CHAPTER FOUR

Revelations

HORACE COULDN’T TAKE HIS EYES OFF THE PUZZLING TANU IN his mother’s hands, with its sails of shimmering thread. He couldn’t imagine what it might be. A twisted knot in his belly tried to insist that he didn’t want to know what it was, but for the first time in nine days, he refused to turn away. He reached for the comforting sensation of the Fel’Daera, snug in its pouch at his side. He was Tan’ji. He was the Keeper of the Box of Promises. Whatever his mother knew about the box, or its Maker, nothing could diminish that. He angrily crushed his doubts flat. He had a right to know . . . everything.

His mother watched him for a moment, then turned to Chloe. “I sensed you up in Horace’s room,” she said. “I suspected he might tell you about me. And Horace, I figured that once you two talked about it, you might decide . . .”

“Yes,” Horace said. “I’m ready now.” All the grumbling, caged-up questions of the last nine days now practically tripped over themselves to get in line in his head, including a brand-new one—what did his mother mean when she said she had sensed Chloe?

“Good,” his mother said, clearly relieved. “But first I want to apologize. Not for this, but for that night. I’m sorry I told you what I did, when I did. My timing could have been better. I just . . . I get tired of the secrets.”

She sounded weary, and that weariness felt so familiar. “It’s okay,” he said stiffly. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been . . . pouting.”

Chloe stirred at Horace’s side. “I should go,” she said, though her eyes too were glued to the Tanu on the table. “I can wait outside.”

“Please stay,” said Horace’s mother. “There’s nothing I’m about to say that you shouldn’t hear too.”

Chloe glanced at Horace. He nodded, and she sat. Horace joined her. Chloe fiddled with the dragonfly, clearly nervous.

His mother set her Tanu on the table. It rocked slightly, like an alien boat at sea. “I can only imagine how many questions you must have, but we need to start here. This is called a harp.” She ran a finger down one face of the shimmering strings. They made no sound but quivered with prismatic light—red, gold, green, violet. “Every harp looks different, but they all contain these threads. Can you see them?”

“Sort of,” replied Horace, while Chloe said, “Yes.”

“I thought you would. Most people can’t see them at all, but Tan’ji often can.” She plucked idly at the strings, making them quiver and gleam. “I guess I don’t need to explain why we call them harps.”

Horace cocked his head, watching the strange threads flicker in and out of sight. “But what does it do? It’s not Tan’ji—you’re not Tan’ji.”

“No. I never went through the Find like the two of you did, and I never will. Harps don’t take the bond.”

The Find, that period of searching when a new Keeper struggled alone to discover the powers of his or her instrument, was a mandatory rite of passage for every Tan’ji. “Why not?” Horace asked.

“Well, first of all, there’s nothing super special about this harp. You could hand me almost any old harp, and I’d be able to use it.”

“So harps are Tan’kindi,” Horace said.

“Not exactly. Harps won’t work for just anybody.” His mother sighed and frowned, running her fingers up and down the shimmering strings, spilling a silent kaleidoscope of color across her palms, across the table. “I’m not really sure how much to tell you.”

“Tell me everything,” he said.

“I can’t do that. There are some things I don’t know. Some things I don’t care to share, even with you. Plus there are certain other things I’ve sworn not to reveal. To anyone.”

“Great,” Horace said. “So much for no more secrets.”

Chloe said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Andrews, are you saying you took an oath not to talk?”

“‘Oath’ sounds awfully culty. Let’s say I took a vow—a vow I believe in. I can’t and won’t tell you everything.”

“No offense,” Chloe said, “but you sound like Mr. Meister.”

Horace’s mother frowned. “That’s probably fair. I haven’t seen him in twenty years, but even back then he could be maddeningly mysterious.”

“Twenty years,” Horace said, doing the math. “Since you were a teenager?”

“Yes. I was sixteen when I left—”

“Does he know I’m your son?” Horace interrupted. This was one of the questions that had been nagging at him.

“The Wardens tend to keep tabs on things when they can, so yes, I assume he does. Mrs. Hapsteade too.”

“Why didn’t they ever say anything to me?” Horace insisted.

“Possibly they thought it wasn’t their place to say.”

