Merinda was pestered with an attraction that, with a persistent buzz, fluttered and grew with the flicker of the streetlights. She wondered why her heart was thudding and her head spinning. She only wanted a few more minutes—time to taste his words and study his profile and sense his nearness over her shoulder and… Cracker jacks! She was even thinking like Jemima!
She was looking at him, hoping that he wouldn’t see her looking at him, so of course he was looking at her. What might he see in her? She didn’t have the bow lips or curls that were the ideal of feminine beauty. The features that Jem possessed in spades. But Benny… Maybe he would throw in for interesting. For unexpected.
“Look there!” She pointed to a darkening sky whose rim was the color of fairy floss. “Cassiopeia.”
“Actually, Cassiopeia is a circumpolar constellation,” Benny explained. “You’re not likely to find it in August.” He took her hand in his hand, light as a feather, and propelled it to the other corner of the sky. “That is Aquila.” He lowered their hands but didn’t let go, her soft hand in his large, calloused one.
“Aquila,” Merinda repeated, tracing the map of his eyes.
He nodded. Cleared his throat. He spun her hand to the universe again. “Lyra,” he said.
“Lyra.” She blinked up at it. It watched them slyly, winking its approval. As did the others he labeled, their hands still attached, little sprightly constellations and sparkly dots, more than a few stars in the sky.
“Why didn’t you just find Jonathan on your own, Benny?” Merinda removed her hand. “You’re such a smart tracker. You never really needed Jem and me.”
He looked at her, from the brim of her bowler down to the scuffed toe of her brogans. “Merinda,” he sighed, “I can track a moose; I can hunt a lynx. I can label every star in the sky. I cannot map my way through a maze of city streets.”
The next morning, en route to the communal sink, Ray noticed that Jasper Forth’s pillow was still over his head. Ray rolled his shirtsleeves up, adjusted his suspenders, and splashed cold water over his face before raking his fingers through his hair. The cracked mirror and the morning light striping through the window betrayed tired eyes and worry lines he was certain hadn’t been there before. He had several years on Jem to begin with, but was he finally starting to look his age? Soon gray would speckle his hair and his mouth would secure itself into a constant frown. He was certain the majority of this burden would be smoothed away when he finally was at ease about his sister.
He laced his shoes and returned a few grunts from fellow lodgers with a small smile. He scrawled the address of a coffee shop on a piece of paper and placed it at the edge of Jasper’s pillow and then walked out of the lodging house and almost directly into Viola.
His heart tugged at her attempts to look presentable despite the threadbare cotton of her dress and her sunken hat.
“Vi!”
“I’ve spent the better part of this morning visiting almost every boardinghouse in this end of the city,” she explained as he took her elbow and guided her off of the yard and to the main street. “When Tony said he saw you, well… ” She smiled. “You should be proud.” She bopped her head in a confirming nod. “I am not unlike one of your girl detectives.”
This coaxed a slight smile from Ray. “Indeed. Come, you can help us find somewhere to eat breakfast.”
It was a beautiful morning, made more so by Viola’s proximity and the feather weight of her hand in the crook of his arm. She had left Luca with the neighbor. She was in the kind of bright mood that allowed her to expound on her son’s progress and how comfortable he was at being with other children. Ray said very little, cherishing instead the rather endearing hybrid of English and Italian in Viola’s soft sentences.
When they reached the restaurant, he opened his mouth to order coffee, but Viola was adamant that they drink lemonade. Ray advised her that lemonade with the sticky buns she was also adamant about ordering were an odd pairing, but she cared little. A girl at the town fair for an afternoon with a few pennies to recklessly spend. Ray was thankful for the wad of sweaty bills Hedgehog had pressed into his hand the evening before.
The waiter set down two lemonades. Ray smiled as Viola wrinkled her nose at the first taste.
“Should I ask for more sugar?” he asked.
Viola shook her head. “What is the English word—aspro?”
“Sour.”
She nodded. “Sour. It’s good, though. Cold.”