“No!” says Debbie. “It’s great.”

“You need to go to the doctor.”

“You need to understand. I’ve been wanting this for so long, Lil. I burn dinner all the time, I can never find my car in the parking lot–I keep losing track of the year. I love it when that happens.”

“There are treatments, Debbie!” Lilac is trying to maintain eye contact; it feels like that must be important.

“I don’t want them,” says Debbie, and in her great dark pupils is the exhilaration, the need for a world without regrets.

“Thank you for this,” says Proserpina.

Elijah says nothing.

“She can’t stay here,” says Proserpina. “They’d just–I’ve talked Mr. Buchanan into taking her on as my tutor. On the steamer with us. I think she’ll accept.”

“Don’t you,” says Elijah, and his voice shakes. “Don’t you need a porter? Me fetch carry very good, Miss Lady. Only two dollar–”

“Elijah,” she whispers, and tries to kiss him. His lips are cold.

Stephanie Long isn’t sure who’s supposed to call whom. Neither does.

Startlingly, they noticed. Danielle found herself anointed a member of Forster’s aristocracy. She didn’t undergo some metamorphosis, but she learned from their kindness, and grew.

Now she’s a senior (oh, so much older) and, contemplating an interesting sophomore, she wonders at their surety. Was it real? Will she ever find her own? Or is growing up just a chase for your betters that never ends?

“I never really understood why people wanted everything in rows anyway,” says Jessica.

“Well, it’s easier to weed, for one thing,” says Spencer. “Plus it’s easier to be consistent with pesticides.”

“I’m just using cayenne and coffee grounds.”

“Have it your way,” he shrugs. “It’s all on your head when you try to figure out what’s ready to harvest.”

Jessica just smiles and watches the rune garden grow, the slowest spell she’s ever cast: cabbage and sunflowers spelling out Ansuz, Raidho, Thorn.