Or maybe it was yet another secret the old man hoarded for himself. Horace leaned forward hungrily. “Why would they keep tabs on you? Did something happen twenty years ago? Is that why you left the Wardens? Or wait—were you ever really with them?”

Chloe held up her hands. “Okay, Horace, we get it. Floodgates are open. This is why you shouldn’t fret in silence for nine days. I’m pretty sure your mom has lots to tell us, so maybe we just let her talk. Okay?”

Horace sat back, trying to tame his seething mind. “Fine. Okay.”

Chloe looked at Horace’s mom. “I have a place for you to start. If you’re not Tan’ji, what are you?”

Horace’s mother laughed. “Good question. Easy answer. I’m a Tuner.”

“What’s a Tuner?” Horace asked.

“First, a little background.” His mother bent her head for a moment, clearly gathering her thoughts, and then spoke. “You see, all the Tanu—Tan’ji and Tan’kindi—need power to function. Energy. This energy is called the Medium, and it’s all around us, all the time. As a Tuner, I can sense the Medium. I can tweak it. I can alter its flow in small ways.”

“That’s what you meant when you said you could feel me upstairs,” Chloe said.

“Yes. Because you were nearby, I felt a change in the Medium when you used the dragonfly.” She smiled. “A very familiar change.”

“But this Medium,” Horace said. “What kind of energy is it? Where does it come from?”

“I don’t know where it comes from originally, but I do know that before it reaches your instruments—and you—it flows through the Mothergates. Have you heard that name?”

“No,” Horace said, feeling at once exhilarated at all this new information, and frustrated—no, infuriated—that he hadn’t heard it before. “What are the Mothergates?”

“Again, I don’t fully know. I’ve never seen them. I can feel them, though.” She dropped her hand and pointed at the floor beneath the kitchen table, off to her right. “There’s one in that direction, on the other side of the world—several thousand miles away.” With her left hand, she pointed at the floor again, beneath Chloe’s chair. “And one that way, not quite so far.” Then she straightened and pointed out through the corner of the kitchen. “The last one is that way, much closer than the others.”

Horace and Chloe exchanged a glance. Chloe lifted her feet and looked straight down under her chair. Horace tried to imagine what was on the other side of the world in the directions his mother had pointed. Australia? The Pacific Ocean? Egypt?

“So there are three of these Mothergates,” he said slowly. “Scattered around the world, but one of them is closer by. Is that right?”

“That’s right. The third one is very close, relatively speaking. Just a couple hundred miles away, I think. It’s hard to say—the gates are kept hidden by a powerful Tanu called the Veil. That’s all I know.”

Every sentence his mother uttered was filled with new knowledge. Horace felt so silly now, remembering all his efforts to keep her in the dark about the Fel’Daera and the Wardens—he was the newbie here, not her. He forced himself to remember there was no shame in that.

“This is killing you,” his mother said, watching him. “Your brain is going to explode.”

“If my brain was going to explode, it would have happened before now.”

“It’s true,” said Chloe. “My brain has nearly exploded just hearing about what’s happening inside Horace’s brain.”

Horace’s mother laughed. “The point is, the Medium flows from the Mothergates and into your instruments—into you, too. And my harp gives me some access to those flows. Let me show you. Take out the Fel’Daera, and hold it in your hands.”

Somewhat warily, Horace pulled out the box and held it out. Chloe leaned forward eagerly.

“Higher. Good. Just like that.” His mother reached for the harp. “I’m rusty,” she said, grimacing. “Don’t laugh.”

“I am so far away from laughing,” said Horace.

His mother laid her fingers against the strings and began to . . . what? At first it looked like she was playing an actual harp, plucking at the strange threads. But as he watched her fingers move deftly, he saw that sometimes she pushed instead of plucking. Or sometimes she grasped a string between her thumb and forefinger, or between the pinkies of opposite hands, and drew down the length of the thread. Her fingers worked like the legs of weaving spiders.

A girlish laugh of pure joy popped out of her. She covered her mouth, embarrassed. Horace was startled to see shiny wetness in her eyes. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been so long. I think I’ve been craving this more than I knew.”

“But haven’t you had the harp for years and years?” he asked.

“Yes, but a harp alone does nothing. A Tuner needs a Tanu to work on. Without a Tanu, I’m like a painter without a canvas, or a mechanic without a car. And until quite recently, Tanu have been in short supply around here.”

