Lily rises and fetches the first letter from its hiding place in the grandmother clock. She passes it to Edna, who reads it slowly, frowning. It takes her an inordinately long time for a message consisting of just five words. But then, Lily supposes she herself must have studied those words in much the same way when she first read them, as though the answers to their author, not to mention their meaning, might be visible on the page somewhere.

I know what you did.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Edna asks.

Lily shrugs.

“Of all the stupid—”

“Edna, please don’t call me stupid. I’m not stupid.”

Edna stares at her. “No,” she says. “No, you are not. I’m sorry. But that is exactly why I would have expected you to tell me about this. This . . .” She waves the crumpled letters in her fist. “This isn’t something we can ignore.”

“I’m not ignoring it.”

“Oh, Lillian, what have you done?”

“What?”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve done something stu—” She changes what she was going to say. “Something inadvisable.”

Lily sighs. She’s standing in front of Edna with her hands behind her back. She begins to tell her everything, just as though she’s reporting to the headmistress. How easily she gives up control. Edna listens silently, nods occasionally. Finally, Lily mentions her meeting with Joe Wentworth.

When she is finished, Edna says, “You are to go nowhere near that man ever again.” As though she has any intention of doing so! “If he talks to you, you will tell me. Immediately.”

Lily bristles at this but finds herself saying, “I won’t. Of course I won’t. But I’m sure he isn’t responsible for this. It’s why I think we should go on this trip. We can talk to people. See if anyone is behaving unusually.”

“Lillian, this is not a game!” Edna slams her hand down on the arm of her chair. “This isn’t some pulp-fiction detective novel, you do realize that?”

“Of course I do, Edna, I—”

Edna tuts over her. “Such nonsense. Of course we are not going to Whitby, and there’s an end to it.” She folds the letters in her hand and tucks them back into her cardigan, taking ownership, taking back the reins.

Lily is furious. Edna has no right to cut her out of this. “Well, you can please yourself,” she says, “but I think I’m going to go.”

“You can think again.”

“I have, and I’m going.”