Chapter 5 - Decision & Departure

Morning came with washed gray light at the windows. Lucy had not slept well. The night felt too wakeful, as if the air itself kept turning over. Each time she started to drift, her mind circled back to the shop. She could not shake the memory of the old leatherbound volume. Its ribbon marker had been lying slightly out of place, just far enough that she could not remember whether she had done it or not.

It was such a small thing. So easy to imagine she had brushed it herself while shelving something nearby. Still, the thought lingered, delicate but persistent, like a thread she could not quite pull free. She was sure it had been that strange man asking about The Chronicle of Uther. The violation clung to her like a chill that refused to fade.

Thoughts tumbled through her mind: the estate in England, a lawyer in London, traveling halfway around the world, leaving behind everything she knew. Anxiety and excitement wrestled inside her chest. Sam was the only reason she slept at all. He had made a small loaf of himself against her stomach and purred until her breathing evened. The sound worked into her bones. When she finally drifted off, the sleep was shallow and thin, like a pond skimmed by wind.

She felt tired, yet beneath the heaviness something steady had formed. The decision had been made before she admitted it. Whatever waited across the ocean was calling. Her aunt had hidden the Pendragon name, and now Lucy would carry it in the open. Even the shop, quiet in the gray morning, seemed to hint that it was time to go, that she was meant for more than the safety of Pendragon's Nook.

She went through her usual routine, made coffee, fed Sam, and told him, as always, that he was the king of the Nook. Then she sat at her desk, computer screens flickering to life. Her cell phone lay beside the keyboard, the portal between her old life and what came next. Taking a breath, she dialed the London office of Russell J. Martin, Solicitor.

“Good morning, office of Russell J. Martin,” a polished voice answered. Lucy straightened instinctively.

“Good morning. This is Lucy Pendragon. I’m calling to inform Mr. Martin that I will be meeting with him in person. I will book the earliest flight I can, and I should arrive in London tomorrow evening. I will email my flight details shortly.”

“Very good, Miss Pendragon,” the assistant replied, her accent crisp and efficient. “We will inform Mr. Martin and make the necessary arrangements.”

Lucy thanked her, hung up, and exhaled, half disbelief and half thrill. She had inherited an estate in England, and it still did not feel real. “That's remarkable,” she muttered, shaking her head with a small laugh.

She opened her browser and booked the earliest flight out of Burlington, American Airlines 242 departing at 7 a.m. and arriving in London around 6 p.m. When the confirmation email came through, she forwarded it along with her details to the solicitor’s office. One click, and there was no going back.

A small but practical problem followed. She did not own a car. A bike could not manage a predawn trip to the airport with luggage and a cat. She would ask Daniel and Jesse if they could provide a ride, and if not, maybe Hannah. Hannah would not only volunteer, she would arrive with coffee and commentary.

Just as she was about to close the laptop, her phone buzzed. A message from Hannah, a photo of last night’s cellist and a caption: “He’s really hot!” Lucy smiled in spite of herself. She sent back an eye-roll emoji and typed, “Come by later. I’ve got big news.”

At lunchtime she pulled on her coat and walked to her foster parents’ house. The air carried the brittle taste of oncoming snow, clean and sharp. She knew this route as well as the aisles of her shop. Daniel’s old maple, split by lightning years ago, stood at the corner like a landmark that refused to fall.

Inside, the house smelled like coffee and lemon cleaner. Daniel hovered at the dining table over a scatter of papers and mugs. Jesse looked up from her laptop in the sunlit kitchen, glasses low on her nose in the way she wore them when she was concentrating.

They made sandwiches. Lucy laid out her aunt’s letter, the printed email from the solicitor, and the embossed seal that always made her skin tighten. She told them about the inheritance, the lawyer in London, and her plan to leave in the morning. She did not mention the ribbon or the feeling that the shop had been disturbed. It was too small a thing, and she did not want to worry them.

Daniel read the letter again, slower this time, then leaned back with a quiet whistle. “So Lilly Rowan really was Lilly Pendragon after all. We never knew Sarah had any family. And now to find out she had a sister and an estate in England… Lucy, that is a lot to take in.”

