I put my palms to Fetry’s in promise. “I’ll try.”
I sit on my bed trying to make sense of everything, but I can’t, and May first will soon be here. As a distraction, I tidy up my few possessions, arranging them neatly in my cupboard: the ivory elephant all the way from India, my mother’s diary, Damion’s red bandana, Simon’s false-bottom box. I should toss that out. I open the secret chamber, and it’s as empty as I feel inside. A place to keep all your secrets, he told me. It will take a box larger than this for my secrets. I leave it on Kin’s bed as a gift and resume my straightening. I stack my books in one corner. Gloves and handkerchiefs. Wilhelmina Wyatt’s slate, mute as its owner. What to do with that? Useless. And heavy. That thick wooden base weighing it down…Suddenly, I realize ho
