Sylvia frowns at the screen. Since a few not-too-bright lights have been allowed back on in the house she’s started leaving her room more. She won’t go into the kitchen yet, but she comes downstairs and eats supper with Ruben in the dining room. Some nights she’ll even give him a game of Scrabble or cards, and twice has watched a film with him on his laptop. At Christmas she let him drive her around the neighbourhood to look at all the decorations, talking about all the times the three of them had gone from street to street, always picking up a take-out on the way home. “Remember how much your father loved it?” she asked. Sorrel, in the back seat, said, “I told you so.”

Besides this new willingness to see where she’s going and to go there, Sylvia has started answering her own emails. The email she’s frowning at right now is from the manager of the bookshop in the local mall, telling her how excited they are about her forthcoming author event and including photos of the poster and window display they’ve made. “I don’t remember saying I’d do it,” says Sylvia. “Why would I say that? I haven’t done anything like that in months. And it’s miles away.” She looks up at Ruben, who is peering over her shoulder. “Do you remember me saying yes? Do you even remember them asking?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I was out of that loop. But we can check your old messages, see if they did ask, and if you did reply.” He leans across her to move the cursor. And there it is, three emails. The first the shop’s request, the third the shop’s acknowledgment of her reply, and the second Sylvia’s reply: Thank you so much for your kind invitation. I’d be delighted to do a book signing at your store… Signed by Gaia Pendragon. “There you go,” says Ruben. “It looks like you did agree.”

“I still don’t remember.” She shakes her head. “This is why you have to be careful with electrical things. You can’t trust them. Your computer must’ve answered the invitation itself.”

This is true and not true at the same time. It’s true in the sense that Ruben’s laptop sent the acceptance without any help from Sylvia. But it isn’t true that it decided to cut out the middleperson and answer the bookshop itself. It was Ruben who typed out the message and hit Send. A deed that he blames on Sorrel. His mother hadn’t been online for a couple of days and he was looking through her mail, just checking. There was more than one request for an author visit. Usually, he automatically deletes them, but Sorrel was right beside him, hassling him as usual. Yapping on and on about how Sylvia was doing a disservice to herself and her fans. How much the Pendragon books mean to her readers. How much better it would make Sylvia feel to realize that. How it would boost her confidence to accept one or two of the invitations she’s always receiving. How it would ground her to take on some responsibility. How she might have fun getting out of the house and talking to people again. It would do her several worlds of good. Wasn’t it time she faced her fears instead of hiding from them? Wasn’t it time she got her life back? And then Sorrel gave him one of her sour, meaningful looks, so he’d know she was talking about more than one life. Which was an example of Sorrel ignoring his efforts to get his own life back, bit by bit. Didn’t he leave his mother alone to go keep an eye on Astra and Winnie? Didn’t he do the sets for the concert? Didn’t he make another painting as his Christmas present for Orlando, Celeste and his mom this year? Hasn’t he been making an effort to hang out with Orlando and Celeste? “There’s still more to do,” said Sorrel. “Maybe a journey starts with the first steps, but it doesn’t end with them.” He begged her to stop nagging him. “I’ll stop if you just say yes to your mom doing one signing,” said Sorrel. “The nearest one. That one in the mall. I mean, my God, it’s almost the new year. Time for a change.” He accepted the invitation as Gaia Pendragon to keep Sorrel quiet, thinking that his mother could always change her mind. Though how he thought she would do that when he never told her about it is another of life’s unanswered questions. And then he forgot all about it himself.

“I don’t know if I’m up to this,” says Sylvia. “It’s been so long… Maybe if it was where you work – that nice man—”

“Mr Goldblatt knows them,” Ruben lies reassuringly. “He likes them a lot. He says they’re really good people.”

“I’m sure they are…” She wouldn’t care if they were saints. “Maybe if I write back that I have the flu…”

“It’s kind of short notice,” says Ruben. “The event’s only a few days away. They’ve done all this promotion. Posters. Fliers. Twitter. Facebook. And, like she says in the email, people are really excited. You don’t want to disappoint your fans, do you? They’ll be really looking forward to meeting you.” He squeezes her shoulder. “I’ll be with you. You’ll be fine.”

The cloud of worry lifts a little. “Do you really think so?”

“I know so.”

And, for some reason, she believes him.

