When Emmeline gets the letter saying she's in, she realises she's out of practice being happy.

The feeling is so very big, but not in the uncomfortable way of grief. Grief is a black hole and happiness is - a supernova. It expands outwards, filling her to every edge, then pushing on out and lightening the sky. Everything she touches is precious, important. She wants to thank each surface for keeping her up. Mostly she laughs, half in disbelief, and hugs her knees to her chest. She's in her bedroom, the window open to let in the cool, real, gentle air. Its breath - the earth's - on her face is a celebration. She feels it. She's aware of her body on the floor, the slight discomfort in her wrist from holding the envelope so tightly. Her smile is unstoppable.

Probably she should've waited until she was with her grandmother to open the letter, but now that she has it in her hands, the 'We would like to accept,' beaming at her from the paper, its tiny, neat font so unassuming - now she just wants to keep the moment for herself. For a little while, she thinks. Only a little while. Just until I believe it. Just until she's absorbed it, let the fleeting, impossible pride that flickers in her abdomen burn into her so she won't forget it. Good things are rare and delicate and she knows that if she moves she might disrupt it. She doesn't want to get into an argument with her parents about it - they'd be pleased, but they'd also be frustrated that she hadn't told them and would turn it into a personal slight, so she avoids going downstairs until they're both at work.

Her parents are nice people. Really, they are - there's just no understanding between them. She is a quiet, changeable thing with dreams of being a poet and living alone by the sea, and they are well-mannered, self-satisfied (though not in a way that speaks of arrogance, it's more just a kind of confidence that Emmeline cannot emulate) consistent individuals who have created the life they want and now live it, day after day. Their contentment intimidates and unnerves her.

On cue, at 7:50 am, as every morning, her mother calls a goodbye up the stairs and she takes a second to make her voice sound normal before doing the same. Usually, she'd stay in bed as long as (longer than) she can get away with, but her dad had dropped the post on her bed and she's been curled on her rug since. It's old, and she feels new.

Eyes closed, she breathes in the day. Not in a long time has she been so awake. Something stirs in her core and she stands, spins around and tugs her absurdly long scarf off of the hook on her door, then flies down the stairs. When she pulls the door open, sunlight floods in, too bright to be looked at. She forgets that the sun rises on this side of the sky. The quality of the air is golden and seeps into her as she runs down the garden path, begins the walk to her grandmother's house. It's half an hour usually, but time seems to be absent today, or at least she hardly notices its presence.

She turns onto the road and sees the shape of her grandmother in her front garden, sat on the swinging bench they'd put up in one of the flowerbeds. Nothing about the house or garden is usual or expected, but nothing is outrageous either. It's perfectly strange. More details come into focus the closer she gets, involuntarily running - now she sees the mug of tea, now the cat basking in the morning-warmed grass, now the note of recognition on her grandmother's face. Pip stands, dusts down her purple skirt and puts her hands to her face as her eyes catch on the letter in Emmeline's hand. Seeing her care about this for her makes Emmeline smile, set the one free that has been pushing at her, so grown with the waiting that it blooms and twists in the air and then she's being hugged like a precious thing.

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'You got in?'

'I got in.'

They both laugh, hold each other tighter. Pip cups her cheeks, kisses her forehead. She is overcome.

'Rightly so.' Her grandmother says, grins. 'I'm proud of you. Celebratory tea and biscuits?'

'If they're going spare.'

'Darling, you deserve much more than spares. I'll go and get your well-earned tea, back in a tick.'

She likes that phrase. Back in a tick. Of a clock, presumably. There's an old-fashioned, worn charm to it; a saying passed down through generations and eroded by each a little more.

Sitting on the swing in her grandmother's place, Emmeline closes her eyes. She does this a lot lately. It helps to focus her mind; by temporarily being unable to, she sees more clearly when her eyes are open. It's like a full stop in her mind - a brief pause, space to take a breath rather than let life run on past her, as it tends to do.

As she rests, melts into the light, a sadness claims her breath. Adelaide would be really happy about this. (Sadness is too slow a word- the feeling is sudden, unprompted, painful.) Her lungs ache, not from the running. She can imagine the delight they'd have shared, though the edges of the picture are hazy. This scares her, a lot. Knowing every detail of how she might've reacted isn't possible - Adelaide wasn't predictable in that way, but it still feels like her memory's failure; like she didn't pay enough attention when she wasn't how she is now. When she wasn't dead, underground, with the weight of the earth on top of her.

'Tea! Emmeline?'

She can't quite open her eyes to a world where Adelaide isn't. Otho comes to mind, the hollowed-out boy, and she feels selfish, ridiculously, like her grief takes away from the size of his. Her grandmother takes her hand, holds it tight, presses it to her heart so she can feel the pulse. It helps.

'Thank you.'

'Shh. Digestives. Adelaide?'

She nods.

'She'd be so proud of you. I didn't know her well, but I know that. Anyone with sense would be, really.'

Emmeline smiles, a small thing. 'I hope so.'

'You know so. Give her credit. And drink this, please. I may be a useless cook but I've got tea down to a fine art, and I'd like your validation.'

She drinks the tea; the seat swings in the breeze. It's bright for autumn, but it's not summer anymore and her skin raises in the mildness of it, adrenaline wearing off. The moment settles, as if finding a more comfortable way to exist, settles back down on its haunches. Something is restored. The uneasy equilibrium of bad and good.

The tea is hot on her tongue, made more so by the cinnamon. There's apple in it, sweet and warm, and it tastes altogether like winter, a flavour of the days that will come. Thinking of days that haven't happened yet makes her throat close up a little, maybe metaphorically, but then - so does thinking of the days that are already long gone. So Emmeline resolves to be here, instead, the only comfortable place. She leans her head on her grandmother's shoulder and watches a bird flit from one hedgerow to another. With each of Pip's breaths, her own feel a bit easier, more fluid. They become a synchronous creature, watching the garden, taking turns to blink and find solace in the presence of their oneness. It's a mirror of magnets, the strong kind - two come together, lined up perfectly so that their edges disappear. One old, one young. One happy, one sad. Two heartbeats, two hands, holding each other.