“You were going to take the brides box and leave me here, weren’t you? That’s what you were going to do!”
“Julia, please!” Emmy begged, all anger gone. Fear filled the empty space it left behind. She sat down on the bed next to her sister, the brides box clasped close to her chest. “Please keep your voice down. Please?”
“You can’t just leave me here! How could you leave me here?”
Emmy laid the box down between them and gently took hold of one of Julia’s hands. “Julia, listen to me. You have to trust me. Sometimes grown-ups have to do things that don’t seem to make sense and—”
“You’re not a grown-up!” Julia snatched her hand away.
“Yes, I am. I’ll be sixteen on my next birthday. I’m not a little child anymore. I have to think of my future and what I am supposed to do with my life.”
“You’re supposed to be with me.” Julia turned from Emmy, frowning.
“Julia, look at me.” Emmy waited until Julia had turned her head back to face her. “You know how much I love my brides dresses. You of all people know how important they are to me. I have a chance for them to become real. Some chances in life you only get once. Just the one time. I have to go.”
Julia stared at the brides box that lay between her and Emmy. Her expression was part loathing and part desire. At that moment Emmy could see that Julia hated the brides inside that box as much as she loved them.
“Take me with you,” Julia said.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can!”
“Julia, think for a moment. You are happy here. You have a lovely room. And Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Rose. You have the tea set to play with and Guinevere and Henrietta and all their beautiful clothes. Next week school starts, and you’ll get to play with all the little girls you have seen at church and in the village. You have the chickens to take care of. And the pond and the turtles. You love it here. I know you do.”
A tear had formed in the corner of each of Julia’s eyes. “Don’t you love it here, too?”
Emmy moved closer and put an arm around her. “This is a lovely place. And Charlotte and Rose are wonderful people. I am not leaving because I don’t like it here. That’s not it at all. If I didn’t have this chance to make my dresses real, I would stay. But I have to go. Someday when you’re my age, you will understand why.”
“I want you here with me.”
“And I would stay if I could. But I can’t. And you will be fine here without me.” Emmy tightened her arm around her sister.
For a moment Emmy thought she had Julia convinced, but then she felt her stiffen in her half embrace.
“No.”
“Julia.”
“Take me with you or I’m telling Aunt Charlotte.”
Emmy’s breath caught in her throat. She put both hands on Julia’s shoulders to turn her sister toward her. “Julia, I can’t take you.”
Julia wriggled out of Emmy’s grasp, climbed off the bed, and stood in front of her. “Take me with you or I’m telling Aunt Charlotte right now.” Julia’s gaze on Emmy was like steel.
“Don’t do this, Julia. Please?”
“Don’t go, then. Stay here.”
“I have to go!”
“Then take me with you. Or I’m telling Aunt Charlotte.”
Emmy wanted to scream at her. Throw something. Pound the wall. She could do none of those things.
She could only agree to take Julia and then hope that when she got ready to leave in the middle of the night, Julia would not hear her and she could steal away unnoticed.
“All right,” Emmy said. “I’ll take you.”
Julia stared at her for a moment, wondering, it seemed, whether she had heard Emmy right. She had expected Emmy to tell her she would stay; that was clear.
“When?” Julia asked.
“Very early tomorrow morning, before the milkman comes. But you can’t pack anything, Julia. You can’t bring your suitcase or your fairy tale book. They’re too heavy. Do you understand? You have to leave those things here and you might not see them again. I’m leaving all my things here. I’m only taking the brides box. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Julia nodded, a pensive look on her face.
“And you can’t be looking at me strangely tonight at supper or asking me questions or anything. You have to act like everything is normal. All right?”
Julia seemed deep in thought. She didn’t answer.
“All right?” Emmy said again.
“I know how to be normal,” Julia said, crinkling an eyebrow.
From downstairs the girls heard Charlotte calling Julia’s name. It was her turn to set the table.
Julia stepped to the door and opened it. “I’m coming!” she yelled.
“Not a word, Julia,” Emmy murmured.
“I know how to be normal,” Julia said again, and was gone.
For the rest of the afternoon and evening Julia kept her word. She gave no indication at all that she expected to run away with Emmy that night, not even the slightest of nervous behaviors. They listened to the BBC for a little while after dinner. But there was nothing except news of air battles raging over the English Channel. Charlotte switched it off and the four of them worked on a puzzle. Finally, a little after nine, Julia was sent up to bed and Emmy joined her. Thinking Emmy was still having menstrual cramps, Charlotte thought nothing of it. She sent her to bed with another cup of herbal tea.
Up in their bedroom Emmy laid out on her bed what she could fit in the satchel. The coin purse that held the only money she had—all of her paycheck from her two months’ work at Primrose and the little bit Mum had sent with them—a package of biscuits she had taken from the pantry, changes of underwear, toothbrush and paste, and the brides box, which she wrapped in a shawl so that the corners wouldn’t bite into her side as she walked the five miles to Moreton with the satchel over her shoulder.
The envelope inscribed with Charlotte’s name she had already removed from the brides box and it now lay on the bed.
“What did you write in Aunt Charlotte’s letter?” Julia asked.
“The same thing I wrote in yours.” Emmy picked up the letter and set it on the nightstand so that Charlotte would see it in the morning.
“But you have to tell her I went with you. She won’t know I went with you unless you tell her.”
Emmy had hoped Julia would not think of this. But as she stood there staring at Emmy, she knew she would have to do exactly what her sister said. Julia and she had been together every minute since she’d opened the brides box and found the envelopes. She knew Emmy hadn’t written anything additional in the note to Charlotte. Emmy decided it didn’t matter. In the morning when Julia awoke, Emmy would be long gone. Charlotte would put two and two together. She would understand why in the first part of the letter Emmy asked her to watch over Julia and in the postscript she told her Julia was coming along, especially since Julia would be there to fill in all the blanks.
“Get me the pen off the desk.”
Julia did as she was told. Emmy retrieved the letter, lifted the single sheet of paper out, and smoothed it onto the nightstand.