Page 41
“Then he stood on it,” Matilda finished, naturally injecting as much drama into her reenactment of the scene as possible. “He’d already taken it from her, and it wasn’t like Sera could get it back, but he still took the time to make her watch him destroy it.”
“I fucking hate him,” said Nicholas.
“Fucking hate him,” Posy echoed brightly.
“Nicholas,” Jasmine protested.
By the time Sera, Luke, and their stowaway had returned to the inn the previous night, a bit shaken but no worse for wear, the rest of the household had been in bed.
Sera, who’d imagined coming home with the essence of sunlight, seeing it turn into gold smoke in the glass teapot, and then finishing what she and Luke had started in the library, hadn’t been able to cope with such a promising night having such an unpromising end.
She’d stayed up just long enough to make sure a very quiet, sullen Clemmie had gotten home safe and sound (she had) before cocooning herself in bed.
Then, after a restless night of tossing, turning, tears, and rage, she had tottered down to breakfast and found everyone waiting for her.
They’d all been warned in advance that things hadn’t exactly gone according to plan, of course, but Theo in particular wanted to know the whole story.
He’d made it through exactly five minutes of breakfast, during which he, Posy, and Clemmie had competed to see who could eat the most bacon, before asking for all the details.
Matilda, of course, had been more than happy to oblige.
“No one’s explained how he knew what you’d done, though,” Theo objected now. “He said he saw Clemmie sneaking away from his house, right?”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Clemmie shouted down from the top of her favourite cabinet.
“Er, okay,” Theo said, sounding like he thought it was perhaps a little Clemmie’s fault for letting herself be spotted.
“He saw you, figured out Sera was up to something, came back to the party, found Matilda, and guessed that the uninvited unmagical stranger must be part of whatever was going on. Then what? How’d he know to check the library?
Matilda didn’t say anything, so how’d he guess what Sera had gone there to get? ”
“Magical spidey sense?” Matilda suggested.
“His power’s something else,” Luke agreed somewhat bitterly.
“I fucking hate him,” Nicholas said again.
With a faint, tired smile, Sera said, “I really do appreciate that you’re all so angry on my behalf, but I did just put half of us in real danger for nothing, Luke’s never going to be allowed to go back to the Guild again, and I’m probably not getting my magic back, so maybe we could talk about something else? ”
“You didn’t put anyone in danger,” Matilda objected at once. “Luke chose to be there. I chose to be there. Clemmie chose to be there. You didn’t make any of us do that.”
“And you know how this spell works by now,” Luke added. “You know there isn’t just one right answer. We might not be able to get hold of any essence of sunlight ever again, but we’ll find something else that’ll work as the strand of sunset.”
“Sunset,” said Posy.
“Exactly,” Luke repeated, ruffling her hair.
His eyes met Sera’s across the table. “I don’t care what Albert said, Sera.
I love the work I do, but I promise you, Verity will find a way to get me to do that work even if I’m not allowed to return to the castle.
Besides, when you get your magic back, and you will , you’ll knock Albert Grey off his throne and break Clemmie’s curse, and he won’t be able to keep any of us away anymore. ”
“That was inspiring,” Matilda said admiringly. “If I wasn’t gay and your grandma, I’d be very attracted to you right about now.”
Luke tipped his mug of tea at her. “Thanks.”
Nicholas looked from Matilda to Luke to Matilda, thoroughly confuddled. “You’re his grandma?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What am I, then?” Nicholas asked with interest.
“Endlessly entertaining,” Matilda said fondly.
“Who isn’t in this place?” Nicholas pointed out, not entirely incorrectly.
Posy nibbled thoughtfully on a slice of toast, a red crayon in her other hand. “Sunset.”
“Where’s Clemmie?” Theo asked. “Wasn’t she here a minute ago?”
“Maybe she’s tidying your room,” Matilda suggested.
Jasmine laughed. “The day Clemmie tidies anything is the day my name is no longer Jasmine Ponnappa.”
This was one revelation too many for Nicholas. “Wait, what? Your name isn’t Jasmine Swan?”
“No, dearest, that’s just Sera’s name.”
Sera, acutely pained, said, “We really don’t need to hear the whole story.”
Which was, of course, the worst possible thing she could have said, because Theo choked out a laugh that he hastily turned into a cough and Matilda’s eyes lit up with immediate glee.
“Oh, I think we do indeed need to hear the whole story. Jasmine? Would you like to tell us what all the fuss is about?”
