bag, telling herself she’d return it unread. But, as the days passed and Alba came and went, Zoë held on to it. Until she finally had to admit the truth, that she was going to read it and wouldn’t give it back.
In an attempt to soften this betrayal of Alba’s privacy, Zoë read the story (six pages, handwritten and obviously autobiographical) in the library, sitting behind the stacks after everyone else had gone home, pretending it was a book that Alba had published, that anyone might pick up and read. It was a difficult self-delusion to pull off, as Alba’s tiny scrawl was nearly impossible to read and clearly not intended to be seen by any eyes other than her own. Deciphering the story required immense concentration on Zoë’s part, along with a flashlight and a very powerful magnifying glass.
It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when Zoë finally finished and, just as Alba had fallen for Dr. Skinner’s words, so Zoë fell for Alba’s. Reading that story tipped Zoë off the cliff of superficial attraction onto the rocks of complete adoration. In Alba’s scrawl she found a mind that mirrored her own, a soul that spoke the same words, a heart that kept the same beat. In Alba’s secret thoughts and feelings, Zoë found herself. Some of Alba’s sentences were so lyrical that Zoë spoke them aloud just to hear the words. She didn’t understand it all—the references to the colors of sounds and smells were particularly strange and intriguing—and Zoë wished she could ask Alba to explain, but of course she couldn’t. Not then, not now, not ever.
In the years of private longing that followed, Zoë has often wondered whether or not she’d have fallen for Alba without the story. She thinks probably not, that without it she would just have lusted, rather than loved. So she’s got her comeuppance for this moral lapse, suffering a prison sentence of unrequited love for three years, four months, two weeks, twelve days and counting . . .
—
Carmen sits at the piano, absently trailing her fingers up and down the keys. She’s supposed to be practicing the first verse of Alba’s song but she can barely keep her eyes open. Since opening the box, Carmen has been out every night trying to dispose of it. But when she buries the ring it pushes up through the dirt, when she hurls it into rivers it surfaces again, floating up as soon as Carmen turns her back. Only in the house or garden does the ring stay where it’s put, but even then Carmen can’t wash the drop of blood away, not if she scrubs until her nails bleed and her fingers are raw. She wishes it were possible to burn gold and knows that, even if she had the ring transformed into something else, its smell would never leave.
For a moment she forgets Tiago and thinks instead of Blake and what she’s going to do now that he’s starting to want what she doesn’t want to give. Memory-obliterating sex is all well and good but she won’t let it get in the way of her survival and her song. She needs to focus, completely and without distraction. She’ll tell him tonight.
In twenty-one days she has to leave Hope Street to find another home, one that won’t protect her or hide the evidence connecting her to Tiago’s murder. Fear pollutes her blood, infusing her bones—until she begins to play. A little Tchaikovsky, then Beethoven and Mozart. She plays with a gusto that overtakes her entirely, her fingers moving faster than she could ever speak or sing or run; sometimes soft, sometimes strong, filling the room with a heavy smoke that sinks into her lungs. Carmen swallows the music until the sound is all she can taste, hear and feel. It’s the best medicine she’s ever had, able to banish memories, sorrow, sleepless nights, and leave only the notes.
—
Having failed to force the door open, Peggy simply stares at it, trying to shame it into submission. She stands at the stove, peeling chocolate biscuits off a tray. The sweet scent of cooked sugar and melted chocolate rises into the air, briefly soothing her nerves. The first time she made these biscuits was in the downstairs kitchen, and she slowly consumed the entire batch while chatting with Mary Somerville and Caroline Herschel, who had just spotted each other from opposing walls.
“I was just extolling the virtues of love to this young lady,” Mary said,