That vision of her life was all too easy to imagine. She’d lived it, in a way, when she’d first discovered the shop’s secret—hiding away from friends and family to maximize her time with the characters. It was just what they’d warned Julia about, the need to live life and see what she wanted to do before committing to the shop full time.
“I would have. You’re right, she must have known it would be too tempting for me if she’d told me when I was younger… Some of the characters have said she was going to tell me, before she died. She’d put their books out, thinking they’d be the best people to help her explain it to me.”
Her father nodded next to her, then began drying another dish before he spoke again.
“You’d just lost your mum, and Marigold had just lost a sister. And she was ill herself—”
“No, you’re right,” Aurelia conceded with a shake of her head. “If she was waiting for the right time, that wouldn’t have been it. But it would have been fun… meeting them with her, seeing her with characters that still call her a friend.”
“That would have been something,” her father agreed. “That reminds me. You asked me to look to see if I could find any more old papers of your great-great aunt’s.”
“Did you?”
“I did, in fact,” he said with a sly smile, handing Aurelia the tea towel so she could dry her hands before leading her into his office.
He took a small stack of what looked like old letters down from a shelf and pulled out one that looked decades old, complete with a stamp that must have been historic, and cursive handwriting addressed to Cristobel Louise Saunders.
“This one is a letter to her from 1919, the year Cristobel opened the shop.”
Aurelia leaned over to inspect it, holding her breath for fear of damaging it.
“It’s yours,” her father said, handing it to her. “There are other letters here,” he added, putting his hand on the stack. “But this one is from her aunt. The handwriting is hard to make out, but it seems like her aunt gave her the money to buy the building and open the shop.”
Aurelia had been pulling the letter out of the envelope but stopped midway through.
“Really? Our family’s aunts and nieces were in cahoots even before the shop opened?”
“Really,” her father confirmed with a laugh.
“This is amazing… and perfect. I’ve been thinking about writing a sort of loose, imagined biography of Cristobel. I wasn’t sure how or where to start the story—once she’d been running the shop for a while, or a few years leading up to it, but this… this might be it.”
She gathered the other letters to her chest as if hugging them, then followed her father out to find the rest of their family.
“Four generations and counting have run the shop—it’s remarkable, really,” her father said just before they walked into the living room, where they could hear Julia arguing with Antonia about whether it was time for bed.
“It really is.”
41
Itwasatightfit getting them all in the car the next day, pets included, but they managed to return to London without too much grumbling.
Julia demanded to see the characters that night, which risked some awkwardness between Aurelia and Oliver. She was surprised, then, when he was keen on Antonia’s suggestion that they try a few experiments with the characters.
“Experiments?” Aurelia asked warily.
“Yes, I was thinking we could try calling the shop and seeing if we can hear their voices better that way,” Antonia said.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Oliver said. “But I was wondering if we might try seeing them from outside the shop, through the windows.”
Aurelia looked between them, unsure whether they were joking.
“But you believe us, that the characters will be there?” she asked at last.
“Yes, but maybe there’s some way for us to see or hear them better that we haven’t tried yet,” Antonia said. “It’s worth a go, isn’t it?”
Aurelia felt a mixture of relief that they weren’t taking a step backward, and nervousness that—try as they might—the experiments wouldn’t work and they’d be disappointed. Sergeant Cuff and other characters had told her, and she’d seen for herself, that no one but her and Julia could meet them. But, she told herself, maybe therewassome trick no one had thought of before that would work?
“Alright,” she nodded. “Julia and I can start in the shop at midnight and let them know what we’re planning.”
