But a blush works its way into her full, ruddy cheeks, and I know that it means everything to sing her song, if just for a little while.

That’s the word that hangs in the air, unspoken. It joins shame, secrets, fear, vision, and epilepsy. So many things unsaid weight the distance between us. The more we try to close the gap, the more its heaviness tries to push us apart.

Its only now that I realize how I’ve been holding my breath, hoping for a chance, waiting for a miracle.

He’s waiting for me to tremble and agree to his terms. But something inside me has changed tonight. And I cannot go back.

The one thing I do know for certain is that I can no longer ignore whatever power is inside me.

And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I’m not sure how to hold on to, though I’m desperate to try.

A woman prepared to fly, even if she has to lose her legs to do it.

We understand each other, we share a secret.

We’re elsewhere in a land where we can be anything we choose.

Because you don’t notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light.

I suppose it’s any choice to know more, to see beyond what’s there.

There are no safe choices, Miss Temple. Only other choices. There are no safe choices.

What happens if your choice is misguided,

You must try to correct it

But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t?

Then you must find a way to live with it.

I changed the world; the world changed me.

Everything you do comes back to you. When you affect a situation, you are also affected.

I don’t remember my mother at all. Do you think that’s terrible?

No

I wonder if she remembers me…

I’ve always been so irritated when Pippa opens her mouth, I haven’t stopped to think she may babble on because she’s afraid she won’t be heard.

There’s no one around to stifle us. No one to tell us that what we think and feel is wrong. It isn’t that we do what we want. It’s that we’re allowed to want at all.

He might call me his jewel, might even get sour-faced Brigid to laugh at his tales, might hold me close. He might. He might. Might. Is there any opiate more powerful than that word?

Pain is underrated as a tool of motivation.

This rude old man with the fat face is going to be lovely Pippa’s husband? Pippa, whose every waking moment is consumed by thoughts of a pure, undying, romantic love, has been sold to the highest bidder, a man she does not know, does not care about. She stares at the Persian carpet as if it might open up and swallow her down whole, save her.

She doesn’t say it bitterly. That’s what hurts. She’s accepted her fate without fighting it.

I’m ashamed for my friends to see him this way.

And I’m ashamed of being ashamed.

My heart’s a stone, sinking fast.

No one asks how or what I am doing. They could not care less. We’re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they’d like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance.

A fissure forms in the vessel. I’m cracking open.

I can’t stand the sight of them huddled together against the truth, deaf and dumb to anything remotely real.

Every bit of her fire is gone, washed out to wherever the rain takes things.

They believed they could change what they were—damaged, unloved.

Feel the desperation meeting the silence with its unasked wish.

There’s got to be something better than this.

My voice rises to the unseen op of the cave, a bird taking flight.

They see her differently now, as somebody. And isn’t that what everyone wants? To be seen?

Pippa has never been lovelier than she is at this moment, with her head held high, her eyes shining in triumph. For once, she’s not flowing with the current but swimming against it.

Oh, God, the great and terrible beauty of it.

There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.

It is gone and so is Mary Dowd. She no longer exists. Tonight she went into the woods, and I fear she shall live in the woods of my soul for the rest of my days.

Why did I think I could win him over? Why did I think I could make him see me differently? Worse, what if the way he sees me is the way I really am—someone to be wary of, not loved? A sideshow abomination. A monster.

The truth is a blow.

I’m sorry, Gemma. But we can’t live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold in the dark with you.

The door of my room closes, taking the last of the light with it, and the cracks all fade into nothing.

Who cares about one girl’s lifelong happiness in the face of such important matters as maintaining appearances?

The great irony is that we told him the truth. And now we’ll be punished for it.

She needs to believe anything but the truth—that we are capable of all of it, all on our own.

I’ve heard it said that God is in the details. It’s the same with the truth. Leave out the details, the crucial heart, and you can damn someone with the bare bones of it.

I do not deserve her kindness.

It’s possible to pretend I’m someone other than who I am, and if I pretend long enough, I can believe it.

That is how fires start. With a spark. And I see the spark catching the wind.

This is how the fire starts.

This is how we burn.

Everything is slipping out of my control.

I had thought Felicity dangerous a moment ago, when she felt powerful. I was wrong. Wounded and powerless, she is more dangerous than I could imagine.

You have to know yourself, know what you want.

Blue as a promise. A hope. She came back for me. I can’t leave her to this.

I’m not really expecting an answer, and I don’t get one. She’s truly gone now. I am alone. And somehow, this is as it should be.

Even now, I don’t really want to know this. It would be so very easy to escape to the safety of those illusions and hold fast there. But I won’t. I want to try to make room for what is real, for the things I can touch and smell, taste and feel—arms around my shoulders, tears and anger, disappointment and love, the strange way I felt when Kartik smiled at me by his tent and my friends held my hands and said, yes, we’ll follow you…

What is most real is that I am Gemma Doyle. I am still here. And for a first time in a long time, I am very grateful for that.

This is a time for goodbyes. But I’ve had too many goodbyes of late, a lifetime of them to come, so I say nothing.

All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day.

You can never really know someone completely. That’s why it’s the most terrifying thing in the world, really—taking someone on faith, hoping they’ll take you on faith too. It’s such a precarious balance, It’s a wonder we do it at all. And yet..

There’s no going back.

We’re all damaged somehow.

In every end, there’s a beginning.

In a world beyond this one, that river goes on singing sweetly, enchanting us with what we want to hear, shaping what we need in order to keep us going. In those waters all disappointments are forgotten, our mistakes forgiven. Gazing into them, we see a strong father. A loving mother. Warm rooms where we are sheltered, adored, wanted. And the uncertainty of our futures is nothing more than the fog of breath on a windowpane.

The point is that I am on my way.

But forgiveness…I’ll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.

I run after her, not really giving chase. I’m running because I can, because I must.

Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.