Epiphany
Long past midnight, Kestrel stood in her chemise, swaying in her dark room, reliving the best parts of the ball and resisting sleep.
Outside her window, snow fell, creating a soft buffer, as if the world had bundled Pembrook Park in Bubble Wrap for safe travels.
She bundled her own self in a shawl left her room.
You belong in a setting once you’re comfortable there after hours, when the doors are closed and the people gone. When it’s just you and the space, and even in the dark, you can feel your way around. When you and the place breathe together.
In bare feet, Kestrel walked Pembrook Park.
She wanted to notice the texture of the rugs, the slickness of the marble tiles, to feel the stairs react to the pressure from her toes.
The air felt unusually sleepy, as if the ball had pulled all the energy out so that when the house at last went to sleep, it was a deep one.
Fairy-tale deep. And now it was the princess who was wide-awake.
Perhaps if she made it through the enchanted forest alive, she might get one wish granted.
Kestrel told herself stories. And let her bare feet lead her through memories.
There was the morning room, where she’d stood blindfolded and felt Hank’s face. The drawing room, where she had sat on the piano bench beside him. The ballroom, where they had danced like they belonged here.
She felt again how the fantasy between-space that was Austenland had been a pocket universe for Hank and Kestrel, an enchanted wood, a brief spell where they made sense together.
But daylight would bring an airplane ride back to reality.
Hank didn’t belong in her small Boise life, and she didn’t belong in his Wisconsin family.
A tightening in her belly warned that if they tried to make a third place together, he would eventually reject her to return home again.
And if he didn’t, then staying with her would destroy who Hank had always been.
If only this really were an Austen story, complete with a tidy and perfect ending.
Her bare feet led her toward the kitchen, where she had sat on the floor eating chocolate blackberry sheet cake.
The library, where she and Andrews had botched their caper.
Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s office, where she’d first learned that Charming was a genius.
So many memories, as if she’d lived in this house for a hundred years.
The hall clock chimed five, an hour so unfit for sleeplessness it felt like an ache. Kestrel forced her feet to return to her room, where she sat herself in the center of her bed. A single sob came out of nowhere and tore through her chest like a bullet.
“What was that for?” she whispered aloud. “I’m not sad.”
No, she wasn’t simply sad; she was absolutely ruined—shredded on the grater of Austen, unable to press herself back together and face normal life again.
She let her body fold forward, and she wept into a pillow.
Stepping into Austenland hadn’t tamed the fire in her, and loving Hank again hadn’t calmed her. She was raging more than ever.
Despite the turmoil, her body eventually fell asleep, a kind reprieve. Hours later, she got up to bathe. She dressed carefully one last time, choosing a dusk-blue wool dress, long sleeves past her wrists with decorative lacings at the shoulders. Her damp hair hung loose.
Kestrel was alone in the morning room drinking a third cup of tea when Gussie peeked around the doorjamb. Taking in Kestrel’s Regency garb, she looked relieved and fully entered, adjusting the puffed sleeves of her red-and-green striped dress.
“Happy Epiphany,” said Gussie.
“What is Epiphany anyway?” Kestrel asked, pouring her a cup of tea.
“For Christians, Epiphany celebrates when the Magi visited the baby Jesus.”
“Shout-out to baby Jesus,” Kestrel said, lifting her teacup.
“But an epiphany is also a moment of sudden revelation or insight,” said Gussie. “Perhaps the most famous Austenian epiphany is when Emma realizes she is in love.”
“Spoiler, it wasn’t with the gardener,” said Kestrel.
Gussie was looking at her thoughtfully. “In Persuasion, Anne takes some bad advice and breaks up with Wentworth, the one man with whom she might be happy. He fears she was weak minded and her love shallow, not knowing that for years she regrets it and still yearns for him. I can’t help thinking that Persuasion is your story. ”
“As you said, I’m no Anne Elliot.”
“But perhaps Mr. Kern is Anne, and you’re Captain Wentworth.”
“Shout-out to Captain Kestrel.” She raised her teacup again, attempting to lighten the intensity, but Gussie didn’t blink.
“So, will you take your Anne back?” she asked.
Kestrel sighed and looked at the ceiling. She’d never noticed before that it was trimmed with patterns of fleurs-de-lis. There was still more beauty to discover in this house.
