The Letter

It came in spring, the second spring, by an ordinary courier. No seal. No threat. Just a folded letter in handwriting Tam knew, because he had grown up reading it, his sister's handwriting, his sister who he had last seen on the wrong side of the Bell Vault and grieved for two full years. Tam sat down on the cottage step with the letter unopened in his lap and stayed there a long time. Oriel came out and saw his face and knew something had arrived, and she did not crowd him, she just sat on the step too, a careful arm's length away, present without pressing. Read it or don't, she said eventually. Both are allowed. Tam read it. It was four sentences long. It said she was alive. It said she had been looking for him. It said the Vault had not closed the way everyone believed, and it asked, in the last line, in handwriting that shook, whether he would come.