Tucking my skirts around my legs, I sat on the floor of the barn and tilted the paper into a dust-filled beam of light, my eyes taking in the few lines. I traced over my mother’s familiar script with one finger, pausing on each of the words I recognized, including my name. I’d made my father read it over and over again until I’d memorized it, and then I’d pocketed the precious article before he could toss it in the fire. It was the only proof I had that my mother was coming to visit us. The fact that it was written on paper made her arrival a certainty rather than a childish hope.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I imagined her reading the words aloud, the sound of her melodic voice in my ear. Dimly, very dimly, I could remember her singing softly to me so that I would fall asleep, the soft touch of her dainty fingers against my hair, and the flowery scent of her perfume drifting across my bed. That had been when we lived in the city, when I was only a little child, and before my father had taken my brother, sister, and me back to Goshawk’s Hollow.

I hardly saw her after that, only an occasional visit here and there, which, rather than sating me, only made me hungry for more. Two years ago, my father had taken me to Trianon to see her perform. I couldn’t remember the name of the opera, or even what it had been about, but I could picture my mother standing on the stage, her crimson ringlets spilling over her elaborately costumed shoulders, clear as day. The opera house had been full to the brim, or at least it had seemed so to me, and yet the audience had been utterly silent and still, captivated by the sound of her voice. I’d never seen anything like it before or since. When the performance had ended, every single person stood, clapping, cheering, and tossing roses onto the stage, and I had never wanted anything as badly as to be her. Every night since I had dreamed of singing on that stage and curtseying at the end to the roaring accolades of the crowd.

The letter tore away from my fingertips, and my eyes snapped open in time to see my sister run out of the barn door, the paper clutched in her fist.

“Josette!” I shrieked, and tore after her.

We sprinted through the yard, boots splattering mud up against our skirts. I was older, but Joss was taller, and not even the anger flooding my veins was enough fuel to catch her. “Give it back!”

She only laughed, the sound filling me with a twisted combination of fury and fear. I needed that letter. I had to get it back. Illogical or not, I felt that if I lost the paper where her promise was so carefully inked, the promise would cease to exist at all.

The dogs ran after us, their barks adding to the cacophony. My father shouted from the distance, but whatever he said was drowned out by all the noise. Josette’s fist was crumpling my letter into a tighter ball with each step she took. At best, she’d hide it from me; at worst… My eyes burned with a frustration I could scarcely explain, my anxiety building like steam in a kettle until it exploded out of my throat. “Joss, stop!” The wind rose, catching the two words and rushing them through the yard. Everything went still.