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Edward comes in from the back room, wiping grease from his hands. He stops when he sees Arthur. For a moment, the years fold strangely. I see Edward at that age, too thin and too watchful. Trying to put himself between me and the world with nothing but a bruised body and an impossible amount of stubbornness.

“Arthur.” He nods.

Arthur crosses the room and accepts his embrace with the awkwardness of someone who has not been hugged enough but desperately wants to remember how. Baba does not move. Good. No one asks her to. No one says, Come here, child, as if tenderness may be forced into the shape of a command. She stands beside the door with one hand around the strap of her travel case and watches us all. Morrigan, who has been lounging atop the counter like a queen among peasants, lifts her head. Baba sees the ocelot. The ocelot sees Baba and a long, silent exchange occurs. Unsettling.

Then Morrigan blinks slowly and rests her head back on her paws. Baba’s shoulders lower by the width of a breath. Animals are often more civil than people and Arthur notices too. His eyes go to Baba, then to me. The question he has carried all the way to Lockham. Not aloud, but it is heavy and we recognize it.

How do I help her?

The poor boy. As if love arrives with an instruction manual and clean hands.

We settle them in first. That is the practical thing to do, a small house down the street near Le Havre. Close enough that help can be summoned for them, yet far enough that Baba may close a door and believe, maybe eventually, that it will remain closed by her choice. Olive arranges it with pride, she does not fuss, nor does she flutter around Baba with pity. She merely looks at the girl once, properly, then begins issuing commands with the calm authority of a woman who has rebuilt herself enough times to know the value of warm rooms and locks that work.

“She will need a bedroom with two exits,” Olive says.

Arthur looks startled. Baba does not.

Olive continues. “No heavy curtains near the bed. They hold shadows badly. Put the writing desk near the window, not facing the wall. The kitchen should have simple knives. Nothing ornate. Nothing that looks like a weapon unless she chooses it.”

Arthur swallows as his eyes go wide, “I had not thought—”

“No,” Olive says, not unkindly. “Why would you? You have been thinking like a frightened husband. That is useful in moderation and unbearable in excess.”

Baba looks at her. Really looks at Olive with a faint admiration. Olive glances back, no smile, no softness performed for comfort, just pure recognition. I stand in the doorway and watch the moment settle between them. One wounded woman seeing another without trying to undress the wound. Arthur comes to me later that evening after Baba has gone upstairs to rest.

“She is not my wife yet,” he says.

I begin to pour two glasses of brandy. Then, remembering his age, I pour one glass of brandy and one cup of tea. Arthur eyes the tea. I hand it to him. “You are tragic enough without liquor.”

He accepts it with a sigh.

“She is not legally my wife,” he says again. “But she is. She will be. I know it. I know we are young. Everyone says we are too young, but she has always been my bride. She chose me.”

“Everyone says many things. Most of them are noise, treat them like flatulence in the wind.”

Arthur chokes on his tea, then looks toward the stairs. “She was named Astrid before, but she prefers Baba now. Or perhaps she does not prefer it. Perhaps she only hates the old name.”

“That is reason enough to respect her wishes.” I remark.

“She has been through things.” He says quietly.

“Yes.”

“Morbid things.”

“Yes.” I nod.

His hands tighten around the teacup. “Morbid, morbid things, Alcott.”

I say nothing. The repetition tells me more than the word itself. Some horrors refuse to be spoken once because once is too close to naming them.

“She has nightmares,” he says. “She does not like sudden noises. She does not like being touched unless she begins it, and sometimes even then she changes her mind. Sometimes she looks at me as if she loves me, and then the next second she looks terrified that I noticed.”

His voice cracks. “I do not know how to help her. I just want to help her.”

Ah. There it is. The helplessness of loving a survivor. A peculiar torture, not because they are difficult to love, but because love, by itself, is not a bandage large enough.

Arthur stares into his tea. “I am scared to touch her.”