Free All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

still see the outlines on the wall where spice bins had once hung, and worked on a solution to the problem of Berkley.
    “If we could capture the cat, we could rig some kind of protective exoskeleton,” Laurence said.
    “He’s suffered enough,” Patricia said. “I don’t want to torture him any more by prodding him and attaching some kind of gear to his body.”
    “If I knew how to build nanomachines, I would make a swarm of them follow him around and form a shield when he was in distress. But my best attempts at nanomotors were sort of, um, lazy. You wouldn’t like lazy nanobots.”
    They caught a glimpse of Berkley in the unilluminable darkness of the spice house’s upper attic, behind a great support beam. A glimmer of fur, a bright pair of eyes. Another time Berkley ran down the stairs, just as they threw themselves in his path. The two children wound up in a bruised heap at the bottom of the stairwell.
    “Listen,” Patricia said from the bottom of the stairs. “Tommington was a good cat. I didn’t have anything against him. He was just doing his cat thing. I never meant him any harm, I swear.” There was no response.
    “Maybe you should do a spell,” said Laurence. “Do some magic or something. I dunno.”
    Patricia felt sure Laurence was laughing at her, but he didn’t have that kind of guile. She would have seen it on his face.
    “I’m serious,” Laurence said. “This seems like a magic kind of problem, if there ever was one.”
    “But I don’t know how to do anything,” Patricia said. “I mean, the only time I did anything magicky in years was when I ate too much spicy food. I’ve tried every kind of spice a hundred times since then.”
    “But maybe you didn’t need to be able to do anything those other times,” Laurence said. “And now, you do.”
    Berkley watched them from atop a bookcase full of Patricia’s mother’s Productivity Assessment books. He was ready to flee, fast as a bullet train, if they came too close.
    “I wish we could just go into the woods and find that magic Tree,” Patricia said. “But my parents would kill me if they found out. And I know Roberta would tell them.”
    “I don’t think we need to go into the woods,” said Laurence, still eager to avoid the outdoors. “From what you told me before, the power is inside you. You just need to get at it.”
    Patricia looked at Laurence, who was not in any way screwing with her, and she couldn’t imagine ever having a better friend in the world.
    She went back up to the attic, where it was always way hotter than the rest of the spice house, and listened to her own breathing. She looked like a bird to herself, her body so tiny and hollow-boned. Laurence and Berkley were both watching to see what she was going to do. Berkley even crept a little closer along a ceiling beam.
    Okay. Now or never.
    She imagined that this hot attic was a jungle, and the dry beams were fruitful trees and the boxes of old clothes were lush undergrowth. She couldn’t go to the forest, she couldn’t count on astral-projecting a second time—fine. She would bring the forest to her. She breathed the scents of long-ago chests of saffron and turmeric, and she imagined a million branches splaying over their heads, endless limbs as far as they could see in any direction. She tried to remember the sound of Tommington’s speech, long ago, and tried to speak to Berkley the same way, as close as she could manage.
    She had no clue what she was doing, and if she stopped a second to think about what a nut she looked like, she would die.
    She was talking under her breath, but she got a little louder. Berkley crept closer, his tongue between two pointy teeth. Patricia swayed a little and reached deep in her throat for a grumbling, raucous sound. Berkley’s ears pricked up.
    Berkley was definitely coming over, and Patricia grew louder. He was almost within grabbing distance if she wanted to grab him, which she didn’t.
    “You … speak cat?”