Just before daylight breaks, someone from the search party that Daddy pulled together finds Rosin. She is sitting at the base of a tree at the edge of the forest. She is covered in mud and scratches lace every bit of exposed skin. Her nightgown is in shreds and stained red and brown. She keeps one hand closed tightly. She says it's hard to walk and her ankle is puffed up. The rest of the search party quickly descends on her location. Daddy scoops her up on sight, scolding her harshly as he squeezes her tight.

"I wasn't going to freeze," she answers only one of his many objections to her running off. "The glass Lady stayed with me all night. She left, right before they found me." She points to the ground a little ways away. A clear swath of small vegetation has burnt to ash, with burnt-black footprints leading toward and away from that bald spot of earth.

"She's very sorry, Daddy. She says she will bring payment for the house damage soon, and that she left quickly so that she wouldn't cause any more. You don't have to worry, she won't be using our cellar again. She wanted me to thank you and Mommy for letting her stay so long." She pauses a moment, then adds, "I'm sorry, too. I was angry. I think I've been angry a long time, it just burst all at once last night."

Daddy has nothing to say about this. He cradles her close, and even though she's much too big for it, he carries her off like he used to. She puts her closed hand into his pocket and releases something. "Keep these safe for me?" she murmurs, then lays her head on his shoulder and falls asleep.

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She wakes when Mommy takes her from Daddy and pulls off the tattered nightdress. Mommy's eyes are red but she isn't asking ten thousand questions, so Rosin guesses Daddy has told her what he knows. Mommy brings Rosin to the "Family-soup pot," a large wooden tub in the kitchen. Rosin is scrubbed in its lukewarm, sudsy water with a soft cloth. The soap stings Rosin's cuts, but she bites her lip and stays quiet.

After Rosin dries off and changes into a clean dress, Mommy wraps her ankle tight in strips of cloth and helps her over to the kitchen table. She wraps a warm blanket around Rosin, chair and all. She slices an apple, several wedges of tangy yellow cheese, and some pungent dry sausage onto a plate, setting that in front of Rosin, who reaches out of her cocoon and grabs slices of apple and cheese, wolfing them down together. She barely slows enough to chew the sausage.

Every few moments, she is sure she sees something or someone at the doorway. A couple of times she's sure she catches a fraction of a face peering in, but when she looks straight at the door, no one is there.

Exhaustion seeps back in. Rosin has barely slept and everything about last night was strange and momentous. Even so, she has to give Bow a little something to hold onto. She owes it to her.

Rosin raises her voice louder than is necessary. "Mommy, I know I said it to Daddy, but I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have said things like that and run off."

Mommy hesitates, her eyes flicking to the empty kitchen doorway. "Thank you, Rosin, but I'm not the one you really need to apologize to."

"I know. But that's going to take a lot longer if I'm going to do it right, and I'm really tired right now."

Mommy nods, a small smile at the corner of her lips. "I see. Well, I'll help you get to bed. Rosin? Is it true that… Remara won't be staying with us anymore?"

Rosin's chest twinges. "Yes, Mommy."

There's a half-choked sound from the hallway. Both of them keep their eyes off the doorway this time.

"Well. I hope you tell me more about your conversation with her when you're rested. I'm very curious."

"I will."

"Then let's get you to bed."

She can't give Bow more than that right now. She's tired, so bone-achingly tired, and there's something important she has to do before she can face her sister again.

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When she wakes, there is a doctor bent over her leg, tending her foot. He tells her not to walk on it for several days and to ask for help with everything she needs to do. There are several light bandage wrappings on her arms and legs. He sets a carefully carved Y-shaped crutch against her bed and repeats his warnings. As soon as he leaves, Rosin closes her eyes again.

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The next day, Rosin asks for paper and pen and something hard and flat. Assembling a makeshift writing surface, she painstakingly pens words she has come to despise. The words of The Princess and the Bard are seared into her brain. At this point, she believes she will die with the correct inflection of every syllable in mind. However, her copy of the book was last seen in the cellar nook and according to Remara's account last night, that whole area burned up. She needs somewhere to start her apology to Bow, so she writes the story down.

