Alice had a hard time imagining her father as a boy her age. It was hard to imagine him as anything but what he was, the solid, dependable rock around which her life revolved. It was like wondering what the sun was like, before it was the sun.

“He would have been proud of you,” her father said. He looked out over the park, past the wandering sheep, and sighed.

Something was wrong. Alice could feel it, feel some emotion in her father that she couldn’t quite identify, but she didn’t know what to do. She rolled over and pressed herself against his side, and his hand came down to tangle in her hair.

“You don’t remember your mother either,” he said, so quietly she wasn’t sure he meant her to hear. “But I do. I remember.” His voice was sad, but also fierce, full of quiet determination. “Someday . . .”

All Alice could do was hug him a little tighter. He tipped his hat down farther, to shade his eyes, and they sat there in silence until the sun touched the buildings on the West Side and the cold of the breeze began to bite. Then they went home and had chicken pot pies for dinner. They were her father’s favorite, and she loved them because he loved them.

Alice woke up and thought it was before dawn, judging by the gray, dead light, but when she looked outside, she found the sky covered by clouds from edge to edge. A spattery, fitful rain pinked and tinked against the glass. The sun was nowhere to be seen.

She cleaned up and dressed slowly, still half mired in the dream. She hadn’t thought about that day for a long time. Her life before had faded into the background, somehow, of her daily life at the Library. It was why she was here, but she couldn’t think about it without feeling awful, like there was a horrible gap in her chest where her heart ought to have been. So, mostly, she didn’t.

A wave of guilt descended on her like a bucket of cold water. It’s only been six months since he disappeared, and you’re forgetting him already. She closed her eyes, welcoming the painful thoughts as a sort of penance.

Emma brought her breakfast on a tray and Alice took it into her room, careful to remind the girl to go back to the kitchen afterward. Alice had learned long ago to be extremely literal when giving Emma directions; once, when she’d said “Here, take these,” she’d returned hours later to find the maidservant still standing patiently with a tray in her arms. The food was excellent, as usual, but Alice raced through it and barely tasted a thing. She left the dirty dishes for the Library’s invisible servants to clean up and hurried downstairs.