Page 45 of The Light Between Worlds

“Evelyn,” she begs. “We have to do this. And we can’t leave you behind. It would break my heart to go back on another promise, andI swore I’d look after you. Come with us, Evie. I’m asking you to go.”

I look at my sister, who I’ve spilled blood for. What about my heart, Philippa? What about mine? Inside, I am an ocean of grief that weeps endlessly against the shore. Outside, I stand motionless as Philippa squeezes my hand.

“We’re going home at last,” she says, her words heavy with relief. “Cervus, let us have done with it.”

Cervus looks at me one final time and his eyes are bottomless dark pools. I want nothing more than to reach out for him, but I can’t bring myself to let go of Philippa.

“I am home,” I whisper.

The words don’t come out clear, cutting across the sound of rain and waves. Instead, they’re muffled by the earth floor and narrow metal walls of an Anderson shelter. Outside, a bomb drops so close my ears ring. The air raid sirens scream on.

Philippa and Jamie stand on either side of me, children in their nightclothes once more, and my body is not my own, my voice is not my own, this world is not my own.

32

IN THE MORNING, GEORGIE DOESN’T TRY TO GET ME UPwhen the gong rings and I put my back to the room and my face to the wall. She leaves a plate of breakfast for me before walking down to the old stone church in Hardwick with the other girls. She leaves a plate of lunch. She leaves a plate of dinner. She clears them all away, untouched, at day’s end.

She doesn’t try to get me up the next day, either, but at some point Max appears. I know it’s her because of the perfume she wears—something fresh and young, not the fussy rosewater the rest of the staff prefer. A chair scrapes across the floor and I hear her settle into it.

I expect a lecture. Instead, I hear pages turn and Max clears her throat before beginning to read. It’s poetry, but I haven’t heard these words before, and they pierce me to the core as she reads.

“The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,

As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,

Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam

In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,

And enters some alien cage in its plight,

And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars

While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.”

After that, nothing. She just sits. She has a cup of tea. She sets the book on my nightstand, and then she goes.

I know she hopes I’ll read, but I can’t. When the room is empty, I drink the water Georgie leaves for me. I use the lav. I get back into bed. By week’s end the nurse has visited. The Curmudgeon has told me in fretful tones that my parents have been informed of my behavior, and if I keep up this shocking display much longer, they’ll have to collect me.

And Mum and Dad do come. One day, the door to my bedroom opens and the shift of air brings with it the scent of lavender soap. I know without turning around that my mother is in the room. She and Philippa are the only people I know who smell so persistently of lavender, but the footsteps are quiet, and Philippa always wears heels.

There’s one chair next to my bed already. I hear a scrape as the extra chair from Georgie’s desk is brought over, which tells me Dad’s come, too.

“Evie, what are we going to do with you?” Mum asks softly, and I keep my face resolutely to the wall. I don’t know what it is she says to me—to avoid her words, I drop into memories of the Woodlandsafter war, of riding on the beach and casting nets over the side of a boat with Hector and racing across the meadows with Vaya.

But then a suggestion stands out, sharp and clear as broken glass, spoken in my father’s voice.

“Perhaps we’d better take you home with us.”

I sit up abruptly and face them, and I must look a fright because they go quite pale.

“No,” I say to my parents, and the word is a command. “London would kill me.”

Mum presses a handkerchief to her mouth and tears pool in her eyes. Dad looks stern, but I shake my head. “Go home. Let me be.”

I set my back to them again, and can’t bring myself to care that I’ve been cruel.