Page 69 of The Light Between Worlds

“Thank you,” I say, meaning it with every bit of me. “For reading my sister’s words when I couldn’t. And I’m sorry, whether you believe it or not, for being who I am, and for not being here when I ought to have been. You may not know me, but you should know this—I will spend the rest of my life doing penance for the mistakes I’ve made.”

Dawes has no answer for that. He just stands watching as I leave the waiting room, clutching my sister’s last words.

Across from Evelyn’s empty bed, her letters sit on my lap, and they’re heavy as consequence, burdensome as guilt.

Before I can falter, I slide the first from its envelope and smooth creases from the paper.

It’s poetry.

I’d expected something else. Entreaties for me to come home, or feigned cheerfulness. Instead I find verse.

Beautiful Evelyn, Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.

That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,

Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think:

The shutters are shut, no light may pass

Save two long rays thro’ the hinge’s chink.

There are pages upon pages of poetry—every letter a window made of words.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

’T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,