Yorkshire after my uncle died. My mother certainly wasn’t going to allow me back. But I could have returned when I was an adult. I chose not to. For twenty-three years, I chose not to because this house was all about you, and you were a figment of my imagination. A figment of my shame. And a figment of a wonderful dream I could never recapture. Yes, I stayed away. Because I believed you weren’t real, and you just told me you thought the same of me, yet you have the gall to mock me for not believing in you?”
“I—”
“I hope you aren’t real, William. I hope to God I’m asleep and dreaming right now because I don’t see any trace of the boy I fell in love with. That boy might be hurt that I broke my promise—and yes, I know you aren’t hurt, as you’ve made abundantly clear—but that boy would have given me the chance to explain. I’m sorry that I came here. I’m sorry I’m still here. I don’t know why I crossed over or how to get back, but I’m going to go into another room and hope to wake from what I pray is simply a nightmare.”
As I turn to leave, he grabs my upper arm. “Bronwyn.”
I stop, but I don’t turn around.
We stand there, saying nothing. His fingers rub my arm, and his voice lowers.
“Bronwyn. I’m . . .”
When he doesn’t finish, I look to see his gaze on his hand, on his fingers stroking my arm. He pulls back, releasing me, and there’s a jolt, a flash of darkness. And then I’m standing alone in my bedroom.
I stay there, standing, looking around at the dark room. After a moment, I stagger like a sleepwalker to the bed, my mind numb.
Enigma meows at my feet, and I scoop her up, hugging her close. Then I cry. I cry for everything I’ve lost. For Michael, for my mother, for my aunt and my uncle. And for William, for the boy I knew, real or fantasy.
I huddle on the bed, clutching a kitten, and I cry until I fall asleep.
9
I wake the next morning resolved. That’s the best word to describe my emotional state. All that I’ll allow it to be. Resolved.
Resolved to forget about William. Resolved to forget about the ghosts. Resolved not to allow either to scare me away from this house.
Resolved to sew drapes and strip wood and pick wildflowers and harvest berries and maybe even make jam from them. Resolved to not work on my paper because I’ve published enough in the last decade that I’m hardly concerned about missing a year in the publish-or-perish grind of academia. Resolved to spend my summer reading nothing that would ever make its way into a university syllabus and banish the words guilty pleasure from my vocabulary.
Resolved to let Freya know she has a standing invitation to tea. Resolved to get the convertible running even if that means tinkering with it myself. Resolved to walk for hours each day in the moors, and resolved to not lose a single pound doing it, no matter how many scones that takes. Resolved to blast my nineties classic rock and dance through the house whenever the mood strikes. Resolved to thoroughly spoil Enigma, enjoy her kittenhood, research whatever steps are needed to take her home with me and stop pretending that I might not actually do that.
I am resolved.
I begin by bouncing from bed so fast that Enigma squeaks her alarm. A few pats reassure her that all is well, and then I step off the throw rug and hear a board squeak underfoot where a board never squeaked before.
If you asked me which boards in this house squeaked, I’d have laughed and said, “All of them.” I certainly didn’t pay attention to which did. Yet I’d apparently cataloged that information in the soundtrack of my life within this room. When I step off the rug, bracing for the chill of the hardwood, the board squeaks under my heel.
I hesitate. Then I back up, weight into my heel, and feel the wood give.
The floorboard is loose.
I want to continue on. I want the resolve to continue on. Yet if I don’t check, it’ll pluck at the back of my mind, disrupting all attempts to enjoy a peaceful day.
I bend, slide my fingernails into a groove and tug. The board lifts as easily as if it were displaced yesterday. Underneath lies a yellowed piece of folded paper.
My fingers