Esmera hadn't used an alarm clock in years. She didn't need one when she had a little visitor who awoke her at the same hour every morning, just like clockwork.

She opened her eyes to the unmistakable beating of wings. She sat up to the tap of tiny feet on the windowsill. At the delicate whispers drifting from the flower as its petals brushed against the windowpane, Esmera threw her worn butterfly-print comforter off her body.

The lark was here.

Esmera had moved in and out of countless apartments, on the run from disgruntled landlords demanding rent she couldn't pay and possessive boyfriends who wouldn't take no for an answer. Nobody could find her if she didn't want to be found.

Nobody except the lark.

Ever since Esmera's eighteenth birthday, he always seemed to know where she was.

She had thought his visits were a coincidence until he started coming every day, always bearing little presents from nature.

Try as Esmera might, she had never been able to identify his species. He was definitely a lark, with his straight beak and tufts of feathers like horns on either side of his head. It was the green sparkle to his feathers that puzzled Esmera. She had never seen anything like it on the lark pictures the internet offered her. It was like someone had sprinkled glitter over the bird.

There weren't any accounts of larks who left gifts for people on any of the online chat threads Esmera had perused either. There were many fond stories exchanged of crows and magpies presenting people with their treasures, but never larks.

So, Esmera kept wondering.

The lark's visits were never a surprise to her, but his presents were.

As she had done for the last five years, Esmera rushed to her window. She threw open the faded pink moth-eaten curtains in time to see the lark take flight, a brown-green streak of motion.

Esmera's breath caught as she gazed out at the day's delivery. She couldn't be sure whether it was the morning sunlight that gave the gift on her windowsill a warm glow or whether it was her imagination, but she had never seen anything so wondrous, almost magical.

The lark had been generous. Usually, he left a flower, a pebble or a particularly pretty branch laden with bright berries, but never more than one item. He must know today was a special day.

It was Esmera's 23rd birthday.

The thought wiped away the faint smile that rested on her lips.

There was no one to sing for her. No one to buy her cake. No one to call or text her, not since she ran from Stephan in the dead of the night two months ago.

The scar beneath her ribs throbbed at the thought of him, and it was like he was driving the broken bottle into her again. Esmera didn't need to touch it to know that it was still there. Stitches could heal, but they couldn't make her whole again.

Esmera could take the yelling and the name-calling. She could hide her bruises. She could swallow her pain if it meant she had a home and a person to go to every day, but everything changed the night Stephan stabbed her.

She squeezed her eyes closed at the memory. Still, her tears burned behind her eyelids.

She'd had to choose between stability and survival, and she hadn't chosen consciously. She had only found herself at the emergency room without knowing how she had gotten there. Then she had looked around for someplace she could afford the rent on her own and settled there without telling Stephan where she had gone.

Esmera touched the fourth finger on her left hand out of habit. It felt bare without the wedding band she had worn there for two years. It had been a golden perch that made her feel like a prized bird.

Until it had turned into a cage. Since breaking free of it, Esmera had soared like a bird whose flight feathers had regrown after being clipped. She had careened through the air, unbalanced in her uncertainty until she learned to use her wings.

Esmera remembered going into the pawnshop. It was a fuzzy memory as if she was merely observing the actions of someone else. She vaguely recalled begging the woman behind the counter to increase the initial offer for her wedding ring. Esmera's desperation was the one part of that night she remembered with clarity.

She had needed money to last her as long as she took to find her feet, and she had nothing more to give.

Esmera didn't know if it was the bruise on her cheekbone or the bandage around her waist that had finally convinced the woman to give her $100 for the ring. Either way, she had been so grateful that she could've fallen to the ground and kissed the woman's feet.

Esmera didn't know if Stephan had gone looking for her. She changed her number the day after she left him because she didn't want to know.

She had been rebuilding her life since the night it fell apart, but the pieces were harder to gather on some days than on others.

Today was one of those days.

There was no one to remember Esmera on her birthday, not the foster parents who had opened their homes to her with hard hearts, not the friends who had passed in and out of her life, not the husband she had fled. No one except the lark.

Esmera pushed the window open with a creak, snatched the flower and pebble, then closed it before the early morning chill rushed in and filled the tiny space she called home.

The pebble summoned Esmera's eye to it first. She had never seen any other like it. It had all the clarity of a diamond in some spots and the wispy white of clouds in others. It was like a secret Esmera could cradle in her fingers.

