[crow]

But there was something more satisfying, somehow, about doing it out here, where he could smell the salt of the air and feel the breeze. He smiled to himself, a small and secret smile, but nonetheless a little giddy for it.

Then he tipped his head back, and stared up at the wide expanse of sky.

He was careful not to stare at the sun, of course. He'd learned a long time ago that it was bad for your eyes to do that, and so he directed his gaze resolutely away from it.

[crow]

It was no loss to him though, since the sun wasn't really what he was interested in anyway. He'd come out here to watch the clouds, and see if he could read anything in their patterns.

That... was something he could have done from inside the hotel room too, or at least Lawrence thought so. Lawrence was always telling him that they had perfectly good windows, and couldn't he watch from there? Lawrence knew, at least, that Gabriel liked to read about this sort of thing, and this was his idea of a compromise, Gabriel supposed.

[crow]

And that was better than most of the other officials at the Church. They never asked how Gabriel was doing, or paid attention to what he read, and the way they talked to his mother... And Lawrence was just trying to keep him safe. Lawrence said that a lot too, especially when he had to tell Gabriel not to do something anymore.

But it just wasn't the same, observing from a window. There was a limit to how much you could see, even from a big window, and the one in Gabriel's room at the Church wasn't very big anyway.

[crow]

There was no real substitute for being able to look up at the whole sky, in any direction he wanted--- no substitute for being able to feel the air around him, the temperature, the smell. He fantasized about it sometimes--- what did it smell like in the middle of a lightning storm? In the moments just before a rainshower?

None of those things were happening now, but there was still plenty to think about just watching docile, fluffy clouds like the ones he was seeing today.

[crow]

Cumulus clouds... The ones that look like the kind in picture books. One drifted into the path of the sun. The beach around him dimmed, but Gabriel knew that the sun would come back out as soon as the wind blew the errant cloud further out.

Before he could think anything further, however, a voice called out to him. "Boy! You there!" Gabriel blinked, looking around for the source. A man stood some ways out into the water, dressed in working clothes. "What are you doing?" he asked.

[Wild Pet Found]