Zeb gaped at him. “More time? In what world would I do that?”
Iris’s heart beat swift and hard within her chest. When Roman finally looked at her, time seemed to stall. His eyes were keen, as if he could see everything that dwelled in her—the light and the shadows. Her threads of ambition and desire and joy and grief. Never had a man looked at her in that way.
A shiver traced her bones.
“I’ve had an unfair advantage, sir,” Roman said, directing his attention back to Zeb. “Winnow’s mother passed away a few days ago. She’s grieving, and she needs more time.”
The room fell painfully silent.
Iris drew a tremulous breath. Her pulse was in her ears. And Zeb was saying something, but his voice was nothing more than a pesky drone as Iris met Roman’s stare.
“How do you know that?” she whispered.
“I read your mother’s obituary,” he replied.
“But no one reads obituaries.”
Roman was quiet but his face flushed, and she had the frightening inkling that while she made it a point to never read anything of his, he might be reading everything she touched. Including the dry classifieds and tragic obituaries. Perhaps he did it to see if she’d left a typo behind, to taunt her with after it went to print. Perhaps he did it because she was his competition and he wanted to know who, exactly, he was up against. She honestly couldn’t think of a good enough reason, and she looked away from him.
“Winnow?” Zeb was barking. “Winnow, is this true?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why didn’t you say something yesterday?”
Because I didn’t want to cry in front of you. Because I don’t want your pity. Because I’m holding myself together by a thread.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Well,” Zeb said curtly. “I can’t help you if I don’t know, can I?” He heaved a sigh and rubbed his brow. His voice softened, as if he realized how callous he was sounding. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Winnow. It’s unfortunate. But I’m afraid my mind is made up. Kitt won the column, but if you need to take a few days off for bereavement … that would be fine.”
Iris thought about taking time off. Which would mean she would be home, alone in that sad flat with the wine bottles and the melted candles and the torn wallpaper. She would be waiting for her mother to return, and she never would. And that was when it struck her. Iris didn’t want time off, but neither did she want to be at the Gazette. The career she had dreamt of suddenly paled in comparison to other things in her life.
Her only family was in the west now, where the war raged.
She wanted to find her brother.
“No, sir. I’m turning in my resignation,” she said, rising.
Roman shifted beside her. “What? No, Mr. Autry, I—”
Zeb ignored his newly appointed columnist, and sputtered, “Your resignation? You want to quit on me, Winnow? Just like that?”
She hated the way he made it sound. Like she was giving up. But now that she had voiced the words, a weight slipped off her shoulders.
She was going to find Forest.
“Yes, sir. It’s time for me to move on,” she said and pivoted to Roman, extending her hand to him. “Congratulations, Kitt.”
He merely stared up at her, his blue eyes smoldering like flames.
She was awkwardly retracting her hand when his finally rose to meet it, and his grip was firm and warm. It sent a shock up her forearm, as if the two of them had created static, and she was relieved when he finally let her go.
“If you’re quitting, then go ahead and leave, Winnow,” Zeb said with a flick of his stubby fingers. “I don’t need you anymore. But if you walk out that door, don’t expect to ever be hired again.”
“Listen, Mr. Autry.” Roman’s voice was brisk. “I don’t think—”
Iris didn’t hear the rest of what he said. She quit the office, found a wooden crate in the kitchen, and went to her desk to pack up her things.
She didn’t have much. A small potted plant, a few of her favorite pencils and pens, a small figurine of a running horse, some grammar books, a tattered dictionary.
“Winnow.” Sarah approached her with a worried expression. “You’re not…”
“I’m resigning, Prindle.”
“But why? Where will you go?”
“I’m not sure yet. But it’s time for me to leave.”
Sarah sagged, glasses flashing on her nose. “I’ll miss you.”
Iris found one last smile to give her. “I’ll miss you too. Perhaps one day I’ll find you at a museum?”
Sarah blushed but glanced down at her feet, as if that dream of hers was still too distant to grasp.
One by one, the desks around Iris fell quiet and still. One by one, she drew every eye in the room, until the Oath Gazette came to a halt.
Zeb was the one to break the silence. He walked to her with a cigarette clamped in his yellow teeth, a frown on his face, and a wad of bills in his hand.
“Your last paycheck,” he said.
“Thank you.” She accepted the money and tucked it into her inner coat pocket. She gathered up her crate, turned off her lamp, gently touched the keys of her typewriter one last time, and began to walk down the aisle.
Roman wasn’t at his desk. Iris didn’t know where he was until she glanced up at the glass doors and saw him standing before them like a barricade, his arms crossed over his chest.
“How kind of you to get the door for me on my way out,” she said when she reached him. She was striving for a teasing tone, but her voice betrayed her and came out as a warble.
“I don’t think you should go like this, Winnow,” he whispered.
“No, Kitt? How, then, should I go?”
“You should stay.”
“Stay and write obituaries?” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have published it.”
“The one for your mother? And then none of us would know you were hurting,” he replied. “What would you do if you could take back the words you gave her? Continue to pretend that your life was fine while you were with us by day, even as you grieved by night? Would you even know yourself after a week had passed, a month, a year?”
“You know nothing about me,” she hissed, and she hated how much she felt his words, as if she had breathed them in. How her eyes threatened tears again, if she dared to blink. “Now, please move, Kitt.”
“Don’t go, Iris,” he said.
She had never heard him say her given name. It seeped through her like sunlight, warming her skin and her blood, and she had to glance away from him before he saw how much it affected her.
“Best of luck to you, Kitt,” she said in a voice that was far colder and smoother than she felt.
He stepped aside.
She wondered if he would grow soft now, without her here to sharpen him. She wondered if he knew it too, and that was why he was so insistent she stay.
Iris opened the door and crossed the threshold.
She left the Oath Gazette and never looked back.
{14}
Farewell to Ghosts
I wanted to write and let you know that I’m leaving. I won’t be staying in my current home after tomorrow, and I suppose the magic portal will no longer be accessible for us to communicate.