Ch. 164 The Way Home

Chapter 164: The Way Home

Aurelia had packed before anyone else woke.

That was what she told us.

Tessa examined the neat bag beside the hearth.

“Then you can help with the kettle.”

Our teacher blinked.

Then smiled.

“Yes.”

I sat up beneath the blanket while Evelyn tried to recover the part I had trapped beneath my knee.

Across the hut, Eleanor was looking for a glove.

Melody had found it and was waiting to see how long this would remain amusing.

The last restraint was gone.

We still had to make breakfast.

Aurelia walked down with us.

She could have gone ahead.

She could have returned to Greykeep before the water boiled.

Instead, she took one of the smaller packs and followed Tessa into the cold.

At the foot crossing, she stopped beside me.

“I could take this across.”

She meant the pack.

I looked at the narrow stones.

“Would you like to?”

Aurelia considered it.

Then lifted the pack across the stream with a small movement of her hand.

It settled beside Eliza.

No flicker.

No effort visible in her face.

She watched it for a moment.

Then crossed on foot.

We reached Northwatch with enough daylight left to see smoke rising above the roofs.

Merrow came out to meet us.

He looked at our faces before asking.

Aurelia answered him herself.

“It is finished.”

For a moment, he stood very still.

Then he bowed.

Not deeply.

Not as though someone had told him he should.

“Welcome back.”

Aurelia’s hand tightened on the strap of her bag.

“Thank you.”

He straightened.

“There’s hot water.”

Eleanor went inside immediately.

The news had reached Greykeep before we did.

Of course it had.

Aurelia had carried it herself.

That did not prepare me for the people waiting near the gate.

Not a crowd pressed together.

Room had been left for us to come through.

But there were faces at the workshop doors.

Infirmary windows open despite the cold.

People standing with their work still in their hands.

Soren came down the steps.

Then stopped when he saw Aurelia.

She went to him.

Whatever they said was too quiet for me to hear.

He bowed his head.

She touched his shoulder.

Behind me, Evelyn began crying.

I put my arm around her.

She laughed at herself and wiped her face.

Then we went home.

Carol objected to being kept waiting.

Garrick did not.

He had found something interesting about a wooden spoon and required several moments to decide that my return was worth interrupting it.

I took him anyway.

He forgave me when I lifted him high enough to see over my shoulder.

Evelyn sat with Carol pressed against her.

Helena knelt beside them.

For a while, the room contained too many people speaking at once.

I understood almost none of it.

I did not mind.

Aurelia stood near the hearth with Lord Garrick.

He took her bag.

Then embraced her.

She held him tightly.

I looked away long enough to give them that.

Beatrice had prepared supper for more people than usually fit around the table.

Additional chairs appeared.

Then another table.

Then a brief argument over whether the smaller table would fit through the doorway.

The Castellan solved that by carrying it upright.

Beatrice watched him set it down.

“Useful.”

“I endeavour to be.”

Eleanor took the nearest chair.

“If anyone asks me to stand again tonight, I’m charging.”

Melody sat beside her.

“I thought you were already being paid.”

“Not enough for standing.”

Aurelia laughed.

The sound carried through the room.

Several people looked up.

Then smiled and returned to what they were doing.

Nobody asked for a speech.

I had been preparing one without meaning to.

A few sentences.

Thanks.

Something about what we had done together.

Then Garrick dropped his spoon.

Carol shouted because he had dropped something she had not.

Evelyn bent to retrieve it.

Nessa told someone to move the hot dish farther from the edge.

And the moment passed into supper.

Later, I was grateful.

There would be things to say.

Tonight, people could eat beside her.

After the meal, Aurelia asked whether the others would remain a little longer.

The room quieted.

She stood.

Then looked at the chair behind her and sat again.

“I’m tired,” she said.

A small ripple of laughter passed around the table.

She smiled.

“I have been trying to decide how to thank you.”

I looked down at my hands.

Beside me, Evelyn reached for one.

Aurelia’s gaze moved from face to face.

“You have carried things. Written letters. Kept rooms ready. Told me when to stop. Come when I asked.”

Her voice trembled.

“I remember.”

Nobody interrupted.

“I don’t know how to make what that means fit into a few words.”

Lord Garrick lifted his cup.

“You don’t have to tonight.”

Aurelia looked at him.

Then took up her own cup.

“All right.”

We drank with her.

The following morning, I found her in the lower garden.

She stood beside the pear trees.

There was frost on the mulch and a thin skin of ice in the watering trough.

For once, I had come outside without looking for anyone.

I stopped beside her.

“Did you sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Dreams?”

“Some.”

I waited.

She brushed a hand along a bare branch.

“My own.”

I looked toward the little tree.

It would be years before the children climbed it.

Less time before they tried.

