this.”
“Everything doesn’t have a cure or a fix,” Glim replied. “Sometimes there really isn’t any going back.”
No,” she said softly, thinking of Lilmoth, of her father, of a life now more like the memory of a dream than anything that had ever been real. She had been dreaming, hadn’t she? Playacting. This was the first real thing that had ever happened to her.
“No,” she repeated. “Glim, we go forward. But I promise you, forward will one day take us away from here. Just … not now.”
And so they sat together for a while longer before going back down to the dock, and there they said their goodbyes.
Coming out of the pantry, she stopped at the threshold. Even the hobs were gone now, and the kitchen—for another few hours—would be truly silent.
And she imagined she saw herself again, that ghost of her with that faint smile on her face, looking confident, effective, filled with secrets.
“Okay,” she said, softly. “Okay.”
And she entered the kitchen.