“I want to so much,” she said. “But I can’t go back to where he is, and I’m nowhere, and there’s no island for us in the middle.”
“Austen’s stories always have happy endings,” Gussie said comfortingly.
“Except Sanditon. Who knows how that one might have turned out if Austen hadn’t died. Maybe she was about to enter her tragedy era.”
“That’s dark,” said Gussie, lifting her tea to take a sip.
Kestrel whispered, “Or her mermaid-erotica era,” and Gussie coughed, spitting out her tea. Most of it splattered in Kestrel’s face. She wiped it off and said, “And now we are even.”
Mrs. Wattlesbrook entered and with a mournful expression said, “Endings.”
Kestrel raised her teacup. “Shout-out to endings.”
“I sincerely hope your stay was ideal,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook as she used her handkerchief to wipe the rest of Gussie’s spit take off the table.
“Before the horseless carriage arrives in two hours, I will conduct a closing interview with each of you. But first, we will invoke the good luck of the new year by burning the kissing boughs. Nothing is more important at Christmas than tradition.”
“And family,” said Gussie.
“And pie,” said Kestrel. “I mean, pudding.”
Gussie and Kestrel fetched their boughs. Juliette followed behind Kestrel to gather the detritus her monstrosity threw off in its rampage down the stairs. In the drawing room, they threw it all onto the orange embers of the Yule log.
“I’m here, I’m here!” said Charming, running into the room with a handful of twigs. “I made a kissing bough too, and blimey, but it saw a lot of action last night.”
She gave Kestrel a huge wink as she tossed them in, and the group all watched the fire take hold.
“The burning of the Christmas boughs is symbolic,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook.
“Trashing yesterday’s poops and turning them into fertilizer,” said Charming.
“You mean, out with the old, in with the new,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook corrected.
“That’s exactly what I said.”
Kestrel watched the orange flames run eagerly up the dry limbs, and unexpectedly her old nemesis panic returned.
The room seemed to shrink, and she cast a glance over her shoulder, making sure the walls hadn’t rushed in to press against her back.
She excused herself before anyone could notice her distress and hid in the library.
Her breath was tight. The edges of her vision narrowed till she could only see a pinprick.
She tried to remind herself that there was no end to the air around her. No ending.
As the worst of it passed through her like a charging bull, a tiny star of a question broke through: What if this feeling isn’t just an echo of old trauma?
What if it’s trying to tell me something?
Curious, she sat and listened—not to her thoughts, those loops of chatter full of warning and fear, but to her body. What did her body want?
She noticed again that tight walnut of tension in the center of her chest. It felt looser than it had, free to shift around, as if all her fearless, open-hearted loving in Austenland had helped give it some breathing room.
And now, instead of flinching away from it or shoving it down deeper, she felt a desire to greet it.
“Good morning,” she whispered aloud, and though the kindness of her attention seemed right, she also felt like “a complete knob” as Mr. Houlihan would say.
So she took the advice she’d given him and tried to relax into it.
With more intention than before, she put her hand on the spot and said, “Hi there, you weird little hard thing. Um, so what’s going on with you? What do you want—?”
She felt at once a warming of the spot, a thin snap like an actual walnut cracking open and then suddenly a branching out in every direction, as if it had burst into a full-grown tree.
The warm feeling went down, deep down, sprouting roots, and also expanded upward and out, stretching and taking up space.
“Oh,” she said aloud to the library, “I think I’ve gone and had myself an epiphany.” She fancied that the books paused their silent mutterings to listen as she added, “I want to plant myself here.”
Of course she did. The desire was so obvious, and yet she’d never dared honestly entertain it. Still, it was so perfect, so right, so Christmas-miraculous, she couldn’t help letting a note of pure joy sing out of her mouth.
But Gussie had failed to mention that epiphanies have consequences. A wash of sadness was already pouring down Kestrel’s limbs before she could fully realize what she’d have to give up in order to stay.
How was it possible that choosing her own heart also meant letting Hank go? Anika had mocked her for believing he might belong here. Right now, he was on his way home. Even with the icepick-sharp clarity that staying was the right choice, how could she bear it?
Since last night, a stone of grief had been forming in her middle, as if her body were already mourning his loss. Even now, as she turned her notice inward, the stone gained more density, slowly transforming into a boulder. It felt like the kind of grief too heavy to ever heal.