As the afternoon rolls by, Mommy comes in for a little bit. She brings in a metal statue that was left in front of the house. It is a woman, sculpted to scale, about the size of Mommy's arm from fingertip to elbow. The woman is set on a circular base, standing on a single tiptoe, the other leg curled back and both arms flung up to the sky as if to embrace the sun or the moon. The dress she wears is so fluid-looking that Rosin has to touch it to assure herself it really is metal, and it is set around the neckline and waist and hem with chips of colored stone. The words "not alive, just a gift" are engraved on the underside of the base. Mommy says she will have to discuss it with Daddy, but she thinks it is so beautiful and the repairs won't be too costly, so they will likely keep the statue. Rosin nods and doesn't say very much.

Rosin keeps working on the story, writing each word as cleanly as she can. It is early evening by the time she puts the finishing touch on it. Pulling a ribbon free from her favorite rag doll, she uses it to tie the pages together. That night, as she waits for sleep, she tries to picture how she's going to start the conversation she will have with Bow.

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The following day, Rosin places the ribbon-laced bundle of papers into a small sling Mommy fashioned to help Rosin carry small objects. She pulls herself up out of bed and slides the crutch under one arm, drawing the sling over her neck and shoulder on the other side of her body. She hobbles around the house, looking for Bow. She makes one circuit of the house by herself before she gives up and follows the sound of a violin to where Daddy practices in the music room.

"Daddy? Have you seen Bow?"

Daddy hesitates, the strings falling silent, then says, "Bow has been down in the cellar a lot. We try and bring her back upstairs whenever we can, but she runs back down when we're not looking. I keep the cellar lit all the time, so she isn't sitting in the dark. I can tell her you want to see her. Maybe that will get her to come up."

Of course Bow would still be in the nook, scorched ruins or not. Rosin shakes her head. "I should go down there."

"You'll never make it with that crutch, let me–"

"I can scoot down. I'll be very careful, I promise. I'll shout if I need help. Please. I need to say some things to Bow and that was our place."

Daddy studies Rosin. "I think you're right. And I think she's been trying to keep a message ready for you down there."

Rosin lifts an eyebrow.

Daddy shakes his head. "You should see for yourself. Just know that we have tried to stop her, and we leave plenty of blankets and clothes nearby."

Blankets and clothes? Rosin is confused, but she nods. "Thank you. Can I have the marbles I gave you?" Daddy's face is blank, and for a moment Rosin's stomach drops. "The ones I put in your pocket when you found me," she clarifies. His eyes light up and he turns to the fireplace mantle, grabbing two glass marbles and dropping them into her sling.

She thanks him and hobbles toward the cellar door. Once there, she sits at the top and calls down the stairs, "I'm coming down." She slides the crutch ahead of her, listening to it clatter all the way to the bottom where it thunks on the ground, then scoots down one step at a time.

As promised, the cellar is already lit. At the bottom of the stairs, Rosin pulls herself up on her good foot and tucks the crutch under one arm, making her way along the familiar route. Halfway across the cellar, she freezes, her heart creaking painfully at what she sees.

The crates are gone and so are the toys. The whole corner is blackened and there's a scorch trail up and around the wall back to the floor in another spot. Bow sits at the center of the blast mark, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms folded across the knees, and her face hidden in her arms. She is naked except for a hat and a coat. The fire must have claimed the first hat-and-coat set, because this is a new hat and a different one of Rosin's coats–probably pilfered while Rosin slept.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

For a moment, it's so ludicrous that Bow is wearing a hat at all that Rosin barely registers the rest of the details. As they trickle in, Rosin's eyes fill with tears. Grimly, she crutches the rest of the distance. There are no crates, but someone dragged two new cushions downstairs and laid them nearby, so Rosin carefully seats herself on one of them. As Daddy said, there are blankets and a small pile of Bow's clothes nearby. Rosin wonders how often they have tried to keep Bow dressed in the last few days.

Bow doesn't move. Not a twitch.

Rosin breaks the silence. "Remara told me. She said you came down here and lit the candle."

A tiny intake of breath.

"I wish I'd seen it. You shouldn't have done it without me here, but… I didn't even think you could light a candle at all. She said you did, and that I would have been proud of you because you were so careful. She said you only dropped it because the lights startled you."

