THEY met outside London, in that wide winter field. Bartholomew and Pikey climbed down from a carriage and set off across the snow. Hettie hobbled, her feet dragging through a hundred thousand black feathers.
They all went as fast as they could, but their steps were weighted by wounds and weariness. They did not call out to one another as they approached.
Hettie looked different from when Pikey had seen her last. She had been small then, and frightened. She was still small, but she didn’t look frightened anymore. And her branches . . . They were no longer bare and smooth. They had bloomed sometime in the night, little white flowers as soft as milk. They were beautiful.
“Hello, Hettie,” Bartholomew said when they were face-to-face. His voice was low. He looked different, too. He was dressed in fine clothes, a velvet coat and gray woolen stockings. A bandage was wrapped around his midsection.
“Hello, Barthy,” Hettie said.
They stood there a while, just staring at each other. Pikey hung back, shuffling. Then, without a word, Bartholomew picked Hettie up so that her feet went right off the ground and hugged her. Hettie started to cry and then to laugh, and then Bartholomew started laughing, too. Even Pikey laughed a little bit, and then wiped his face quickly.
Behind him, he heard the creak of a hinge—Mr. Jelliby stepping from the carriage, standing by it and smiling somewhat sadly. Pikey looked toward the carriage and looked toward the road, a shattered road leading into the winter sunlight. Bartholomew had set Hettie down. They were murmuring to each other, saying all the things Pikey supposed brothers and sisters would say after years and years. He began to back away. He still had his cloak. He still had his boots. It had been a good adventure.
He started to walk. But he hadn’t gone far when he heard a shout. Bartholomew and Hettie were hurrying after him, hand in hand.
“Where are you going?” Bartholomew yelled across the field. “You can’t wander off now!”
“I can!” Pikey shouted back, but he stopped.
They caught up. “No,” Bartholomew said, slightly out of breath. “I said that when we’d found Hettie we’d all go back to Bath, and I meant it. You did it all. I don’t think anything would have been the same without you.”
Hettie nodded. “People should say thank you to you. All of England should say thank you.”
Pikey imagined that for a second—all of England saying thank you to the boy from the cracker box. He felt a glow filling him from the top of his head to the bottom of his boots. He grinned at Hettie and Bartholomew. They grinned back.
“Come on,” Bartholomew said, taking Pikey’s hand. Hettie snatched his other one. Together, the three of them turned toward the carriage. “Let’s go home.”
THE END