Alison Watt was once a quiet dreamer.
When she'd been given the will to Thatcher House, Alison had been overjoyed. But her Aunt Meredith was not keen on dying; not yet.
"You'll be my keeper, won't you?" Aunt Meredith had received Alison before she'd departed with Mare to Europe. At Thatcher House the world was stolen away, tucked like a jewel in the crown of the Eastern coastline. "Look after the place while I'm off on my adventure?"
Alison was unable to express her gratitude. She'd simply wept, and let Meredith hold her.
"Now, there is work to be done. You must tend the garden, look after the books. There are too many for me to read alone, you understand. I suppose you may require a companion. You don't know of any lady of stature seeking respite from the great, unkind world?"
Alison had wept harder.
A long, utterly perfect year had passed since Aunt Meredith and Mare had gone to conquer the world. Alison's world, small, sweet, secluded, had changed entirely. Her father had moved to Boston to attempt recovering their fortune, and half the year her mother had been at Thatcher House.
And every day since Meredith had gone, Lilith had stayed.
"And how long might Mare be abroad, do you suppose?" Lilith had received Alison in her father's gardens shortly after Aunt Meredith left. The pair strolled beneath a misty autumn sky, the picture of decorum. "My father will be displeased if I defer courtship terribly."
"I am unsure. You would, of course, be free to come and go as you please." After the ball, Alison ached to take Lilith's hand. The pair had met beyond the arched windows, outside where the wind came sweet off the sea. They'd kissed breathless beneath the lights, and not once since, and Alison could think of absolutely nothing else. "You could stay a month here, and there, while you court."
"No, that'd be far too much trouble." Lilith turned toward her, her father's garish estate a shadow at her back. "I suppose I ought just to move straightaway. My father will understand." She arched a brow over her shoulder. "You see, your cousin has offered him a share in a very lucrative business venture. The sum far exceeds my dowry, and the work will call him far from Star's Crossing."
Alison stared, uncomprehending. "Teddy?"
"No, though certainly he'd have had something to do with it. It was Mr. Doores, actually." Lilith lifted a shoulder. "In exchange he asked I be sent to look after your Aunt Meredith's estate with her favorite niece."
Alison had felt moved to tears, then, but managed to withhold them. Looking into Lilith's violet eyes, the world no longer felt shuttered. It was wide open, the road rising to meet them.
Lilith had moved the next day, without bidding her father farewell.
Alison, who'd lived a quiet life, chose to live more loudly. She taught children in the small neighborhood beyond Thatcher Place, and returned home to tea with Lilith and her mother. Most days they read Mare's letters printed in the Star's Crossing Gazette; no longer were her words longing and loving for a man whose name she did not know. Now Mare wrote of her love of the world she'd discovered beyond Star's Crossing, beyond Connecticut, beyond America. She wrote under her own name.
With Mare's words, Alison felt she too had travelled. Indeed, she decided that one day soon, she would do the same.
When summer came Alison's mother departed for England, and left Lilith and Alison to their private world at Thatcher House.
"Promise me, child," her mother had said beside the coach, tipping Alison's chin and holding her eyes, "that you will look after yourself."
"Of course, mother."
"As well as you can, my love. This world is yours and yours alone. Build it how you like." She'd kissed Alison's cheek, her voice soft. "For there are more things in heaven and earth, Alison."
Alison watched her mother's carriage jaunt down the road, her heart unexpectedly light.
"Hamlet." Lilith stood at the door, arms crossed. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"
Alison cocked her head. "What does she mean by it?"
The coach vanished around the bend in the road, and Lilith made her way to Alison's side on the path. "I think it means we are to make our own rules now, Alison."
Alison let Lilith led her into the garden, where they began to build their world, piece by piece, exactly as they liked.
Since that fated spring day, Lilith and Alison had lived wonderfully at Thatcher House, ignorant of the world beyond the dogwood groves and hidden beaches. One day, perhaps, they would confront that world. But they'd spent eighteen long years there; it was time they rest, and time they love.
Today the snow lay thick over wood and sea, muting the roar of the tide and wind in the trees. Night had come creeping down the road, and a letter from the post had arrived addressed to both Lilith and Alison.
"It's from Mare!" Alison leapt onto the down bed, brushing her loose curls over one shoulder. "She's posted it from Calgary."
"My," Lilith lifted her violet gaze above the book propped open in her lap. She'd taken an interest in editing after reading so much of Mare's work, and was currently marking black the pages of Virgil's Aeneid. "So close! Does she intend to visit home? Lord, she's not been back since..."
"It's been more than a year." Alison eagerly tore the letter free, climbing beneath the duvet beside Lilith and reading aloud Mare's account of her first winter in Canada. "'I shall return before Christmas this year to reunite with the whole of the family. Meredith will remain behind, as she has rather a close friend, a Ms. Albert, with whom she wishes to spend the holiday. I hope to find you in attendance or at Thatcher Place. All of my love.'"
Lilith beamed. "Oh, it will be such a pleasure to see her again. I've missed her dreadfully."
"Christmas at the Atwoods, with all of the girls present? What a delight."
"What chaos."
"Oh, hush." But Alison smiled at Lilith. "Has Virgil stolen away your attention for the night?"
"This dreary old fool? He's not got my attention for a moment." She closed the book.
Alison was once a quiet dreamer; but she had declared her will. Now she did not dream.
She lived.