Page 72 of The Light Between Worlds

“I could use a break myself—I’ve been hunched over that canvas all morning.”

We stop at the door, where Jack hangs up his apron and takes his cane from the umbrella stand.

There are school tours wandering through the open rooms, and the galleries are louder than usual, full of stage whispers and children’s laughter. Kitty waves lazily from behind the front counter as we head out into the square and the spring sunshine, where water chatters in the fountains and Lord Nelson keeps a perpetual watch atop his column.

I set my lunch down and sit with my back to one of the portico’s pillars, watching light play on the fountain water and pigeons flutter about the square. Jack’s eating an apple with his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, and the skin on his injured arm is a patchwork of burns, pulled tight or puckered in places.

“Penny,” Jack says after a minute, and I sigh.

“My sister, Evelyn, loved spring. She was always better oncethings started getting warmer, brighter. I can’t help but expect that one day, I’ll turn around and she’ll be here. Maybe she’ll look a little different, and have a story to tell, but it’ll beher, and all this will be over, and I’ll finally be able to sleep at night.”

Oh, Ev. You wore me to a raveling and I’d give anything to have you back.

Jack’s voice is kind, and a little sad. “I don’t know what’s happened to your sister. Maybe someday she’ll turn up. Maybe she won’t. But even if she does come home, things aren’t going to be the same. I hope—I hope you’re prepared for that. One way or another, your life’s different now than it was before. And perhaps it’s just going to be the difference of not knowing, of learning to live without looking back.”

I cross my arms stubbornly. “Jack Summerfield, I will never stop waiting for my sister. Not until her bones or mine go into the ground.”

“Don’t be cross,” he says. “And wait if you must, but while you’re doing it you’ve got to build a life for yourself, where you are and with what you’ve been given. Trust me—I know a few things about living with regret. About wondering what might have been. If that’s all you do, it’ll leave you hollow and bitter, Philippa.”

I don’t say what I’m thinking because I’ve no interest in a fight. But the fact of the matter is, I’vechosento put myself in limbo. I managed life in the Woodlands and after, and I could manage now if I chose to. There’s fire and steel at my core, and no world will break me unless I let it.

But I don’t deserve to be happy. I don’t deserve to move on, notafter all the promises I’ve broken. Not after bringing my sister back here and abandoning her to her demons. I can’t build a life if Evelyn’s no longer living.

I don’t even deserve this moment, of sitting in the sun on a spring day in London, so I scramble to my feet and start back toward the front doors.

“Philippa,” Jack calls after me. “You haven’t had your lunch.”

“Feed it to the pigeons,” I tell him. “I’ll get a coffee at the canteen.”

Then one night I stumble upstairs after work and Evelyn’s bed is gone. My own bed’s been pulled to the center of the room and the rug moved. It’s as if she never was. As if she’s never coming back.

This is infinitely worse than having to sleep next to a constant reminder of her absence. I march down the stairs and into the kitchen, slamming the door behind me. Mum’s sitting at the table with a cup of tea, though it’s late, and looks up with a start.

“Oh, Philippa! You gave me a fright.”

Even Evelyn’s chair is missing. I can hardly speak, I’m so angry. Instead I shove the chairs back to the way they were, moving mine to where hers ought to be and leaving a gaping hole at my place.

“Oh dear.” Mum sighs. “I see. Philippa, will you sit?”

“No. I’m going out, and I won’t be back.” I storm out of the kitchen and Mum follows as I hurry up the stairs and into the bedroom, where I pull clothes and cosmetics from drawers and stuff them into my valise.

“Philippa, darling, let me explain. We watched your sister holdon to something for years. What it was, I don’t know. The three of you have always been a closed book to your father and me. But we have eyes. We know that’s what broke your sister in the end.”

She steps forward and puts a hand on my arm, but I pull away.

“I refuse to see the same thing happen to you,” Mum says.

Anger and regret threaten to strangle me, and I’m not ready to count Evelyn out yet. Maybe that will be my undoing—maybe I’ll fall apart holding on to her the way she fell apart holding on to the Woodlands, but I don’t know what else to do, or who else to be.

I’m not letting go, Ev. I won’t forget you. Let everyone else erase your memory, and I’ll still be here, standing fast until the very end.

I leave the house without another word.

It’s raining, and I get on a bus just to stay dry. The raindrops against the window make phantom images of the streetlamps—an endless series of pentimenti, repentances in light and water. We drive and drive until I fall asleep and wake with a start, completely disoriented, fear pouring ice through my veins.

I can’t stay on a bus all night, so I get off at the only sanctuary I know.

The Gallery looms tall after dark and its pillars cast long shadows. I drift up the steps and hammer on the door until Albright appears in his night guard’s uniform. He shakes his head at the sight of me, bedraggled and damp, toting a bag of clothes and shoes, but opens the door and lets me in.