Star's Crossing

Epilogue 10: For One Forever

Thatcher House was as she'd left it last. 

Overgrown more than it was, perhaps, which only lent more surreality to the place. It looked from the road like a fairy tale, cobblestone, lampposts, and mystery—come in, won't you, and see what awaits?

Mare discovered three women. One, aged and glittering as ruby touched to luster. Meredith, who'd accompanied Mare on her initial travels, was greatly unchanged. She hobbled around as she did, cutting roses and reading a book a day. Under her watch were two young women who'd endured the war together in this far-away place, and had yet to separate.

"We're beginning to look unattached," said Lilith to Mare over tea one day during her stay. "If we don't settle soon, we'll both be labeled spinsters and left by society to rot."

"A lovely place to rot," Mare observed of Thatcher House, and Lilith laughed.

Alison, to her credit, had taken a job teaching at a one-room schoolhouse nearby. She walked the dewy forest road by morning, taught the children by day, and by afternoon walked the honey-sunned path back home, where Lilith awaited her.

Lilith worked occasionally as an editor for the local paper, with her sharp eye and instinct for killing darlings. From the outside, to the untrained eye, the pair might look pitiable. But Thatcher House was, indeed, home to at least one fairy tale—one which might get its happily ever after, if Mare had anything to say about it.

The four women spent the autumn week walking the beaches, sharing stories, and indulging in every tea, wine, and delicacy they could get their hands on. On the last night of her visit, Mare sat with Lilith and Alison in the sand, where they'd sportingly built a fire. The ocean wind was bitterly cold, but gathered beneath a blanket and with the flames at their feet, the three were warm.

"I know we were a world away," Lilith said. "But I am glad the war has ended. It's such dreaded business."

"It certainly has a way of showing one where her priorities are," said Alison, snuggling closer to Mare and Lilith. "Mare. You've been through it, haven't you? Tell me you're looking forward to the wedding."

Mare smiled up at the stars, pricked into a cold, immense black sky. "The wedding, not entirely. If I had my way, we'd do away with all the pomp and sail into the sunset. But I look forward to what follows. And on, and on."

The girls laughed. 

"You ought to! You aren't children of convention anymore," said Lilith. "And as to what follows—I think you will find yourself pleased." They laughed again.

"It's funny," Mare said after a time of quiet, nothing but the crackle of the fire and the hush of the waves. "When you're young, you always feel like you're running out of time. The older you get, the more it feels like you've got forever."

"I like that," said Alison dreamily. She lay back, and Mare and Lilith went with her, backs to the sand, a blanket of stars endless above. "We've got plenty to do to fill our forevers."

"I have many ideas," said Lilith.

"As do I," Mare said, smiling.

And they lay like that, between the fire and the sea and the stars, for one forever, together.