She took a deep breath and went back to the harp, pressing and plucking. She tipped her head slightly, and her eyes faded into the distance. All her motions were precise and arcane and beautiful in a way, and her face became a chiseled slab of calm concentration, and Horace knew that even if she wasn’t Tan’ji, still she was tapping into the same pools of thought that he swam in when he used the Fel’Daera. What a secret to have kept from him all these years. He remembered how she’d caught him with the raven’s eye—the small, round Tan’kindi that provided a bit of temporary protection from the Riven. Or better yet, when she’d first spotted the Fel’Daera in his room. What must she have thought?

“God, Horace,” his mother said suddenly. “I would not want to be you.”

“Who would?” said Chloe.

“Why?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” his mother said hastily. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just . . . I’d forgotten how crazy the Fel’Daera is. But I think I’ve got it now—or some of it, at least.” She gave him a mischievous look, her fingers still stretched crookedly across the threads of the harp. “Feel this?” she said, pushing the thumb of her left hand forward, bending one of those strands.

Abruptly, Horace felt the Fel’Daera slipping from his grip. He clutched at it instinctively before his eyes told him that the box wasn’t actually moving. But her thumb nudged the string again—and again he sensed that the box was sliding, toppling. Except it wasn’t.

“What are you doing?”

“Messing with you,” she admitted. “With a harp, I can take hold of the Medium that flows between your consciousness and the Fel’Daera. I can manipulate those flows—between a Tan’ji and the Mothergates, or between the instrument and its Keeper, or within the instrument itself. I can interfere with the Medium, or assist it. I’ve got hold of it now. The part I’m messing with is a kind of proprioception.”

“A what?” Chloe asked.

Horace had the answer to that one. “Proprioception. It’s a sense. There are more than just five senses, you know. Proprioception is the one that lets you touch your fingertip to your nose even with your eyes closed.”

Chloe frowned and then tried it, seeming surprised by her own success.

“See?” said Horace’s mother. “It’s knowing where all the parts of yourself are. And when you’re a Keeper, that proprioception extends to your Tan’ji, too. It explains why Tan’ji like you always know where their instruments are. And it’s what I’m messing with now.” She wiggled her thumb back and forth, and again Horace felt—but did not see—the box sliding back and forth in his hand. He sat staring for a moment, letting the strange war between his senses rage on.

“That is . . . insane,” he managed.

“So I hear. But that’s just a parlor trick. I’m a Tuner, so the main thing I do is . . . tune.”

“Tune what?” Chloe asked.

“Instruments,” she replied, indicating the box and the dragonfly. “You see, over time, every Tan’ji becomes attuned to its Keeper—the Keeper’s strengths, weaknesses, tendencies. The very will of the Keeper, in fact, becomes embedded in his or her instrument. The instrument, though, almost always outlives the Keeper. When that happens, the bond is broken, but the imprint of the last Keeper still remains within the instrument itself.”

Horace set the box down on the table, concentrating on the bond. He already knew that there had been other Keepers of the Fel’Daera before him, but he didn’t like the reminder—particularly because Dr. Jericho had hinted, more than once, that the Fel’Daera’s last Keeper had met with an unpleasant end. Horace tried not to imagine what kind of an imprint might have been left behind within the box.

His mother continued. “Instruments that have no Keeper are called Tan’layn—the unclaimed. Tan’layn are always in search of a new Keeper, usually with the help of someone like Mr. Meister. The Wardens have warehouses full of Tan’layn, as you probably know. But before the search for a new Keeper can begin, each Tan’layn, ideally, should be cleansed of its last Keeper’s imprint. That’s where we Tuners come in. We take hold of the Medium within the instrument and remove whatever residue we find. It’s somewhere between a house cleaning and an exorcism, I suppose. We eliminate the presence of anything unwanted, returning the Tan’layn to its original state. Tuning makes it much easier and safer when—if—a new Keeper comes along to claim the instrument.”

“Safer how?” Chloe said. “What happens if a Tan’layn doesn’t get tuned?”

“At best, nothing. At worst, the new Keeper finds that the instrument doesn’t always do as asked—that the shadow of the previous Keeper’s will hasn’t gone away.” She screwed up her face, thinking. “From what I understand, it’s sort of like getting a dog that used to belong to someone else. The old influences linger, sometimes dangerously so. Tuners remove those influences.”

