—but it had quite the impact on me. It is difficult to describe LBB.
Here it was. Ceri’s heart was in her throat.
She’s clearly brilliant. Even without undergraduate studies, she already has a firm grasp of experimental methods. I imagine if she went into research, she would be a force to be reckoned with.
And the name I have given her. The abbreviation which I dare not reveal here. It is apt.
The next few phrases were marked out, but poorly. Ceri could make out every word.
She is perfect, starlit and stunning. A miracle.
Ceri could barely breathe. This was the first day they met. She had felt the attraction—there, she admitted it. She had hoped he returned it—there, another truth. She had lied to herself in the moment, but she knew.
But to read it here in his own words? It was a degree of intimacy she had never shared with someone.
She hoped he would forgive her for this violation. Because she knew right then she was going to read every word in the rest of the journal.
And she hoped he’d forgive her for what she had to do next.
Ceri ripped the page from the journal. It was simply too revealing. If it had been her journal, she would have wanted him to do the same before showing it to the others.
She hoped he’d understand.
She folded the page and placed it into the pocket of her skirt for safekeeping.
Then she read on.
There were four more folded pages in her pocket by the time she reached the end of the journal. The afternoon when he’d given her the egg tarts, the same night after he’d been ‘lectrocuted, and two other moments in the laboratory that Ceri hadn’t even noticed but that Leo described in a level of detail that was charged, no pun intended.
It took everything she had not to pull the pages back out and reread them immediately.
The candle was burning low by the time she’d finished. She must have been in here for an hour or more. She hoped Ana had gone back to sleep.
As she flipped the journal closed, something caught her attention on the last page.
It couldn’t be. Could it?
Friday? Day 5? of Autumn Term
Entry 2
Ceri looked at the first entry she had read earlier; the most recent one in the journal. It was still there on the page before, but how could she have missed this one?
She scanned through the words, and then something remarkable happened.
A new line appeared at the bottom of the text in his own hand.
Leo was alive, and wherever he was, he was writing in this very journal right now.
Chapter Twenty
ANOTHER PLACE—OR TIME
Leo
Leo stood in the center of the High House courtyard just as he had moments before the lightning struck.
Well, not quite exactly as he had. There were some minor differences.
