But no matter. Bent on enjoying her new freedom to the full, back at her desk, she let “Chorus of Furies” spill from her lips at top volume as she set up her microscope, angled the mirror to send a brilliant ray of illumination through the slide and up into the eyepiece, and lined up her samples. Microscope work always brought Orfeo to her mind and her lips, much like painting did Carmen. Bram teased her mercilessly about her propensity to sing opera while she worked, so she usually hummed it instead of outright singing. But Bram wasn’t here to poke fun, so she let her chest and throat expand fully through “e lo spaventino gli urli di Cerbero.”

She opened up the correct notebook to a fresh page and twisted the cap off her fountain pen, using it as a baton to conduct herself into the final bars, her favorite part. “Seun Dio no—”

Before she could get out the piercing final word, a knock pounded its way through her one-girl opera. Her hands froze in midair, the right one raised, ready for the downbeat that would go along with the final “e.”

Her cheeks went hot. What if whoever was at the door had heard her? Her finale turned to a squeak that faded into a moan. She lowered her pen-turned-baton-turned-pen-again, tossed it to the desk with the notebook, and scurried to the front door.

If it was another delivery for Other Elizabeth, she would just have to be truthful. Tell him she wasn’t who he was looking for. Ask him to kindly inform all other nameless givers of oddities that they ought to direct their deliveries elsewhere for the rest of the summer.

She pulled the door open, fully prepared to greet her latest visitor with an apology for not being who he sought. But the words froze on her lips as surely as the closing bars of “Chorus of Furies” had.

It was a man, yes. But he wasn’t altogether unfamiliar. And he didn’t lift his brows and ask if she was Elizabeth.

No, he frowned as if the whole weight of the islands had crashed down upon his brows. “Where’s my sister?”

His sister? Libby blinked, blinked again. Opened her mouth, but no words would come. She could only stare at the too-long hair, nearly black; the too-dark eyes, drowning in worry; the too-often imagined lips, not speaking now of plant species.

He’d come. Somehow all her wishing had made him appear. The Botanist. Here, at her door.

But no. Well, yes. The Botanist, to be sure—she’d recognize him anywhere. But obviously it wasn’t her wishing that had conjured him. She gripped the door and gathered together all the facts as they’d been presented to her. They created a picture with many holes, but a few indisputable facts. “Is your sister by chance called Elizabeth?”

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