Mechanica (30 page)

I couldn’t call myself cured, by any means, but it was a start.

Another start: two friends at my table, in a home of my own.

Caro was right. None of us could truly promise the others that we would always be friends. But always, I knew, was a long time—a time in which mothers could die and fathers be killed, housekeepers be sent away, Steps come and go. A whole life could change, and change again, in the smallest fraction of forever.

That the love between friends could create life,
I thought, remembering the Fey history texts I’d read as a child. I had a new life now: a life away from the Steps, a life of friendship and freedom.

Caro’s hair caught a shaft of sun coming from my display window, and it shone as golden as wheat. Fin laughed at some detail in her story that I’d missed.

I leaned in to listen better, and the sun warmed my face. Here at the table, laughing, drinking tea, I knew I had found my family.

B
ETSY
C
ORNWELL
is the author of
Tides,
a YA novel inspired by selkie mythology. She graduated from Smith College and was a columnist and editor at 
Teen Ink 
before receiving an MFA in creative writing at Notre Dame, where she also taught fiction writing as well as film and television studies. She is currently living and adventuring in Ireland. Visit her website at
www.betsycornwell.com
.