It was a long winter, that year.
In spring, light had returned to Laon’s eyes: He was to be a missionary.
I hated his epiphany. Selfishly, I had thought myself abandoned. I spared not a heartbeat for those that languished in the grim empires without word of the Redeemer. All I knew was that he would leave behind the scenes and skies of our shared childhood and, in seeking adventure beyond my reach, he would sever himself from me. Festering full of fear and envy, I took up a position as a lady’s companion and later, a governess.
It wasn’t until I opened his first letter home, all smelling of sugar and sulphur, that I discovered that he been sent to Arcadia. His letters were infrequent at best and spoke little of his life here. I had assumed he thought such details would agitate me and reawaken that buried wanderlust.
But my brother had apparently been just as worryingly terse to the mission society. After the extent of his silence became evident to me, I began planning my own journey. In a flurry of letters, I somehow managed to convince the London Missionary Society that though it may be unorthodox for an unmarried woman to travel abroad, I should follow my brother. I had never thought myself particularly persuasive in writing, but I must have been superlatively so for them buy my passage on The Quiet.
And so, here I was: clutching the compass he had left behind, knot tightening within my heart, under the light of a pendulum sun.
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The Second Bell Page 29
