Page 116 of Persephone's Curse
I felt dizzy.
I felt like…
Like it was Henry.
The moonlight was Henry.
Coming into my bedroom to wish me a happy birthday, to tell me everything was okay, he was okay,wewould be okay.
That was perhaps the silliest thought I’d had in a long time, but it was also comforting, and before I knew what I was doing, I got out of bed and tiptoed out of my room, letting the thought guide me. Clara’s light was still on, but I was quiet enough as I crept past her door that I didn’t think she heard me.
I walked down the stairs to the first floor, navigating my way through the living room back to the kitchen, to the wall of windows and the back door that led to the stairs and the backyard. Despite it being spring now, it was a chilly night, and I was shivering by the time I reached the jasmine bushes, still dormant, but bound to come alive now that Persephone had returned.
I felt closer to Henry here, where his body was buried, somewhere underneath my feet, resting in the cold earth for the past hundred-odd years.
I felt closer to Henry outside, where the gash in the sky above me was covered by him, made of him,him.
Outside, here, in the backyard, he was above and below me.
He had never missed one of my birthdays before.
And I knew he was here now, all around me.
I knelt on the ground, putting my hand on the earth and forcing my fingers not to recoil at how cold it was. I thought of Henry’s bones, of my own bones, of all the bones that had ever been inside all of the people who had ever lived.
I squeezed my hand into a fist and knocked my knuckles against the ground just like Henry had knocked against the closet door as he fell in love with my sister, night after night after night over thecourse of her entire, sweet lifetime. That part I understood. It was easy to fall in love with Evelyn.
“Henry,” I whispered, directing my words down, down, down, through the ground, through stones and insects and whatever else made up the Manhattan dirt.
Then I pointed my face to the sky and, for good measure, said his name again, this time sending my voice upward, covering all my bases.
“I miss you,” I said. “Winter is over.”
The days would get warmer now. It wouldn’t snow again. We might still have the occasional morning frost, but the sun didn’t have to work so hard to come out from behind the clouds, and most days we could get away with a T-shirt or a long skirt, sans tights.
The city would wake up, shake off its winter doldrums, stretch its limbs.
The Farthing girls would continue.
Thanks to Henry.
I was still looking up at the sky.
I could see the outline of the black tear, where it used to be before Henry fixed it.
I would always be able to see it, I knew; my sisters and I would always be able to tell where it was. Where he was.
I stood up again and closed my eyes. I was finally getting tired. I thought I might actually be able to fall asleep.
“Anyway,” I said, my eyes still closed, my face still turned up to the sky. “I just wanted to say hi. So—hi.”
I opened my eyes.
To the right of the moon, there were two stars.
If I suspended disbelief, if I squinted, if I used all my powersof wishful thinking, I could almost pretend they were Henry’s eyes.
And I could almost pretend that one of them winked at me.
