“Mary,” Travis says, walking up behind me. He puts a hand on my shoulder but I shrug it off.

I don't want him to be right. I don't want to believe what he's saying, that I could be so cruel and selfish. His heat radiates against me, trying to fill the emptiness inside, but I wrap my arms tight around myself as a shield.

I turn away from him then and walk to the door. As I cross the threshold he asks, “Would you ever give up the ocean for me?”

I hesitate, place a hand on the doorjamb. I had once hoped that, as it did for my mother, love would keep all other dreams at bay. The realization that it will not washes over me and I walk through the door, leaving him without an answer.

It's difficult to find solitude in the platforms in the trees and so I walk along the rope bridges until I am as far away from Travis and the rest as possible. I sit and let my legs dangle, the scabs from the Unconsecrated itching as they heal. I want to cry but I can't find the tears. I want to yell but I don't want to cause a scene. And so I sit and stare at the Forest and think about Travis's admission that he was never going to come for me.

That he was going to let me marry Harry.

I pull out the slim book with the photograph of New York City. In the full light of day the colors of the picture seem duller than they did in the attic, but I don't care as I trace my fingers over the buildings, wondering about them. Wondering about the number of people it would take to fill them all and wondering what happened to those people. Of all the stories that have been lost.

I set the photo aside and focus on the book. I've never seen one this small—the only books in our village were the Scriptures and the genealogy tomes. Carefully I flip back the red leather cover and trace the elegant letters on the first page, not understanding their meaning: Shakespeare's Sonnets. The paper is thick and yellow and I can feel the edges crumble under my fingers.

Not able to resist, I flip through the book, page after page of carefully arranged text. And at the top of each page, a letter. My hands freeze, the wind flapping the paper in front of me. I swallow and turn back to the beginning of the book. There, over the first block of text is the letter I. On the next page, over the next block of text are the letters II.

I am shaking as I follow the pattern, everything suddenly making sense. The letters are numbers. I flash back to what Gabrielle wrote on her window and turn to the corresponding block of text, skimming it quickly. It talks of judgment and plagues and good and evil and truth and doom.