On the other hand, the lark had brought Esmera a flower like this before. She recognised the snatches of sound drifting from the heart of the bloom. She held the flower up to her ear.

Their whispers were as she remembered, their language as foreign to her as the shades of the petals and the hues of the pebbles.

Esmera had never heard of flowers talking to anyone else. Maybe she was mad. Maybe she had hit her head too hard when one of the bigger girls at the orphanage had shoved her against the wall. Maybe it was in her blood.

Esmera never knew her parents, but those who fostered her never had anything good to say about them.

Reckless teenagers, they said. Drunks and drug addicts, they were.

Esmera sometimes wondered what they would think of this life she had made for herself. She wondered whether they would be proud or disappointed, but she didn't think they would care, wherever they were. If they did, they would've never abandoned her on a stranger's doorstep with nothing but a bloodstained blanket and a note with her name scribbled on it.

The flower's whispers drew Esmera's attention back to them. She studied the pink petals curving outwards, the dark purple bleeding into their edges, the pom-poms of pollen protruding from between them.

Esmera had found this flower on her windowsill many times through the years, but she still knew no name for it. Neither did the internet, but it was worth another search. Scientists discovered new plants every day, or so Esmera had heard.

She settled into bed where the WiFi signal was strongest. Not to say that it was very good.

Esmera typed in the description of the flower and pressed search as she slipped under the covers. After hanging for two unbearably long minutes, her browser presented her with a page of results, but no answers.

Esmera scrolled down her cracked screen. This bloom was too big to be an orchid or hibiscus. The petals weren't layered like that of a rose or carnation.

Esmera sighed. Among all the scientific breakthroughs that had occurred since her last search, there was none that could help her. Typical.

She typed in a description of the pebble and explored the results.

The small stone wasn't opaque like opals or moonstones. It didn't have the transparency of a rock crystal or white quartz.

Esmera cleared the tab and sought solace under her still-warm comforter.

Either her browser was broken, or the flower and pebble came from another world, one of magic and exotic elements of nature.

Esmera gave a dry laugh. It was a loud, lonely sound in the empty room.

Obviously, her browser was broken. Maybe her phone was. She had bought it second hand from the pawnshop where she had sold her wedding ring because she couldn't afford anything better.

Magic couldn't exist in this bitter, cruel, harsh world.

Esmera dropped her phone onto her bed as she stood and laid the flower and pebble beside it with gentle hands. She tilted her head as she studied the pebble. Was it her imagination, or was it glimmering?

There must be some reason why the lark kept leaving these pebbles for Esmera. Maybe she could sell them.

If the pebbles were so rare that there was no mention of them on the internet, maybe they were more valuable than Esmera imagined.

She tapped her chin as she considered that. She had a jar full of the little stones. Maybe she should try selling them on eBay.

Esmera could barely afford simple luxuries like cheese, but she knew there were people wealthy and frivolous enough to waste their wealth on stones she got for free. She had even lived with people like that once.

This sounded like an opportunity. Esmera would grab it because those didn't come often.

She crossed her room in five steps.

The tiled floor was cold against Esmera's bare feet. Her dingy bathroom's damp scent welcomed her. It had become familiar enough that she paid it no heed as she splashed water over her face.

It didn't matter whether she opened the cold or hot faucet. The water was always cold.

Esmera froze as she caught sight of a woman in the mirror. It took her a moment to recognise her as herself.

She had gotten so used to the purplish bruises decorating her olive-toned skin and the black curls she had sported when she knew Stephan. Now that her skin had healed and she had dyed her hair cinnamon brown, the closest colour she had found to her natural acorn shade in the drug store, she was starting to look like the Esmera she remembered.

But her eyes belonged to a stranger, and that scared her.

Every time Esmera ran from someone, she left behind a small but irreplaceable piece of herself.

It was no surprise, then, that Esmera was slowly losing herself.

It was only the lark, with his morning visits and thoughtful gifts, who soothed her with consistency. He was the one reliable element of Esmera's life. Whether he knew it or not, he kept her grounded amidst the turmoil that threatened to uproot her.

What would happen when Esmera lost him like she lost everyone else? If she had no idea where to look for him, what then?

She had to find out more about the lark, but how? He was gone before she could get a good look at him. The internet had no answers for her, and she had no one to ask.

Esmera took a deep breath and washed away her thoughts with some cold water. They weren't as important as being on time for her shift.

It had been five years, and Esmera still had no idea where the lark came from or why he came to her. Then again, she had gone 23 years without knowing anything about her birth family. Compared to that, five years was no time at all.