Dædlus tortures himself with questions. What went wrong? Was one feather out of place? A handful of down slathered in wax instead of a flight feather? One plume shaken loose by the force of the wind? Or was it simply the heat of the sun?

* * *

She sat at the window in her parents’ bedroom, rested her back on her father’s bedside table. The Chapstick she held belonged to her father. She smacked its waxy scent onto her lips, used the twisty end of the tube to trace the lines of the book in her lap—an endless book of Greek mythology, the story of Dædlus and Icarus. She read this particular story from beginning to end, end to beginning, over and over and over. What would it be like, she wondered, to feel the ground fall out from under her feet, to ride the currents of the wind up and down, then up, up, up into the sun?

Dædlus had been commissioned by King Minos to build a labyrinth to house the Minotaur. Such a noble cause. A holy cause. Icarus, she imagined, was as proud of his father as she was of her own. Her father had been called by God to preach the Gospel, to pastor a church, to battle the darkness of the world. A holy cause. But she wondered if Icarus felt trapped within that world, the way she sometimes felt in her own. She dog-eared a page and set the book down, gazed out the window. She traced the movement of the wind, the shadows trembling over the gravel driveway. The leaves of the towering elm, ruffled by the breeze, transformed into a thousand tiny feathers. Sunlight poured through the window. She felt its warmth wash over her, wax melting down her arms. She closed her eyes and imagined her own ascent into the sun.

* * *

The wind whoomps the underside of his wings and he is in the air. Icarus extends his arms, allows the wind to carry him before he tilts to explore its contours. He twists one wing and catches a current that carries him down. His toe skips off the crest of a wave. Twisting the other direction, he spirals upward. He casts a glance down the center of the invisible vortex carrying the weight of his body, sees his father—feet submerged in sand, eyes straining, lips forming words that are lost to the wind as Icarus tastes the clouds. Higher. Higher. Icarus flies too close to the sun and plummets to his watery death.

Or so the story goes.

* * *

The magic hour. Every evening, her father settled in the recliner. Her little brother always beat her to the coveted seat on their father’s lap, so she sat on the arm of the chair, leaned on her father’s shoulder. He pulled out a book and read aloud—worlds opened before them, invited them into their adventure, horror, wonder. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Treasure Island. The Jungle Book. The Hobbit. He loved British writers and Tolkien was a favorite. If you like this one, he told them, we can read the other three. That particular evening, the motley band of dwarves and their burglar hobbit were rescued from gnashing wolves and goblins by the Eagles: : Over them swooped the eagles; the dark rush of their beating wings smote them to the floor or drove them far away; their talons tore at goblin faces.

* * *

Six months after their escape from the labyrinth, they are still trapped on the island. The wings are ready. Dædlus tests them out first. He follows the wind’s lead, leans into his run down the beach to set the wings parallel to the current. His feet leave the ground. He takes his lessons from the seagulls—tilt the wings this way and bank to the left, a slight twist to rise or fall. When his feet finally land back on the hot sand he pulls the wings off his arms and watches as three feathers slip out of their waxen beds. The sun had begun to melt the wax. Dædlus warns Icarus not to fly too high for too long. Icarus pulls the wings over his arms, lets their hollow weight rest on his young, broadening shoulders. A gentle breeze draws the wings back and they spread into the air. Icarus steps back to keep his balance and Daedlus reaches out. Father and son, arm-locked, eyes locked. Dædlus tells his son how to gain altitude, how to hover closer to the waves.

Whatever you do, don’t fly too close to the sun.

Icarus turns around, back to the wind, and runs headlong down the beach.

