I blink, trying to decide if I should tell him that it was our family that started this mess. And now our family has ended it.
“But . . .” His voice wavers before I make a decision. “What about Mother?” He swallows. “She still isn’t coming back . . . ?”
“No, Miles.” I take his hand in mine and squeeze it. “No, honey. She’s gone.”
Miles rubs fiercely at his eyes. “I’m not crying.”
Tears stream down both our faces. I choke on a laugh. “Me neither.”
“Aila? Miles?” Mrs. Cliffton’s raw voice rises. “Where are they? I want to see them.”
“Go on,” I tell Miles, and nudge him forward. He hesitates, raking his hands over his cheeks to dry them. His chin juts out at me. “What’s the finishing word?”
I look at his eyes, wide and shining, and realize that we are no longer the wrong things coming together, leaving only tragedy and sorrow in our wake. Instead Stefen, Mother, and I each played our parts in the right combination. Fit each of our flawed pieces together to unlock the Curse’s mystery for good.
I already know the answer. Perhaps I always have.
“Miles,” I tell him, “we are.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
May 11, 1943
Will is finding every excuse to touch me.
We brush against each other when we pass at school. Steal kisses in the shadows of the hall, in the kitchen. I float through the house, smelling each bursting vase of flowers, taking in the music that plays throughout every waking hour.
Today the scent of cake fills the air, a vanilla confection Genevieve has decorated with cream cheese frosting and strawberries shaped into flowers that bloom right off the edges. Will traces my knuckles hidden under the dining room table. When I blow out the candles, I close my eyes and make a handful of wishes, like seeds scattering from the puff of a dandelion.
My coming-of-age gifts aren’t Variant pouches, but normal teenage things. A volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Beas. A Harry James and His Orchestra record from George. A wooden box with an intricate lock from Will, which I will wait to open when no one else is around. A new green dress from the Clifftons and a pair of gloves from Miles. Cass sends a pack of Wint O Green Lifesavers and an empty picture frame for a favorite page of a favorite book. I’ll fill it with Shakespeare, of course. Henry IV:
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
Finally, Mrs. Cliffton brings out a gift from my father that she’s been holding since we arrived: my mother’s half-used bottle of Joy, the one that always sat on her vanity. A blur of sadness settles in my chest when I see how much she still had left. But when I open it, the scent of her floods the room, and for one split second it is almost as if she were back again.
I spend the rest of the day just the way I want to, drinking scalding tea with Mrs. Cliffton and talking about books with Dr. Cliffton, who is already inventing a new type of energy-infused glass for greenhouses. In the evening I play cards with Miles until he irritates me and I want him to go away.
In a month we’ll return to Gardner. To our old life. To Cass. My father is coming back with an injury to his leg he sustained back in January—?the time of his missing letters. He insists he’ll be okay, but the injury isn’t healing well enough for him to serve. He promises to tell us more when we’re together.
That night I write him: “We have some stories for you, too.”
Will knocks on my window, and I seal the envelope and climb to join him in the boughs of the tree outside my room. Stars blaze silver and white over our heads as though the sky is scattered with Glimmers. Will can’t stop staring at them. He built a swiveling stand to bring the telescope out into the garden on clear nights, and usually I join him. I know what he smells like now, another piece of him I’ve come to learn. His skin smells like soap and pinewood. His mouth tastes like peppermint.
A mile from here, safely tucked underground, the bones of the past are buried. New life has already started to grow all around them.
Will threads his hand in mine and whispers into my hair, “We could have a future now, because of what you did.” His lips faintly graze the tip of my ear. “If you want it.”
Maybe someday I will wake my daughter after a thunderstorm. Maybe we will watch the sunrise together from the garden, drinking in air heady with rain and soil, and I will tell her a story I won’t have told anyone else—?about a world that once withered a little more every seven years, about the knotted branches of our family tree, and the reason I stay to smell the flowers long after everyone else has gone.
It will be a story about colors and music and dreams. About her grandmother. About love.
But for now, I wait until Will’s eyes fix on the fading stars. And when the first birds sing with the coming morning, I whisper to him, “I do.”
Acknowledgments
This book was such a labor of love, and I am so grateful to everyone who read early drafts, brainstormed ideas, offered an encouraging word when I felt like giving up, and helped with childcare so I could make time to write. Thank you.
To Greg, James, and Cecilia: You bring the color, music, and stars to my life. This book is for, and because of, you.
To Sarah and Kevin Bain, Hannah Bain, Andrew and Angela Bain, for dreaming about this with me for so many years, and for your endless support and encouragement. I love and cherish you.
To Mark and Barbara Murphy, and Janlyn Murphy: You were my rock during some tough years. You are each a blessing in my life and I simply could not have done this without you.
Thank you to the Bain, Goldman, Korb, and Shane families. A very special thank-you to Donald Korb for your lifelong generosity and for being my source for all questions about navy life in World War II; and to Doris Bain for your constant encouragement—and for quite possibly praying this book into existence.
To Pete Knapp: Thank you for believing in this book from the beginning and for being its biggest champion. When the right things come together, it is magic. Thank you for making magic with me.
Thank you to Sarah Landis for your editorial eye and for seeing what this book could be, and to my copyeditor, publicist, cover designer, sales team, and the group at HMH Books for Young Readers.
I’m also grateful to the New Leaf Literary and Park Literary and Media teams for all of your behind-the-scenes work to bring this book into existence.