Cassandra dumped her Wellies in the tiny entryway and then bound up the stairs. Bard’s bedroom door was closed, the muffled sound of some 1960s girl band piping through it. Cassandra wondered if it was to hide the sound of Bard’s own crying. When he had appeared at all outside of his room in the last few days, silently carrying down tea mugs and plates with toast crumbs on them, his eyes had been red and puffy.

It could all get better if Kai were telling the truth—and Cassandra hoped he was. Everything told her that it was rubbish—everything but her own experience. She hated feeling like she couldn’t trust her own feelings—but when had she ever felt something like that before? And the comment about Bard writing about him in MMW—well, that seemed like part of Kai’s excitement about Bard in general. But he had injured Bard’s pride, and those wounds didn’t heal. No matter who made them, their father would keep them perpetually raw with his insults.

She went into her room and peeled off her rain-soaked knee socks and school blazer and searched through her books. She then went to Bard’s door, barefoot and bearing a copy of Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne, the page with Meditation 17 on it marked with a foil gum wrapper.

She knocked. “Bard? It’s me.”

The music stopped abruptly. “Come in.” 

He was lying on his bed, hands tucked under his head with his bony elbows pointed out, his knees jutting up, making a stark contrast with the poster of Oscar Wilde languidly lounging on a chaise that hung above him. His record player was on the floor next to the bed, along with a dozen balls of crumpled paper. A filmy scarf that Cassandra recognized as belonging to their mother was draped over his eyes, as if he resigned himself  to looking at the world, but only if he could do so through a wash of deep pink.

“What are you doing?” Cassandra asked, sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Mmm, hard to say,” Bard said. “Moping isn’t quite right. Nor is sulking. Languishing is far too romantic. Wallowing? That’s probably closest. I’m wallowing.”

“Bard, you can’t go on like this. Maybe you should just forgive Kai and start over.”

Bard sighed and untucked one of his hands so he could push his hair off his face and rub the two-days’ of ginger stubble on his jaw.

“It’s not about forgiving Kai. I’m still not over him trying to use me—”

“But what if he wasn’t’?” Cassandra cut in.

“It doesn’t matter. He made me see how desperate I am. If I saw him again it would just remind me, and I couldn’t stand that. I can hardly stand to face myself as it is.”

“Don’t be ashamed of wanting someone to understand you.”

“I shouldn’t want it that much, Cass. Not in that way. I learned that lesson last year, after —” he closed his eyes under the scarf—“after the fire.”

She scooted farther onto the bed and leaned back on the wall. “Oh, who bloody cares about should? I thought you of all people know better than that.”

Bard sat up, drawing his knees to his chest, the scarf slipping from his face to pool in the hollow. She saw now the dark smudges under his eyes, the exhaustion in them.

“Why would I of all people know that? I’m not special, Cass. I think I am sometimes. I act like I am, just to fool myself most of the time. But there’s no reason I, in particular, shouldn’t give up on my dreams, get a job at Palmer bloody Manufacturing, and live out my life losing a little bit more of who I am every day. It’s what other people do, and why am I any better than they are?”

She blinked quickly to stop the stinging that was beginning to prick at her eyes. “Bard, that’s not true. And you know it. You’re trying to convince yourself you’re not special, not the other way around.” She scooted over to him. “We owe it to Mum and to ourselves—not to become whatever it is that... he wants us to be.”

“He says that Palmer is going to offer me a position after the internship’s over. Apparently, I’ve impressed them with my ‘diligence and attention to detail.’”

“You never!” Cassandra cried, pressing her hand to her mouth to cover the giggle that erupted.

“I’m just as surprised as you.”

“You’re not going to take it, though.”

Bard didn’t answer.

“Bard, that’s no place fo you. Maybe you could go to university. Teach literature.” She smiled at him. “Wear a wool jumper and tweed coat with elbow patches. Professor Isambard Fitzfox sounds quite splendid, doesn’t it?”

He put his chin on his knee to meet her eye level. “Splendid isn’t the word I’d use for it.” He sighed. “But you’re right. I’m not meant to be a cog in Palmer Manufacturing’s machine. No more than you’re meant to be the smiling wife of some executive, holding a dry martini and slippers for him when he comes home.”

Cassandra giggled and gave him a gentle headbutt.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we? The General has tried so hard not to be working class, only to have a couple of Fitzes who swung around the wrong way entirely and are useless intellectuals.”

“Ah, but perfectly useless,” Bard said.

They smiled at each other, and said simultaneously. “All art is quite useless.”

“You see?” Bard said. “I don’t need some barmy boy to find me fascinating. I have you to understand me. We can be the eccentrics of the moors, living in a cottage like the Brontës.”

“You don’t mean that. Besides, before long, I’d get tired of you and your extended periods of malaise and chuck you out into the mist, and you’d be driven mad by the ghosts that roam the heather, moaning.”

“That dangling participle, Cassandra! Who is moaning—me or the ghosts?”

Cassandra scoffed. “You’ll not be moaning any time at all if you don’t make up with Kai, and quick.”

He scowled at her. “Vulgar, Cassandra.”

“Oh, don’t be angry, beloved frater,” she said. “Look, I forgot to show you—I brought you a gift, and now it’s a peace offering.”

She held out the slim volume out to him.

“John Donne?” Bard asked, taking it. “How very C of E of you! And us baptized in the One, Holy, and Apostolic Roman Catholic Church.”

“Don’t joke,” she said. “Something just told me it would help you.”

“Something?”

Cassandra smiled as he opened it to the marked page. “Just a feeling.” As she spoke, she nudged one of the balls of paper toward her with her bare foot, curling her toes around it. 

He lay down again and put the book up his face. “Go on, then. Leave me to my meditation.”

She gave his knees a nudge and then stood, dragging the ball of paper behind her before making an elaborate curtsy as cover as she swept it up into her hand.

“That’s my move,” Bard said without looking away from the book. “Get your own.”

“But what will I do when I meet the Queen?” Cassandra said. She put the paper in the pocket of her school kilt.

“Bow like a proper gentleman. Now, out—I’m up to when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language, and I need to concentrate.”

“All right,” Cassandra said, looking at him in the dim, warm light. In it, his hair was warm and coppery, like a tea kettle, and she could see—dare she hope?—a slight curve in his lips. We’re very pretty people, she thought. No wonder Kai is mad for him. And then she said, “Good night, Bard,” and left the room as he waved a slender hand at her.

In her room, Cassandra opened the paper, smoothing out Bard’s smeared, scratchy handwriting. And when she read it, she started as her eyes filled with tears before she truly understood what it said. There was that white fury, suddenly—Cassandra could perhaps fix what went wrong between Bard and Kai, but she couldn’t even reach what had gone wrong between Bard and the world, what it had done to him, and how it had left him. She crumpled the paper again as her hurt flared and then tossed it to the floor as it suddenly snuffed out, leaving her crying in frustration.