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“Hey, careful! Lunatic,” the driver yelled.
I stumbled on the spot, dizzy.
“Valentine, is that you?”
Through weeping eyes, I stared at a woman with her hair bundled high and a wicker basket hooked over her arm. I knew her, first as an undertaker, then as a nurse, but here she was just a smiling woman passing by.
“Miss Couper?” I croaked.
“It’s not often we see you outside. Are you all right?”
Was I all right? The world had changed, yet was exactly as it should be. “The toymaker, what happened to him?”
“Jacapo?” Miss Couper glanced at the rotted boards. “Gosh, he died years ago. Terrible thing, it was. I was young, but I remember the funeral. Not long after his wife and son died. They say you can die of a broken heart. That man surely did.”
If Jacapo had died after his wife and son, then he hadn’t gone into the woods, he hadn’t caught Adair’s eye, and he had never made Devere. “There was a boy, another son.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Miss Couper studied me more carefully. “Are you all right?” she asked again. “Do you need help?”
“And this store, has it always been like this?”
“Since his death, yes. There was nobody left to take it on, I suppose.”
“Do you know the name Devere? Devere Barella?”
“Oh, I don’t… Maybe the baby’s name? I don’t really know. Val, shall I walk you home? You seem… agitated today.”
“How am I most days? Am I not usually like this?”
Her eyes narrowed. “This is quite strange, even for you.” She offered her hand.
My gaze lingered on the abandoned shop. Had the Devere I’d known never existed? A sob fell from my lips, and a great ache swallowed my heart.
“Val?”
“I’m sorry. I just… It’s a lot.”
“Oh dear.” She caught my hand. “Come along now. Let’s get you home, hmm?”
She walked me home while the truth soaked into my withered bones. My life, my studies in Minerva, my love—they had never existed. It was all a dream, and I’d woken into a body that was failing, in a world where they thought me mad, in my childhood house I’d despised. If I told Miss Couper everything, she’d call in doctors.
As we entered my house, Miss Couper muttered something about the state of the place, tutted a few times, then set about lighting a fire. To my shame, the most I could do was make it to the chair and bury my bearded face in my thin hands.
I was free. This was freedom. I’d asked for this. Everything was as it should be. It was real.
What is so good about reality?
I shook Devere’s voice from my head. He didn’t exist. He wasn’t real. Just a dream, a nightmare, another voice in my head.
“Here.” Miss Couper handed over a steaming cup of tea. Her pained, pitying face almost broke my heart anew. “Valentine, is everything all right?”
“No.” My attempt at a smile cracked and fell away. “I’m sorry. I feel as though I’ve woken from a lifelong dream.”
“You do seem different.”
“Please, tell me. How am I usually?”
“Vacant, most of the time, as though you’re here but also so very far away. You rarely talk to anyone and only occasionally leave this house.”