“Do you feel different?”

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

Aurelia turned toward me.

“I haven’t finished finding out.”

We walked along the path.

She could hear farther now.

Reach places she had known without waiting for someone to call her through.

Hold her presence without feeling that every moment must be borrowed against the next.

She told me these things carefully.

Not promises.

Discoveries.

“Can you hear everyone?” I asked.

“No.”

“Will you ever?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t promise it.”

I nodded.

For a while, we walked without speaking.

Then she said, “You’re wondering about Caroline.”

I stopped.

I had not intended to ask.

Perhaps that was why the answer caught so painfully in my throat.

“A little.”

Aurelia waited.

“At the house, I kept knowing it wasn’t her. And still—”

“Yes.”

I looked away.

“Now that you’re free, I thought perhaps you might know something.”

She came to stand beside me.

“Uriah, I cannot bring her back.”

“I know.”

“And I won’t offer you another likeness when what you want is your sister.”

The words hurt.

They also let me breathe.

I nodded.

Aurelia took my hand.

“But you may tell me about her whenever you wish.”

I told her about the tent again.

Then about other things.

A cup Caroline always claimed as hers.

A song she sang badly because singing it badly annoyed me.

The time she had been right and refused to stop reminding me.

Aurelia listened.

Once, she laughed.

Once, she asked a question that made me remember something I thought I had lost.

By the time we returned inside, I was cold.

I also wanted to tell Evelyn another story.

That seemed worth the walk.

Mary had begun arranging the final account.

She had placed five copies on the table.

Five restraints.

Beside the last lay Eleanor’s recovered fastening.

The metal was bent where the return had been forced shut.

I looked at it.

“Will we ever know who tried to open it?”

“Perhaps,” Mary said.

She turned a page.

“There may be household records elsewhere. Or a repair account. We know what to ask now.”

Aurelia stood beside me.

“I would like to keep looking.”

Mary nodded.

“We will.”

Then our teacher touched the copied mark beneath the arch and star.

“And Thesra?”

“No answer yet,” I said.

Aurelia’s face became very quiet.

“I will ask again.”

We did not discuss punishment that morning.

There was too much we did not know.

Who had ordered each alteration.

Who had carried it out.

Who had later understood what they were maintaining.

The marks mattered.

So did the hands that had put them there.

Mary wrote separate questions rather than letting them become one.

Aurelia read them.

Then added a question of her own.

Were there other sleepers whose return was prevented?

I looked at her.

She met my eyes.

“We should find out.”

Evelyn spent the afternoon at the infirmary.

I joined her near the end.

She was sitting with Mina, examining the girl’s legs while Ilyen spoke with her mother.

Mina looked up.

“Did you win?”

I stopped.

Evelyn’s mouth curved.

“Who told you we were fighting?”

“My brother.”

“Your brother has been very busy,” I said.

Mina nodded solemnly.

“He says there was a mountain.”

“There was.”

“And a bad house.”

“Yes.”

“And you broke it.”

“Parts of it,” I admitted.

She considered this.

Then looked at Evelyn.

“Can I tell him he was nearly right?”

My wife laughed.

“Yes.”

Aurelia came while we were leaving.

She stopped at the infirmary door.

Several people looked toward her.

One woman began to rise.

Aurelia went to her before she could struggle to her feet.

They spoke quietly.

Then our teacher joined us in the passage.

Evelyn watched her.

“Will it always be like that?”

“Sometimes.”

“Does it trouble you?”

“Being asked?”

My wife nodded.

“No.”

Aurelia touched her arm.

“But being able to answer does not mean I must do everything alone.”

Evelyn’s expression softened.

“Good.”

Our teacher smiled.

“I thought you would approve.”

That evening, we moved the portrait.

It had dried enough for Evelyn to permit careful handling.

Very careful handling.

She explained that twice.

Lord Garrick had made a plain frame.

No crown.

No inscription.

Only a small carved rose at the lower edge.

We hung it in the south sitting room, well away from the hearth.

Evelyn stood back.

Tilted her head.

Asked us to raise one side.

Then lower it again.

At last, she nodded.

Aurelia looked at the painting.

The children.

The chair.

Her own hands.

Then she looked around the room.

“This is where I wanted it.”

Later, she went out.

She told us she wished to walk in her garden.

Not the lower garden.

Hers.

Evelyn kissed her cheek.

I asked whether she would be back for breakfast.

Aurelia paused.

Then smiled in a way I had never seen before.

Not because breakfast was especially amusing.

Because she could decide.

“Yes,” she said. “I think I will.”

She left.

The room remained warm.

Evelyn sat beside me with Carol asleep against her shoulder.

I held Garrick, who was considering sleep as a possible concession.

For once, I did not watch the place where Aurelia had vanished.

I watched my family.