They woke before the alarm to a sky the color of paper. Hannah set the little brass bell by the door between them like a compass, and Emma looped the blue scarf once around her neck.
"Ready?" Hannah asked.
Emma nodded. "Ring, then go."
The bell's note was small and sure. They stepped into the clean chill of dawn.
Maple Hollow was mostly asleep—one truck down on Main, a porch light forgotten somewhere, the bakery already smelling like sugar. They walked the long blocks to the station without rushing, hands brushed, then held. At the platform, a handful of commuters stood with their coffee and their quiet. The timetable clicked once, as if clearing its throat.
Hannah touched Emma's wrist. "Your letter," she said, and pulled the small envelope from her pocket. Open when the train pulls away.
"And your book," Emma said, passing the wrapped rectangle back. "Whistle rules."
They stood forehead to forehead for a moment that felt outside of minutes.
"Texts from the platform," Emma said.
"Bell as soon as you turn the corner," Hannah promised.
The train announced itself far up the line—low, steady, inevitable. When it slid into the station, everything moved gently forward: a hiss of doors, a shuffle of bags, the soft choreography of early travel. Emma hugged Hannah with both arms, not memorizing, just being.
"I'll carry our quiet," Emma said.
"I'll keep the rest warm," Hannah answered.
Emma stepped into the car. Through the window, Hannah was smaller but no less vivid—scarf, smile, the untidy bun that meant she'd tried not to think too hard about hair. The doors sighed shut. The train rolled.
Hannah didn't move until the platform slid from under her. Then she opened the envelope with careful fingers.
If this hurts, breathe me in like cinnamon.
If it helps, ring the bell.
I'm not leaving us—I'm carrying us.
Keep the space on the wall.
Keep my seat warm.
I love you. I'll be back.
Her laugh broke on a breath at the cinnamon line. She folded the letter small and tucked it into her coat, over her pulse. Somewhere past the fence line, a dog barked; the day began.
Inside the train, Emma found a window and sent the first text.
Emma: On board. Proof of train. 🚉
Hannah: Proof of bell. 🔔 (Rang it after you turned the corner.)
Emma: Good. Keep it bossy.
Hannah: Always. Send me your first sky.
Emma lifted her phone. The horizon was a thin seam of peach over fields rinsed with frost. She snapped, sent. Then she unwrapped the book.
Not a novel. A small, clothbound sketchbook. On the first page, Hannah had pasted a paper star and written:
Draw what the day gives you.
Every few pages, a penciled prompt waited:
The first window that feels like home.
Someone's shoes, not yours.
Light where your name will hang.
A stranger's kindness.
Emma smiled without meaning to. She pressed her palm to the paper like it might warm.
The conductor called tickets. The train picked up its certain speed. Towns parceled themselves into water towers and steeples. Emma reached into her tote, found Mrs. Ferris's postcard already addressed to the gallery. On the back, in Hannah's neat hand from last night: For luck. Mail when it feels right. She slid it into the book, second page—close, so she wouldn't forget.
Her phone buzzed again.
Hannah: I put the blue tin on the top shelf. It sounds like letters when I move it. Comforting/illegal.
Emma: Keep committing tiny crimes. Report back at noon.
Hannah: Copy. Also: the espresso machine behaved. It fears me.
Emma laughed out loud. The man across the aisle glanced up, smiled in the way strangers do when they recognize someone happy.
Fields gave way to a river, gray and wide. As the bridge carried them over, Emma let the fear move through her and out the window, a tide that didn't need to be fought—only watched.
She wrote the first line in the sketchbook, under Hannah's star:
7:18, bridge—forward is a verb.
At the station in the next town, she spotted a red mailbox near the newsstand. She didn't mail the postcard yet. Not there. Not quite. She put it back in the book and thought of the wall waiting, the empty space under the kraft-paper sign, the date Hannah had penciled in like optimism.
Back in Maple Hollow, Hannah walked to the café the long way, passing the fountain just as the first spray caught sunlight. She slipped Emma's letter out and read the last line again. I'll be back. The words steadied her like a hand at her spine.
At the door, she set the bell on the counter, rang it once for the road, and flipped the sign to Open.
The morning took both of them up—steel and track for one, steam and cups for the other—and carried them forward in parallel, the way good things do when they have to.