The bedroom was small and a little drafty, tucked at the top of Francis’s aunt’s house with a slanted ceiling. She didn’t know why you liked it so much, perhaps the view out of the dormer window that looked out over a sweep of red gold trees helped. The scent of the lake still clung to your sleeves, cold water, pine needles, the ghost of woodsmoke from the fireplace downstairs. Outside, someone, probably Francis, was playing the piano badly, the notes drifting in soft and uneven like falling leaves. You were kneeling on the worn braided rug, holding out your latest find.

Camilla sat on your bed, legs tucked beneath her like some storybook governess. She was watching you with that unhurried, slightly dreamy expression she always wore when she wanted to disappear into someone else’s silence.

“What is that?” she asked softly, leaning forward as you held up the thing, an old brooch, probably nothing valuable, but lovely in its way, something a widow might’ve worn to a dance in 1910. “It looks like it remembers something,” she added, touching the edge with one fingertip. “Don’t you think?”

You nodded, placing it carefully in the wooden box where you kept your treasure fossilized shells, pressed leaves, yellowing scraps of lace you’d found in old trunks. She watched as you arranged them with reverence, and you could feel her gaze not on the objects but on your hands, the soft fumble of your fingers, the care with which you nested each piece.

“Bunny was looking for you,” she said after a moment, voice barely above a whisper. “He was saying something about showing you a rifle. I told him you were asleep.” A pause. “I wanted you to myself, a little while longer.”

She glanced away as if her own words were a surprise, smoothing a wrinkle in your blanket like it was suddenly very interesting.

She picked up one of your pressed leaves and turned it gently between her fingers. The house was alive around you, doors creaking, kettle whistling, boys laughing somewhere far away, it felt as though you’d been tucked into a quieter story entirely, one just for the two of you, hidden in the seams.