Page 302 of The Professor's Wife

When I turn to look back at the wall with the shadows, the force is gone. I take a step to that wall, and it’s easy. It comes like second nature.

But when I stop and look back at where the forms were, the direction where the butterflies rushed together as one, the force is back, warning me not to venture down the dark corridor they fled out of.

But what’s back there?

Now that I know they left through there, I wonder what’s there.

Rowe is there.

The man with the blue eyes is there, and my heart aches. I feel…I feel like he is important like Rowe is. I feel…like I love him passionately. I know I do. I know him and I lost him, and he held me once and told me I was his world.

And the crying girl?

I’m not sure about her, but I want to know more. I need to. Because I think…I think there’s someone else I might see if I follow their trail.

I fight against the force as I take one step at a time in the direction of the butterflies. It takes forever. I think I’ve been in this cavernous room so long that I’ll never get out, but I don’t stop myself from moving, nor do I forget the way Rowe broke apart before me. I shudder at the memory.

I reach the corridor pitched in darkness and halt as I peer into it.

Instead of only blackness greeting me, I see something in the distance. I see…something twinkling. Flashes of light that beckon to me.

Now I try to move faster, uncaring of the force that grips me by the shoulders like sharp claws, trying to pull me back into the dark mouth of that room with the shadows. I scream soundlessly against it. I move, and move, and I don’t stop moving.

Every step I take, I’m getting closer and closer and—

Light hits me suddenly. It’s so blinding, my eyes hurt as I throw a hand over my face and stop, expecting to be burned. I tense, waiting for something bad to happen. I’ve ventured too far from the shadows. I should turn back because the light—

It doesn’t hurt like I thought it might.

It…feels warm, actually.

I blink rapidly, adjusting to the light. It comes all around me, in beautiful colors. I feel like I’m inside a rainbow. I’mmomentarily awed as I look around me, hardly able to believe this place existed so close from where I was.

The force that pulled at me inside the shadow den is gone. The whispers of disobedience are muted here, in the light. I look up, eyes glistening at the sun in the brilliant, clear sky. I turn slowly, eyeing my landscape. The lush green grass between my bare toes. Fields of white flowers, swaying—

I freeze when I see a figure standing in the field, their back turned to me.

They’re not made of butterflies.

They’re…

I instantly know who it is. The weight that grips me isn’t the same as the one in the shadowy cave.

This weight is grief.

I move slowly, cautiously, terrified the figure will burst into butterflies.

But this isn’t a form made of butterflies. This figure is solid. Whole. This figure has the same hair I do. The same height. But that is where the similarities end. Because this figure has wider hips and longer hair. Dressed in the same loose clothes to hide a beautiful figure I always envied.

Tears fall down my face as I approach my sister.

“June.” I’m startled at the sound that escapes my mouth. I have a voice in this place, and she can hear me.

She can hear me because she turns around, her brilliant brown eyes torn away from the sky to look upon me, the sister that wasn’t there for her at the end.

I expect pain, but she’s smiling. Her eyes are bright and her cheeks are rosy. She’s the same sister I watched get lowered into the ground, but the difference is she’s happy. The sort of happiness I haven’t seen in so long. My chest constricts at the sight of her. Tears continue to fall as I gape at her, taking everyinch of her in. I’m scared to move closer because she might disappear.

“June.” I say it again because I need her to respond. To tell me she’s real.