CHAPTER 42
March 1960
The night before leaving for Paris with Barnaby, Hazel dreamed of Harry. He was standing at the edge of the river surrounded by wildflowers growing so fast he was watching them thrust through the earth. He laughed as the red and yellow and orange flowers opened their petaled faces to the cerulean sky. Hazel was calling his name and he didn’t hear her, over and over she called his name until she awoke. Her neck was cramped and her face smashed against the kitchen table where she’d fallen asleep.
Barnaby was gently shaking her. “Hazel.”
She sat, groaned.
Barnaby stood over her, dressed in his suit and a tie, the university logo on his pocket. “Are you all right?” He grimaced. “You were calling out… that boy’s name.”
She rubbed her face and rotated her head, cranked her neck left and right before gazing at Barnaby. “It was a nightmare and no one could hear me. I was at the river and…”
He lifted her notebook, scanned the pages, and his eyebrows rose. “You’re writing your story? That’s why—you’re reliving it all? Why?”
She stood with a shooting pain in her hip. She’d rested her head on the table somewhere in the middle of the night, in the middle of the writing. What time had that been?
“I need tea,” she said.
She felt him watching as she moved to the kettle and the stove, rubbing her head and trying to wake. She turned to him. “I wanted to finish the story, but I didn’t.”
“Our stories are never finished.” He smiled weakly.
“But I want this one to be done.” Her voice cracked with the truth. “I desperately want those days to be over and in our past. I intended to write down all that happened until now, but I fell asleep writing the day Flora disappeared.” She rubbed at the fatigue. “I’m so sorry about the past two weeks. I’ve been so distracted and distant and…”
“Come here, love.” He held out his arms and she went to him. He rubbed her back and whispered, “It’s all going to be okay.”
“I just wanted to get it out. It’s like those days have been stuck inside of me.” She shuddered against him. “They’ve been living inside me without my permission.”
“Get it out of your system. Get him out of your system.” He kissed her neck.
She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes with a question.
“Harry,” he said. “Get him out of your system, please.”
She moved toward the kettle as it steamed, making a cup of tea without another word. “He’s not the problem. It’s everything else.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I smoothed everything over with my parents. I explained who Harry was and why you were there. They understood.”
“Thank you,” she said robotically. “But honestly, your parents are the last thing I’m worried about.”
“You realize we leave tonight”—he glanced at his watch—“in ten hours, don’t you?”
She turned to him with a forced smile. “The Night Ferry. I’ve been thinking about it for so long. Moving across the English Channel in the night, in a train on a ferry! How amazing and posh is that?”
From the inside pocket of his coat, Barnaby produced two tickets. “We’ll take Charing Cross to Victoria and board the sleeping car. They have catering onboard. When the train arrives in Dover, it uncouples from the tracks and the entire car drives onto the ship. We’ll wake in Paris!”
“Imagine that.” She kissed him.
“Yes,” he added. “Then to the Le Meurice hotel, followed by macaroons and the Louvre and red wine and…” He swept her backward as if they were dancing, and she wished she felt as free and light as she feigned. He brought her upright and kissed her. “But for now I must work and you, my dear, must pack—although I hope you won’t be wearing clothes all the time.” He kissed her one more time and winked before leaving.
Charing Cross Station’s black clock above the ticker tape of train schedules read six p.m. Barnaby pushed the trolley with one hand and used his other to steady the stacked-up luggage threatening to tip. He and Hazel hustled toward Platform 7. With each step forward, she felt something tugging her backward, a rope pulling at her that she would cut if she knew how, but the best she could do was ignore it.
She walked beside Barnaby in her smartest traveling suit: a red tweed skirt and matching jacket with big black buttons. Her outfit was completed by black ballet shoes and a pillbox hat. She would not arrive in Paris looking anything less than chic.
