Page 17 of The Light Between Worlds

“Yes, in the middle of a downpour. I saw.” Max fixes me withher keen brown eyes, one leg tucked under her, the other drawn up to her chest. She rests her chin on her raised knee. “Why didn’t you wear gloves?”

“Forgot.” I stare down at the pages of poetry before me.

There’s a long pause, and then—“Did you do it on purpose?”

I blink twice. “Of course not.”

But the itch and burn of my hands is pulsing a reminder through my veins, of the dark wood and Cervus and how he moved through the trees, alone and wild and utterly free.

“I’ll take you at your word.” Max fiddles with a bangle wrapped around one of her wrists before speaking again. “Did you know I used to come out here to the woods, Ev? When I was a student at St. Agatha’s?”

I roll over onto my side to look at her. “No, you’ve never said.”

“Well, I did. The first few years were very hard—I felt worlds away from London, and most of the girls were unkind, thinking I didn’t belong here. Whenever things got especially lonely, I’d walk to the woods. It didn’t make things better, but it seemed more natural—to be alone by myself, rather than surrounded by people.”

“Why did you stay?” I ask, not bothering to hide the desperation behind my words. “You could have left. What made you keep going?”

Max looks off into the forest’s dim green depths. “If I’d left, it would’ve felt too much like other people made the choice for me. For some girls, it might’ve been better to go. For me, I knew I’d always regret it if I did.”

“What if you could leave altogether?” I ask. “Not just St.Agatha’s, but England. What if you could go somewhere fairer? Would you?”

Max smiles and pats my hand. “Oh, Evie. I’d have to leave our world entirely to find such a place.”

We sit in silence for a while, before she stands and brushes off her trousers.

“This wood does have its way with you once you walk in,” Max says with a shake of her head. “I only came out here to ask if you’d recite at the winter concert.”

I frown up at her in dismay. “Oh, Max, I’d rather not. I—”

She raises a hand to stop me. “Think about it. Don’t make up your mind yet. You needn’t choose something long, but it would be good for you, Ev. Give you a chance to show everyone else a glimpse of that mysterious soul of yours. There’s months before I need an answer, so just sit with the idea.”

I nod, because there’s very little I wouldn’t do for Max. The kindness she and Georgie have shown to me for years is so often more than I deserve.

“Anyway, I won’t intrude any longer in your sanctum sanctorum,” Max says. “But Georgie was looking for you, too. She says your brother rang, and he wants you to phone him back when you can. I’m going out—use the telephone in my room if you don’t want the Curmudgeon listening in.”

“Max.”

She stops at the edge of the clearing and looks back at me.

“Thank you.”

A crease forms between her eyebrows, the barest suggestion ofworry. “Of course, Ev. We care about you here. You know that, don’t you?”

I swallow back a tightness in my throat and nod. I do know, but sometimes things would be easier if no one cared. Simpler.

Max melts into the forest shadows and I roll onto my back, staring at the shifting latticework of birch branches and the sun and sky beyond. The day is warm, the ground still slightly damp from yesterday’s rain, and a pungent, earthy scent rises from the woods around me. I suck in a breath of that agonizingly familiar smell, holding it to me the way I hold the discomfort in my hands. Memory is a sharp-edged knife I can’t help but cut myself on, no matter how carefully I wield it.

The wind shifts as I squeeze my eyes shut. It brushes against the side of my face. The good earth holds me up. Light and shadow play across my closed eyelids. Beneath me, I can almost feel the world turn. Around me, I can almost hear the trees whisper.

“Cervus,” I breathe. “I’m waiting. Come take me home.”

When I open my eyes, the birch ring hasn’t changed. My thin volume of poetry lies nearby, its pages rustling in the breeze. I still them with a blistered hand, and the words stand out, printed stark and black against white paper.

“I lost a world the other day.

Has anybody found?

You’ll know it by the row of stars