“There is no fuss,” Jasmine insisted, entirely dignified. “My nephew’s name is Sarath. Sera’s mother’s name is Svana. It’s an Icelandic word for swan. That’s all.”
“All?” Matilda repeated incredulously. Even Nicholas looked appalled. “They named her after themselves! Twice! My poor, poor girl,” she said to Sera, who laughed in spite of herself, “I’m so sorry, I shall never bring it up again, cross my heart.”
“So why wasn’t it Sara with an A ?” Nicholas wanted to know.
“Go on, Jasmine,” Sera said pointedly. “Tell them. Why wasn’t it Sara with an A ?”
Jasmine sighed. “They thought an E would make it more interesting.”
“Well, Sera is perfect no matter what her name is,” Nicholas insisted gallantly.
“You know what is interesting?” Matilda remarked, her bright, birdlike eyes scanning the length of the table. “None of us share a surname. Not one of us.”
That couldn’t be right, could it? Sera looked around the room, silently ticking names off as she went.
Theo was just as unconvinced. “What about Luke and Posy?”
“Different names,” said Luke.
“Luke has their mother’s name,” said Matilda, who over the weeks of homeschooling had done enough paperwork on Posy’s behalf to know this. “Posy has their father’s. Funny, isn’t it?” Her twinkling gaze fixed on Sera. “Families share a name, apparently, yet here we are.”
“I get the impression you’re making a point,” Sera said.
“I’m just saying we’re here for you,” Matilda said. “No matter what happens with your magic. Whether you get it back or not. We’re here. You know that, don’t you?”
Sera smiled, her heart aching with love. “I do know.”
And because of that love, she went looking for Clemmie. It took some time to find her, mostly because Clemmie, who was trying not to be found, was in the woodshed at the bottom of the garden, perched on a crate of firewood.
“What?” Clemmie said sulkily.
“I don’t blame you for last night, Clemmie. It’s not your fault.”
“I know it’s not my fault!” Clemmie snapped.
“Then why are you hiding?”
“I’m not,” Clemmie replied, her voice losing its edge. “I’m just getting comfortable in my snow globe, seeing as I’m probably not getting out of it this lifetime.” Hopping off the crate of firewood, she looked up at Sera and said, quietly, “I just need to be alone for a bit.”
“Maybe you could be alone inside where it’s warm?”
“I have fur ,” Clemmie muttered, but she slipped past Sera’s legs and slinked back to the house.
Sera stayed in the doorway of the woodshed, leaning on the old, cobwebby frame, trying to regain even a sliver of the hope she’d felt the previous night.
It was the coldest day they’d had yet, and the sky was a stark, blinding white.
Green hills and dark, woody thickets crisscrossed the horizon.
The wind whipped through the trees, carrying a hint of satsumas and woodsmoke, and in the background, the chickens clucked disapprovingly at Roo-Roo, who had wandered into their run to pester them.
“I don’t understand.”
That was Jasmine’s voice, but it was Jasmine’s voice as Sera had never heard it, unsteady and uncertain. She poked her head around the side of the woodshed, worried, and froze when she saw Jasmine and Matilda standing in the shelter of a satsuma tree.
Instinctively, she knew this was a conversation she ought not to interrupt, and she ducked back a bit so that she was out of sight.
Unlike Jasmine, Matilda sounded completely calm. “What’s not to understand? I’ve fallen quite madly in love with you.”
Sera stifled a squeak. She’d finally said it!
“But…” Jasmine faltered. “But…”
Matilda waited patiently.
“I just don’t see how you could possibly have fallen in love with me ,” Jasmine tried to explain.
Matilda’s dark eyes flashed with anger and Sera wanted to hug her for it.
“That, sweetest of hearts,” said Matilda, “is because you had the misfortune of being born into a family who did not show you all the many, many reasons it’s easy to love you.
I would even argue it’s impossible not to love you.
There is a quiet strength and gentle kindness in you that I find quite irresistible. Your face doesn’t hurt either.”
Jasmine blushed. “My face isn’t the thing people tend to notice about me.”
“Very true. Your gentleness is the first thing, then your face.” Matilda’s eyes had gone soft and were bright with humour. “But if you mean your clubfoot, I can only speak for myself, and I find your foot every bit as lovely as the rest of you.”
Jasmine dashed at the corners of her eyes with one hand like she was wiping tears away. “I’ve known you for two years, Matilda. You’re my dearest friend. I never imagined you might…”
“I know,” Matilda said ruefully. “That’s you all over.
