Star's Crossing

57: A Quiet Dreamer

Lilith Gilbert was everything Alison was not, and together they would supplement deficits, start and end stories, and rewrite love with a cleverer pen.

Love. Because Alison loved her; perhaps she had forever, and was simply blinded by her own mask. Alison would die loving her, whether in twenty or fifty years, a man's claim on her skin and his name in place of her own.

The thought stilled Alison on the path. It was so horrid, so wickedly unfair, so hateful, that she could scarce carry on. Men had made the rules of the world, and women were forbidden the tools to break them down.

"Dear," called Miss Cressida out the schoolhouse window. She leaned forth, curls bobbing, eyes bright. "Do come in, won't you, Alison?"

Alison experienced a surge of relief that loosened her bones and set her up the steps. She deposited her crate of books on the desk and dusted her dress, accepting tea when Miss Cressida offered.

"Here I thought you'd be among the rest of the dear ladies, dressing for the ball this evening! Nothing like the masquerade; it truly is my favorite of the courtship holidays." Miss Cressida busied herself with unloading the books, apprising each with hungry, happy eyes. "Oh, wonderful. Thank you, dear. And what might I have done without you this summer? How shall I spare you when you go away?"

Alison ceased blowing on her tea and blinked, perplexed. "Where shall I be going?"

"Oh, off, off." Miss Cressida waved a hand. "All of the ladies go off sooner than they think. To great houses and cities, over the seas or to the west."

For a moment Alison thought Miss Cressida meant she might do these things alone. For a moment, she was so swept in the notion of lone travel, of adventure and liberation and freedom, that her heart became a cinder, sparked and burning, in her chest.

The heat cooled quickly. "You mean when married off."

"Oh, indeed," said Miss Cressida, dusting a cover, examining a spine, flitting through pages. "Though there are other ways when one has money."

"I'm afraid I haven't." Alison smiled. The fall of her family felt like cosmic intervention, and though it wounded her mother and aunts, it crippled her father and uncles. This she found grimly delicious.

"Truly? I thought I'd heard a rumor, though I do grieve so for your family's loss." Miss Cressida's frown was genuine.

Alison cocked her head. "Rumor? Of what, might I ask, for fear of sounding like a gossip?"

"Oh, no, dear. More tea?" Miss Cressida poured before Alison could respond. "The rumor came to me through a trusted source, and referred to your dear aunt Meredith up at Thatcher House."
Alison furrowed her brow. She'd heard nothing to this effect though she'd written her aunt more than once since the collapse of the estate. "Is she well?"

"Oh, quite! The rumor was...well. I suppose it shall all become clear. You girls do love a good mystery, do you not?" Miss Cressida smiled, and a cool breeze blew through the open schoolhouse window. "Things do have a way of working out in the end, hm? Happy endings are quite predictable, but an adventurous one—why, I can always stand by that."

There was something knowing in the woman's gaze, and that spark lit again inside of Alison's chest. She finished her tea and consulted the clock above Miss Cressida's desk. "I ought to carry on. I've got to keep a smiling face at the ball tonight."

"Of course. I will be there, in fact. I'd best go on directly myself." Miss Cressida shut the windows and gathered her things, closing and locking the schoolhouse door behind her. She and Alison stood on the path when Miss Cressida took Alison's hand. "I saw the loveliest songbird recently, making roost in the bur outside of my kitchen window. She was a young thing, and quite pretty, and she had just begun to molt."

Alison blinked, wondering if her childhood teacher was merely being eccentric. "Indeed?" She prompted politely.

"Why, I thought the girl was lovely before she began losing her feathers. They can be a bit odd in that space between, you know. Each day she looked stranger still, and lost her luster, and sat hunkered in the branches like she'd simply given up."

Alison's warm smile wavered. Her throat felt tight.

"Then when she'd shed nearly them all, at once, they began to return. Each morning she looked finer, bolder; it was quite the transformation, I say. She'd left the nest and gone off on her own a bit, and that was the end of that look and the start of another. By the time she'd finished, why, she looked entirely another creature."

Alison was not certain why her eyes had blurred, until a single warm tear slid free. She meant to say oh, or I beg your pardon, but her lips simply failed to form the words.

Miss Cressida seemed pleased to savor the silence. At last she squeezed Alison's hand. "I look forward to seeing you tonight, dear. Though how a dress could improve a woman like you, I cannot say. More like the gown shall be the lucky one."

Miss Cressida was gone into the twilit trees before Alison could dry her strange tears. She felt lighter than she had in ages, fleet-footed with possibility. She took her time going home to the empty house.

A courier stopped her on the drive. "Urgent, for Miss Alison Watt." He tipped his hat and was off.

He did not know he'd left keys to a kingdom in Alison's hands.

Neither did she.