Hellen

I had only spoken one word to Delilah in an attempt to explain my plan before she had answered with an abrupt “I know.” 

She had seemed irritated at me, which I understood because of the James situation, but I had gone to the bakery in an attempt to reason with her and to see if she knew how I could safely get to Rhode Island.  

I didn’t get that far, as you may have guessed. I had been forced to dig through the deep snow once again and get back to the mansion. 

Now, it had been three days since Charles and I had gotten home and the snow had finally melted just enough for us to travel through. It was only about two feet deep now, which still would be difficult to move through, but alas, it was much easier than moving through snow that’s almost as high as we are tall.

Charles and I agreed that we would leave as soon as night fell, which wasn’t very far away since night falls at around six o’clock nowadays, and it was already four. 

For the next two hours, all I did was lie on my bed, thinking about how I could explain to Charlotte and Edmund what mistake we’d been making—I assumed that Charlotte had found Edmund by now; it had been almost an entire week since she’d left. 

I eventually just decided to read Shakespeare’s Henry VII until Charles came in to alert me about the time. I read each line repeatedly in an attempt to understand the plot of the play. At some point, I got so bored I just fell asleep. 

I dreamt that I was back in London, in my old bed, where I would be in a state of light sleep while my parents argued about random things in the background, like whether they should be scared of losing the war or what the maid should make for supper that evening.

“Hellen…” said a distant voice. 

“Go away Sarah, I need more sleep.” 

“Sarah?! Why the heck do you think I’m Sarah? Do I sound like a nineteen-year-old girl to you?” 

I laughed and sat up. “Yes, Charles?” 

“It’s six. We’ve got to go.” He sounded urgent. 

I took a moment to register what he was talking about. When I did, I leaped up and ran to the window, which I fumbled with until I just gave up on trying to open it properly and decided that it would be a good idea to grab a large, heavy, leather-bound book from a shelf and threw it at the window, which as I’d hoped, broke it. I looked happily toward Charles, who was looking at me like I was a maniac.

“Y—you—" he said, now staring longingly out the window. “you threw the Grimm brothers’ greatest stories!” 

“Yes, brother; I did. I’ll throw another if you don’t help me break this window enough for the both of us to fit through there.” 

“We’re jumping out the window?!” 

“Of course we are, why else would I wreck the Turners’ property?” 

“Because you need to go to an asylum?” He offered, but he seemed nervous about saying it. 

I punched the remaining glass out of the window’s frame and carefully leaned out the window, looking down to see the length of the drop. 

It was a pretty long drop, so I did that classic thing where people tied up their sheets to make a rope and lowered myself down through my window that way.

“Charles, come on!” I called up to my bedroom window, where Charles was staring nervously down at me. 

Carefully, he gripped the rope-like thing that I had made and began to climb down to the ground. He was only about halfway when one of the knots came loose and Charles free-fell straight toward the earth.