Meanwhile, everybody else knows exactly how I feel about you because I’m just that obvious.
I’ve been trying to be patient. You never talk about past loves, and I don’t know if you’ve ever fallen in love with a woman, so I didn’t want to push you…
” Pausing, Matilda looked out over the horizon before saying, with a faint smile, “Last night decided me. For a few horrible moments, when I was frozen in place, watching helplessly as that man talked about punishing Sera, I had no idea if I’d get home to you, and all I could think was how much I wished I’d said something.
How stupid I’d been to waste the time we’d had.
And I promised myself I’d never waste another minute. ”
“Aren’t we too old to fall in love?” Jasmine wondered, still sounding uncertain but also, to Sera’s delight, downright giddy .
Matilda laughed. “You were over forty when your life really started. You of all people know that we’re never too old for anything.
” She smoothed a single, windblown lock of Jasmine’s hair back, an expression of utter joy on her face.
“You know I used to teach dance. I’ve always loved it, the teaching and the dancing, but it wasn’t quite enough.
This is the life I wanted. This life of contentment and unexpected excitement, of little everyday joys, where I don’t just get to be myself but also get to be embraced as myself. It’s miraculous.”
“We have built a miraculous life,” Jasmine agreed softly.
“Imagine, then, how impossibly lucky I feel that not only have I found the life I always dreamed of, but I’ve found you too.”
There was an expression on Jasmine’s face that Sera had never seen before, an enormousness of feeling that seemed to come all the way from the inside, as if the darkest shadows of her past had finally been chased out by the light.
Matilda’s smile faded. She took Jasmine’s cane from her, gently, propped it against the tree, and took both of Jasmine’s hands in hers.
“Jasmine, I’m going to say something to you now, and then I promise I’ll never mention it again if that’s what you’d prefer.
What I’d like more than anything, if you would like it too, is to spend the rest of the time I have in this world with you. ”
“I think…” Jasmine said softly, weighing each word as if it was precious, “I think I would like that.”
“Do you love me?”
“I do.” There was no uncertainty in Jasmine’s voice anymore. “I’ve loved you for some time. I just didn’t know I loved you like this .”
Matilda’s face glowed. She cupped Jasmine’s face in her hands, bent her forehead to hers, and kissed her.
Biting her lip to suppress another squeal, Sera edged back into the woodshed because she’d already seen more than she ought to have, really, and this was their moment.
So she waited, only a little impatiently, until they decided to take their moment indoors, where it was firelit and toasty and nobody would catch their deaths of pneumonia, and only then, when she was certain they were gone, did she come out of the woodshed.
As she went back to the house, she felt it again.
Hope.
Inside, in the living room, Posy looked rather cross.
“Sunset,” she said insistently, holding up a piece of paper she’d drawn a picture on.
“I know, Posy,” Luke said, sounding like this may have been the fourth or fifth time he’d said it. “It’s a sunset. It’s a good sunset. All the reds and yellows and oranges are perfect. Do you want to add a bit of blue or purple in too?”
Posy gave him a baffled look, then turned to Sera. “Sunset?”
“It’s pretty,” Sera said admiringly. Posy’s crayon sunset was more of a blob with some sticky-outy bits, it was true, but Luke was right about the colours.
This was not the answer Posy had been hoping for. She stomped her foot in frustration.
“I don’t understand, Posy,” Sera said apologetically. “Do you need help with the sunset?”
“Is that a tail?” Clemmie asked from where she was stretched out by the fireplace, one eye squinting at the piece of paper in Posy’s hands. “Why does her sunset have a tail?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Van Gogh, is the nine-year-old’s artistic ability not quite up to your lofty standards?” Sera demanded.
Theo walked into the room. “Has anyone seen my—”
“Theo,” Posy interrupted, thrusting the picture at him. In the voice of someone who has lost all faith in the good sense of adults, she said, “Theo, sunset.”
Theo took the picture, took one look at it, and yelled, “AHHH! Posy! You’re brilliant! OF COURSE! It’s so obvious! Sunset!”
“Sunset,” Posy agreed smugly.
Theo grinned at Sera and Luke. “Posy and I’d better get extra cinnamon buns for this.”
He strode across the room, pounced on a startled Clemmie, and yanked a hair out of her tail.
“Oi!” Clemmie was outraged. “I was already having a bad day, thank you very much!”
“Look!” Triumphantly, Theo held up the gleaming, reddish-orangey hair. “It’s a strand of sunset!”
Table of Contents
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