Star's Crossing

Epilogue 1: From Far-Away

1866

Star's Crossing, Connecticut

"Really, pony. Aren't you making a terrible deal of nothing?"

Mare levied her sister with an icy stare. "Nothing? I would hardly call vanishing from the face of the earth on such an important night nothing, Matilde."

"You're beginning to sound like dear Medley." Matilde sat in the ornate theatre parlor as though it were her own home, heels kicked up on the velvet ottoman as she sipped espresso and read the Gazette. "You'd think you'd have learned patience, what with the war."

Mare averted her gaze, her heart clenched tight as a fist. A year had passed since the end of the worst war America had ever seen. It had, indeed, taught her patience. It had taught her many things—how to miss a man; how to mourn a stranger. She'd felt useless, a silly girl writing poems while the love of her life, who'd scarcely ever held a gun, marched through the scorched fields of the South with a rifle strapped to his back.

You have a war at home, Theodore Bridge had written to her once, when she'd expressed the feeling of helplessness that kept her awake most nights like a too-bright moon through the window. And a better weapon than most men on their battlefields—your pen, Mare. Write.

And she had.

In the theatre parlor now, Matilde at her side, Mare's eyes found the canvas-clad book Star's Crossing had gathered tonight to celebrate. It was Mare's fifth. It never ceased to amaze her. Such a small thing, hand-bound and embossed in gold, held thousands of thoughts. Some which had flooded from her fingertips with the ease of a sigh; others which were prized like ribs from her side.

From Far-Away was the title of this novel. It detailed the year past, wherein she'd been reunited with Teddy after too many apart. War had altered him, as it altered everyone. But beneath his scars, Theodore Bridge was still the boy who'd written her from a dusty, crowded board room with irreverent fingers. He was still the man who'd unmasked her, and caught her beneath the bur.

"What ought I make of it, then?" Mare asked, something like worry tugging at her heart. She always worried about him, now. She'd slept one thousand nights under the same stars, wondering if she'd wake to a world without him. Now worry lived in her like a bone. Pricking and piercing whenever she moved too suddenly. "Where might he be?"

"Pony," said Matilde mildly, having returned to her reading. "Leave it."

Mare studied her sister. "You know something."

"I know a great many things."

"What is it?" Mare pressed, bringing From Far-Away to her chest like a prayer. "Tell, or I'll agonize."

"You will agonize either way." The corner of Matilde's mouth lifted.

"You do know something!"

A knock at the door rescued Matilde from further words, and in rushed the Atwoods with the grace of a herd of cattle. Medley, Madrigal, Mollie, and their accompanying husbands and broods, as well as Mare's parents. Alison and Lilith were at the fringes, close as a pair of roses on the vine. Mare thought she saw their fingers intertwine.

Mare was at once enveloped by the crowd. The theatre parlor, scarcely large enough for a suitable chaise longue, was packed close and full as a jar of olives. Mare's worries were shelved, as the chaos was much more immediate, and she lost herself in the boisterous chatter, praise, and melodrama that clung like snow to the heels of all Atwoods.

It did not last long. Shortly after their arrival, they were dismissed by the theatre's mistress, Matilde and all.

"It's time," said the mistress, with glittering eyes. "Should you like a hand through the wings, miss?"

Mare braced herself, book clutched close. She took the mistress's arm. "Very much so."