Chapter 228: Fork in the Road

After third period that afternoon, Richard skirted the holly hedge and headed to the abandoned house behind the main building, just as he always did.

The door was shut, a single line of light bleeding out from underneath.

Richard knocked the agreed-upon rhythm: two short, one long.

The deadbolt clicked from inside, and the door opened a crack.

Lillian stood behind it.

Richard glanced at the table behind her.

Sitting inside a glass jar was the very first titmouse she had ever preserved.

The one with its head cocked slightly to the side, standing on a dead twig as if listening to something.

She had pulled the jar from the wooden crate in the corner and set it dead center on the desk.

"You're..."

"I took it out." Lillian pulled the door shut.

Her voice was colder than usual—so cold that Richard knew something was wrong.

"Took it out for what?"

"I'm taking it home."

Richard said nothing.

He sat down in a chair.

Lillian stepped around to the other side of the table. She reached out and lightly tapped the glass, touching the titmouse through the jar.

"...I might be leaving," she said.

Richard frowned. "Where to?"

"Back to the Imperial Capital with my uncle. I'll stay there for a while."

"...And then?"

"Then we'll see."

"Are you going to take the university exams, then?" he asked. It was what he wanted to know most.

"...Richard."

Lillian looked up at him.

"Where do you think a girl can apply when she lives at her uncle's house, has a mother in a sanatorium, and has absolutely nothing to her name?"

Richard opened his mouth.

The good universities in the Imperial Capital were out of the question; they all required letters of recommendation.

Edinburgh? Or those old colleges up north?

But even those required steep tuition fees.

From what Lillian had told him before, her uncle had two children of his own.

One was three years older than her, the other two years younger.

"You..."

Lillian finished the thought for him.

"Every time he takes out money, I don't want my uncle to have to look at my aunt first, and then at me."

"My mother is my own responsibility."

"I'll find a way to pay the sanatorium fees myself."

"...What way?"

The girl lowered her head to look at the titmouse inside the glass.

"...I have a foundation."

She spoke very softly, almost as if talking to the bird.

"I've read those twenty-six books."

"I stopped after finishing them because I hadn't figured out what to do next."

"Now I do."

"...What?"

"Patients like the ones in the sanatorium—someone on the mystic side can cure them."

Richard's breathing slowed.

"Who can cure them?"

"I can't tell you."

Richard stared at her.

She lowered her head further.

"...Richard, aren't you doing things you can't tell me about, too?"

Richard's lips parted, then closed.

"Have you heard the word 'Abyss'?" she asked suddenly.

Richard's nerves instantly pulled taut.

"Of course I have. Don't touch it."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't afford the price."

Lillian looked up.

Her grayish-blue eyes gleamed under the lamplight.

"How do you know I can't afford it?"

"..."

"How do you know everyone pays the exact same price?"

Richard was left temporarily speechless.

He wanted to retort but couldn't find the words.

The three accounts in the book Secrets of the Abyss all described prices no one could afford.

The child who breathed too fast, the Hunter who thought his axe was too slow and ventured downward, the Silent Faction, and the Burnt Offering Sect.

Those three prices were meant for people who wanted to accomplish something.

For someone who wanted to bargain for power, who wanted to change the world a little.

But they weren't written for a girl who just wanted to keep her mother.

She was already standing at the edge of the veil; she didn't even need anyone to tempt her.

She had looked down and understood it for herself.

Sitting across from her, what could Richard say?

"Lillian, don't rush into a decision."

"...I'm not."

"After you go back to the Imperial Capital with your uncle, give yourself some time to think."

"Okay."

She answered readily.

But Richard knew that the faster she agreed, the less she meant it.

She had already made up her mind.

The girl let her gaze fall back to the titmouse in the jar.

She picked up the glass and hugged it to her chest.

"...I'm taking this one back. I'll leave the rest here, for you."

"...For me?"

"Yeah. They're in the wooden box."

Lillian hugged the bird a little tighter.

"The formula is on the paper at the very bottom."

"Three parts naphtha, one part limewater; birds with a lot of fat need to be diluted with distilled water."

"In the future... if you ever find a dead bird, you can make one for me. Just one will do."

Standing next to her, Richard felt a lump in his throat.

"...I might not do a good job."

"That's fine."

Lillian gave a small smile.

"Even if you ruin it, at least you were the one who made it."

Cradling the jar, she walked out of the abandoned house.

Richard followed her.

At the fork in the gravel path, Lillian stopped and looked back at him.