Bow shivers. Rosin snags a blanket with one hand and leans forward, draping it around Bow. Immediately, Bow shrugs it off, allowing it to pool around her, and resumes her fetal posture.

Rosin sighs. "Bow… you don't have to replace the glass Lady. I'm… I said things I shouldn't have said. I'm really sorry. I was so angry. I still am, but… maybe we can talk about things like that? Or try? I never even tried before. At least, I didn't try talking to you about it. And I think you've been trying to talk to me for a long time." She pulls the bundle of papers, still crisp and new-smelling, from her sling and lays them at Bow's feet. "I thought this could start my apology off right. Remara said everything went up in flames before she sucked them all into herself, so I thought your favorite book must be gone. I can't do the illustrations, but I have the story written down for you."

Bow peeks up over her arm, a sliver of her green eyes visible in the candlelight. She stares at the bundle by her feet but doesn't move to take it.

"I'm sorry," Rosin says softly. "You don't have to forgive me right away, but think about it. In the meantime, I have a message for you from Remara."

Bow lifts her head straight up and locks eyes with Rosin so intently that Rosin flinches.

"She, um… she found me out in the dark when I was very lost. She wanted me to tell you that she's sorry. She said you dropped the candle and everything caught fire around her, and she saw you looking surprised and shocked like you weren't going to run. So she pulled all the flame into herself. That made her very hot, too hot to touch, but it also let her move. She said that when she moved, you started walking toward her. She doesn't want you to think she ran away because she hates you." And here, Rosin points at the strange scorched trail that moves up the wall and curves around to a different spot on the floor, "She ran away because if you touched her when she was that hot, it would have hurt you very badly. So she ran all the way out of the house and far off so she couldn't hurt you. She asked me to say that she loves you very much and she really enjoyed wearing your hat."

Now Bow is crying. Her crying is unabashed air-gulping interspersed with sad noises. There's no hint of trying to hide it or suppress it, her sadness is loud and messy and open. It makes Rosin uncomfortable, but she bites her lip against the urge to make her be quiet.

Gingerly, Rosin scoots closer and touches just the tips of Bow's toes. "It's okay. She thinks you're wonderful and she was happy whenever either of us came down to visit, and even happier when we were both down here getting along. She wishes she could stay and watch us get to know each other better, but she has to go." Rosin leans forward. "She talked to me about the music, Bow."

Bow's mouth moves, goldfish-like, her eyes and nose both running at once.

"She said the music that made her has never stopped calling her out into the world, asking her to see everything her feet can take her to see and meet everyone she can. It's just that she got very tired and hurt and broken from doing that, and so she hid herself away in the dark and hoped the music would stop asking anything from her. But it never did. She rested a long time here, and now she knows that it's time to follow the music again. And, Bow, you were an important part of that decision. Remara got very good at ignoring the music, but you could hear it too and you kept asking her about it. You made it impossible to ignore the music."

Bow gives a guttural cry of grief and puts her face in her hands.

Immediately Rosin pulls Bow's arms down. "No, Bow, that's not a bad thing. I'll miss Remara and you'll miss Remara, but she needed to be reminded. The music… she says it's the most wonderful thing. She's never found anything like it in all her travels and it's right for her to follow it. She just got overwhelmed and discouraged, and you helped her come back to listening. You did that, Bow. You helped the glass Lady." Rosin gives a little smile. "And then she helped me, because I told her how I said something terrible to you, and she told me that whatever I do next, it shouldn't be hiding in the cellar for forty years even if I feel like I want to."

And Bow laughs, a weepy, hiccupy laugh, but there it is. She rubs the heels of her hands into her eyes, grinding away the tears, and reaches for the blanket, wrapping it around herself. She bats the hat off her head with a grimace. Lastly, she pokes a hand out between the folds of the blanket, seizes the bundle of papers on the ground, and pulls it close to her body.

"There's one more thing. Remara dropped these." Rosin pulls out the marbles, two perfectly spherical, cloudless glass drops. She sets one down on the ground and waits for Bow to scoop it up. "To remember her by. I think they were part of her, but they don't glow the same way."

Bow gives another wavery laugh, reaching up to tug at her own curly hair and then pointing with that same hand to the marble she holds. Rosin laughs too, more than a little surprised that she understands the gesture. "Probably, yes."

