Page 61 of Saint Céline
Katherine stood beside the car afterwards, still blotchy-eyed from crying.
“I swear I checked everywhere.”
“I know,” Mrs. Montgomery said gently.
“No, I really did.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
And just like that, everyone moved on. Except me. Because I stood there in the driveway realizing something slowly and horribly. Even when I tried to disrupt their world, their world remained intact. The only thing I had truly damaged was Katherine’s trust in herself. She looked at me before getting into the car.
“I’m going to bring you something back from Switzerland,” she promised softly.
The guilt hit so hard I almost confessed right there.
Instead, I smiled.
“Okay.”
Then I stood in the rain and watched the car disappear through the gates while the stolen passport remained hidden beneath the creaky floorboard under my bed in the cottage, already beginning to rot.
16
Céline
Miss Astoria slept in my bed like she had lived there her entire life. Not beside me. On me. At some point during the night, she had migrated from the pillow to my chest and stayed there with the absolute confidence of a creature who had survived emotional devastation only to discover central heating and expensive duvet covers waiting on the other side.
I woke slowly to the weight of her pressed warm against my ribs and the sound of Blackwater’s perpetual rain still moving softly against the dorm windows. For a few quiet seconds, I forgot everything. Katherine. The funeral. Vincent.The terrace.All of it. There was only the steady comfort of another living thing breathing against me and the faint vibration of her purring under my palm.
Then Miss Astoria sneezed directly into my mouth.
I opened my eyes immediately. “You’re disgusting.”
The cat blinked at me without a trace of remorse, blue eyes calm and unapologetic.
Grey morning light filtered weakly through the curtains, turning the room soft and hazy. My phone sat charging on the nightstand beside three unread texts from Thad and one from Sophia that simply read:do not move i want to photograph the cat in daylight.
I smiled despite myself, the small curve of my mouth feeling almost foreign after so many heavy days. Miss Astoria stretched luxuriously across my chest, claws catching briefly in my sleep shirt before she climbed higher and pressed her face beneath my chin as if she belonged exactly there.
“You’re needy,” I told her quietly, running my fingers through her soft white fur.
The cat purred louder in response, the sound rumbling deep and satisfied through my sternum. I lay there another minute staring at the ceiling while rainwater slid quietly down the windows outside. The room felt different now. Softer somehow. Less haunted. Grief became more difficult to romanticize when a cat screamed for breakfast at seven in the morning and refused to let you pretend the world had ended.
Miss Astoria abruptly climbed off me and marched across the bed with startling purpose. Then she sat beside the bedroom door and screamed.
I closed my eyes. “Wonderful.”
Another scream.
“You survived one night without starvation.”
Scream.
“You’re so manipulative.”
Scream.
By the time I opened the bedroom door, Sophia and Anya were already standing outside like divorced parents arriving for a custody exchange. Sophia held a mug of coffee in both hands,her dark hair pulled into a low knot, and her silk robe draped perfectly over her shoulders even at this hour. Anya stood beside her wearing an oversized Bellamont sweatshirt and one sock, her striking pale eyes already bright with amusement.