Richard held out his hand.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Their hands clasped, parting at the briefest touch.

......

It was the last day before the Easter holidays.

After third period, Greenwood let out for the day.

The road by the school gates was two or three times more congested than usual.

Richard stood beneath the old elm tree at the entrance.

It had just sprouted new buds, a tender green that looked as if someone had dotted the branches with a calligraphy brush.

When Hugh came to say goodbye, he pulled his sketchbook out of his bag.

"Take a look."

"Hmm?"

Hugh flipped to the very last page.

It depicted a table full of people.

Right in the middle sat Grey, clutching a dining knife;

on the right was Warren, holding a double-entry ledger;

on the left was Mason, wearing a crookedly drawn foreman's hat;

at the far end was Hugh himself, a chicken in a flat cap squatting on his shoulder;

and in the seat closest to the foreground, one more person had been drawn.

Only their back was visible.

"...Who is this?" Richard asked.

"That's you."

"Why from the back?"

"I couldn't draw your face."

"Huh?"

"You've looked different every day recently."

Hugh smiled.

"I drew it a few times, but it never looked right."

"Since I couldn't get it right, I had to draw your back. At least I couldn't mess that up."

Richard closed the sketchbook and handed it back.

"It's drawn very well."

By the time everyone was leaving, the rain had started pouring again.

At the row of stops by the gates, the school buses started up one by one, their engines belching black smoke.

Richard walked over to the bus stop under his umbrella.

Grey stood on the opposite side.

She was holding a dark blue umbrella. Normally, she would have walked out of the gates and turned left.

Her family's car parked on that side; her driver always arrived on time to pick her up.

Yet today, she had come over to Richard's side.

A few classmates at the stop tactfully made room.

"Richard."

"Grey."

She stopped beside him, angling her umbrella outward to direct the rain away.

"You're going to the Imperial Capital for university?"

"Yeah," Richard said. "If all goes well, I'll enroll in the fall."

"Which one?"

"Imperial Capital University."

"...Department of Classics?"

"Yeah. My aunt teaches there."

Grey nodded.

She lowered her eyes, staring at the tips of her shoes.

A few students were still lingering at the bus stop. The rain smacked loudly against the metal canopy.

Grey slipped her other hand out from under the umbrella, holding a small package wrapped in kraft paper.

She handed it over.

"This is the last time."

Richard's hand paused.

"...The last time for what?"

"The last time baking in Briston."

Her voice was soft, nearly smothered by the rain.

"I'm moving to the Imperial Capital, too. I'll be attending a girls' school there."

Richard took the package from her.

It was still warm.

The aroma of scones drifted through the paper, carrying the scent of butter and fine sugar.

And a hint of cardamom, a spice Grey's family imported from the East.

Raindrops dotted the kraft paper, bleeding into a few dark little circles.

Grey turned to look at him. "I leave in May."

"May?"

"My family hired a tutor for me in the Imperial Capital. I'll take a few months of lessons before I officially enroll."

As she spoke, the rain suddenly fell harder.

"Then..." Richard carefully tucked the package into his bag. "Will I still be able to eat your scones in the Imperial Capital?"

Grey's blue eyes watched him from the shadow of her umbrella, the corners of her lips turning up.

"That depends on your behavior."

Richard wanted to say something more, but she had already turned around.

"The bus is here." She didn't look back.

She walked off toward the left side of the school gates under her dark blue umbrella, heading for her family's parked sedan.

The umbrella drifted farther away into the gray mist, the dark blue washed out by the downpour until it became a blurry little dot.

Richard stood under the bus stop canopy for a while.

Even as the school bus pulled in, he hadn't fully snapped out of his daze.

Hugh poked his head out the bus doors. "Are you getting on?"

"I'm coming."

Richard boarded and found a window seat.

He rested his bag on his lap, the faint warmth of the paper package seeping through the canvas.

The bus lurched into motion, the wipers sweeping back and forth across the windshield.

He cast a glance out the window; Grey's sedan was already gone.

When he got home, Richard went straight to wash his face.

Evelyn had a table full of things laid out in the living room.

On the table sat a new, still-warm gingerbread rabbit.

A little top hat drawn in icing sat atop its head.

"My latest invention," Evelyn said proudly. "Sir Rabbit got a promotion. He's Professor Rabbit now."

"...Why a professor?"

"Because he's going to Imperial Capital University."

Evelyn slid Professor Rabbit over in front of her brother.