But come the day and Sylvia isn’t fine.

She arrives at breakfast looking as worried as Kandinsky must have when the Nazis started confiscating his paintings, and is too anxious to eat. “I think I really may be getting sick,” she tells him. “Maybe I should email them after all. What if I’m contagious? I wouldn’t want to infect everybody.”

“It’s just nerves,” says Ruben. “Like you said, it’s been a long time. But if you want to call them and cancel… you can’t do it by email. Not when they’re expecting you in a few hours. That wouldn’t be fair.”

“Oh.” Sylvia stares into her cup. She wasn’t counting on actually having to talk to someone. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just nerves. I think I’ll have another tea.”

She spends the rest of the morning getting ready – changing her mind about what she’s wearing, not being able to decide on a pair of shoes, misplacing her good-luck necklace – a silver dragon with moonstone eyes – without which she can’t possibly leave the house. When at last she’s dressed and shod and the dragon is safely around her neck, she’s so on edge that it takes twenty minutes to get her into the car because she has to keep going back to make sure the doors are locked, the lights off, the windows shut. He has all he can do to convince her not to have him unplug the fridge since she is suddenly sure that it will explode if there’s no one in the house with it.

Ruben slides into the driver’s seat and looks over at his mother, paler even than a woman who hasn’t been out in daylight for months should be. Why is he making her do this? He should let her go back inside, lock herself in her room, wrap her head in foil. But he doesn’t. Is he being selfish? Is it because he likes having meals with her again? Likes being able to leave her when he wants without being doubled over with guilt? Likes seeing her leave her room? Enjoys her company? Doesn’t want her to spend the rest of her life upstairs? He makes sure her seat belt’s buckled, and drives her to the mall, talking the whole time – babbling really – while she looks out of the window as though she comes from a distant galaxy and this is her first visit to his planet and is taking everything in – and not listening at all. There are a few minutes after he parks when he thinks he may have to drag her from the car, but eventually she gets out, hood up and sunglasses on, holding on to him as if she’s afraid of blowing away.

When they reach the shop, there’s a queue that stretches from the entrance to the entrance of the next store.

“So many people,” whispers Sylvia, cutting off the circulation in his arm. “I didn’t think there’d be so many people.”

“They’re your readers,” says Ruben. “They’re excited to meet you.” And he gently pulls her through the door.

Once inside, she lets the blood flow again. He told them she likes to create an atmosphere in keeping with her books and asked them to keep the lighting low, but they’ve gone one better and put artificial flickering candles all around the room. “Oh,” says Sylvia. “Isn’t this pretty? What a nice touch.” The staff greets her with enthusiasm and genuine warmth. “I guess Mr Goldblatt was right,” says Sylvia.

Ruben learns two important lessons on this momentous afternoon. The first is that his mother is actually very sane. He forgot how intelligent she is – personable and funny, smart and diplomatic, able to handle an onslaught of strangers with good humour and grace (and without once suggesting that someone cover the windows) – because he was so obsessed by her fears. He should have got her help; he should have talked to someone; perhaps he should have talked to her.

The second thing he learns is that a lot of very attractive young women read his mother’s books – and that he might like to date some of them – interesting girls, clever girls, pretty girls – but because he was so obsessed with Sorrel he never noticed anyone else.

It’s dark by the time they leave the mall. Sylvia walks beside him, no longer gripping his arm as if he’s a life preserver, chatting away. “That wasn’t so bad,” she says as they get in the car. “Everyone was so nice.”

And Ruben agrees, “No, it wasn’t so bad. And you were brilliant.”

They’re passing the old country road, once an Indian trail that acted as the highway up here before the real highway was built, when his mother suddenly says, “Ruben, let’s go down there. We haven’t been on that road in ages. And it’s such a nice night.”

He doesn’t ask why; he knows why. When his dad was alive it was the route he always took when they went for one of their Sunday drives.

She tells him to pull over when they reach the lake his father said was once the site of an Algonquin village. “We used to have picnics here, remember?” says Sylvia. And gets out of the car without being asked.

It is a nice night, cold and clear, the sky aglitter with stars. Ruben puts his arm around his mother and they stand together, looking up at the spangled, timeless heavens – as the trees whisper and the planet turns and the world dreams.

When they get back to the car Sorrel is sitting in the back seat, smiling.

Ruben smiles back.