Read Chapter 7: WHAT NORA DID NOT BURN

For three days, Maeve did nothing about the letters.

She repaired a broken shelf. She argued with the electricity provider. She created a social-media page for Bellwether and posted a photograph of the shop cat that did not exist because a marketing article claimed animals increased engagement. When customers asked where the cat was, she said he was shy.

Julian did not come in.

She told herself she preferred it.

On the fourth day, a woman in her sixties entered and placed a paper bag on the counter.

“Nora ordered this from me before Christmas.”

Inside was a hand-bound ledger covered in dark green cloth.

The woman introduced herself as Siobhán Reilly, a bookbinder from Stoneybatter. “She said it was for the shop’s next twenty years.”

Maeve stared at the ledger.

“Nora knew she was ill?”

Siobhán’s face softened. “She knew enough.”

Maeve had known Nora had heart trouble. She had not known how serious it was. That omission felt like a final act of control.

“Did she say anything else?”

“That you’d complain the paper was too expensive.”

Maeve laughed despite the pressure behind her eyes.

After Siobhán left, she opened the ledger. The first pages were blank. Near the back, Nora had written lists: repairs, suppliers, names of customers who should be called if certain books arrived.

Then Maeve found a page headed THINGS MAEVE WILL PRETEND NOT TO NEED.

1. Proper accountant. 2. Lunch before four o’clock. 3. Help. 4. A reason not to run.

Maeve shut the book.

She was furious.

At six, Julian came through the door carrying a parcel.

“You vanished,” Maeve said.

“You asked me to?”

“I did not.”

“You looked like you wanted space.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”

The answer disarmed her.

He put the parcel down. “I brought back Nora’s research box. I’ve scanned what I need.”

“You’re finished?”

“With the box.”

“And the letters?”

“That depends on you.”

Maeve took out Thomas’s final letter to Nora.

“I keep thinking about one thing. If Nora meant to follow his instructions, why didn’t she burn them?”

“Maybe she forgot.”

“Nora remembered which customer owed her ninety pence in 1996.”

“Fair.”

“She also ordered a ledger for twenty years she knew she probably wouldn’t see.”

Julian looked at her.

Maeve opened Nora’s old desk drawers. “Help me.”

They searched until nearly nine. Receipts, pencils, stamps, expired gift vouchers, a packet of mints fossilised in paper. In the lowest drawer, under tax records, Maeve found an envelope addressed in Nora’s handwriting:

FOR MAEVE, IF SHE STARTS POKING AROUND WHERE SHE SHOULDN’T.

Julian laughed once.

“Your aunt knew you.”

Maeve opened it.

Inside was a single sheet.

Maeve,

If you found Tom’s letters, you will want an explanation. This will annoy you: there isn’t one that makes the choice easy.

Tom asked me to burn them if Evelyn never returned. He also spent half his life making decisions on Evelyn’s behalf while calling it respect. I decided I would not make one more.

I kept the letters because I knew Evelyn still lived. I did not send them because they were not mine to send. I told Evelyn, once, that Tom had left something in the shop for her. She said she was not ready to know what.

That was in 2014.

If she ever becomes ready, she knows where Bellwether is.

If I die first, the problem is yours. Consider it punishment for never answering your phone.

N.

Maeve sat in Nora’s chair.

Julian read over her shoulder only after she handed him the page.

“Evelyn knows,” Maeve said.

“Yes.”

“She knows there’s something here.”

“And chose not to come.”

“For at least a year.”

“Yes.”

Maeve’s certainty dissolved.

All her anger at Thomas had been built on the assumption that Evelyn had been denied a choice. But Nora had offered one. Evelyn had delayed.

“Then we really do stop.”

Julian nodded.

The disappointment surprised her.

She had thought solving the mystery would produce an answer large enough to rearrange her life. Instead it produced a boundary.

Julian folded Nora’s note along its existing crease.

“Stopping can also be an answer.”

Maeve looked at him. “That sounds like therapy again.”

“It’s unbearable, isn’t it?”

She smiled.

They put the letters back in the biscuit tin. Maeve did not return them to the wall. She placed them in Nora’s locked desk drawer.

Then Julian noticed the new green ledger.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

He raised the academic eyebrow.

Maeve sighed and showed him Nora’s list.

He read item four twice.

A reason not to run.

“Don’t,” Maeve warned.

“I said nothing.”

“You’re thinking at me.”

“I can leave if you prefer.”

The old answer rose automatically: yes.

Maeve looked at the rain on the window, the half-empty shelves, the chair across from hers.

“No,” she said.

It was a very small word.

Julian took off his coat.