The Glass Sentence

Epilogue: To Each Her Own Age

1891, December 18: 12-Hour 40

When you lose a marble, a favorite book, or a key, where does it go? It does not go nowhere. It goes elsewhere. Some things (and people) go elsewhere and soon return. Others go elsewhere and appear to want to stay. In those cases, the only solution for the very determined is to find them: to go elsewhere and bring them back.

—From Guide to Lost, Missing, and Elsewhere, author unknown

IT WAS WINTER in Boston, and the school term was coming to an end. Sophia thought, as she watched the snow piling up on her walk home, that the trolleys might be stopped the next day if the snow continued to fall. If the trolleys were stopped they would cancel school, and if they canceled school she would have the whole day free.

She made her way down East Ending Street and turned to walk backward so that she could see her footsteps disappearing. The air was gray and faintly warmer, as it always was during a snowfall. She had a sudden urge to run as she neared 34 East Ending, and she skipped through the snow the rest of the way, her satchel banging against her side and her hair streaming away from her face. She bounded up the steps of the house and threw open the door. Placing her satchel on the floor, she sat down to unlace her boots.

“Close the door, my dear!” Mrs. Clay said, walking into the entryway and doing it for her.

“It’s not even cold out!” Sophia exclaimed, looking up.

“It’s cold enough for me.” She smiled and removed Sophia’s knitted hat, which was wet with snow, shook it out, and hung it on the coat rack. “Do you want any milk or coffee? I’m just making some.”

“I’ll have coffee, thanks,” Sophia replied, following her into the kitchen in her socks.

After Mrs. Clay had put the coffee to brew, she took two bowls from the cupboard. “Why don’t you lean out the window and get some snow from the spruce?”

Sophia seized the bowls with delight. “You want some, too?”

“No, dear, but I’m sure Theo does.”

Sophia opened the window, leaned out, and scooped snow from the spruce tree into first one bowl, then the other. Then Mrs. Clay poured maple syrup over the white snow in thick, even spirals. She tucked a spoon into each bowl. “Your uncle is downstairs with Miles. Arguing, from what I hear.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “About the election again?”

New Occident was on the verge of electing a new Prime Minister, and the candidates had been the subject of many a heated debate at 34 East Ending Street. The Wharton Amendment, which would have closed the borders for citizens at the end of August, had been soundly defeated. The travelers at East Ending would have more time to plan their expedition. Shadrack hoped the defeat of Wharton’s extreme agenda augured the success of a more moderate candidate, while Miles, ever pessimistic, observed that New Occident was becoming all too accustomed to the absence of foreigners and would slide further into intolerance.

“This time,” the housekeeper said, “over a letter from Veressa that a traveler from Veracruz brought.”

“Veressa! What does she say?”

“There’s a letter for you, as well,” Mrs. Clay said by way of an answer, reaching into the pocket of her apron.

Sophia had expected a letter from Dorothy, but the handwriting was entirely unfamiliar. “Strange,” she said, sipping the coffee as she tucked the letter into her own pocket. “Did Veressa send any more maps of the glacier?”

“I couldn’t say. The conversation was heated enough to drive me all the way upstairs. I only came down for a moment to make coffee.”

Sophia took her mug in one hand and her bowl in the other and walked carefully out of the kitchen. “Thank you, Mrs. Clay.”

“Be a dear—when you go down, tell Theo to come get his snow.”

Walking as fast as she could without spilling, Sophia passed through Shadrack’s study to the bookcase that led to the map room. As she descended she heard pieces of the heated argument taking place downstairs.

“I tell you,” Shadrack said, “snow is not the same there. It is qualitatively different. The water is different. The water is different because the soil is different. It just is.”

“And how am I supposed to believe you without ever having seen it?” Miles shouted back. “You didn’t bother to bring back a sample. Am I supposed to go on faith?”

“And how, I beg you to tell me, would I have brought back a sample of SNOW? I’ll remind you that it was July, and even the train rails were in danger of melting.”

“I think,” a much younger voice said with a light laugh, “this is one problem we won’t solve by talking it over in the cellar.”

