Then she set the phone down and looked around the cottage one last time.
Empty. Suitcase full. Packed guitars. Clean coffee mugs lined up and waiting.
Everything ready to leave.
She'd gotten her music back.
And lost something infinitely more important in the process.
Chapter Thirty-One
The library reopening was in two weeks, and Annabelle had already made seventeen lists.
One for the setup schedule. One for the volunteer assignments. One for the refreshments. One for the children's reading corner decorations. One for the contingency plans if it rained. One for the contingency plans if Mrs. Albright's cat got into the library again (it had happened before).
She'd color-coded them. Cross-referenced them. Laminated the important ones.
If she just kept making lists, kept organizing, keptdoing, then she wouldn't have to think about the fact that Raven had been gone for a week and hadn't called.
"Ms. Swift?"”
Annabelle looked up from her clipboard to find Marie standing in front of her desk, holding a picture of what appeared to be a dinosaur eating a rainbow.
"Yes, Marie, darling?"
"Can I show you my drawing?"
"Of course!" Annabelle summoned her brightest smile. "Oh, how wonderful! Is that a Tyrannosaurus Rex?"
"It's eating all the colors because it's sad," Marie explained seriously.
"How very creative." Annabelle handed it back. "Why don't you put it up on our display board?"
Marie skipped away, and Annabelle's smile faded the moment the child turned her back.
A week.
Seven days of waking up and not seeing the lights on in the cottage next door. Seven days of going through the motions, greeting parents, teaching lessons, organizing the library event, all while feeling like someone had scooped out her insides and replaced them with cotton wool.
But she was fine.
Everyone kept asking if she was fine, and she kept saying yes, and if she said it enough times, surely it would become true.
"Annabelle?"
Nina appeared at her elbow, looking concerned. "Are you okay? You've been staring at that clipboard for five minutes."
"Just thinking through the setup schedule." Annabelle forced brightness back into her voice. "Have we confirmed that Arty's bringing the extra shelving units?"
"Yes, three times. You called him yesterday."
"Right. Good." Annabelle made a note anyway. Just to be sure.
The morning crawled by. Literacy lesson. Maths. Break time supervision. Lunch. More lessons. Every moment felt like she was wading through treacle, but she kept her smile fixed and her voice cheerful and nobody seemed to notice that she was barely holding it together.
Until afternoon break time, when she saw Jamie.
He was sitting alone on the bench near the fence, the same bench where Raven used to teach him guitar. His shoulders were hunched, his head down, and even from across the playground, Annabelle could see that he was trying to make himself invisible.
