“Oh, dear God, this I must do,” the woman-girl Pilar prayed. But, oh, no, not this again, she thought. “But this I MUST do,” she said softly but with determination of purpose. With her brown-haired head bowed, she prayed, “This time I am more woman. With the obstacles what You know we will face, please, Father God, give me strength. I pray with the conviction of thy name and thy kingdom. Amen.” She crossed herself. 

She thrust her backpack upon her and proceeded from the lab that had been her prison-home for three years. Now . . . through the dark? Of course, through the darkness of the darkest night–but she had been this way before–about a year and a half ago. Through the woods? Of course, through the Woods of Bitter Elmwoods. To the bridge? Yes. The bridge. 

The woman-girl Pilar continued to talk as she journeyed. “We know, little bird, our journey will not be easy. We’ve come this way before.” 

Pilar thought, The bridge. Well, the bridge. Still the bridge. “We made it only to the bridge last time,” Pilar said and stopped as regret flooded over. “I DID make it to the bridge, little bird. I got THAT far.” Then, that confounded bridge. With all its dangerous, ever-changing winds and unsteady rickety-ness and the vertigo. 

“Don’t lose yourself in your misery, Pilar,” she said. 

She had forgotten something last time. “You got caught up in your grief and fear. You forgot to do something. You remembered fear. You lost your belief. On that bridge.”

But there was something ELSE she forgot. What was it? Then a light went on inside. “Ohh, me, ohh, my, little bird, I know I know I know. I forgot to pray. As I knew I should. As I learned from my father long ago. So, we must pray.” 

Pilar humbled herself to be even smaller among the Elmwoods. “Father, what do I fear? It is nothing that I know too well. I fear that which is not known. But it is all unknown. And that is nothing to dread. The struggle is all the purpose and it is all nothing here. As I struggle by the water, You are with me. Deliver me. Amen.” She crossed herself, rubbing the little bird hidden beneath her clothes. 

The suspension bridge gleamed like black shoelace licorice whipping between mountains, a crossing necessary to avoid the labyrinthian river canyon below. Truly, only the most experienced could travel by either. The terrain’s starkness had dictated the genetics lab be built here: rugged forests, sparse population, no one soul knowing another. “Seems like no soul’s on God’s green earth, my little bird. But it is all satisfactory. This is our time. God is with us.” 

She knew this time had to be a success. It was surprising to be offered another chance. Others as well wanted her safe and away from the lab. 

Genetics. That’s what was all important now, what they experimented about. Who were “they”? She knew them not, not before “they” had changed her life. Why her? Why not? It had to be some girl, and her father was in someone’s sights, had made some “they” very angry: To kidnap a man’s daughter and use her in genetic engineering.

“I hate to admit it, little bird, but I found the lab rather fascinating. All the cages with the colorful birds of so many talents. Their songs were like music to God.” She added, “Forgive me, Father God. But they were beautiful. I digress from my plight.” 

She huddled behind shrubbery just before the clearing that led onto the bridge. “This is where we stumbled. We must not falter. You must escape, special little bird. Across the bridge and down the canyon face we will travail, and some set distance away, will be a man in a boat with an outboard motor hidden with God’s grace. Such a craft can battle these mighty waters. Are you ready? Yes, I think we are, praise God.” 

On approach, Pilar emptied herself into the air as the clouds cleared and the moon exposed, not the licorice she had seen from afar, but the steel that had previously prevented her freedom. Pilar then refilled herself with spirit and boldness of purpose. “Eh, it is all one. If it be now, ‘tis not to come –if it be not to come, it will be now –if it be not now, yet it will come –the readiness is all.” She began her crossing of the Bridge of Sighs and Air. 

Of course, halfway across, “they” came again–a single man on a motorcycle. “We are beyond him–perhaps far enough. We hold the ropes and we run.” With each step, the man-and-machine gained momentum, the bridge vibrating beneath Pilar’s feet, her body trembling with the vibrations and thunder from something fast approaching. 

As the girl slipped, grasping the slippery blackness holding her as if a bird in flight, the bridge gave way beneath it all, dangling like a metal swing a-loose from the moorings in its cage, partly crashing into the waters below. Into the rush and covered over became the man-and-machine, bellowing in the torrent.

Pilar found herself gasping, clinging on for life as the bridge slapped itself–until resting along the crags of its mountainside. Through much pain, she struggled down to the water’s edge–only to hear a motorboat engine sail away. 

“We are too late, little bird,” she said as the sound receded into the rush and the dying of night and hope. “Yes, Lord, it is all one.” 

Pilar moved along the bank to more of a gathering place. “Eh, where two or three are gathered . . . there am I in the midst. “ She sat. 

Soon the boat, no motor running, came into her view. Closer it came. “Come,” the man yelled. “Let me take you and your baby-to-be to safety. Hurry.” He began the motor. “The current is swift.” 

“Praise God,” Pilar said, wading out and climbing aboard.