Page 59 of The Unknown Birds

There was still evidence of the previous destruction if you knew where in the city to look, and every time she used the Underground, Ash caught her eyes darting to the best places to hole up and hide. There was no reason to suppose another war wouldn’t bring about more destruction. More aeroplanes raining bombs down on the capital like tears from on high. Loss was loss, whether at the Front or at home.

Rook listened quietly to her worries, holding space for them as he held her hand. He knew better than to offer empty promises, not to her. And somehow just voicing those fears out loud made her chest loosen and her shoulders light.

“What’s your plan then—for the future?” he asked hesitantly. “If war comes, will you study the poems that come with it as that student at your lecture asked?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you write more articles? Tour the country giving speeches?”

“I… don’t like to think too far ahead.”

“No?”

“No, I… it seems a surefire way to be disappointed. Why, what do you have planned?”

He gazed at her, but didn’t answer, and she couldn’t help wondering what he wasn’t saying. She imagined he must have a lover—as handsome and charming as he was—how could he not? Perhaps the Reverend Haley who’d brought him to her lecture. But she couldn’t ask him. Honest answers about such things could get a man imprisoned, so it was safer not to ask.

When she’d been quiet a few minutes, he teased, “Are we downhearted?” with just enough cheek to make her laugh.

“I’m really trying not to be.”

He smiled and put his arm around her, pulling her close, and she melted into his side, losing herself in bergamot and basil.

“I almost forgot,” he said, drawing a small, wrapped parcel from his coat pocket and handing it over. “Many happy returns, Ash.”

Because of course he still remembered her birthday.

She opened the lilac and gold paper, and out fell a pair of thick, green knitted socks.

“The traditional birthday footwear. As I was wrapping them, I realized nylons would probably be more welcome,” he said, wincing with embarrassment.

“I hate nylons,” she interrupted, just for the joy of seeing relief flood his face and relax his shoulders. “My feet are always cold. These are perfect, thank you. It’s been too many years since I’ve had proper wooly socks.”

He grinned. “Then I shall ensure the tradition continues,” he said, stretching his arm along the backrest and turning to watch the marching boys once more. And something inside of Ashley, some tension in her bones, finally began to think about letting go.

Chapter 18

London, June 1917

Her feet were healing nicely, but Ash wasn’t technically supposed to do much in the way of marching or running for a bit, and so she was granted a four-day pass to leave. She had no desire to abandon her friends, but it had been a year since she’d last seen her mother or experienced the sights and sounds and smells of her London home.

The train ride from Folkestone seemed somehow longer than before, and at the same time all too short to prepare her mind. As the miles fell away, she grew more and more agitated, well aware she was a different person than the one who’d left. What if her mother didn’t recognize her? Or worse—what if, since Charles had so thoroughly disappeared, she tried to stop Ash from returning when her leave came to an end?

At King’s Cross, she decided to walk the three miles on to Whitechapel because, doctor’s orders or no, she was far too restless to sit quietly on the Tube. Instead she became a nameless, faceless soldier strolling through the city streets, the same as any other man back home on leave. But it was startling how very… normal everything seemed.

Men and women came and went, going about their everyday lives—doing their shopping and taking in their wash—much the same as life had ever been.

No ambulances careened around corners, no strafing filled the air. There was nothing to set the rhythm for her heart to beat to. It was all just people working and living, as though across the channel no war raged, no lives were being shattered and scattered, never to be the same again.

It was near impossible to reconcile the one with the other, like wandering into one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, unsure quite what to feel.

When she reached the flat in Whitechapel, she froze with her hand in midair, much too much a stranger to simply let herself inside. And so she knocked.

Light footsteps thumped across the floor, and then the door was opened to reveal a tiny girl of three or four.

“Who are you?” the child asked, and Ash stepped back to check the number, just in case she’d come to the wrong flat by mistake.

“Who is it, Dorrie?” her mother’s voice called from another room.