Page 54 of The Starling and the Hatter

I stood so fast that my chair toppled behind me. “This was your idea?” I threw at Kat, who opened her mouth to defend herself.

Elise spoke first. “Don’t blame her,” she insisted. “This is my decision. I make my own way and choose my own path, and I won’t go on being a burden to all of you—”

“Who said you were a burden?” I asked at the same time that Dorothy said, “You’re not!”

“I am!” Elise said with her hard stubbornness. “You might not see it that way, but I am. And I’m…so grateful.” The words were coated in sincerity, which made her decision even more confusing. “But I need to know that I can do what needs to be done without relying on—”

“This is about White, isn’t it?” I asked, wanting to get to the point. If she was going to leave, I wanted her to at least admit the truth of what she was going after.

She swallowed and had a hard time looking up at me. “Robert is there, yes, but that’s not—”

I turned away and her voice faded. I wanted to tell her that White was no good for her, that she would regret it. But I knew how stubborn she could be. If I pushed back, would she just dig in her heels more? Would she resent my interference?

“I’ll go to Stormbrook and Lorta with the others, and then I’ll come back,” she said as if this trip was nothing to worry about. “I’m not leaving forever. I just have to do this. I have to know that if someday I need to go out on my own, I have that ability.” The tone of her voice had finally turned truly confident, and she spoke with a finality that I knew was very real. I wouldn’t be changing her mind.

I could point out that leaving us for a couple of weeks didn’t prove anything. But I was afraid if I did that, then she would stay away longer just to prove she could. I took a deep breath. “You’re just going to walk?” Maybe if I pointed out her failure to think it through…

“I know how to walk. I’ve done it before.”

“And have you forgotten about the wild animals that live in the mountains?”

Elise scowled at me.

“Why not just stay with me—with us?” I said, trying hard to sound like I was only suggesting and not begging. “Travel with us, and next year, you can find Robert again.”

“It’s not just about Robert,” she insisted.

Yes, it was.

“So much could happen, Elise,” Dorothy finally spoke up. “We can rearrange our plans, can’t we, Maddox? You and Marshall can take her to Stormbrook. You can do the same route two years in a row.”

“Yes,” I answered immediately. Anything. If it meant she wouldn’t run off to Robert, endangering herself, then fine, we could do that.

Elise immediately shook her head. “No. Marshall has plans for the shop. They need to be here, doing what they already have planned. I’m not going to disrupt your lives and your business. That’s not what I want.”

“I’ll be worried sick,” Dorothy said, and it was clear that she was not exaggerating. Dorothy saw Elise as one of her own.

Elise had a hard time looking at Dorothy. “I was raised on the road, remember? I know how to do this.”

“Alone?” Dorothy challenged.

“Even alone, if necessary.”

Dorothy, Kat and I all started to protest, but Elise spoke over us. “But I won’t be alone. I’ve already arranged to go with the Pruetts. They leave on Saturday, so I’ll be going with them.”

That was a great comfort, a thousand times better than her traveling on her own, but I still hated that she was going. And Saturday was only two days away.

“It’s all arranged,” she said with a smile that I assume was supposed to be reassuring. “It will be fine.”

“But,” Didi spoke up with tears in her eyes, “I don’t want you to go. You said you were staying for two weeks.”

Elise gave Didi a hug and ended up spending the rest of the evening comforting and playing with the girls. I didn’t know if she did it to be kind or if she did it to avoid speaking with the rest of us. Either way, she went up to bed without ever letting me broach the subject again.

I stayed up late in the night, desperate to figure out how to fix this. I had to say something. I had to. I couldn’t let her go chasing after Robert without telling her at least some of what I felt. I churned over the words in my head, practicing them and imagining how she would respond. I couldn’t just say I was in love with her. It would be too much. Either it would scare her off or she wouldn’t believe me. No, after so many years of friendship—so many years of me idiotically thinking that silence was the best course of action—I couldn’t expect her to take that well, especially when she thought that Robert was who she wanted. I had to say just enough, but not too much.

Would she listen? Could anything I had to say make her stay?

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