Quietly, cautiously, Horace asked, “So were you the one who tuned the Fel’Daera, after . . . after its last Keeper?”

“No,” his mother said firmly, gently. “Not me. And I don’t know anything about the last Keeper, or how that Keeper lost their claim.”

“But you’ve felt the Fel’Daera before. And you said you knew . . .” Horace trailed off, unsure what to ask. Unsure what he even wanted to know. This was what he’d been most afraid of for the past nine days.

“The Maker,” his mother said for him. “Yes, I did. Would you like to hear about her?”

Her, Horace thought. He poured all his warm, worried hope into the box, trying to calm himself. He could only nod.

“She passed through just once, on her way west, and came to the Warren. She had a small collection of Tan’layn to leave with Mr. Meister and Mrs. Hapsteade. Deliveries of Tan’layn happened from time to time, in the hopes that Mr. Meister and Mrs. Hapsteade could try to find a match. Usually, the instruments were nothing major. But when Falo showed up, she—”

“Falo,” Horace interrupted.

“Sil’falo Teneves. The maker of the Fel’Daera. That was her name.”

The maker of the Fel’Daera. Sil’falo Teneves. “What did she . . . ?”

“You want to know what she looked like,” Horace’s mother said. “You’ve seen the Riven, and you’re wondering if Falo looked like that.”

Horace could only nod.

“Have you ever encountered a Mordin?”

An image of Dr. Jericho rose up in Horace’s mind, impossibly thin and monstrously tall, with his cruel face and savage hands. Much taller than ordinary Riven, the Mordin were fearsome and relentless hunters of Tanu, and Dr. Jericho was perhaps the most fearsome and relentless of all. Worse, he had a particular skill for being able to sense and track the Fel’Daera. Horace’s skin went cold, remembering his last encounter with Dr. Jericho. “Yes. Very much so.”

His mother pressed her eyes closed for a moment and then looked out the window. “Well,” she said. “Let’s just say that Sil’falo didn’t . . . feel like a Mordin does, or the way the rest of the Riven do, even though she looked similar. Falo was beautiful, in a way, if you can imagine such a thing. The Altari are tall, and long limbed, but full of light and life in a way the Riven aren’t.” She went on gazing across the lawn for several more seconds and then took a deep breath. “But anyway. Falo brought these Tanu to the Warren. Some of the Tan’layn were quite unusual, powerful. A few of them were her own creations that she’d somehow managed to track down. There were three in particular, really serious instruments. The Laithe, the Box of Promises, and—”

“Wait,” Horace said. “The Laithe.” He remembered the tiny, miraculous globe from the House of Answers, the warehouse where he’d found the Fel’Daera. The same globe he’d later seen on Mr. Meister’s desk. “The Laithe of Teneves, right? She made that?”

“Yes. You know it?”

Horace nodded. “I think so. I think it was one of the other Tan’layn there when I found the Fel’Daera.”

His mother considered this thoughtfully. “It makes sense that Mr. Meister might present them both to you. The box and the Laithe had the same Maker. And I suppose they are similar, in a way.”

“In what way?” asked Horace.

But his mother shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. Tuners aren’t supposed to reveal the inner workings of the instruments they cleanse. But let me finish. All these Tan’layn that Falo brought were in serious need of tuning—especially the Fel’Daera and the Laithe. Messy, scarred up, badly imprinted, the Medium knotted and torn inside.”

Horace shifted in his seat uncomfortably, rubbing his thumb across the lid of the box, but his mother seemed not to notice, caught up in her memories. Chloe shot him a sympathetic glance. “Mr. Meister brought me to the Warren to tune the box and the globe, but . . . it was hopeless. Not only were they wrecks, but they were the most complex instruments I’d ever seen. I worked on the Fel’Daera like a dozen times, with several different harps, but I couldn’t do a thing. Same thing with the Laithe. Falo felt sorry for me, I think.” She cocked her head, her voice suddenly dreamy. “She was nice to me, which meant a lot. I was probably fourteen at the time. Every kindness loomed large.”

“So if you didn’t tune the Fel’Daera, who did?” asked Horace.

