In the fall, my arm bone popped out of its shoulder joint; the pain of it speared into me. I blinked red flashes out of my eyes. I was in the courtyard tree. My apprentice’s robe was caught on a twig just above me, my body and legs were held by a spreading branch, and my head hung out over open space. I moved, my shoulder sending jabs of pain into me, and the branches holding me shifted. I kept still, trying not to breathe, because my breaths hurt going in. I closed my eyes. A fluttering noise came from just above, then grawwwk. I opened my eyes. The black bird had perched on a branch above me and pecked at my apprentice’s robe. Peck peck peck. The cloth twitched off the twig; my weight shifted, and the branches let me go. I bounced off another branch and splatted onto the cobblestones. My shoulder popped back in. And I went out. I woke up in a bed, my bones aching. White plaster walls, a tiled floor, and a high window; next to my bed, a table with a brown bottle and spoon on it.
