Star's Crossing

54: There is Time

Mare could not help thinking that the entire world, and perhaps the universe proper, had changed.

It took a good many reminders that it had not; in fact, it was Mare who had transformed. More, her mind had changed—as well as her heart, and the lens through which she examined the world, and good books, and good men.

Mare Atwood was not who she had been, and was yet the last to realize it.

There would be no masks this evening but the one she donned truly, in silk and bead, stitched the red of fresh-spilled blood. Mare would walk into the final ball as she had intended the first: with purpose, pride, and at last restored—hope.

She prayed it was not wasted.

"Ah, my girl." Her mother entered her room and found Mare seated at the vanity, Jenelle attending her hair. It was done simply, pins and curls, a dark spiral over one shoulder. Her lips had been painted an astonishing shade of scarlet, a color that would no doubt stain any she kissed. "You look extraordinary."

Mare smiled at her mother's reflection. "As do you, mother."

She wore a gown of deep blue, sapphires in her ears and at her throat. It was the finest attire in her wardrobe, and though her mother looked far from at home in it, she was still quite perfect. Mare could not help but remember what Teddy's father had claimed, what Mare now knew of her mother. It seemed strange that the woman who'd raised her had hidden, mysterious, behind quiet rage and desperation so long.

Perhaps Mare's lens had simply painted her mother differently than the woman was in truth.

"I suppose there will be no more letters." Mare's mother dismissed Jenelle and stood at Mare's shoulder. "In the paper, I mean. Those dreadful boys have stopped their dreadful work."

"Teddy is not dreadful," Mare tutted, but her cheeks heated, and she troubled herself with a garnet earring. "Nor is Geoffrey. Indeed, I think even Camden hides behind teeth and ego."

"Men." Her mother's voice was soft, her gaze distant. "It was your summons in The Gazette, then. No doubt your troublesome sister played a hand."

"Matilde plays many hands." Mare smiled, amused. "As do your other daughters."

"Where did I go wrong?" But her mother's expression brightened, and Mare wondered how she'd feel seeing Medley at the ball; it was meant to be a surprise.

Three of her daughters, returned to Star's Crossing as though they'd never left.

"Mare?"

"Sorry?" Mare looked up. She'd lost herself for a moment. "What were you saying?"

"You've been doing that a bit." Mare's mother clucked her tongue and took the earrings from Mare's incapable fingers. She clipped them easily, then placed her hands on Mare's shoulders, gazing down at her reflection in the mirror. "What do you imagine? Where do you go?"

Where do you go?

The question felt layered, like it had bones and ligaments and pumping blood. It felt like an animal.

"I don't know what you mean," Mare said simply, and was surprised when her voice wobbled. "I'm merely thinking."

"Of?"

Mare startled. It was such an unusual question from her mother that it begged the question of her entire reality. She had to remember that she and her mother were beginning again, as though from scratch. Nothing was taboo; nothing was forbidden. In this new land of truth, there were no laws or rules.

Life was a new frontier.

Mare looked at her mother, and admitted, "I'm not quite sure yet."

Mare's mother smiled. When summer began, her hands on Mare's shoulder might have felt like the weight of the world. Now they felt like wind in her sails, a road rising to meet her.

"We're going to be late," said her mother. The smile in her eyes tempered, but left all of the light. "If we want to make the best entrance, we'd best time ourselves carefully."

But Mare's mind had moved swiftly elsewhere, and brought her to another conclusion. She caught her mother's hand. "Let us be late, then."

Her mother frowned thoughtfully. "You're unwell?"

"On the contrary." Mare stood, holding her mother's hands. "I suddenly feel quite well. I'd simply like to savor the moment."

"Your generation," said her mother, but her cheeks were rosy and her smile true as she swatted Mare's hand and turned out of the room.

Mare did not hesitate to follow.

It was quite a thing; Mare, Matilde, her mother and father, together. Mare imagined the tangled mass of love and fear and joy that ebbed within her was quite like turning the last page of a book. It was the end of something and the start of something else entirely. But neither author nor reader knew what.

For Mare had made a decision. It felt inevitable now, looking back. It felt as though everything had led her here: every choice, every misstep, every laugh and kiss and cry. This notion had built within her for a terribly long time, since before her own opening chapter.

Mare finally knew the ending to her book.

As Matilde spoke of Antony heading west, and Mare's father discussed his time away from Star's Crossing, and her mother tutted over the scattering of the Atwoods, Mare decided she would not spoil the moment. She had spent sixteen years denying who she was, crafting a mask and costume to don whenever she did not hold a quill. She'd lived lying, only to admit the truth in the span of a few months.

Life was short and life was long.

Right now, it seemed, there was time.

Mare smiled and sipped her wine, and savored the sweet amber of an autumn sunset in Star's Crossing. Life hurtled toward her from the black, but she did not cower or fear. The road ahead demanded courage.

But for now, there was time.