I have my own life here. That would make sense if I worked down the road and could pop back to the twenty-first century each morning, returning to him in the evening. But my job is across an ocean. Changing to a local university isn’t like switching jobs in retail. Even if I could get a position, the commute alone would be hell.
So stay with him, a little voice whispers. Find a way to take Enigma, and stay there. Surrender the rest.
Give up my modern life to live in his world. It seems like such a romantic sacrifice. It’s not. It’s the death knell of a relationship.
One of Michael’s cousins met a girl in the United States and took her home to Cairo where she knew nothing and no one. They lasted two years, separating amid a maelstrom of blame, she being desperately unhappy away from her family and he being hurt that he wasn’t enough. I’ve seen other variations on that story—girl abandons her home or her family or her career goals for a man and ends up miserable and resentful.
My career is important to me. My world is important to me. I could live here for a year or two in perfect bliss, holed up in Thorne Manor, William occupied with his horses while I managed the household. Then I’d get restless, hemmed in by the isolation and the restrictions of his world, missing my father, my stepmother, my friends.
So what is the answer if he can’t come to my world and I can’t stay in his? The very question steals my breath, and all I can do is remind myself that we have all summer to figure this out, and we will figure it out.
I had plans for housework and errands, but guilt over Enigma keeps me from them. So I spend all my time with her, and she responds the way a child would, saddled with a guilt-stricken parent who returned from a work trip. She’s happy with the play and the cuddles for about an hour, and then she’s had enough of me and wanders off for some kitty alone-time.
After lunch, I strip woodwork. There are few things in home renovation as satisfying as removing paint, watching long strips slough off in ribbons, revealing the gorgeous wood beneath. I’m busy with that when a clatter sounds, and I realize I haven’t see Enigma since before lunch. I drop my scraper and leap up as if I’ve left a baby in the bathtub.
“Enigma?” I call.
No answer. I race up the stairs, shouting her name like a crazy woman. I skid into my bedroom, heart thudding. Her box is empty. So is my bed. There’s a kitten-sized divot in the comforter.
“Enigma?” I call as I hurry down the hall.
Silence.
“Enigma!” I call, adding a “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!” because obviously it’s the universal language for feline summoning. And maybe it is—no sooner do I croon that magic phrase than I hear an answering meow.
I’m in the master bedroom, and the sound comes from the walls. Inside the walls. I freeze in confusion. Then I remember the secret passage.
Back in the hall, I throw open the linen closet door to see the padlock. It’s still affixed. So how did Enigma get in there?
I return to where I heard the kitten, but she’s very clearly inside that wall. She must have found another way.
I run to the garage for the pry bar.
26
I pry off the old lock. The panel comes away with an explosion of dust that sets me coughing and sputtering. I duck into the passage, where I can stand. It’s so narrow I need to move sideways. I cringe as my shirt slides over the filthy wall, and the stink of bat guano warns me not to shine the flashlight up.
It’s been over thirty years since I last did this. At fifteen, William and I had been far more interested in sneaking into the moors for kisses than creeping through dirt-crusted walls to spook the maids. Still, I’ll admit to a thrill as I ease along the passage.
There’s the scrap of carpet I dragged in as a child after William got a splinter and I’d been too young to realize the carpet wouldn’t be in his version of the passage. Here’s the spot where the passage widens, and William brought two old pillows for us to sit on. The pillows are still there—or the moldering scraps of them, the rest having spent the centuries lining baby mouse nests.
As