Mary reread the words, and as she did so, a light seemed to come on in her head. Memories flashed in front of her eyes, the past twisted and rearranged itself, and suddenly she began to see her childhood in a new way, to tell a different story about her past—the mother who had hated her daughter so much she didn’t want to look at her became a mother whose daughter reminded her so much of her dead sister that she couldn’t bear to look at her. She was a mother whose grief for her twin sister was so overwhelming that she had shut herself off from the world—a wounded animal, chasing away anyone who tried to come near, even her own child.

She did love me, Mary thought.

“Maybe neither of us know our parents as well as we think,” said Colin.

As Mary nodded slowly, she heard the faint sound of laughter and saw the ghostly figures of her mother and aunt, and Colin and herself when they were both little, skipping between the statues, holding each other’s hands in a chain. The adults’ eyes shone with love as they looked down at their children. Then they danced on toward the temple and dissolved into light.

Mary couldn’t stop thinking about the letters for the rest of the day. Not just the passages about her, but the passages about her uncle too. Her aunt made it sound like he had loved Colin very much. So why did Uncle never visit Colin now? And why had he forced Colin to take medicine and let him believe he had a hump? Was Colin’s illness really only a result of his father projecting his own fears onto him, just as Aunt Grace had worried he would?

She was settling Colin back in his room later that day, when Martha came hurrying in. “Miss! It’s Mrs. Medlock. She’s looking for you. She mustn’t find you here!”

Mary raced away. She ran down the corridors and emerged on the main staircase to see her uncle come in through the front door. Mary was about to disappear to her room when Mrs. Medlock came out from the ballroom. “There you are, girl. I’ve been searching high and low.”

“I was outside,” said Mary, glad she was still wearing her outdoor clothes as proof.

Mrs. Medlock smiled, reminding Mary of a cat that had just seen a bowl of cream. She looked extremely satisfied with herself. Mary felt a shiver of foreboding run down her spine.

“Well, we’ve had quite the surprise today,” Mrs. Medlock said. “We’ve just had word from Miss Clawson’s Seminary for Young Ladies.” Her smile grew even broader. “And they’re ready to take you.”

“To take me?” echoed Mary, her heart filling with fear.