“Because.” Because I won’t be able to breathe if I go in there. “Because I can’t live with Helen.”
“You aren’t,” he said, to my immediate relief. “She doesn’t live here. She has another place in Gnarlton with the Echelon Jaxan D’Oron. That’s where she stays. Ash lived here. The wards will recognize you as a Blackburn, you’re safest here, and your mother won’t be around.”
“I still don’t — ” I begged him to read my mind and take me elsewhere. “Helen wouldn’t want me to . . .”be here at all?
“The letterbox under the window is the pair to the one in your kitchen,” Leland said factually.
“It is?” I didn’t really need an answer. Even if it was hard to believe, I knew it was true because Leland had said it. Because, somehow, I’d developed some kind of new, internal mechanism that told me the truthfulness of every word he spoke. I still didn’t want to be somewhere that belonged to Helen, but the letterbox did change things. I could shut the door behind me, I could write Dad, and this time, I wouldn’t be foolish enough to invite Leland inside.
“See for yourself,” he said. “Trist can help you with anything else if you choose to let her, or you can contact me on the transmitter. Take the lanterns inside and get some rest. We have an early day tomorrow.” With that, he tossed Trist a phone-like object and left, smoothly jogging down the porch stairs.
Trist handed me the phone device called a transmitter and showed me how to send messages, which wasn’t necessary. Though fueled by magic instead of Wi-Fi and cell towers, its design and function worked exactly like a phone in the humanrealm.
Trist made sure I was able to open the front door, then asked to be invited in to help me bring in the lanterns, but I told her she didn’t need to stay. She left shortly thereafter.
I had so many questions. Why was Leland assigned to me? What did he mean byWe have an early day tomorrow? How could I find the portal to the human realm?
At that moment though, all I wanted was to write Dad the things I didn’t say, the words that were always so difficult.Goodbye.I love you. Knowing I could do at least that much today, I breathed a little easier and entered Helen’s house — or Ash’s, or what used to be Ash’s before she was exiled to Alchemia.
* * *
The inside of the cottage smelled like history and old family secrets. Floorboards creaked as I walked across the jam-packed living room and bumped my shoulder against a shelf overflowing with texts, trinkets, and glass bottles filled with spices and herbs. There was a lumpy couch; a coffee table, nicked and scratched; and a small place to eat centered before the front window, facing the letterbox. I thought the front of a house was a strange place to keep something you never used, but the place was small. Maybe there wasn’t a better spot.
I found what I assumed was Ash’s room — the tidy space small and organized down to essentials. A second bedroom connected to Ash’s by a Jack-and-Jill washroom, but it was empty and without furniture, and I didn’t want to enter it.
Returning to the living room, I searched an armoire for a pen and parchment, where I found a stack of Ash’s old letters preserved in bundles of cloth. I closed the drawer and hauled open the next, not surprised that the pictures I once drew and sent to Helen were nowhere to be found.
After scouring several cabinets, I eventually found what I needed. I sat at the small table and wrote Dad a letter, then pulled my legs onto the seat and rested my chin on my knees. I stared at the letterbox, thinking of all the times Ash got a letter from Helen, how every time had felt like Christmas, how I’d stay up late reading and rereading, then return it to Ash’s trash.
Did you take my letters again?she’d ask.
Nope.
It worked for a while. Or so I’d thought.
By the time Ash started writing from Everden, I’d lost interest. All I cared about was her — if she was safe, happy. I asked about plumbing but not about magic, the fantasy of a realm for witches dead to me. I couldn’t bring myself to care about the magical things I once found interesting. And Ash being Ash, she never answered more than I asked.
All this time I thought she was a Mentalist, like Helen. I had no idea why she wouldn’t want me to know she was an Allwitch.
I stared at the lantern in the center of the table, waiting for the letterbox to chirp, watching the lantern’s large flame dance to a slow rhythm. Eventually, I left to bathe in the washroom, leaving the door to the living area open.
Hot water scalded my skin, and I sighed and sank deeper as I felt my muscles gradually relaxing. I listened to the faucet’s slowdripuntil it became so regular I stopped hearing it. I closed my eyes and imagined myself under cool sheets, across from a cracked-open window, lying in bed with Gray. For a long time, I thought about us like that.
When at last I heard it, I leapt from the bath and quickly dressed in all I had — the same leggings and sports bras from earlier. I didn’t pause to dry myself. I hurried to the living room with thick drops of water falling from my hair to the hardwood. Droplets sliding down my arms, I reached into the letterbox and pulled out Dad’s letter.
It was short and sweet, written like he still hadn’t finished his coffee, and mostly entailed his disbelief at sleeping for nearly twenty-four hours. Which he hadn’t, but it seemed he didn’t remember anything about what had happened. Not me leaving, not Leland, not his panic attack. He understood why I didn’t say goodbye. He said he knew it was because I never believed I’d have to leave. That’s how he was. Too understanding to waste words over it.
My transmitter lit up then, eliciting a concerning, blood-pounding response that made no sense. Perhaps it was only learned from always being on the waiting end of Gray’s messages. I flicked open the message from Leland.
Leland Stray:You have everything you need?
Ember Blackburn:Yep
Leland Stray:Really?
Ember Blackburn:Yep
Leland Stray:Why do I find that hard to believe?
