He came quietly to my side, gave a practiced tug on the rope, and loosed the boat from its ring. I did not look at him again, nor care to, and stepped down into the body of the rowboat, sitting at the first oars seat.

“We will need two pair.”

He nodded, drew out another pair of oars from the boat beside us, then stepped in himself and shoved us off. I slid my oars through the locks, and without a word, he began to row. I heard him placing his oarlocks in their slots behind me, and heard the oars slide through on either side, then came the doubled surge of our boat forward as he fell into my stroke.

Out and out we rowed, our oars dipping and stroking in perfect tandem, leaving behind us the dark hunch of the boathouse and the low outline of the dock across that widening flat white of moonlit water. The longing to move and move and not to halt gave strength into my arms, my blood echoing dully, coursing round and round my body. In and out we pulled, and pulled.

Until at last, I had to rest. And as suddenly as we had begun, our voyage calmed. Grange House was but the stark outline of roof and shutter beneath the moon. And somewhere, still, I was sure, she stood, watching me propelled by her claim outward onto the dull surface of this sea—who I was cracked open: my mother not my mother; myself not myself.

“Maisie,” he began very quietly.

I did not answer.

“Maisie,” he said again.

I turned round in the seat and faced him, my hands holding tightly to the oars pulled into my chest. He slapped at the water. The quiet resumed around us, then lengthened. I wished then for the whole great silence of the sky to wrap round me and draw a shadow between me and the moon’s watching white eye.

“I am Maisie no longer,” I whispered sadly.

He did not answer me.

“What I have known, what I took to be mine, my life before this, was a pretty nothing, grounded on illusion.”

He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Perdita.”

I had not known I waited for his lips to frame my name, but it was as if the word passed from his mouth and swept through my body, nudging open all the chill corners and turning what was gray to very sunlight. “Perdita,” he repeated, the name nestled deep in his throat; and then he put out his hand and gently traced a circle round my cheek. “Is this an illusion?”

I shivered, smiling, and replied, “No.”

He touched my lips with that same tracing finger. “Or this?”

I shook my head again, no, nearly overcome by the great feeling that threatened to pour from me at his gentleness.