as if it had a small face turned to her again and thought it didn't have a face, Dorcas could sense that it smiled.

When Dorcas woke up she found herself lying on her back. She reached for the vine made of light that had started in her stomach and, of course, found nothing. She sat very still, got her wand and with her back against the wall she moved the drapes covering the window. She inched closer to look out, wand at the ready to find that it was raining outside. The world in a late midday, she could barely make out the forms outside of the window but the light streaming through cast a honeyed, green tinge through the gloom as if the trees were breathing all of their color out.

She realized then that she had been in the house for weeks at least and that she had not remembered the last time the windows were opened or what the ground looked like when she arrived or even what time of year it could be with all this rain. The clean air rushed in as she opened the window and she felt renewed and saddened. She would die here. She decided to leave the cottage for the first time since her arrival. The door swung inward and left a small puddle from the door on the floor. She left the door open, the rain making its way in as she put on a jumper and wrapped a blanket around her neck as a scarf even if it she wasn't that cold, it smelled like home.

The door shut behind her and after casting a spell to keep the rain off for the most part she held her wand in her crossed arms slightly under the makeshift scarf. She stepped gingerly down the steps and onto the slick pavers. Her shoes would be covered in mud and her feet wet once she stepped off of this path and into the forest but once she recognized the likelihood of that, some part of her knew she wouldn't even notice when it happened. Without uncrossing her arms, she cast her patronus under her breath. She perceived a flash of small, white light somewhere but did not check to make sure her patronus was there very high above and behind her. It always was when it was called and this time was no different.

She started walking away from the cabin which was still the dark greyish navy of her real awake life and set off to the left. She could go across the entire earth and then step off into the stars to somewhere else and never have to think about anyone she'd ever known or anything she'd ever been or anything forever. As her earlier self knew, she did not notice her shoes get covered in mud. She did not care that her feet were wet. She maneuvered slowly but deliberately through the knot of trees and didn't notice the ground under her change lost as she was in the idea of being nowhere and everywhere at once and if there was a spell for that. She smiled at the thought and walked but stopped when the trees opened up and she reached the edge of the tree line where it opened up to a different earth and she squinted out into the rain at a dark expanse of ocean or a lake or sea, she couldn't tell with all the rain, that she had not known was there all along.