Page 76 of The Light Between Worlds

“Very well.” Jack stares straight ahead, into the driving rain. “I enlisted the day after I turned eighteen, spent a few months in training, then shipped out to Italy. I was there for two weeks before I ended up trapped in a building during a bombing. Not much of the house was left, but what was caught fire, and so I am as you see me now. Spent the rest of the war in a convalescent ward.”

“And of course it was entirely natural to go straight from hospital to the National Gallery,” I point out drily.

Jack gives me a sidelong look. “Before the war, I thought I’d paint. Afterward, for obvious reasons, I decided I’d rather give damaged things a new lease on life. So I studied in hospital—there was precious little else to do—finished up my degree in record time, and then Presswick hired me on. I shouldn’t have got the job, not without any experience, but you know how Presswick is.”

“Of course.” I hug my knees tight and rest my chin on them, still watching his face in profile, his hands on the wheel. “And I think you’re right, you weren’t a hero, but youwerebrave.”

Jack tilts his head to one side, trying to sort that out. “Oh? What’s the difference?”

“Heroes do something extraordinary, when they might have chosen to do otherwise. Brave people just bear up under theircircumstances and do their best. There’s a whole world full of brave people out there, all trying to muddle through. And honestly, I don’t think heroes are worth more at the end of the day. Sometimes it takes greater courage to learn to live again when you think your life’s over, than it does to risk it in the first place.”

Jack pulls the car over to the side of a windswept, rainy road, and turns in his seat. “Which one are you, then? Heroic or brave?”

I shake my head. “Neither. I’ve already told you. I’m only a girl trying to fix her mistakes.”

“Then you’d better not think of me as brave,” Jack warns. “It’s just pigheadedness. I don’t give up on things easily. Never have. Don’t mistake me for something I’m not.”

I’ve made a great many mistakes in life, but I know this isn’t one of them.

“As you wish,” I concede. “Call it stubbornness, then, but from where I’m sitting, your stubbornness and courage look very much alike.”

“Will you ever let me win an argument?” He smiles his crooked smile and I can’t help but smile back.

“Unlikely. But it’s your own fault—no one asked you to add me to the lists of damaged things you’re trying to restore.”

We’re quiet for a minute, listening to the hiss of the wipers and the murmur of the rain.

“Phil,” Jack says finally, “whatever courage I have or haven’t got, people aren’t paintings. I can’t erase your troubles, no matter how much I’d like to. But I can be with you while you sort them out yourself, as long as you’ll allow it.”

He looks down at his hands on the wheel, one marred by war,the other lean and whole. “The truth is, I like you a great deal—more than anyone else I’ve ever known. God help me, but I’ve always liked complicated things, and I don’t believe I could ever get to the end of you, not if I spent my whole life trying. So if you think I’m here because you’re in pieces, you’re wrong—I’m here because those pieces make up something I can’t look away from.”

I lean across the little distance between us and brush a kiss against the burned side of his face. “Jack Summerfield, swear you’re not going to leave me. I know you think you won’t, but I’ve had things change before, things I was as certain of as gravity, and I’m not sure I can do without you any longer.”

“You’d be fine without me. You’ll manage no matter what.” Jack reaches for my hand, and twines his fingers through my own. “But I promise you, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”

We drive on, and inside me, fear blossoms alongside the guilt I carry. I trust Jack to be steadfast as the sunrise. What I don’t trust is my own self, who’s been torn out of this world and sent back from another, and who couldn’t stand by her sister in the end. Who let a few thoughtless words drive her away.

Jack I’m certain of. But I’ve never been anything other than faithless—a girl who breaks her promises. A girl who leaves.

54

THE INN AT EDGETHORN HALT IS A THATCH-ROOFEDbuilding with a low-ceilinged great room and a wide fireplace at one end. The booths are cramped, the lighting dim, the back staircase precipitous, and the rooms Spartan in their comforts. In short, it’s everything an out-of-the-way country stopping place ought to be.

I sleep better than usual, without the worry of being caught camping out in the Gallery, and in the morning I go down buzzing with nerves.

This is it. There’s no other place I can think of that might lead me to a last truth from Evelyn. If I don’t find anything here, I’m back at the riverbank, with her trail gone cold.

We have breakfast—for Jack, buttered toast, for me, black coffeeandbuttered toast, which he orders and hawkishly watches me eat. When we’ve finished, we hurry through the misting rain to the car. I’m quiet on the drive out of Edgethorn and into the countryside, worrying at a hangnail with my teeth until Jack takes my hand in his own.

All too soon, we slow at the base of the hill where the Harpers’ farmhouse stands. I peer up between sheets of rain and can see it’s the sort of place Ev would like—stone, unassuming, looking of a piece with the surrounding dales.

“Are you ready?” Jack asks. I nod.

His Morris Minor purrs steadily up the drive and then we’re parked in the farmyard, taking umbrellas from the back seat and dodging puddles to get to the door. On the front step, I pause a moment to steady myself, then raise a hand to knock. There’s a sound of voices from inside, calling back and forth. I give Jack a nervous look.

The door opens at last to reveal a wiry young woman with a riot of red hair spilling out from under a Sunday hat. She frowns at the sight of us.

“Hello. I’m so sorry, I’d ask you in but we’re on the way to church and probably don’t want whatever it is you’re selling, anyhow. Better luck next time.”