About this story
The wedding outruns every warning, and the decade that follows teaches you the sister it brought: you keep the watches of her fever, survive the fire that bandages your face, and lay the family's debts open on the library table. Forty chapters carry Theodora from the letter under the cowslip elm to the answer she gives beneath the same tree.
How it opens
Village children gathered cowslips beneath an old elm while you helped them knot the flowers into balls.
You were Theodora Martindale, waiting for your father and brother to return while directing the small festival.
Miss Martindale, may I speak with you beyond the children? My errand is not an easy one.
I bring a letter from my cousin near Wrangerton, and I thought you should hear it privately.
Arthur went north to fish and has sent us no useful account since leaving.
He is physically well; forgive my hesitation for making you fear something worse.