Sophia reached the bottom of the stairs. “Did Veressa send any new maps?” she demanded. The map room, which Shadrack had put back in order upon their return, had been restored to its former glory. The shelves were loaded with books, the cabinets had been fitted with new glass, and maps were once again scattered on every surface. The only remaining sign of the destruction was the long scar across the leather surface of the table. Shadrack and Miles stood across from one another, leaning on it; Theo was in the armchair by the wall, his legs tossed over the side. His eyes widened at the sight of the bowl Sophia was holding. “Mrs. Clay made you some,” Sophia said, holding her bowl firmly. Theo jumped to his feet and raced up the stairs. “Hello, Miles.”

“Good to see you, Sophia.” The warmth of the house and the exertion of the argument had made his cheeks pink.

“Mrs. Clay says you got a letter from Veressa,” Sophia said to Shadrack.

“I did.” He turned away from the table and flung himself into an armchair. “And Miles refuses to believe any portion of it.”

“That’s not what I said,” Miles growled.

“Have they mapped more of the glacier?” Sophia asked again.

“For the most part,” Shadrack sighed, “she wrote with news of the new mapmaking academy. They enrolled nearly a hundred students at the start of the year.”

“A hundred!” Sophia repeated.

“They have the run of the palace. Best use it’s ever been put to, I imagine. They have not mapped more of the glacier, although they have made short expeditions—collecting expeditions. Martin continues to work on the theory that their manmade soil became too toxic for the Glacine Age to survive. He has tested the water of the glacier repeatedly and been unable to pinpoint the source of its toxicity, which is why Miles here rejects the theory out of hand. I pointed out,” Shadrack said, rising from his chair, “that just because Martin cannot prove how it is toxic does not mean it isn’t.”

Miles rolled his eyes. “For Fates’ sake, man, aren’t you willing to entertain the possibility that the soil of the Glacine Age was toxic but no longer is? That’s all I’m proposing. It’s merely one possibility among several.”

Sophia shook her head as Shadrack launched into his reply. Theo returned, eating contentedly from his bowl of snow, and she joined him as he dropped back into his armchair. “I guess they have to think about the academy now,” she said ruefully. “But Veressa promised she’d make more maps of the glacier.”

“Who sent you a letter?” Theo asked curiously, seeing the edge of the envelope in Sophia’s pocket.

“I don’t know.” She pulled it out and examined the unfamiliar writing. “I’ll let you know when I’ve read it. I’m going upstairs to watch the snow.”

Theo reached his scarred hand out quickly to Sophia’s. “How many inches?”

Sophia replied with a shy smile, pressing her fingers against his palm. “There’s at least four already. Maybe eight by tomorrow.”

“Everyone will be on the street. We should go outside.”

“Let’s—come get me.” She grinned. “I’ll lose track of time.”

Her friend winked at her. “No doubt.”

In her room, she put the bowl of watery snow and the half-filled cup of coffee on her desk and sat down. After she opened the drawer, retrieving the letter opener from its place beside Blanca’s silk scarf, she stopped to look out the window at the icicles hanging from the eaves. Her hand slipped into her pocket, and she closed her fingers around the spool of silver thread that still accompanied her everywhere: the gift from Mrs. Clay and the Fates that had led her across the ice in another Age.

The air beyond her window seemed almost to shimmer, and though she had not lit the lamps, her room was filled with gray light. She sighed contentedly. There was nothing more beautiful than the perfect quiet that came with a snowfall. She sat for a moment longer, listening to the silence encasing her, a small smile on her face.

Then she turned back to her desk. The letter was bulky and had no return address. Inside was a badly tattered envelope that had only her name on it and the word “Boston.” Someone from the post office had written “Please forward” along the side. Sophia cut open the second envelope and found within it yet another one. Yellowed with age, it bore her full name and address in a wide, ornate hand that made her heart skip a beat. The envelope was not sealed. She reached inside and drew out a single piece of paper that had clearly lain untouched for many years.

The letter was short:

March 15, 1881

Dearest Sophia,

Your mother and I have thought of you every moment of every day during this journey. Now, as we near what may be the end of it, the thought of you is foremost in our minds. This letter will take ages to reach you, and if we are fortunate, we will reach you before my written words ever do. But if this letter arrives and we do not, you should know that we are following the lost signs into Ausentinia. Do not think of pursuing us, dearest; Shadrack will know what to do. It is a road of great peril. We had no wish to travel into Ausentinia. It traveled to us.

All my love,

Your father, Bronson