Page 30 of The Light Between Worlds

“She’s not coming home for Christmas. She’s going to stay at school, in America. I don’t know why—not unless you plan to tell me what went on between the two of you—but I wanted to give you time to get used to the idea. I only just found out from Dad and Mum yesterday. I’m sorry.”

I don’t dare to examine what it is I’m feeling at the revelation that Philippa’s staying in America. I’ve written so many letters, and there’s never a reply. Or rather, there has been—she writes to Mum and Dad, but never to me, and rarely to Jamie. Our news comes secondhand, in the form of bright, cheerful asides.Ev would love the artwork I’m studying. Jamie would love American politics. They’dboth love the hiking in New England.

Nothing important. Nothing of meaning.

“It’s fine.” I lower myself into one of the armchairs as Jamie sits down again in the other. Truthfully I’m not sure yet if it’s fine, but Jamie looks so miserable to be delivering bad news that I need to make things better for him.

He leans his head against one of the armchair’s wings and stares out the library window to the courtyard beyond. Everything’s gold and silver with morning sun and frost.

“I can’t help but blame myself, Ev. I should’ve done better when we came back. Should’ve talked about it more, should’ve been there for her, and for you. But I was lost in the woods. I’m still lost in the woods. We’re all caught between two places now.”

I straighten and fix him with an unflinching stare. Even the broken pieces scraping together inside me can do nothing to diminish its potency. “Jamie Hapwell, you belonged in the Great Wood.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

His smile stings, because I may know where home is, but Jamie no longer does.

I lean forward, just a bit, and speak with every bit of faith I’ve got left in me. “We’re going back. He promised me.A Woodlands heart always finds its way home.”

Jamie’s face crumples. “Don’t, Evelyn. I can’t.”

He shuts his eyes. Once upon a time, I knew all the right words to say to Jamie, to my darling older brother who worked so hard to prove himself in the Great Wood, and who can’t quite stop feeling like he’s failing here. Now all I do is hurt him, when I want to offer words that heal.

“Hello, Ev,” one of Georgie’s friends says cheerfully as she walks past with a stack of books. “Saw your fellow coming up the drive.”

Jamie sits up and a little of the worry fades from his face. “You’re still seeing Tom, then? I’m glad of that.”

I don’t answer. Everything that’s happened this morning has strengthened my resolve, honing it to a fine and cutting edge. The stag, Philippa’s refusal to come home, my failure to reassure Jamie—it’s all reminded me of something I’d nearly lost track of this term.

I’m an exile. This is not where I belong. I walk a world devoid of magic, but someday I’m leaving, and there is no point complicating my life here.

Jamie, who sees through me as easily as I see through him, shakes his head. He reaches across the space between us and takes my hands.

“Evelyn. Please don’t. Tom’s a good lad. He—”

I pull away and fix Jamie with an icy stare. “I am who I am, Jamie. We all know it. I’m never going to be anyone else, and I’m just biding my time. I’ve been a fool to let things go so far, and I’m going to stop them now before someone gets hurt.”

Jamie pushes himself to his feet and looks out at the brilliant courtyard, standing with bent shoulders that were always straight when we were young in the Great Wood. “What made you change your mind?”

“A lot of things. Philippa.”

Jamie’s hands ball into fists at his sides. He broke two fingers once, hitting the wall at Palace Beautiful in a fit of rage over the warwe couldn’t avoid. He’s learned circumspection, which is a thing no boy his age should know.

We’re all so old in so many ways.

“We should be making a life here,” Jamie argues. “We’re not supposed to just wait.”

“I have to choose, Jamie,” I tell him. “I can’t try to be here and there at the same time. And I choose the Woodlands. I’ll always choose the Woodlands.”

“Fine.” He growls his words at me, well and truly angry, and I almost waver in my resolve. “Do what you have to, but I won’t stay and watch. I’m sick of standing by while you tear yourself apart.”

Jamie stalks off down the shelves and I wrap the silence of the library around myself like a cloak.

It’s not long before Tom finds me. There’s something so earnest about him, and he’s wearing a badly knit sweater, grey and patterned with whimsical, lopsided reindeer. He stands just where Jamie did, with his hands in his pockets, and looks down at me sadly.

Grey sea. Grey sky. A stag on the beach.

Tom’s not one for avoiding an issue.