The attic door had swollen in its frame. Calder planted one bare foot against the wall, gripped the brass handle with both hands, and pulled as if attempting to rescue a child from a burning carriage.
“Careful,” I said. “It is an old house.”
“I’m being careful.”
The door emitted a crack like a musket shot and flew open, sending him stumbling backwards into me. A century’s worth of dust descended from the rafters. He coughed. I sneezed. Somewhere inside the attic, something small scurried beneath a floorboard. Calder stared into the darkness.
“Was that a rat?”
“It was probably a mouse.”
“That was a very confident mouse.”
“It owns property.”
He looked at the sagging beams, the cobwebs thick enough to support maritime trade, and the stack of wooden trunks disappearing into shadow.
“I believe it.”
Calder had dressed for attic exploration with all the practicality of a man in worn jeans, bare feet, and absolutely no shirt, his black braided necklace resting against his chest. I had made an equally questionable choice in an emerald-green silk slip edged with lace, my pearls still at my throat as though childhood archaeology required formal jewellery. Between us, we looked less like responsible adults visiting an old family home and more like we had taken a wrong turn on the way to a scandalously underdressed book club.
This had been my childhood home in Kilkee, though it seemed smaller now. The narrow staircase no longer felt like a mountain. The attic ceiling that once stretched into mysterious darkness was low enough that Calder had to duck beneath every beam.
I watched him enter with one hand over his head.
“You are enjoying this,” he said.
“A little.”
“You could warn me where the beams are.”
“I could.”
He turned to give me a wounded look and struck another one. The sound was magnificent.
We found my old corner beneath the small window. The glass was cloudy, the wooden frame warped by decades of rain and Atlantic wind. I had once sat there during storms, wrapped in blankets, listening to my parents sing downstairs while I wrote solemn declarations about magic, loneliness, and the criminal unfairness of being sent to bed before adults.
Calder crouched beside an old sea chest.
“Is this it?”
“It might be.”
The hinges protested when he lifted the lid. Inside were folded jumpers, dried flowers, several schoolbooks, and a stuffed rabbit with one eye missing. Calder picked up the rabbit.
“This creature has witnessed something.”
“His name was Archbishop Fluffington.”
Calder slowly turned toward me. “You named your rabbit Archbishop Fluffington?”
“I was eight.”
“That does not make it less magnificent.”
Beneath the rabbit lay a small brown notebook tied with faded ribbon. My stomach fluttered.
“Oh,” I said.
Calder’s expression changed immediately. The teasing softened.
“Your journal?”
“One of them.”
He held it carefully, as though it might bruise.
“May I?”
I should have said no. Every instinct belonging to my adult dignity urged me to seize the journal, throw it into the sea, and deny that I had ever learned to write. Instead, I sat beside him on the old wool blanket.
“You may read it.”
Calder opened the cover. On the first page, in large uneven handwriting, I had written:
THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF SARA ELYSE KINSALE
Below that:
READING THIS WITHOUT PERMISSION WILL CAUSE A CURSE.
Calder glanced at me.
“You gave me permission.”
“Yes.”
“Good. I have work on Sunday.”
He turned the page. The first entry concerned a boy from school named Patrick O’Shea, who had apparently stolen half my biscuit and then denied it despite having crumbs on his jumper.
I had written:
PATRICK IS A LIAR AND POSSIBLY FRENCH.
Calder’s shoulders began to shake.
“I had limited experience with international relations.”
“Apparently.”
The next entry was a list entitled THINGS I WILL DO WHEN I AM QUEEN.
Number one was abolish boiled cabbage. Number two was require every household to own at least three candles. Number three was imprison Patrick O’Shea. Number four was give all children ponies, except Patrick O’Shea.
“Poor Patrick,” Calder said.
“He knew what he did.”
“Half a biscuit, Sara.”
“It was chocolate.”
“That changes everything.”
He continued reading.
My childhood self had documented arguments with the rain, negotiations with seagulls, and several failed attempts to train Archbishop Fluffington as a spy. Tne entry described how I had placed the rabbit near the kitchen door to gather information about my birthday presents.
HE DID NOT REPORT BACK. I SUSPECT TREASON.
Calder pressed the journal to his chest and laughed so hard that he nearly rolled into an open trunk.
“I trusted him,” I said.
“He had one eye.”
“That should have made him more observant.”
We reached a page covered in tiny stars. Calder read silently for a moment.
Some songs are really just spells in disguise.
His laughter faded into a smile.
“I know this one.”
“I wrote it while my parents were singing downstairs.”
“It sounds like you.”
“I was a dramatic child.”
“You were a poet.”
“I had just sentenced a classmate to prison over a biscuit.”
“Great artists contain multitudes.”
He turned another page and found a heading that caused his eyebrows to rise.
RULES FOR THE MAN I WILL LOVE FOREVER
“Oh dear,” I said.
Calder sat straighter.
“This feels relevant.”
“It is not legally binding.”
He began reading aloud.
“Rule one: He must like stories.”
I nodded. “Reasonable.”
“Rule two: He must know how to fight pirates.”
Calder grinned.
“For you, I would fight to my last breath.”
“You honour me.”
“Rule three: He must bring tea without being asked.”
“You have performed adequately.”
“Adequately?”
“Continue.”
He looked down.
“Rule four: He must believe in magic, even when it is inconvenient.”
His voice softened. For a second the attic became very quiet. Blue evening light entered through the little window, touching the edges of his face and catching in the silver of the dust.
Then he reached the final rule. He stared at it.
“What?”
Calder turned the journal toward me. In determined, childish letters, I had written:
HE MUST HAVE HAIR LIKE A PRINCE.
I looked at his perfectly bald head. He looked at me. From somewhere beneath the floorboards, the confident mouse scratched once, as if delivering a verdict.
“Well,” Calder said, closing the journal, “four out of five is respectable.”
I leaned over and kissed the top of his head.
“The rules were later amended.”
“Convenient.”
“I developed better taste.”
He tucked the journal between us and rested his forehead against mine. Outside, the Atlantic wind pressed softly against the old window. Downstairs, the house settled with familiar creaks, as though remembering me.
Calder lifted Archbishop Fluffington and positioned him beside the journal.
“For the record,” he said, “I still don’t trust this rabbit.”
“He knows you haven’t fought any pirates.”
“Yet.”
And there in the attic, surrounded by dust, childhood evidence, and one deeply compromised intelligence operative, I laughed until the old house seemed young again.
*written by Calder, whispered into life by Sara
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