I reached in and brought out each box. I sat with them beneath Da’s window, the dusky evening light still good enough to see by. They were almost the same—pale wood with brass corners—but one box was polished, the other dull. I pulled the polished box closer and caressed the honeyed wood. A hundred envelopes, thick and thin, pressed against each other in the order they were sent. His plain white against her blue. They mostly alternated, though sometimes there were two or three white in a row, as if Da had a lot to say about something that Lily had lost interest in. If I read the letters first to last they would tell a story of their courtship, but I knew it was a story with a sad ending. I closed the box without opening a single one.

The other box was also full of letters, but none were from Lily. They were from different people and were tied in bundles with string. The biggest bundle was from Ditte. I slid the latest letter from beneath the string and read it. It was mostly about the Dictionary; about the C words that never seemed to end, and how the Press Delegates kept asking Dr. Murray to work more quickly because the Dictionary was costing too much. But the last bit was about me.

Ada Murray tells me James has the children sorting slips. She painted quite a picture of them huddled around the dining table late into the night, barely visible under a mountain of paper. She even ventured to say that she thought this may have been his motive for a big brood all along. Thank goodness for her sense and good humour. I do believe the Dictionary might have faltered without it.

You must tell Esme to stay well-hidden when she’s in the Scrippy or she will be Dr. Murray’s next recruit. I daresay she’s bright enough, and I wonder if she would, in fact, be willing.

Yours,

Edith

I put both boxes back in the wardrobe then I tip-toed across the landing. The letter was still in my hand.

The next day, Lizzie watched as I opened the trunk. I pulled Ditte’s letter from my pocket and placed it on top of the slips that covered the bottom.

“You’re collecting a lot of secrets,” she said, her hand finding the cross beneath her clothes.

“It’s about me,” I said.

“Discarded or neglected?” She’d insisted on rules.

I thought about it. “Forgotten,” I said.

I returned to the wardrobe again and again to read Ditte’s letters—there was always something about me; some answer to a query of Da’s. It was as if I were a word and the letters were slips that helped define me. If I read them all, I thought, maybe I would make more sense.