He hit her front lawn with a thud, his body sliding to a stop beside one of the crepe myrtles she had planted in the spring. Lying on the ground with Bermuda grass poking in his nose, he realized he had flipped over, mid-flight, between the door and the wet ground. He wondered at the power which had forced him out of the house, but it was not his first time experiencing that particular phenomenon in the last hundred or so years. The sensations of it still shook him up, and also reminded him of what he was, as if he could forget. But it was Kate’s rejection of him that cut the deepest. He had to get back to her and clear things up. Julian pushed himself to his hands and knees and brushed off as much of the mud, grass and leaves he could, from his black tailored pants and grass-stained shirt. The pants, in all probability, would launder, but the shirt was beyond any dry cleaner’s saving. Standing, he walked to the running fountain, cupping his hands under one of the mouths of the concrete fish, gathering water in them.