His mother absently plucked a string of her harp. “There was another Tuner working for the Wardens, a girl four or five years younger than me. At first, she didn’t have any more luck with the Fel’Daera than I did, even though she was more talented. But Falo had brought an unfamiliar harp with her. Very old. Very powerful. They let this girl try it, and . . .” She shook her head in rueful admiration, looking down at the Fel’Daera. “I watched her tune the box. What she did with that harp was so complicated I couldn’t even follow. Afterward, I tried to use it to tune the Laithe, but the harp was beyond me. Too many threads—far too many, more of a cloud, really. And the threads had to be worked with the mind instead of the hands. I was totally lost. But the other girl took over for me, and she tuned the Laithe easily. I was so embarrassed. I felt like an amateur.” To Horace’s surprise, a little bit of blush rose in her cheeks.

Chloe sat up. “Well, I don’t know about this other girl, Mrs. Andrews, but I just want to say that however badass I thought you were before, you’re like twice as badass now.”

Horace’s mother laughed merrily. “Thank you, Chloe. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do want you both to be impressed. Not by me, necessarily, but by Tuners in general.”

“Why?” said Horace.

“Just for example?” His mother leaned forward, her face suddenly serious. She placed all ten fingers on the threads in some complex symmetry he couldn’t quite discern, adjusting their positions meticulously. Then she glanced up at him and pushed inward all at once.

The Fel’Daera, a constant presence in Horace’s mind, instantly vanished from his thoughts. He heard himself let out a choking gasp. He could still see the box, there his hands, but he couldn’t feel it. He started to drift into a familiar sick gray—this was just like passing through the Nevren. The Nevren was a kind of energy field that the Wardens used to protect the entrances to their strongholds. Within it, Keepers were completely cut off from their Tan’ji, unable to use its power or even sense its presence. Horace was feeling that now. He heard Chloe speak, a sludgy drawl of concern that he couldn’t comprehend. But before he sank too deep into the void, the box was back again. The connection coursed through him once more.

His mother pulled her hands away from the harp and looked at him ruefully. “Sorry,” she said. “I know that doesn’t feel good.”

“You severed him?” Chloe asked sharply, sounding shocked.

“Yes. We Tuners can manipulate the Medium, remember? We can even cut it off completely. For a while, anyway—it takes effort to keep it up.”

Horace looked at the harp with renewed respect. “Mrs. Hapsteade told us that if a Keeper stays severed for too long, they can become dispossessed. Permanently cut off from their Tan’ji. Can a Tuner do that too?”

Chloe’s face was rigid, her gaze distant.

“Not me,” Horace’s mother said. She gestured to the bouquet of daisies on the table, glowing in the afternoon sun. “Think of it this way. Imagine that the connection between you and your instrument is one of these daisies. The Medium is the sun, bringing power and life. Cutting off the flow of the Medium is like blocking out the sun. This is severing.” She cupped her hands around a single flower, encasing it in darkness. “The flower starts to wilt, but usually no real damage is done. If it stays in the darkness long enough, however, the flower—the bond—will die completely. That’s dispossession, and it is permanent.” She dropped her hands. “I’m not strong enough to sever a Keeper for so long that they become dispossessed. Especially not with anything as complicated as the box, or the dragonfly. But the best Tuners could certainly do it, if it was required.”

“Like the girl you worked with,” Horace suggested.

“Yes. Also, you should know that dispossession isn’t the worst thing a Tuner can do to you.”

“It’s not?” Horace said. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than losing the bond permanently. And the way he understood it, Keepers didn’t generally survive being dispossessed.

“No.” His mother grabbed a daisy by the stem. “The very strongest Tuners could grab hold of the bond directly and tear it apart by force.” With a savage flick of her thumb, she popped the head of the daisy completely loose. It tumbled onto the table. “Cleaving, they call it. Supposedly the agony is unimaginable.”

Horace realized his face was frozen in horror. He smoothed it and resisted the urge to clasp the box to his chest. Why had no one told them about this before? He expected Chloe to be just as outraged, but she hardly seemed to be listening, still lost in some dark thought.

“Cleaving,” Horace said, looking at the decapitated flower head. “So basically, Tuners are potentially very bad news.”

“Potentially, yes.”

“What about the Riven? Are any of them Tuners?” he asked.

“Not technically, no. You need the Wardens to become a Tuner. You need Mr. Meister.”

