Once Upon a Wardrobe(2)

Myths.

Tales that are as much a part of us as our bones.

But I, Margaret Louise Devonshire, called Megs by all who know me, honestly don’t care about that. My heart belongs to numbers and equations, my head to thoughts of solving the greatest mysteries of physics.

It is the first Friday in December, and I ride the train from the Oxford to Foregate station in Worcester, only a mile from my house along the London Road. I’ve been leaving university on the weekends more often than my fellow students at Somerville College, one of the only colleges at Oxford to have women students, but none of them have a little brother like George, and they seem more than happy to be free of their homes and towns and cities. I call them my fellow students and not my friends, because so far, that’s all they are. Maybe because I leave Oxford the minute there is a moment of free time while the others gather in pubs drinking pints, debating politics, playing draughts, and flirting with each other as if that is the easiest thing in the world.

I wouldn’t dare tell any of them the truth. I miss everything about my Worcester: the way it straddles the silver snake of the River Severn; the clangs of its Royal Worcester porcelain factory; Worcester Bridge arching over the river, its stone glimmering in the sun; the heath-covered hills; and Worcester Cathedral, sitting proudly in the middle of it all, its spires straight to heaven.

Not that I’m sad to be at university—I’m not! I have worked all my life to get here. All my remembered life, I’ve aimed my arrow straight at the bull’s-eye of Oxford. I’m seventeen, the first woman in my family to go to college, and I’m proud to have received a scholarship for my marks. It seems a bit unfair that I would get such a scholarship and residence rooms fully furnished, with a bedroom and a little sitting room, for something that comes so easily to me, something I love so much.

But of course not as much as I love George.

Home is our Devonshire house, a stone cottage surrounded by the hand-hewn fences of aged alder. Between the low wooden gate and the front door, a wild garden of rambling purple fumitory and thick moonwort fern rests hidden beneath snow. The window boxes Dad once made Mum for her birthday hang from the two side windows, sad and empty in the winter barrenness.

Last autumn, as the earth moved toward rest, Mum worked in the garden with a fervor I hadn’t seen in years, and I believe I know why: she can’t keep George alive, but she can keep the flowers and vegetables growing under her care.

Today when I arrive at the house, where I’d lived all my life until I departed for Oxford, the chimney smoke curls upward from a cap at the far-right end of the cottage. I walk carefully along the stone pathway that is covered with snow and glinting with swords of sunlight. I hesitate before placing my hand on the knob of our blue-painted front door.

No matter how I feel, I must appear cheerful for George.

I open the door, and a rush of heat flows toward me with a fireplace scent so reminiscent of my early childhood that my knees almost buckle.

But I can’t fold.

I must be strong.

I shut the front door, slip off my jacket and mittens, set them on the bench, and kick off my wellies. I move slowly through the house I know as well as anything in my life. I can walk through it quick as lightning with my eyes fast shut and never hit an edge of counter, a kitchen table, or Dad’s large leather chair. In a single minute and blindfolded, I could find my bedroom and crawl beneath its worn-thin sheets with a warm water bottle and be ten years old again.

I reach the stone-walled kitchen to find it empty. The kettle sits on the blue countertop next to an empty teacup. On the small dark wooden table, a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers is facedown, the spine of it cracked. Mum is halfway through a Lord Peter Wimsey story. I like thinking about how the author also went to Somerville, how her book connects us through my mum.

I take two rights to George’s bedroom. He has the room with the largest windows so he can see outside when the weakness of his heart keeps him from rising. At times he loses his breath so desperately that his lips turn a strange shade of blue. This window is his door to the world.

When I reach his room, I see that his bed holds only squashed pillows and rumpled covers.

My heartbeat thunders inside my ears. Has there been a rush to hospital and no one had time to tell me? It has happened before.

Mum’s voice brings her to the doorway. She hugs me as tight as a vise. “You’re home!”

“Where’s George?”

I point to his empty bed. Mum’s gaze leaves mine to scan the room. She startles, calls out his name. I do the same. He doesn’t answer. Together we rush through the small house, which takes no more time than it does to call his name thrice more.

Mum flings open the front door and pokes her head out. “I see only your footprints in the snow,” she says, and I hear relief in her words.

I rush back to George’s room and look under his bed. Then I notice the wardrobe door is slightly ajar.

“Mum, look!” I call out as I yank open the door. There’s George, his knees drawn up to his chest, his blue eyes looking straight at us.

“Megs!” He scurries out. I hug him as tightly as I can without fearing I will break the little bones in his chest and shoulders.

“Georgie Porgie.”

I lift him and he throws his arms around my neck. He carries the aroma of the rose sachets in the closet and I breathe it in. Slight and frail, he clings to me. And I to him. I place him gently in bed, and he holds to my neck until I laugh and kiss his cheek. I draw the covers to his chin while Mum watches with a look of pure relief.