Zachary
passes. I try to call Theodora every single day, to no avail. It almost becomes a ritual of sorts, a way of acknowledging the ghost of her. Before I go to sleep, I find myself reading Keats, murmuring lines out loud as though they were incantations to summon her.
Friday night, I try to go to the library but quickly give up, unable to concentrate on any of my work. I’m on my way back to my room when I almost bump into Iakov, who’s walking away from my door.
“What’s up with your Zaro?” he asks without bothering to greet me.
“What do you mean?”
“Dunno. I’ve left her alone, like you asked. But she’s been sneaking off campus.”
“What?”
My heart sinks. In my worry for Theodora, it completely escaped my mind to worry about Zaro. Somehow, I thought things were better, that she was a little wiser. Then I remember her behaviour the night of the Christmas Eve party, the Duke of Bridehall’s invitation to his yacht.
But Zaro was only joking about that—right?
Or am I simply refusing to learn from my mistakes? Refusing to see the damage in the people I love, the hurt plaguing them? Whatever’s broken inside Zaro isn’t something that’s just going to fix itself, and I’ve been stupid to assume otherwise.
And Zaro knows how distracted I am at the moment.
“Do you know where she’s been going?” I ask, opening my bedroom door and letting Iakov precede me inside.
He shakes his head. “Want me to find out?”
“How would you do that?”
He lets out a grunt of laughter. “Easy. By following her.”
I hesitate. On one hand, it would be so easy to let Iakov do just that, follow Zaro and find out what she’s up to and deal with the problem in his own way. But Zaro’s not his little sister, and she’s made clear to me her distaste for being assigned a guard dog.
No. Zaro is my little sister. I’m the one who ought to be protecting her, not my best friend. I’m the one who should be looking after her and protecting her. I failed to do so for Theodora.
I won’t fail Zaro.
out the narrow country road every night of the week, waiting for Zaro to appear from the crack in the old fence everybody knows about.
Over the course of our stake-outs, we see an endless parade of runaways: Year 12 girls in tiny dresses sneaking out for a night of partying, boys holding girls by the hand—I even see Seraphina Rosenthal, the rose of Spearcrest, decked out in a vintage trench coat and Louboutin heels, sneak off, no doubt to meet her secret townie boyfriend everybody knows about.
My heart pits through my chest on Thursday night when a slim figure with an explosion of curly hair appears through the crack in the fence. A black cab is already awaiting her, and Zaro runs along the length of the fence and climbs into the taxi. Iakov starts his engine without a word, and we follow the taxi from as far as possible.
To my surprise, it doesn’t head into London, where everyone tends to go for parties and hook-ups. Instead, the taxi takes the narrow, windy road straight into Fernwell, the local town.
Nobody from Spearcrest ever goes there since it’s a small, sleepy hamlet with nothing more to it than a church, a supermarket, and a collection of small artisanal shops. But that’s right where Zaro’s taxi takes her, and Iakov and I exchange a bemused glance when it parks in front of a cosy-looking cottage standing all on its own a few minutes from the village.
Zaro gets out, hugs her coat around her, and enters the cottage. A sign above the bright green door reads Primrose Cottage B&B.
“What the fuck.” Iakov’s face, normally as expressive as stone, is crumpled into an expression of bewilderment that would be funny if the situation wasn’t so strange.
“Maybe it’s not what we think?” I ask, equally bewildered.
“What else could it be?” he asks.
We stare at each other.
Sudden realisation crystallises in my mind.
And then I’m yanking my seatbelt free and running out of the car, up the little pebbled path to the green door, which I wrench open. A woman in her forties, her brown hair in pigtails, is sitting at the counter, a big hardback book propped open in front of her.
“Can I help you?” she asks, looking up.
“The girl that came in here—where did she go?”
She frowns. “Who are you?”
The hallway is cosily furnished but small, and it’s easy to glance down the adjoining corridor. There, I spot the Chanel umbrella I gifted Zaro at Christmas, propped next to a door.
“I’m so sorry, excuse me, I’ll be right back!” I call out to the woman at the desk and set off running down the hall.
Once I reach the door, I go to open it, but it’s locked. I slam both fists on the door, my head a frenzy of thoughts in a blizzard of hope and fear. “Zaro, open up! It’s me!”
The door opens, and I stand face to face with Zaro, who stands with a hand on her hip and a disapproving look on her face. “I knew you were following me! You’re such a—”
I push past her and into the room. It’s small and provincially pretty: a bed with a patchwork eiderdown, a small blue rug on rustic wooden floorboards, a little stand with a coffee machine, tea cups and ceramic pots of sugar and tea bags next to a narrow armoire, plants and vases of wildflowers. At the other end of the room is a small window seat upholstered in blue felt.
On that seat, hugging her legs to her, is Theodora.
“Shall I ask him to leave?” Zaro asks in a tone of concern, turning to look at Theodora.
Theodora shakes her head, and I let out a burst of laughter. A sound of mingled shock, relief, and amusement—amusement at the mere idea that Zaro could make me leave when no force on earth could make me leave right now.
“Zahara.” Iakov’s voice is calm and grave behind me. I don’t turn to look at him. “Come.”
“I’m… I’m going to go now.” Zaro goes to Theodora and squeezes her hand. “I’m going to wait outside with that big goon.” She casts a glare over my shoulder, where Iakov must be standing. “Is that alright?”
Theodora nods.
Zaro casts a worried look from Theodora to me, but our gazes remain on each other. She sidles past me with a little awkward grimace, and then the door closes, leaving Theodora and me alone to face one another in raw, painful silence.
I remember, and yet completely different.
Exactly as I remember because her forget-me-not eyes still have that odd quality to them, a gentle dreaminess undercut by a sharp intelligence. Her features are the same, those ethereally beautiful features, that raspberry mouth where all my kisses wish to live and die, that creamy skin. She’s wearing loose, high-waisted jeans and a white satin camisole under a soft blue cardigan with enormous sleeves.
Different because, despite the melancholy set deep into her eyes and features, she looks the healthiest I’ve seen her in a long time—the healthiest I’ve ever seen her.
She’s gained a little weight, which has settled beautifully into her body, cushioning the protruding bones of her chest and softening her delicate features. There’s a faint flush in her cheeks, a rose tint within her skin that makes it look warm and kissable.
Different because of her hair: those long, heavy tresses of pale gold are gone. Her hair is cut right below her chin, and it hangs down in slight waves, as if freed of its weight, her hair has gained a new lightness to it.
My throat becomes tight at the sight of it, and I’m gripped with the sudden, horrible urge to weep. As if feeling the weight of my glance, Theodora raises a hand self-consciously to her hair, brushing the strands with her fingertips.
“How does it look?”
Her voice is an arrow straight to my heart. I almost crumple from it. I step forward. “Why did you cut it?”
“Because I’ve always wanted to cut it.” She tilts her head and gives me a strange smile, full of rue and tenderness. “And I realised nothing was stopping me from doing so. No walls, or locks, or guards.”
She stands and does a full turn, slowly and gracefully as a music-box ballerina, before stepping closer to me.
“I cut it myself. How does it look?”
“It’s your hair, Theodora. How could it be anything but beautiful?” My too-hoarse voice fades in my throat.
And then I do what saints do when they see their angels. I fall to my knees at her feet and weep.
