It took her a moment to understand his meaning. She looked into his eyes and saw no hurt there; he was just showing her that it would be alright with him if she wanted to see the characters.
“No, not tonight,” she said honestly.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. But I should go down just before midnight and step out of the shop. That way they won’t show up and find it empty.”
“You have to be in the building for them to visit, right?”
“Right. Usually they know not to worry if I’m not there, but this is a pretty crotchety group. You’d have no problems hearing them from up here if they really got going.”
“Maybe I can try talking to them again sometime?”
“Anytime you like,” Aurelia offered happily. “Do you want to try tomorrow night?”
“Actually, I was thinking we should head up to your dad’s tomorrow. There are still things to work out, aren’t there? Like who else to tell, and when. Maybe we can hash it all out together?”
Aurelia raised her eyebrows. He was right; they hadn’t yet decided whether Antonia would tell the rest of her family. And what about her dad? And Jack?
“That’s a great idea, actually. I’m sure Dad will be happy to have us—he has plenty of room. Will you be able to take the time away from work?”
“I’ve already cleared it with the team, since… Well, I figured we’d need another day or two to sort ourselves out. Can you close the shop for another few days?”
“I can. It’s one of the perks of being the owner, as a matter of fact.”
“That and chatting with fictional friends, apparently.” He laughed.
“Also a perk,” she said with a grin.
39
Asthelateeveningsummer sun slanted through the windows of her father’s house, they were all sitting around the living room with only the ticking of the grandfather clock breaking the silence. Aurelia and Oliver had arrived just an hour earlier with Biscuit and Fezz in tow, and hadn’t wasted much time before sitting her father down to share the news.
“Well,” her dad said at last. “That seems to have shaken a few loose pieces into place.”
“How do you mean?” Aurelia asked.
“Let’s see,” he said, shifting into the register Aurelia always imagined he’d used when lecturing his philosophy students. “When you first took over the shop, it seemed like an annoyance, but one day it was as though a switch had flipped and you were quite happy to spend all your time there.”
“Maybe I just resigned myself to it?” Aurelia suggested.
“It was much too sudden a change, and you were too eager for it to be resignation.” He shook his head, smiling. “Then, you began writing sequels for quite random characters. You’d never written anything like those stories before, so it was something of a departure. I suppose you met those characters in the shop?”
“Yes!” Aurelia couldn’t believe how well her father was taking it. “I wrote Vronsky’s story, but I only started Harriet’s. She wound up writing her own.”
Harriet was a character fromLittle Dorritthat Aurelia had met soon after Oliver had moved into the flat with her. It was another secret that felt liberating to share with him.
“She wrote her own story?” Oliver asked.
“She did. She hated what I’d written for her just as much as you did,” Aurelia laughed.
“Do you have her version? Can I read it?”
“Definitely,” she said with a smile.
“It took me a little too long to figure out that meeting the characters must have meant she’d met Vronsky,” Oliver admitted to her father.
“Yes, well… I’ve known her since she was little, when she thought she was better at hiding secrets than she was.”
