Chapter 96: The Wildness of Wonder
The morning after the duet, Eva stood at the edge of the Langford gardens, wrapped in her cloud - pink raincoat even though the skies were clear. Her boots squelched slightly in the damp earth, and in her hands, she held a jar of honey that she insisted was magical because "it tasted like Ina's smile."
She wasn't sure what they were supposed to be doing — only that Seraphina had promised her an "expedition," and that word had lived in her chest all night like the thrum of a new melody. The kind that makes you lie very still because you don't want it to vanish.
The Langford gardens were waking. Bees trembled through the lavender, and the peach trees bore fruit that glowed like small suns. A swing hung from an old sycamore, swaying slightly without wind, as if remembering yesterday's laughter.
And then — there she was. Seraphina, in a linen blouse tucked into soft corduroy trousers, hair pinned half-up with a clasp shaped like a crescent moon.
"You're late," Eva announced, though she hadn't been waiting long. "I thought you'd vanished into your books and never returned."
Seraphina held up a small canvas satchel like a peace offering. "I brought supplies. And almond cookies."
Eva narrowed her eyes. "You may live."
They headed down the winding trail that cut through the Langford estate's wooded acres — part orchard, part wilderness, part forgotten fairytale. Birds flitted above them, their songs threading through leaves like notes looking for a chorus.
Eva walked with exaggerated importance, clutching the honey jar like it was a sacred relic. "Where are we going?"
Seraphina smiled sideways. "To find the place where all the unwritten music waits."
Eva gasped. "You mean the Nest of Songs?"
"That's exactly what I mean."
The "Nest of Songs" was a spot she'd made up, halfway between fantasy and memory. As a child, Seraphina had come here often — tucked beneath a weeping willow, beside a trickling stream that sang when the wind moved right. It had been her secret place. Her cathedral. Her chapel of solace.
And now she was leading Eva there, wondering if anything was sacred anymore once you shared it — but also knowing, deep down, that Eva would only make it more so.
"Tell me what it looks like," Eva demanded as they hiked.
"Well," Seraphina said, "it's not easy to find. It only appears if you've written at least three songs that made you cry."
"I've written seventeen," Eva declared proudly.
"Then you're ready."
The sun filtered through the canopy in dapples, making the whole forest look like it had been kissed by light. When they reached the clearing, Eva stopped short.
"Oh."
The willow bent low, its arms sweeping the earth like it was praying. The stream murmured beside it, and wildflowers — violet and amber and ghostly blue — crowded the edges.
Eva approached the tree like it might speak. She placed her honey jar on a stone near the roots and knelt beside it. "You were right. It sings."
*****
From a short distance away, Vivienne crouched low in the grass, her phone raised, camera rolling.
She didn't usually spy on them. Not exactly. But today something had pulled her from the kitchen window — the sound of Eva's voice tumbling out like sunlight, Seraphina's soft laughter threading through the air behind it.
She filmed them in silence as Eva knelt by the stream and dipped her fingers in, and Seraphina pulled a small notebook from her satchel and began to hum.
The lens caught everything: the intimacy of their gestures, the way Eva leaned close to watch Seraphina write, the moment Seraphina brushed a petal from Eva's cheek like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Vivienne swallowed hard.
"She's not just gifted," she murmured to herself. "She's tethered. Bound to that girl like a second heartbeat."
Behind her, Reginald's voice came low.
"She needs more than that."
Vivienne turned, not startled — he was always appearing like a shadow with too many thoughts.
"She needs discipline," he said. "Structure. A conservatory, maybe in P••••. Or V•••••. Somewhere that can shape her properly."
"She's five," Vivienne replied, narrowing her eyes. "Not an apprentice monk."
Reginald sighed. "She's soft, Vivienne. All this love, this poetry — what happens when the world isn't soft back?"
Vivienne watched as Eva pressed her forehead to Seraphina's arm.
"She doesn't need the world to be soft," she said. "She just needs it not to break her before she's ready."
By mid-afternoon, they'd created an entire song cycle. Eva named it Willowblood, and insisted it would be their magnum opus — "our magical opera of girlhood."
It had three acts. The first, Arrival, was a gentle violin lullaby about being born in the wrong season. The second, The Ache, involved a haunting piano motif and whispered lines about losing your voice to someone else's silence.
The third act, The Resurrection, was louder — Eva's favorite part. She demanded to sing it standing on the willow's gnarled root, one boot up like a ship captain.
"I am the girl of golden strings!" she cried into the canopy. "I am the violin that breaks the sky!"
Seraphina clapped softly from the grass. "Take your bow, maestro."
Eva did, then threw herself dramatically onto the moss beside her.
"I think I'll marry you," she declared, eyes closed.
Seraphina laughed. "Why's that?"
"Because you let me be loud. And you always clap, even when I'm weird."
Seraphina leaned closer. "Then I accept. On one condition."
Eva cracked open one eye. "Name it."
"Promise me that one day, when you're older and famous, you'll still play music with me on the floor in your pajamas."
Eva sat up, solemn. "Ina. That's not a promise. That's a sacred law."
They shook on it. Pinkies and all.
That evening, Evelyn stood at the kitchen window, watching as Eva bounded up the path toward the Ainsley house — boots muddy, face flushed, eyes shining like something lit her from within.
Her daughter was a constellation. Not because she was gifted, but because she felt in constellations. She loved in symphonies. She mourned in overtures.
Evelyn met her at the door with a warm towel and a fresh pair of socks.
"Maman," Eva whispered, crumpling into her arms, "I saw the Nest of Songs."
Evelyn smiled against her curls. "And did it sing to you?"
Eva nodded. "It sounded like her. But wilder."
She carried her daughter to the bath, her small limbs loose from joy, and thought:
Let the world say what it wants. Let them push and pull. This child was never meant to be hardened. She was meant to bloom.
*****
Later that night, Seraphina sat on her bedroom floor, sorting through the papers Eva had left behind — a scattering of staves and lyrics, half drawings, half spells.
One page caught her eye.
A sketch of them under the willow tree, with Eva's usual dramatic scrawl beneath:
The place where songs are born and girls stay true forever.
She stared at it for a long time, her throat tight.
Outside, the wind began to rise. It rattled the windows, brushed through the hedges, and whispered against the roof.
And for a moment, Seraphina thought she heard it —
That melody again. The one Eva had hummed the day they met.
The one that always sounded like home.
That night, Eva dreamed of wild things — moons with mouths, trees that grew violins, rivers that sang her lullabies in Seraphina's voice. She floated through the dream with her bow in hand, following sound instead of light.
And in the center of it all stood Seraphina, wearing a crown made of music notes and murmuring her name like a song she never wanted to stop playing.
When Eva woke, she wrote:
To be loved like a song is to never end.
And she believed it.
With everything she had.