His Caged Bird Novels & Stories

he says, leading me toward a quieter corner of the space. The piece he stops in front of makes my breath catch. It's a sculpture was atwisted metal and found objects arranged to look like a bird breaking free from a cage. The cage is beautiful, ornate, covered in what looks like gold leaf. But the bird's wings are spread wide, ready for flight. "'Breaking Free,'" Derek reads from the artist's statement. "'About the courage it takes to leave beautiful prisons.'" The metaphor hits too close to home. My throat tightens.

I finished the last stroke of my sketch and when I looked up, I looked right into Lilian's gaze as she leaned against the doorframe. She was holding two cups of coffee, squinting at my sketch behind those black-rimmed glasses. "The wings on the final draft of 'Caged' have three more fractures than the first version." My fingers froze. On the page, the bird's shattered feathers still reached stubbornly upward, exactly like my own heart the night I huddled in the supply room drawing this series. I drank the coffee, its bitter warmth spreading across my tongue. "Fractures are the price of breaking free from the cage, and the cracks let the light in."

His black Maybach cut through the night and came to a halt at the cliff above the sea. As if performing a magic trick, Samuel lifted a metal cage from the trunk. Inside, a dozen white doves beat their wings. "Now this is the true curtain call for the 'Caged Bird'." He flicked the latch. Moonlight poured over their wings, striking silver. "Come on, Ms. Stockwell, set them free yourself." My hands trembled as I stroked the doves' feathers. The live beat of their wings prickled my palms. When the last dove burst free from the cage, Samuel wrapped his arms around me from behind, his soaked suit clinging to the thin fabric on my back. "Feels like they're flying for you."

Helplessness pierced my heart. The chances of rescue were nearly gone. I stroked my belly through the pain, talking to my baby. I prayed that, if it had a next life, it would be born into a pack where its father loved its mother. Then it would be happy. My breath grew faint, my blood turning to ice in my veins. Suddenly, the cage door swung open, and the lights flickered on. The sight of me in a pool of my blood startled the wolf who stood there. I used my last bit of strength to inch forward, whispering, "Help… me."

I can't burden Mom. [June 7th, 2013. Sunny.] [I saved three months of my part-time wages to buy Christina a necklace, but she didn't like it. Next time, I'll earn more money and buy her something better.] I kept flipping until the last page, which was the day before I went to prison. [December 1st, 2017. Rain.] There was only one sentence. [They never loved me.] … At that moment, my eyes burned. I picked up a pen and began to write again.

My wolf snarled, We could, we should. But I straightened my spine and exhaled sharply. I turned toward the floor-to-ceiling window. The sunset outside burned in gold and crimson, but the iron bars fitted discreetly into the frame caught my attention instead. It was pretty to the eye, yet a cage all the same. Just like this place, just like this marriage. I stared out at the fading sky, my reflection pale against the glass. I was only a caged bird, I thought. No… a caged wolf.

I would remain physically his wife and stay inside this cage he built and locked me inside… but spiritually, emotionally, and mentally I would be completely free, independent, and forever beyond his reach and control. He could lock me inside this house… but he could never lock my spirit or my soul. He could strip away my rights and public status… but he could never strip away my dignity, my pride, and my true worth which came from within myself and not from him or his name. He could bring hundreds of women and treat them like queens and goddesses… but he could never, ever make me feel small, inferior, or worthless because I knew perfectly well exactly who I was and exactly what I truly deser

Since I married Hank Frost seven years ago, I have never gotten pregnant. He never blamed me, however, and would always visit the temple to pray for me. When he returned, he would bring home a new orphan, saying that it was to build good karma. However, when the fifth orphan pushed me down the stairs and broke my leg, I overheard Hank arguing with Josh Graham, who sounded at once disapproving. "Don't you think you've gone too far? Making Yvie Stark raise the five children you had with Sue Lynd? You're not worried she'd throw a fit when she finds out?" As my breath left my lungs while my mind went blank, Hank was twirling his prayer beads nonchalantly. "So what if she does? She should

And my heart chose to break on its free will. The room was silent as I kept playing, and I let the notes climb up to the chorus: So call it a cage. Go on and call it a cage. I know how it must look from the outside. Call it a cage. Go on and call it a cage. But you weren't there when the tears are dried. Call it a cage. Go on and call it a cage. Some doors you can open, and some doors you can’t. So call it a cage, Go on. And I'll call it mine.

My childhood sweetheart, Basil Nolan, died the night before I was going to confess my feelings to him. Every bone in his body was shattered, leaving him mutilated beyond recognition. It was all because he had stumbled upon the golden boy, Calvin Holloway, of the Zenirford elite, intimately wrapped up with his mistress, ruining the mood and killing the buzz. Later, I became that heir's new kept woman. I drank until my stomach bled for him, risked my life in street races for him, and knelt on the pavement in the freezing dead of winter to lick his boots clean. Finally, I managed to warm his cold heart. "I can give you anything in the world, except my heart," he told me. I smiled, wonderi