Page 6 of Meadowsweet and Marigold (EverAfter CozyXverse #1)

The station clock showed she had twenty minutes until the next departure. Twenty minutes to change her mind. Twenty minutes to stay and fight.

Marigold approached the ticket counter but stopped short.

The weight of her decision suddenly overwhelmed her.

"Is this running away or starting over?" she asked herself, stepping aside to let others pass.

A family hurried by — parents guiding excited children toward their platform.

A businessman purchased a ticket without hesitation.

An elderly couple stood arm in arm, consulting a schedule.

Life continued all around her while hers hung in suspension.

"Can I help you, miss?" The ticket agent's voice broke through her thoughts.

Marigold stepped forward, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Suddenly nerves she hadn’t experienced bubbled in the pit of her stomach, making it hard to think.

"I—" She swallowed hard. "I need a ticket."

"Destination?"

Her fingers pressed into the countertop.

"Willowbend."

"One-way or round trip?"

The question lingered between them.

Purchasing a one-way ticket meant admitting she had no plans to return, while a round trip suggested this was temporary — that she might someday face Magnolia and Rowan again.

"One way," she said finally, her voice finding unexpected strength. "One way, please."

As she handed over her credit card, Marigold felt a strange lightness.

Not happiness — that seemed impossibly distant — but perhaps the first step toward it.

"Platform three," the agent said, sliding the ticket toward her. "Departing in fifteen minutes."

Marigold tucked the ticket into her coat pocket, her decision made physical. Willowbend wasn't an escape; it was a beginning.

And beginnings, even painful ones, held possibilities that endings never could.

The train's rhythmic clatter became a metronome for Marigold's thoughts as she stared out the window. City buildings gradually thinned, replaced by suburbs, then stretches of countryside.

Her forehead rested against the cool glass, the vibration humming through her skull.

"First time leaving the city?"

Marigold turned to find an older woman settling into the seat across from her, arranging a wicker basket on her lap.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked, straightening her posture instinctively — the ballet dancer's reflex.

"You have that look. Like you're watching something precious disappear." The woman smiled kindly. "I'm Doris."

"Marigold."

"Beautiful name. Going far?"

Marigold hesitated.

"Willowbend."

"Lovely place. My sister lives there. Quiet, though. Very different from the city."

"That's what I'm counting on," Marigold murmured, turning back to the window.

The woman nodded, understanding the need for silence, and opened a book.

As fields blurred past, Marigold's mind drifted backward.

She and Magnolia, seven years old, practicing pirouettes in their bedroom, giggling when they fell. Their mother clapping as they performed improvised dances in the living room. Magnolia helping Marigold perfect her arabesques, holding her hand for balance.

"We'll be famous dancers together," Magnolia had promised. "The Everhart twins. No one will ever separate us."

The memory curdled as Marigold recalled the letter crumpled in her bag.

"I hope you understand that everything simply belongs to me now," Magnolia had written. "Your role, your reputation. Even Rowan admits he always wanted me instead."

"Would you like a cookie, dear?" Doris interrupted her thoughts, offering a napkin-wrapped bundle. "Homemade this morning."

"No, thank you," Marigold replied automatically, then reconsidered. "Actually, yes. Thank you."

As she accepted the cookie — still warm, flecked with chocolate — another memory surfaced: their sixteenth birthday.

Magnolia fuming after Marigold was selected for the advanced class while she remained intermediate.

"It should have been both of us," Magnolia had insisted. "Or me instead. I practice more than you do."

"I'm sorry," Marigold had said, meaning it. "Next time you'll ? —"

"Don't patronize me," Magnolia had snapped, her golden-orange eyes flashing. "Just because they picked you doesn't make you better."

The train whistle sounded, startling Marigold back to the present.

"Almost there," Doris said, gathering her things. "Willowbend is the next stop."

Marigold nodded, brushing cookie crumbs from her lap.

"How will I know when I'm in the right place? In the city, I always knew exactly where I stood."

"That's the beauty of small towns," Doris replied. "You'll find your place. It just might not be the one you expected."

The train slowed, and Marigold collected her single suitcase.

As the doors opened, she stepped onto the platform, blinking in the afternoon sunlight.

Willowbend Station was a quaint brick building with wooden benches and hanging flower baskets. No crowds, no rushing commuters — just a handful of people moving at an unhurried pace.

The air smelled of grass and distant rain rather than exhaust and restaurant kitchens.

"It's so..." Marigold struggled to find the word.

"Quiet?" offered Doris, appearing beside her. "Takes getting used to. The grocery closes at eight, by the way. Just so you know."

Marigold nodded, watching Doris wave to someone and walk away.

She stood alone, listening to sounds she'd never noticed in the city — birds, distant laughter, the creak of the station's wooden sign in the breeze.

"Miss? Need a taxi?" A man with weathered cheeks approached, gesturing to an old car parked nearby.

"Yes, please." Marigold gripped her suitcase handle. "Cedar Lane Cottages?"

"Rose's place? Nice there." He took her bag. "I'm Frank. Town's unofficial welcome committee."

As they drove through Willowbend's main street, Marigold absorbed the small shops with hand-painted signs, a diner with red-checkered curtains, and a town square with a gazebo.

No glittering marquees announcing ballet performances.

No billboards featuring dancers in elaborate costumes.

Nothing familiar.

"Everyone knows everyone here," Frank explained, turning down a tree-lined road. "Might seem strange at first if you're from the city."

"Will they know about me?" Marigold asked quietly, suddenly afraid her story had preceded her.

Frank glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

"Only what you tell them, miss. That's how it works here. Fresh starts are respected."

Fresh starts…

That’s exactly what this was.

A new beginning.

She looked out at the rolling hills surrounding the town, feeling something unexpected — space to breathe. No prying eyes watching for her downfall. No whispers about the rejected Omega dancer. No shadow of her twin's betrayal darkened every step.

"Here we are," Frank announced, pulling up to a cluster of stone cottages nestled among apple trees. "Cedar Lane."

Marigold paid him and stood before her new temporary home.

The cottage was small but charming, with a slate roof and a blue door. Wildflowers dotted the yard, swaying gently in the breeze.

"Thank you," she whispered, not to Frank, who had already driven away, but to herself — for the courage to leave, to begin again.

For the first time since reading Magnolia's letter, Marigold felt her shoulders relax. The weight hadn't disappeared, but somehow, in this quiet place so far from everything she knew, it seemed possible to set it down, if only for a moment.

She approached the blue door, key in hand.

The lock turned with a solid click, and she stepped inside. Sunlight filtered through lace curtains, illuminating wooden floors and simple furnishings. Nothing like her sleek city apartment with its mirrors and ballet barre, but somehow more inviting.

Marigold set her suitcase down and moved to the window, looking out at the garden where a robin hopped between patches of clover.

"I don't know who I am without the stage," she admitted to the empty room, her voice barely audible. "Without the company. Without being someone's twin."

But as the words left her lips, she felt a curious lightness.

Maybe that was precisely the point — to discover who Marigold Everhart might be when stripped of all those identities.

She touched the windowsill, feeling the grain of the wood beneath her fingertips.

"But I'm going to find out. Will find her."

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across her new floor, and though uncertainty still coiled in her stomach, for the first time since Rowan's public rejection, since Magnolia's betrayal, Marigold felt something unfamiliar blooming in her chest.

Hope.

Small and fragile, but undeniably there.