Ava imagined she could see the scene, too. It was a memory of when winter had swept into the city like a silent breath, glittering the cobbles and freezing the small lake in Sefton Park. Back to a time when this woman and her sister had run – breath misting before them – to lace their ice-skates, and slide about on the ice, catching the snowflakes upon their tongues.
Ava could almost see how their cheeks were flushed – wind-bitten and warm – as they raced from the cold air back into the warmth of their mother’s house.
Because no one wanted to recall sad memories. All they wanted was to see moments like this – these golden moments – to relive them. To capture them, and keep them forever.
That is why her mother had done what she did.
That is why Ava had wanted to follow in her footsteps after she had passed.
And now …
Now, when the curtains closed – Lillian was waiting for her in the wings, her eyes bright and curious.
‘I think you are ready,’ she said, tucking a pale strand of hair behind Ava’s ear. ‘To take the lead act. To perform under her name. Your mother’s name …’
The Memory Binder.
Her mother’s act – and it would finally be her own. Years of work would come to fruition.
And yet all she could think of was Jem’s empty seat.
Chapter One
September, 1899
Liverpool, England
If the last three months had taught Ava anything, it was that ruin doesn’t always come with thunder. Sometimes it creeps in, silent and slow – building little by little until suddenly you are surrounded by it.
Ava rested her head against the train’s window, watching the raindrops speckle the glass. A single droplet wasn’t enough to blur the grey-green countryside rushing past outside the window, but once they split and spilled – gathering other droplets in their wake – they became a current, transforming the landscape into a thousand, fractured lines.
That’s how it had felt for her, too. For Jem’s empty seat on show night had been a droplet. Lillian’s insistence that she take on her mother’s act had been a droplet.
And what Jem had said when he’d come to her doorstep that night had been a droplet, too.
Even now, sitting here, she flinched from the memory. She’d been ready to chide him for missing the performance – for not even sending anoteto the theatre – but he’d looked so dishevelled, so utterly defeated, that the words died onher tongue. His hair – spun with threads of gold from the summer’s heat – had stuck to his face, but it was the smudge on the crooked bridge of his nose that had drawn a small smile from her; for she could imagine him at the apothecary, pinching powdered charcoal into delicate, glass bottles. Her first instinct had been to reach up and clean it away, but he’d recoiled from her touch, stumbling backwards on the porch steps.
‘Don’t. Please.’
She’d faltered a little at that, but Jem was often like this – warm as the summer’s sun one moment, and clouded the next. She’d learned as a child to take his sullen moods in her stride, and now that she was a woman grown – and they would spend their lives together – she tried to treat them as one might treat a shower of rain.
Safe in the knowledge that even the heaviest deluge would not last forever.
‘Guess what,’ she’d said, trying to inject as much warmth into her voice as she could. ‘Lillian wants me to take on my mother’s act. To become the Memory Binder. Isn’t that marvellous? She believes I am ready.’
Jem had kept his gaze upon the floor, his brow knotting. ‘Ava. Listen—’ He’d removed his hat, pinching fretfully at the brim. ‘I came to tell you that I … I can’t do this.’
Stupidly,foolishly, she’d assumed he was talking about meeting the rest of the theatre company, announcing their engagement to the world, and she’d laughed. ‘All you need to do is exchange some pleasantries with Miss Lillian. She won’t like you of course, but then she doesn’t like the idea of any of her performers having a life outside the theatre.’
‘Not that, Ava. This.Us. I can’t …’ His frown deepened, and finally he looked up. His clouded blue eyes meeting her clear, grey ones. ‘I can’t marry you. I’m sorry.’
I’m sorry.
It felt as though she had heard those words often in the months that’d stretched between that moment and this one. It’s what she’d said when she’d frozen up there – on Lillian’s stage – just a week after Jem had broken their engagement. It’s what she’d said to Oliver as she’d packed her bags, and left.
And she suspected she would say it again before the day was out.
‘Liverpool, next stop,’ announced the conductor, gripping the backs of the chairs as he walked from one end of the carriage to the other. ‘Next stop, Liverpool.’