Bow inspects the marble for several minutes, rolling it around the palm of her hand. Then she closes her fingers around it. Taking a few shaky breaths, she taps the sheaf of papers against her mouth and shakes her head several times.

Rosin hesitates, making a careful leap. "Can't talk right now?"

Bow nods hard.

"That's alright. I know this is all a lot. Maybe it's enough to think about for now. Maybe… want to help me make another nook? I can't…" she gestures at the crutch. "I can't carry much right now so I need help. Tomorrow?"

Bow nods again, double hard.

Rosin nods back. "Until tomorrow. Can, um. Can you pull Daddy down here? I think it's going to be harder getting upstairs."

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The stone cellar floor has been thoroughly scrubbed and the walls and ceiling have fresh coats of paint. New crates have been stacked up and secured to each other to form an even larger, stronger nook that encompasses a good fifth of the cellar. The gap to walk through is right up against the wall so that the five-high layer of crates offers maximum privacy. New dolls and toys have migrated in, and the books in the special sideways crate are joined by a ribbon-bound sheaf of papers.

There are two cushions for sitting on and plenty of blankets and pillows for sleepovers. There's a special third cushion shoved right up against the furthest corner that cradles a small clay bowl with two glass marbles in it. There's an overturned crate that migrates around the nook, serving as a table if they bring a snack down.

Bow sits on one side of the nook, making a ragdoll and a wooden pig dance to the sound of Rosin's violin practice. Rosin's foot has long since healed, and she stands, playing the violin with her eyes shut. She wonders if someday, she'll be able to hear the music Bow speaks of.

Some days are better and some days are harder, but good days or bad, they always come back to the nook to sort everything out.

Today is different, though. Rosin brings her practice piece to an end, then rests the tip of the bow on the ground. "Bow?"

Bow turns her rag doll to face Rosin without lifting her own eyes.

"What do you think about what Mommy said this morning? That it's your turn to be a big sister?"

Bow turns the doll away and resumes the dance of the toys, even though the music has stopped. Rosin sets the violin and bow against the wall and sits on her cushion, waiting.

It is a long time before Bow says, "Don't know. It's big. New. Why?"

Rosin hedges, "Why… did they make another sister? Why did I ask? Why–"

"Make another sister."

Rosin shrugs. "You have to ask them that."

Bow grunts, setting the rag doll on top of the wooden pig and riding her around. "How?"

Rosin catches herself before she answers the wrong question. Bow's mouth is still moving, still forming up her sentence a word at a time.

"How… be… big sister?"

"You're asking me?" Rosin groans. "I barely know. I don't think I can explain it."

Unexpectedly, Bow's face relaxes. "Good."

Rosin blinks. "Good?"

Bow nods. "I will watch you."

At that, Rosin drops her eyes to the ground. "Bow… I don't think that… you won't learn much that way, I'm not… not a good…"

There's a huff from Bow, and a few seconds later a rustle of papers. The ribbon-bound copy of The Princess and the Bard is thrust under Rosin's nose and waved around.

Gingerly, Rosin takes the story, staring at her own handwriting. It's a decent rebuttal.

"Wish… Remara is… still here. New baby… won't know."

At this, Rosin smiles. "We'll just have to tell that story ourselves. And maybe Remara will visit someday."

Bow nods. "New story. I make." She tugs at her rag doll, pulling out a long piece of yarn. "I do, too. Like you."

Rosin smiles. "I think the new baby will like that. It might be a long time before the baby can understand the story, but I bet they'll love hearing it even before they understand."

Bow nods faster, her hands a little shaky. There's a smile at the corners of her lips and her gaze is distant. "Lots. Lots of stories. For the baby."

Rosin looks at her for a moment. "Wait here." She leaves, gathers a few supplies from the main floor, and returns to the nook. Nudging the table-crate over in front of Bow with one foot, she sets down clean paper, pen, and ink. "You'll need a lot of practice. It's hard to write cleanly enough to read. You practice writing the story." She steps back and picks up the violin again. "Daddy's been showing me how to create new music. Maybe I can compose a new lullaby for the baby."

Bow tilts her head, glancing at Rosin from the corner of the eye. "This how?"

How to be sisters. Rosin gives a lopsided smile as she lifts her violin. "I don't know. Let's find out."