Shortly, all too shortly, Iris would join them, helping to direct these crews before her on their way.
And, in the morning, she’d bring the lucky ones back.
Absolutely pancake.
She still gave them that foolish instruction.
‘Don’t stop,’ Henry had said, when she almost had after Clare went. ‘We all like it too much.’
Robbie had told her just now that he rather than Henry would be the one to call the control tower tomorrow, letting her know they were coming.
‘I’ll be doing it before you know it,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll guide us in. Get us home. Do you believe it?’
Silently, unable to talk, she’d nodded.
‘No.’ His brow had creased in a frown. ‘Say it, please. I need to hear you say it.’
So, she’d said it.
‘I believe it,’ she’d forced out, knowing only that she’d wanted to. So very, very much.
He’d smiled, reassured.
It was something, at least, that she’d been able to give him.
And now, before her brimming stare,Mabel’s Furyjerked back into motion. Iris’s colleague inside had clearly issued the command.That’s a green for go. Proceed to angels ten and vector ninety to Idaho.Gripping the stair rail, Iris followed its thundering silhouette as it gathered speed, nose lifting, Robbie pulling back on his throttle.
She hadn’t told him her secret.
Theirsecret.
At the thought, the baby in her stomach fluttered, and her eyes fell shut.
When she opened them again,Mabel’s Furywas airborne, rising slowly, then disappearing, fast, into the black sky.
Her tears, contained for too long, broke free, snaking down her frozen face. Hastily, before anyone could see, she wiped them away.
Then, dragging her gaze from the voidMabel’s Furyhad left, she turned, heading up the rest of the control tower stairs.
You’ll guide us in,Robbie had said.
Get us home.
She pulled the tower door open, not ready, by no stretch ready, but resolved at last on facing all that this night was about to ask of her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Claudia and Iris
23 November 2018
&
23 November 1943
When I wake the next morning, it’s to another deep frost, and the tentative, almost too painful to acknowledge hope that the past has somehow changed whilst I’ve been sleeping, the ending to our movie already rewritten. But nothing’s been rewritten (of course it hasn’t,I’m sure Ellen would say), and, when I check my phone for emails, the only one I find pertaining to the end-scene still waiting for me is from Ana, with a Google map link to the beach that’s been selected for Iris’s death.
Sorry, Claude. I don’t want this either.