* * *

Her love for Tolkien, she inherited from her father. And Lewis and Longfellow and Austen. Her dream to ride a train through England, to hike the rocky coasts of Ireland, to walk the Scottish moors—all from him. Her penchant for writing, also from him—her earliest memory of the sheer delight to be found in writing words on a blank page was scented with his Chapstick (she’d stolen it from his bedside table). Her obsessive need to keep the peace, never rock the boat, to bloom where she’s planted—also his. She had his knees, his eyes, his slow metabolism. It had all come from him—difficult to say what hadn’t been passed down from him to her. She read books and wrote stories, dreamt of the day she’d finally travel the British Isles. When her parents argued, she tried to mediate.When the old ladies in the church complained about her ratty shoes, she tried to remember to wear her nicer ones the next Sunday. She walked miles every day and went on a low-fat diet to shed the extra pounds she saw in the mirror. She did all of these things and more, waited for her father to notice. When he did, she felt complete. When he didn’t, she just tried harder.

* * *

For months after their escape from the labyrinth, Icarus wanders the beach, hour after hour, day after day, seagulls soaring overhead. He picks up every stray feather he can find. Picks them up by the quill and writes in the air with invisible ink, dreams of freedom. One feather at a time. He tucks them into his leather satchel, brings them back to his father. Dædlus works hour after hour in the shadow of an old tree, gathers branches and ties them together in the shape of a seagull’s wing. He melts wax over a fire and drip drip drips it over the quill of a feather. He holds it in place until the wax hardens. One feather at a time. After months of this work, did all the feathers start to look alike? How did Dædlus know which feathers were which and which feathers to put where?

* * *

One day, she stopped going to church. She slipped out the front door on a blustery autumn Sunday, walked down the flagstone path she’d walked countless times on her way to church. Instead of continuing down the path she climbed into her car, jammed the key into the ignition. She felt every rotation of the tires on her drive across town. To a coffee shop. She stepped out of the wind, ordered a house coffee and pushed a wrinkled dollar bill across the counter. She sat at a table near the sun-warmed window and brought the steaming cup to her chapped lips. The wind swept across the parking lot, escaped her notice. Her eyes traced lines through a thin volume of poetry: A lost arrival is wandering.

* * *

After their escape from the labyrinth, Dædlus and Icarus breathe deeply the island air and dig their toes into the hot sand. No longer lost in corridors, trapped by countless walls, suffocating in relentless darkness. Removed from the constant danger of being discovered by the minotaur, father and son relish their newfound freedom. Icarus turns his face to the sky. A seagull soars overhead like a phoenix, wings ablaze in sunlight. Days go by. The sun is no longer the source of blessed light; it is relentless, ravaging heat. Their feet are rubbed raw by the sand, and a walk on the beach brings nothing but searing pain; then their feet become calloused, no longer sensitive to the pleasant warmth of the sand between their toes. The cries of the gulls overhead become tiresome. The island becomes a prison of its own. It is time to escape. Again.

* * *

One summer, she drank her first beer—a Sam Adams’ Summer Ale. The bottle clinked against the metal edge of the opener in her hand. It hissed when she pried the cap. She sniffed at the faint mist that danced over the glass, pleased to find the aroma floral and sweet, different from the smell of the men who frequented her father’s church—grizzled men with wobbling steps and glazed eyes. The beer was cold on her lips and snapped at her tongue, warmed her throat all the way down. She sat across the bonfire from a friend who opened a bottle for himself. Her father’s voice returned to her: alcohol is dangerous, the first step toward ultimate destruction. She swallowed her fear with another sip from the bottle.

* * *

She seldom speaks to her father these days. She doesn’t call him as often as she feels she should. But he doesn’t call her either. Her mother tells her that he feels like he failed his daughter — that he tortures himself with questions. What went wrong? Should he have made her read her that he often? Did he set a bad example? What could he have done differently?

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BARBARA LANE lives her life between Flagstaff, Arizona and her home state of New Mexico. She earned her MFA at Northern Arizona University and served as the 2015-2016 nonfiction editor for Thin Air Magazine. She hikes a lot, she reads even more, and she habitually burns her toast. Her work has also appeared at Art House America and Queen Mobs Teahouse.