“Preston says that they’ll come to you,” she said. “As soon as our thesis is out there—reporters and scholars will start hounding you.”
“Let them come. I have spent long enough being silent.”
“They’ll press you. They could be cruel.”
“I have nothing to hide,” she said. “And who do I have left to embarrass? My son is dead. My father will be soon. My sisters and I haven’t spoken in decades. There’s no story to memorize, no lines that need repeating. There’s only the truth.”
The truth. Effy nodded. In the street below, a cart rattled past, wheels knocking against the pavement. “And what about Marlowe? Preston says he may try to sue . . .”
“He can try. Greenebough has nothing left to take from me. And I never signed anything; only Emrys did. The secret was so precious that there was no contract, no paper trail, nothing bearing my name.”
Someone shouted in the road. “Have you set your accounts in order?” Effy asked.
“Wetherell has,” Angharad replied. “Marlowe still owes me royalties from Emrys’s other works. That’s in my husband’s will. You don’t have to worry so much about me, Effy. I know I’m an old woman now, but I’m not looking for peace. I’ve spent my whole life fighting, even if no one knew about it. The daily battles I waged in the privacy of that house, making sure the mountain ash was blooming and the iron on the doors held fast . . . if I can survive that, I can survive journalists and academics.”
“I wish I had fought.” Effy surprised herself by saying it. The words had leaped out of her throat, unbidden. “I know I beat him in the end, but for so many years all I could do was run and hide. I just sat there and let the water pour in around me. I didn’t know that I could fight back. I didn’t know how to do anything but wait to drown.”
“Oh no, Effy. That’s not what I meant at all. You don’t have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery, too.”
As if she could tell Effy was going to cry, Angharad laid a soft hand over hers. Effy wiped at a few burgeoning tears and said, “There’s something else.”
Angharad arched a brow, and Effy reached into her bag. She pulled out her old and battered copy of the book, its pages dog-eared and water-stained, its spine cracked from so many openings.
The cover still bore that dead man’s name, but Effy opened the book to the page that held the first line.
I was a girl when he came for me, beautiful and treacherous, and I was a crown of pale gold in his black hair.
Effy held it out to her. “Will you sign it for me?”
Without words, Angharad took it. She scrawled her name forcefully on the page in black ink. When she was finished, she said in a low voice, almost like a confession, “I’ve waited so long to do that.”
“This way I’ll always remember,” Effy said. “I’ll always know. A lighthouse, like you said.”
“I know you have to leave now,” Angharad said, dabbing at her face. “But Effy, you can always come back. It’s safe here. I’m growing rowan berries in the window boxes. You know what they say about old habits.”
They both cried a little together, after that. Angharad’s green eyes were shining and bright. Like two lighthouse beacons stretching over dark water, telling her there was safe harbor ahead.
There was so much to do when at last they returned to Caer-Isel. Preston fretted a bit over all the coursework he had missed, but Effy had no such concerns. Her life in Caer-Isel had been so small, so wretched and run-down, it had been easy to slip through the cracks. She had left it all behind so quickly, escaped through its crumbling walls.
Now she wanted to tear it down to the foundation. She wanted to start anew.
Rhia performed exaggerated shock when she saw Effy, even mimed swooning. “Thank the Saints,” she said. “You’re back now. I thought you might’ve turned into a fish after all.”
“No gills or fins,” Effy said. “But you were right about the Bottom Hundred. It’s a strange place. It changes you in other ways.”
Rhia frowned, looking her up and down. “You do seem different. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s your hair. No offense, but have you brushed it at all since you left?”
“Barely,” Effy said with a small smile.
“Well, since you didn’t have the decency to call, I’m going to have to throw together a very last-minute welcome-home party. It won’t be up to my usual standards. I apologize in advance.”