Page 5 of The Light Between Worlds

“I’m Tom.” The boy holds out one of his preposterous hands and I shake it, my own swallowed up in his grip. “Tom Harper. I’ve seen you on the train before, I think, and when St. Agatha’s takes day trips. I go to St. Joseph’s. I know your brother, Jamie—good lad, he is. He asked me to have a chat with you if I saw you on the way up to school, so I’m glad we ran into each other.”

I wrinkle my nose. “He needn’t have worried. I’m not a child.”

Tom smiles broadly. “’Course you’re not, but nobody’s ever had too many friends, have they?”

I could take offense over the fact that after all our years, Jamie still thinks I need looking after, but instead I laugh, because Tom Harper can have no idea of the depth of meaning behind the wordsI’m not a child, and of how many years I’ve lived.

To his credit, Tom grins, then pulls a bag of toffees out of one pocket and offers them to me. I take one, because you should never turn down a toffee, and quite suddenly we appear to be friends, just as he promised.

Tom makes for an excellent traveling companion, who doesn’t try to talk when I want to look out the window at the passing view. If I squint, I can imagine the trees are waving as the train rushes past. The beeches are going gold early this year, and that’s just how their spirits looked, back home—they were restless golden things, who carried themselves like queens.

“Sandwich?” Tom asks when the meal cart goes by.

“Please.”

They’re ham and cheese, the bread ever so slightly stale already, and I watch as Tom tears through three in quick succession. He catches me at it and goes red to the roots of his ginger hair.

“Mum always says I cost as much as a horse to feed,” he says around a mouthful of crumbs. “I’ve only got a pair of sisters at home, little things like you.”

I smile. I can’t help it. This boy on this journey is a gift. I’d expected to spend the trip staving off loneliness through sheer force of will, but instead I’m sitting across from Tom Harper with hisYorkshire accent and his big hands as he unwraps a fourth sandwich. Here is why I never lose hope—because this boy is a breath of fresh air and a reminder of home.

Which is rather remarkable, given that home is worlds away.

Tom grins back at me. “So, St. Agatha’s. You glad to be getting back, or would you rather have the hols stretch on a bit?”

“I’m glad to be getting away from London.” I brush stray bread crumbs from my school skirt and smooth out the pleats. “Not glad to leave my family, though. But happy I’ll be seeing friends. In answer to your question, both, I suppose.”

Tom’s grin has softened, and one of his big hands sits on his lap, holding the last bit of his final sandwich. “Torn between two places, eh?”

I trace a finger across the window as a green valley slides by us. A silver pool lies at its heart, surrounded by birch trees. What a lovely place that would be for water spirits.

“Yes,” I say, trying not to put too much weight behind the words. “I certainly am.”

Tom scoots forward and presses something into my hand. I don’t have to look away from the view to know what it is. The feel of rumpled brown paper and the smell of sugar tell me all I need to know.

“Have a toffee,” Tom says. “And buck up. Everything gets better after the first week back. You just need to settle in again.”

He takes out a book and lets me be. I pop a toffee into my mouth.

Outside, the beeches shiver and wave.

Tom nods off on the seat opposite mine. He snores a little, butnot enough to bother. I smile and take out a book of poetry, losing myself in words and memory.

The meal cart comes round one last time, to clear away our rubbish. Tom stirs and yawns and hands over his sandwich wrappers with a thank-you. We’re nearly to the station now, nearly to the end of this journey and on to the next.

I peer out the window, taking one more look at the beeches to steady my nerves and strengthen my resolve. This year will be different. This year, I will try to put down roots in the world I was born to.

Wherever I am, wherever my feet are planted, that is where I will make my life. I won’t withdraw or put up walls. Every day is a treasure, every chance meeting a gift, and I will treat them as such until at last, my Woodlands heart finds its way home.

Tom is looking at me, red-faced. “I know you’re allowed visitors on weekends. Do you think on Saturday I could bike over? Or not, you can say if you’d rather I didn’t.”

A gift. A journey. And it’s true—one can never have too many friends.

“Yes.” I smile. “I’d like it if you came.”

4

WE’RE BOUND FOR THE HEART OF THE GREAT WOODto meet a tyrant, or so Cervus says. But he’ll tell us no more, and Jamie and Philippa look worried as we go deeper into the forest.