The cover is thick, bound with burgundy leather. I flip through the pages, wondering where to start. There are pen markings under certain lines, and she’s written nonsensical notes in the margins, circling words like nose-herb and scribbling Sounds like Var’s . . .
The play Twelfth Night seems to have the most markings. Some of the pages are bent, and the ink is smeared. I flip to the end again, but this time I ignore the envelope. The back cover is lined with velvet, and my fingertips leave patterns on it the way they would on a frosted window.
And then I notice the smallest tear fraying at the corner.
I glance at Miles. He is absorbed with drawing the yellow burst of a sunflower, so I pull on the cover’s thread. It comes away, and I realize it’s been sewn on in faint stitches. My curiosity catches like a white flame, and I work out the stitches with my nail, staring out the window so that I won’t draw Miles’s attention. When the flap is loosened enough, I slide the book back into my knapsack to hide it. Then I sweep my fingers into the opening.
Even before my fingertips feel glass, I know it.
There’s something hidden inside.
Chapter Two
I tear the opening a little more to give my fingers space to work. Whatever is hidden there feels cold and smooth. I draw it out and examine it in the palm of my hand.
It is a colorless jewel, as clear as water, with a teardrop suspended inside, set in a gold band. The familiar chill from my dream suddenly seeps through my fingertips. It’s my mother’s ring. I never saw her right hand without it, and I assumed it had been buried with her. Her rings were usually caked with dirt from her garden, but this one looks as though it’s been thoroughly cleaned. It stings a little to see it now. This is what I would have wanted to take with me if she had given me the choice. Why would she hide it in a book and plan to send it off to some stranger named Stefen?
I slip the stone onto my finger, but it’s too big, so I hold it in my palm. It takes not half a minute for Miles to notice.
“What’s that?” He looks up from his drawing, his eyebrows knitting.
“It’s Mother’s ring. She gave it to me,” I lie, and hurriedly unclasp my necklace, exchanging my small heart pendant for the stone. It clinks against the buttons lining my dress.
“Next stop is yours,” says a gruff voice behind me, so near that I jump. The conductor’s breath is stale with coffee, staining the air around us. I haven’t seen any signs of a town since I jerked awake from my dream, and fields stretch out endlessly from beyond the window, only occasionally split by a farmhouse or barn. Gardner had been a small town to grow up in, but this feels like being dropped in the middle of an ocean. An ocean of cornstalks burnt gold by the sun.
“The finishing word,” Miles says, putting his boots up on the seat next to me and closing his notepad. “Go.”
I play with the clasp of my tortoiseshell barrette. The finishing word was Mother’s game, and I’m not sure I ever want to play it again. Every mile on this train, every minute that passes is taking me farther away from my old life. The life I still want to be living.
A thought comes to me gently, and it is in my mother’s voice: That ship has sailed, honey. Now you can either drown or hitch a ride on the next one.
Will anyone put flowers on her grave while we are all away?
Even though I’m only half thinking, I have a stroke of genius. “My finishing word is palimpsest,” I say. I snap the hair clip triumphantly.
Miles slumps back in his seat. “I’ve never heard of that word. You probably made it up.”
“No, I didn’t. You know tabula rasa?”
He gives me a vacant stare.
“We’re starting over with a blank slate, but we haven’t completely left our past.”
He chews on his cheek as if he’s trying to decide whether to believe me.
“What’s yours, then?” I ask over the train’s shrieking brakes. A patchwork of fields is rolling into the paved streets of a small town center.
“My finishing word is forsaken,” Miles says.
“How dramatic.”
“Fine. Then I’ll make it emprise. A fancy word for adventure.”
“That’s a good one,” I admit. “You win.” It’s a strong finishing word, especially for an eight-year-old—?even if I hadn’t already decided that I would let him win. “Grab your bag.”
Miles’s eyebrows arch together, and then his green eyes narrow.
“What will you do if I don’t get off?” he asks.
“You will,” I say, picking up his bag along with mine. I pretend they aren’t as heavy as they are.
“No one would blame me, you know,” he says, but he shimmies down the aisle toward the exit. “My mother just died.”
“Right, because I have no idea what that feels like,” I say, and when Miles pauses on the train step, I give him a shove. Then I take a deep breath of my own and step down onto the platform.
There are only two people waiting in the shade of the station’s overhang: a middle-aged woman and someone I assume is her son. I remember Mrs. Cliffton from my mother’s funeral. She was the only person not from Gardner, so she stuck out in the blurred line of mourners who went through the receiving line that day. She had been formal and reserved when she took my hand. “Matilda Cliffton. I was your mother’s best friend from childhood,” she explained, and I recognized her name. “My mother was always so pleased to get a letter from you,” I told her, and I had already moved on to greet the next person when she suddenly hugged me, as if she couldn’t leave until she had done it.
I overheard her offer to help my father however she could. I’m guessing she probably hadn’t envisioned Miles and me stepping off this train three weeks later.
“Hello!” Mrs. Cliffton calls, stepping toward us. Her black crepe funeral dress has been replaced with a day suit the color of plums and a matching hat. Her red hair is pulled up in a smart bun. She is more handsome than I remembered. But maybe it’s because this time she’s smiling. “Welcome!” she says. “Aila, seeing you here is like stepping back in time. You look just like Juliet did when we were young.”
“Thank you,” I say. I am grateful that she can say my mother’s name. That we can still talk of her. “You remember my brother, Miles.”
Miles sticks out his hand. “Miles Quinn,” he repeats solemnly as Mrs. Cliffton takes it. Our father’s pomade has evaporated, and Miles’s cowlick now stands up like a missed clump of grass.
“Welcome, Miles. And this is my son, William. He’ll get your bags,” Mrs. Cliffton says.
“Will,” the boy says, extending his hand. He looks to be about my own age, with dark hair that is slightly overgrown, and I can’t help but notice it covers the tips of his ears. His teeth are slightly crowded in his mouth, and his eyes are a blue I’ve never seen before.
He’s sort of handsome, in a way that falls between scruffy and striking.
“So this is Sterling,” I say quickly, glancing around.