Chloe stirred. “Why?”

Horace’s mom hesitated. A shadow seemed to flit across her face, and then she said, “It doesn’t matter. The point is that without Mr. Meister, none of the Riven, as far as I know, can become Tuners. But remember . . . that doesn’t mean they don’t have any Tuners on their side.”

Horace understood. He remembered Ingrid, the flute-playing former Warden who had last been seen in the nest, right by Dr. Jericho’s side. A traitor. “How many Tuners are there?” he asked.

“Not very many, I think. I’ve only met three others.”

“But they were friendly, right?” Chloe asked.

“Friendly, yes, but . . . there were issues with the girl who tuned the Fel’Daera.”

“What kind of issues?” asked Horace.

“Well, she kept using that same crazy harp, off and on, for a couple of years afterward. But it was too strong, even for her. She couldn’t totally control it. She was pretty temperamental to begin with, and when she got angry or frustrated, those emotions would come out through the harp. She would sever people—just for a second, but with no warning, for no reason. She’d be tuning, and all of a sudden it’d be like the power went out, for every Tan’ji in the area. Heck, I couldn’t do that, no matter how hard I tried.” She rocked her harp absently on the tabletop. “Thank god no one ever taught her how to cleave.”

“So what happened to her?” asked Horace.

“She ran away. Or she was banished, depending on how you look at it.”

“Banished,” said Chloe. “By Mr. Meister, you mean.”

“Yes.” Horace’s mother frowned, remembering. “Being a Tuner isn’t easy. Since we’re not Tan’ji, our instruments aren’t really ours to keep. The only reason I still have mine is because Mr. Meister let me take it when I left. And I think he did that only because he felt guilty about what happened with the other girl.”

“Why did he banish her?” asked Horace.

“She wasn’t happy being a Tuner. She wanted to be a Keeper. After she got a taste of this new harp that only she could use, she started to act like she was Tan’ji. She actually seemed to think she could become Tan’ji, if only Mr. Meister would let her keep the harp. But Mr. Meister would never let us take the harps home with us. He was always reminding us that the harps weren’t ours, and he would only let us use them in the Warren. She blamed him for the problems she had controlling the harp—she was sure there was a way to fix it.” Her voice grew stronger, more agitated. “She was so young. It wasn’t fair what happened to her. Mr. Meister makes her a Tuner, and then he gives her this crazy powerful harp, and then he—” She stopped and shook her head, her eyes faraway.

“Is that why he banished her?” Chloe asked. “Because she wanted to keep the harp for herself?”

“Oh, it went way beyond wanting. One day, a couple of years after she tuned the Fel’Daera, she snuck into the Warren and she stole that harp. The Nevren is no obstacle when you’re not Tan’ji, so she just walked right in, took the harp, and walked back out again. She disappeared. The Wardens tried to track her down but couldn’t. So instead Mr. Meister banished her. Permanently.”

Horace frowned. “But . . . why banish her if she’d already run away?”

“For the Wardens, banishment isn’t just a warning not to come back, Horace. They make it so that you’re physically unable to ever find the Warren again.”

Horace and Chloe glanced at each other. It made sense that the Wardens had such a power, but Horace had never considered it before.

“Anyway,” his mother said, “I was deeply disenchanted when I learned that they’d banished her.” She tilted her head thoughtfully, as if measuring something inside herself. “She and I weren’t exactly friends—we didn’t hang out or anything—but we were . . . close, in our own way. And I was sixteen by then. It was easy to get passionate about things. I kind of drifted away from the Wardens not long after. I think Mr. Meister understood—he knew I was done.”

Chloe said, “And meanwhile, this girl is still out there somewhere—or woman, I guess.”

“I assume so. I never saw her again. I always wondered what she would do, once she realized she wasn’t going to magically become Tan’ji just by having that harp all to herself. She wanted so badly to be a Keeper, and she was sure there was a way. She was convinced the Wardens were holding out on her. Holding her down.”

“Do you think she still thinks that, wherever she is?” asked Horace.

“I don’t know. She was so stubborn, so fierce. I remember she had flaming red hair, and it suited her—like she would set fire to anything just to get what she wanted.” She looked out the window, across the lawn toward the sun. “But life passes. Obsessions fade. I genuinely hope, after all this time, that she’s found new things to fight for.”