The evening’s mellowing sky was visible above the open latticework arching over the station. Posters announced Moss Bros. clothing and Guinness beer, red and white British Union Jack flags fluttered from the roof, porters in black hats pushed carts of tipping luggage, and children trailed behind their frazzled parents amid the grind, puff, and screech of arriving trains.
Hazel’s two suitcases were filled with the best of her wardrobe, from silk dresses with matching hats to lingerie she’d bought just for the trip—there were still tags on the straps of nightgowns and demi cup bras with lace.
Barnaby juggled the suitcases off the trolley, cursing as her smaller black one landed on his foot.
Maybe she should just jump on a plane to America, track down the author, and demand an explanation. Tell me now! Who are you? Where did you find this story? Are you hiding my sister? She’d gone as far as she could here in England, tracked down every source she could think of, and hit her head on dead ends as dense as brick walls.
What if she grabbed his arm right now and told him, Barnaby, love, I think we should change our plans and instead of a trip to Paris we should fly to Boston. It’ll be grand!
How absurd. How mad. If she wanted to blow up their life and their relationship, if she wanted to end it all as she had every other relationship before him, that would be the perfect plan. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to stick it out; she wanted love that lasted; she wanted to walk through life with someone who loved her and whom she loved in return.
If she kept running backward, she would never quite be able to run forward. Even if a miracle had occurred and Flora had survived to tell the story and carry it across the sea, even then, six-year-old Flora was still gone. Even if Hazel found her sister, she would not find the sister she lost.
Her obsession with reasons and explanations, her desperate need to make meaning of the meaningless and sense of the senseless was destroying what she had right here, right now. She watched Barnaby move toward the train and she followed. The olive-colored train car rolled to the platform, smoke pouring from its stack as its brakes gave a high squeal. He smiled at her. “Off we go.”
The door hissed open, and Hazel stepped after him onto the metal stair of the first-class sleeper car. Barnaby held out his hand to help her up. Above Hazel in the train stood a woman with an owl brooch on her blue suit jacket.
“Oh, pardon me,” she said, moving sideways to make room for Hazel.
An owl.
Whisperwood.
“Hazel!” Kelty’s voice, or was Hazel imagining it? Then again. “Hazel! Stop.”
Barnaby turned, letting go of Hazel’s hand, and she stumbled on the stair. Quickly regaining her footing, she stepped back to the platform and spotted Kelty bounding toward her, with Midge fast at her heels.
“What the bloody hell?” Barnaby said. He glared at Kelty.
“Midge!” Hazel bent down and hugged her goddaughter, who wore a bright blue jacket with a lace Peter Pan collar, beginning to look so grown-up and proper. “How’s my girl?”
“I want to come to Paris with you, but Mum said that’s impossible.”
“Next time?” Hazel asked.
Midge nodded and looked to her mum, who was out of breath, sweat on her forehead, with her wild red hair dashed about her like fire. Kelty spoke so rapidly it was hard to understand, “I went to the flat to say goodbye, to tell you two to have the most lovely time in the whole world. Midge and I had a gift for you. We’d brought a box of chocolates for you to eat on the train.”
“We left early to be sure,” Barnaby said. “And you came to the station for chocolates?” His voice filled with hope even as Hazel felt that this was not about a box of sweets.
“No.” Kelty held out a piece of paper. “And although I changed my mind ten times on the way here—”
“She did,” Midge said. “We turned around twice.”
“But I knew you wouldn’t forgive me, Hazel,” said Kelty. “Or I wouldn’t forgive myself.”
Hazel took the paper from Midge. Neat script stated: I am here in London. I’d like to meet you at The Savoy lobby tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. if that is agreeable with you. Peggy Andrews.
Hazel grabbed Barnaby’s arm, held herself steady.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“Peggy. She’s here. In London.”
He grabbed the note and read it, his teeth gritted. “Hazel…” Barnaby set his hand on top of their pile of luggage, and she knew what the slight movement meant.
Choose. Me or her? Me or the past? Me or the magical land of childhood?
She couldn’t have both.