53
Aurelia had fully intended to wake up when Oliver’s alarm went off in the morning, but it was nearly impossible to open her eyes, and she’d fallen straight back to sleep once he’d gotten out of bed.
She woke a little later when he came in to say goodbye before leaving for work, and, after a lazy few minutes in bed, she finally managed to get up to start the day.
She was unsurprised to see that Julia’s door was still closed. The girl’s unending capacity for sleep had ceased to amaze her. Aurelia made herself a cup of tea and sat on the armchair that looked out over the square, petting Fezz as she looked over the pages she’d been revising the day before.
After being stroppy for a few hours that morning, Julia had finally forgiven Aurelia for not waking her and was growing more and more excited as midnight neared.
That evening, Oliver joined in their excitement as she and Julia prepared to go down to meet the characters for their final visit.
Aurelia could see that his smiles were some of his best and brightest, and felt happy to know that their open line of communication about the shop’s magic meant they’d gotten over another bump in the road toward working it out—together.
He gave her a brief kiss goodnight at the top of the stairs as Julia skipped down to the shop. Aurelia checked to see that Julia was through the door before pulling him to her and giving him a proper kiss.
“Two more days,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Then I’m all yours again.”
“What about Sergeant Cuff?” Oliver asked with a raised eyebrow.
“He’s off the table after tonight.”
“And Darcy? Rochester?” he asked with another quirk of his brow.
“Well, they might come back to the shop, but they’re spoken for—just like me.”
She kissed him again and he squeezed her hand as she turned to take the stairs down to the shop.
When the characters appeared, Julia cornered Cuff almost immediately and brought him up to the window seat, her notebook in hand, to walk him through her theory about the characters.
Aurelia watched them as Cuff nodded slowly while Julia spoke, then smiled as she saw him give Julia a broad grin of satisfaction.
“She did it,” Aurelia marveled quietly.
“What did she do? And who is ‘she’?” Kitty asked.
“Oh, well… It looks like Julia’s figured out why you all came to visit her.”
“Has she?” Blanche asked, sidling over to them.
“From Cuff’s expression, I think it’s official.”
Mrs. Jamieson and Miss Clack took a few steps toward Aurelia, looking up to watch as Julia and Cuff came down the spiral staircase to join the small crowd gathered on the shop floor.
“What is it, then? Why have you dragged us out of our books to meet you?” Mrs. Jamieson demanded.
Julia looked uncertainly between Aurelia and Cuff. Aurelia struggled to think of what Julia might say by way of explanation, something other than, ‘Because your lives were small and I don’t want mine to be.’ But Cuff came to the rescue and spared both of them the trouble.
“Julia required the benefit of the perspective each one of you was uniquely able to provide her. Is that not so, Julia?”
“Exactly,” she said with a smile of relief. “There were things I needed to learn about your time to help me understand mine.”
“Oh. All that trouble for a little information?” Blanche asked, looking skeptical.
“Well, it was very helpful information,” Julia said quickly. “And even if I can’t rewrite your stories—and Aunt Aurelia won’t—Sergeant Cuff thought maybe I could give you some ideas to help you when you get back to your books.”
Aurelia shot a questioning look at Cuff, since the characters she’d met had always told her they couldn’t remember things they’d done or heard in the shop.
“They may not remember precisely what Julia suggests, but I believe they might carry the seed of it somewhere in their memory. Like Count Vronsky’s new ending,” Cuff suggested with a nod to Aurelia.
She gave a faint smile. She’d always thought Vronsky must have carried some sense that his story would continue when he’d returned to his original novel.
That had been the point of writing him a sequel, to give him hope that he’d have a better future, but they hadn’t been sure whether or how that might work once he was back in his original book.
Maybe Julia could give each of these characters the same thing, a kernel of hope—even if they couldn’t remember the shop or Julia, or even the exact contours of what she’d tell them—that they could bring back to their novels.
Julia had fun wandering amongst the characters, giving them ideas and suggestions for things they might want to do next in their lives.
Aurelia was happy to hear she wasn’t suggesting anything too out of the ordinary for the women given when their stories were set, but her ideas still imparted a little of her own time and freedom.
It reminded Aurelia of the character she’d written for Vronsky’s new story, Vivienne, and how Aurelia had snuck in some modern sensibility to her thinking and attitude.
Dawn found them all circled around the Recommended Reads table, saying their goodbyes.
Julia and Kitty were tearful and bordering on melodramatic, while the goodbyes with Mrs. Jamieson, Blanche, and Miss Clack were much more restrained.
Once again, Aurelia had the urge to hug Sergeant Cuff, but had to settle for thanking him for his help and promising to bring him back again soon.