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October 14 - October 16, 2025
I love being tucked up in my bed with a book, but I always have the window open. Even in the winter.
It sounds like you’ve been alone for a long time.” “Oh, I’m used to that,” Mika said, her voice just a little too bright. “That’s the way it is.” “Not here, it’s not,”
the world isn’t as kind as we’d all like it to be.”
Niceness is all about what we do when other people are looking. Kindness, on the other hand, runs deep. Kindness is what happens when no one’s looking.”
She had never felt so welcomed and included, so much a part of something, and she couldn’t rid herself of a lifelong fear that it was too good to be true. That any minute now, like every person who had flashed in and out of her adolescence, they would decide she was too something or not enough of something else and snatch away their welcome.
“Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?” she said, abiding by that ancient and most sacred British law of only ever starting a conversation with a comment on the weather.
to top it off, Jamie, who was already worn out from far too little sleep, found that he was actually (stupidly, absurdly, senselessly) looking forward to staying awake because he could spend that time in the attic with a certain witch.
for the most part, the literary worlds she’d visited growing up featured ballrooms, governesses, pickpockets, men who went by their last names only, the London fog, and not a whole lot else.
Like the fairies of old, who were repelled by cold iron, she felt like she’d spent too much time in the crowded, brightly lit, fast-paced world normal people inhabited and she longed for a crackling fireplace, the click of knitting needles, and the lullaby of ocean waves.
“You came to get me,” Mika said. “No one’s ever done that. Thank you.”
crowds and enclosed spaces are a combination I don’t partake in if I can help it. I’d prefer to wait in the car. With a book. And snacks. Many snacks.”
“Mika has been so deeply hurt that she has taught herself to run before she can lay down roots, but the thing you have to remember, Jamie, is that when someone leaves, all you can do is leave a window open for them so that one day, if they choose, they can come back.”
“More than anything, I just want one place I can be myself. I just want a home.” “Home is worth finding,” he said quietly. “Even if it takes a while.”
To be loved and accepted exactly as we are? Isn’t that the thing we’re all searching for?”
People are usually like the sea, a constant, unerasable part of something bigger, but I’m more like a single wave that washes over the shore, ebbs away, and doesn’t leave a trace behind.”
They talked as they worked, or at least Mika did most of the talking (about plant lore, why Northanger Abbey was a valid contender for Austen’s second-best work, and how to brew the perfect cup of tea) while Jamie did most of the listening, which suited him just fine because in spite of the dwindling light and the fact that even his eyelashes had gone numb from the cold, he could have stood out here and listened to her all day.
they’re perfect
“I thought you didn’t want me,” she said, the end of the statement curling up like a question. He rolled his eyes. “I don’t think there’s been a single moment since the day you told me we’re all made up of stardust that I haven’t wanted you.”
“It’s not always enough to go looking for the place we belong,” Jamie said, his eyes on the house ahead. “Sometimes we need to make that place.”
It’s a leap of faith to love people and let yourself be loved. It’s closing your eyes, stepping off a ledge into nothing, and trusting that you’ll fly rather than fall.
But to allow herself to be loved? That was so much harder. That required bravery and trust and the vanquishing of the monsters that lived under the bed.
“Out of interest, how do you feel about me?” He rolled his eyes. “You know exactly how I feel about you.” “You have to say it!” Mika said indignantly. “You read books! You know Swoony Words must be said! Words like You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Or like My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and—”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile, the smile he only ever gave her, the one that crept slowly into his eyes and lit them up like the sun. Her heart kicked in her chest. She’d never seen him look at anyone the way he looked at her. Who needed words?
“If I loved you less,” he said quietly, the words no less true for the laugh that threaded through his voice, “I might be able to talk about it more.”
