Penwick

By no stretch of the imagination was breakfast at Penwick an inspiring affair. The porridge often steamed in a way that suggested it had been resurrected rather than cooked, so June usually gravitated toward the selection of seasonal fruits. The dining hall hummed with that strange grey morning-light quality that made everyone look vaguely ill. Even the prefects looked like they'd been dragged from bed by their ankles.

June didn't mind it much. It was a small slice of quiet before the day demanded something of her.

She spread jam across a piece of toast with perfectly even pressure and was halfway through her first sip of tea when an owl swooped down like a missile from the rafters.

A thud. A skidding plate. A startled gasp from a first-year across the table. A parcel wrapped in brown paper that fell deliberately beside June’s teacup.

She blinked once. Twice.

She couldn't think of anyone who would be sending her a parcel. Letters, yes. A friend or two from Hogwarts, a cousin who would send a photo of their newborn to every member of the family. But parcels?

June dragged the rectangular package toward herself, its weight surprisingly heavy for its size. She picked at the twine that had indeed been sealed with a Selwyn coat of arms. From her father?

The paper fell away, and inside lay a stack of parchment bound with a red ribbon, the edges clean, the first page blank except for a folded note resting on top.


June's lips twitched upward. Then upward again. Then all at once into a bright, unstoppable smile.

Her father had finished his script.

The Brynwell Theatre Company had approached him at the beginning of the year, asking if he would be willing to create a stage adaptation of his most popular book, "Drainmuss and Death". And while June had expected her father to roll his eyes and give a quip about playwrights being “novelists with commitment issues”, he hadn't.

Since the divorce, Phinehas had, quite understandably, felt a bit aimless, lost, and that offer was just enough of a mix of something familiar and something new. Not to mention it would let him travel to Wales to check up on June more often, but he didn't tell her that; she was a teenager now, and although she still loved her father dearly, the idea that he still felt the need to see if she was alright would be deathly embarrassing.

And now her father, who noodled over single paragraphs for days, who always said he was not a dramatist, had finally finished his first draft of a script: a full stage adaptation of one of his novels, his favorite novel, her favorite novel. Not just finished, but sent it to her. First.

June pushed the note aside and undid the ribbon.

The title shone up at her:


June's chest puffed with pride as she turned the page.

Already, this draft was different than the manuscripts Phinehas had given to June before. For one thing, it wasn't a prologue or dedication that she saw first but rather stage directions that greeted her.


June tried to imagine it in her head. The lighting cues. The blocking. It was strange, in a way, to have limitations on a reading, to have the text be so definitive in tone and motion, rather than simply allowing the reader's imagination. Of course, it wasn't really meant for a reader, was it?

She skimmed further.


June knew the plot well, and her time was limited here at breakfast, so she quickly flipped through the pages... until she saw it. A line she had not seen since she was seven:


June's breath caught loudly enough that the boy opposite her looked over. She ignored him.

Memory unfolded with unnerving clarity, June perched on the worn armchair in her father's study, feet not yet touching the floor. Him pacing in restless circles with a half-empty ink bottle with a frustration in his voice that scared her, just a little. She'd said something, something about how the bravest people don't really seem brave until they're in a scary situation, and he'd stopped as though struck.

The line had been omitted in the book, replaced with something of a similar thought, but here it was.

She read the next page. Then the next. The hall around her blurred, sound muffled into distant static. Students scraped chairs and knocked over goblets, someone nearby argued over who had eaten the last cinnamon roll, but June barely registered any of it.

She reached a point, a piece of stage direction describing Veren kneeling beside the ruins of a broken compass, and her throat tightened for reasons she did not wish to explore in the middle of breakfast.

The last time Phinehas had written anything new, Louise was still in the house, before everything had collapsed in upon itself.

June closed the script for a moment, her hand pressing lightly against the cover as though steadying her own thoughts.

The bell that signaled the end of breakfast was rung.

She re-tied the ribbon with care and slid the script carefully into her satchel, adjusting her books so nothing bent the corners. Then she unfolded the note again, smoothing its creases with her nail. She finished the last sips of her tea, letting her foot bounce under the table.

She would have thoughts. Detailed ones. Annotated. Categorized. She would rise to the task the way she always had, for her father's sake.

June set down her cup and stood to head to her first class.

Today was decidedly a good day. And it was only half past eight.