Page 73 of The Light Between Worlds

We stand in the silent lobby and I’m not sure what he’ll do. Then he heaves a sigh and beckons to me to follow him. “The workmen dragged a few old couches into the shut-off rooms, forwhen they’re on break. I can’t say as they’re very clean, but if you’re out of the way before morning shift starts, we’ll keep this between you and me.”

I look up at him, and there’s no pride left in my posture, or in the puddle of rainwater I’ve left on the lobby floor. “It might be for a while, Albright. Do you mind?”

He shrugs. “The higher-ups might, but I don’t, and what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Relief washes over me. “Thank you. I couldn’t think where else to go.”

“S’alright, Miss. Don’t say anything else about it.”

Albright leads me to a back room where rubble lies in heaps in the corners and the walls are seamed with cracks. An overstuffed couch sits off to one side, cotton batting bursting through its worn upholstery. There’s only one window with glass in it, the rest being covered over with tarps. That single window stares out at the wreckage that is all that’s left of Room 10.

Drop cloths serve me for a pillow and a blanket. No sooner has Albright gone than I sink into sleep.

And I dream.

Grey rain. Grey sea. Grey sky.

Evelyn beside me and Cervus before us, as I break my sister’s heart because I can’t let her go.

When I wake in the small hours before dawn, rain still drums against the makeshift tin roof. I put myself together in one of the Gallery’s tiny staff lavatories, and a haunted face peers out from the mirror. I look like Ev.

So I put on powder and lipstick with even more care than usual. I spray myself with scent to hide the smell of plaster dust. I brush my hair till it shines, and slip on red pumps with silver buckles. When I look again, my face is a perfect mask that blocks off any glimpse of the lost girl within.

52

IN THE END, IT’S MY BEASTLY STOMACH THAT GIVESout. By spring of our last year together, Ev’s wandering the woods ceaselessly and I can’t keep anything down.

The nurse and Hardwick’s fusty doctor are brought in. They tell me I have an ulcer, and confine me to the school infirmary for a week. They say it’s to minimize stress and that I’ve got to stop pushing myself so hard. My courtiers divide up the various committees and clubs I oversee between them, and I’m left with nothing to do but read and think.

I don’t recover as quickly as the doctor would like. Of course not—cooped up in the infirmary, I’m wild with worry over Evelyn. At least until an unlikely delegation comes to visit.

Max, Georgie, and Millie Green appear in the door one afternoon. I’m only glad I fixed my hair and put on lipstick, though there’s nothing that can be done about the fact that I’m in pajamas at three p.m.

“We’re here about Ev,” Max says simply as they pull up chairs, hemming me in like a captive. “Whether you’ve asked for it or not, it’s time you had help, Philippa. You need to get away, and to trust that in yourabsence, what will be is just what will be. Millie told us you made it into an American college. You ought to go.”

To my everlasting shame, I bury my face in my hands and cry.

“I can’t,” I sob. “I can’t. I promised to look out for her, and I won’t break a promise again.”

As a last resort, they send in Evelyn. She steps into the infirmary barefooted one afternoon, smelling of the woods and the clean spring wind, with daisies still braided in her hair. Ev sits on the side of my bed and takes my hand.

“Philippa, you should go,” she says, the light of hope shining in her eyes. “I’ll be alright. I know I’m not always at my best, but I can muddle through on my own until it’s time to go home.”

She looks so much like the girl she was. Like Evelyn of the Woodlands, who was strong of heart and will, and loved the Great Wood with every bone in her body. Like the girl who wanted nothing more than to grow things in the good earth, but who nevertheless found the courage to kill for me.

But I know how deep her darkness can become. And I know, too, that when winter returns, she’ll remember the truth—that she’s never going home. So, God help me, I remind her, because she needs to remember and because I can’t bear to be sent away.

“Evie.” I can’t look at her when I say the words. “You’re not going back. None of us are. Cervus said so himself.”

Ev’s eyes well with tears.

“Why would you say that?” she asks. “A Woodlands heart always finds its way home. Do I not have a Woodlands heart?”

I swallow, and swallow again, fighting back frustration. “You were born here, just like Jamie and me. This is where we belong, together.”

In all our years since the Woodlands, Evelyn has only once come close to reproaching me for my greatest failing—not my near-betrayal of the Woodlanders, but that I couldn’t leave without her. I couldn’t live in her world so I brought her back, and now she can’t live in mine.

Ev whispers something and pulls her hand away.