And she felt her heart sink to her stomach.
Ava hadn’t realized how much she’d missed Liverpool until she stepped from the train and felt the salt air sting her nostrils, felt the briny taste of it upon her tongue. It cut through the coal smoke of the station, the scent of over-warm bodies and stuffy compartments, sending strands of blonde hair whipping about her face. The train wheezed then, and she heard the distant reply of a ship in harbour, the thudding bellow of its horn. She’d tried to forget what home smelled like, what it felt like, but now it sank beneath her skin, adding to the humming tension that had chased her since Preston.
Three months had passed since she’d last stood at this station, her bags packed. Now she was back, and the thought of following the dark sea of hats away from the hissing train, the softclankof cooling metal, made her want to step back into the carriage and slam the door shut. For while she had missed Liverpool, had missed the tide that ebbed and flowed beneath the city, she had not missed everything.
She’d not missed the press of people around her, jostling her as she stepped out beneath a silver sky. She’d not missed the crush of traffic, the constant rattle of carriages as horsesthundered back and forth upon the stone roads. She’d not missed the weather either, for though the wind was warm it clawed at her, dusting her with a fine spray of rain that made her breath wisp in her throat, and sent her scuttling back beneath the sandstone arches of the railway station.
And she’d certainly not missed Jem.
So then why was her first thought as she stood, watching the sunset smoulder over the city, whether she would see him again? Whether she would find a reason, any reason, to walk past Manchester Street, and the small apothecary that sat there, to see whether Jem and his mop of copper hair, his crooked nose, stood behind the counter?
Ava stuffed her hand into her pocket and pinched the thought away sharply, turning her attention instead to the crowd of people, trying to pick out her brother’s stocky silhouette. Oliver had said he would come and collect her, but as the rain turned from a fine mist to fat droplets and doused the fiery sky above her, she wondered whether he had forgotten.
She paused then, her gaze snagging upon another figure, illuminated only by the ebbing dusk and the soft glow of the station’s lamplights. It wasn’t her brother – he was too tall for that, and lean as a willow whip; not to mention that he was doing what her brother would never do: standing quite contentedly in the rain.
He must be mad, she thought, as she watched him tilt his face upwards, as though he would drink the raindrops from the sky. But it was notmadthat rippled through her mind as she watched him remove his hat, ruffling the wetness into his dark hair. It was another word.
Free.
‘Sorry! Sorry.’ Oliver’s voice was loud in her left ear, and Ava jolted. Pushing his bicycle, his blond hair was slick against his forehead, a raindrop sliding off the end of his nose. ‘Ididn’t forget. It’s just harder with this—’ He brandished his left arm, bandaged from his elbow to his fingers, and held in a sling close to his chest. ‘And these.’
He pulled a sodden bouquet from the bicycle’s basket. The flowers weren’t tied with string, nor wrapped in newspaper, and so Ava wondered whether her brother had simply plucked a bloom from every garden between here and Park Lane. She felt her throat constrict as she reached for him – crushing the blooms between them as she hugged him, gripping him tightly.
Oliver’s free hand patted tentatively at her back. ‘… Ava?’
‘I missed you,’ she said, trying to stop the tears from welling into her eyes. ‘I really missed you.’
She felt her brother’s laugh rumble through her chest. ‘If you missed me so much you might’ve written more.’
He was trying to wriggle from her grip – but she held him all the tighter, for though staying had felt unbearable after everything had happened, leaving him had felt awful, too. There weren’t enough words to try and explain how she’d felt as though she’d carved herself in two when she’d left Liverpool, and how she could feel herself splitting again even now – and so she pressed it all into her embrace instead, hoping he knew, hoping he understood.
When she stepped back, she saw the flowers he’d bought her were crumpled.
‘You only give gifts when you feel guilty,’ she said, her gaze flicking to her brother’s face. ‘But why shouldyoufeel guilty?’
‘What do you mean?’ Oliver pushed the stems into her hand, plucking up the largest of her suitcases. ‘I haven’t seen you in almost three months! And thanks to someonenot answering my letters—’
‘Remember when you spent your entire wages buying Pa that new pen … ?’
‘Because his old one wasancient—’ Oliver said, his voice strained as he tried to balance the bicycleandcontort the rigidly rectangular suitcase into the soft, wicker basket. ‘Practically biblical.’
‘Not because you accidentally charred the nib of his old one atop the stove and then tried to hide it from him … ?’
Oliver huffed an exasperated breath through his teeth. ‘I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition for a handful of flowers.’
‘Think of this as three months’ worth of questions, condensed.’
‘Perhaps if you’d written more you wouldn’t have to bombard me now. Tell me this at least: did you find what you were looking for? In Edinburgh?’
Ava’s eyes flicked back to where the man had been. He was gone now, a carriage rattling past the spot where he’d stood, casting a puddle of rain across the cobbles.
‘In a way,’ she said softly.
‘“In a way”?’ Oliver repeated, conceding defeat with the largest suitcase, and plucking up her smallest bag instead.Thatfitted snugly inside the bicycle’s wicker basket, and he turned a triumphant smile back to his sister. ‘Inwhatway? Did you find work at the theatre there?’
Ava pursed her lips together. ‘I’m not sure the theatre is for me anymore, Oliver.’
He made a face. ‘Because ofonepoor review?’