He turned the letter between his fingers, thoughtful. “Makes me wonder why she never came for you after Sarah passed. You would think a sister might… well.” His expression softened. He brushed her shoulder with the back of his hand. “I cannot pretend I am anything but grateful she did not. Jesse and I, raising you has been the best part of our lives.”

Lucy smiled faintly. “I do not know why she stayed away. There is probably more to the story than we will ever know.”

Jesse folded her hands, considering her with a softness that always made Lucy feel ten years old and entirely safe. “I know you,” Jesse said. “You do not do things lightly. Even so, are you sure you want to go alone? A new country, legal meetings, a property you have never seen.”

“I have to. I will not have peace if I stay here wondering.” Lucy smiled. “Besides, I am responsible. I will text before I board, and I will call when I land.”

Daniel exchanged a look with Jesse that held pride and worry in equal measure. “We trust you,” he said. “We just like you in one piece.”

“I like me in one piece too.” Lucy squeezed his hand. “I promise I will be careful.”

Jesse nodded. “Then we will help. What time is your first flight?”

“Burlington to JFK to Heathrow.”

“We can drive you,” Daniel said.

Lucy shook her head. “I am going to ask Hannah. She is coming to the shop later, and I know she will want to take me and talk the whole way.”

“That sounds right,” Jesse said. “At least let us come by in the evening to help you close up and see you off.”

“Deal.”

Jesse offered to keep Sam. Lucy laughed. “He is coming with me. He would file a complaint if I left him.”

They hugged at the door, and for a moment the air in Lucy’s chest tightened. She felt the shape of what she was doing more clearly here than at the desk or on the airline website. She was leaving good things. Sometimes the only way forward was through that ache.

Back at the Nook, Lucy began to pack. She made neat stacks on the bed in her small apartment. Warm clothes. A few books that felt like anchors. The letter. The photograph of her aunt Lilly and her mother Sarah. Aunt Lilly’s old adventure log. She tucked it into a hard case as if photographs could bruise.

Sam circled the suitcase, then jumped inside and sat as though claiming diplomatic immunity. “Outrageous,” Lucy told him. “You are checked luggage in spirit only.” He accepted being lifted and placed on his blanket with the offended dignity of a small king. She tucked the blanket and his favorite toy into the travel carrier and checked the latch three times.

The vet’s office answered on the first ring. “We have Sam’s vaccination records updated, and his international travel papers will be ready this afternoon,” the receptionist said. “You always keep his paperwork in excellent shape.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said. “I will come by before closing.”

The afternoon moved in slow, careful pieces. She printed airline forms and fresh copies of the solicitor’s letter, marked the folder, and set it at the top of her carry-on. She checked power adapters, her passport, her money. The practical rhythm steadied her.

By late afternoon, Hannah burst through the door, full of energy. Lucy told her everything, the inheritance, the trip, and the strange man asking about a book she had never heard of. Hannah’s eyes widened. “You inherited an estate? Lucy, this is a movie. I am taking you to the airport.”

“Five a.m.,” Lucy said. “Burlington.”

“I will bring coffee,” Hannah said with a grin.

Lucy laughed. “Deal.”

Hannah stayed a while, buzzing with excitement and questions, then squeezed Lucy once more and headed home. Afterward Lucy ran down to the vet’s office to pick up Sam’s papers and returned before the cold settled in.

When the sky darkened, Lucy walked through the Nook one last time, not as a shopkeeper but as someone saying goodbye to a room that had held a part of her life. She straightened a stack of paperbacks, ran a fingertip along a row of spines, and checked the windows and locks. She flipped the sign from Open to Closed. The word looked different tonight. Not a daily pause. A hinge.

Daniel and Jesse stopped by for a quick goodnight. They did not fuss. Jesse checked that Lucy had packed a scarf. Daniel eyed the cat carrier and said, “Sir Samuel, conduct yourself with decorum.” Sam blinked like a magistrate. There were hugs in the doorway, and the simple kindness of people who had raised a steady soul and trusted her to keep being one.

“Call when you land,” Jesse said, gentle but firm.

“I will,” Lucy said. “I promise.”

They left with small waves, and the stairwell grew quiet again.

Lucy turned off the shop lights and stood a moment in the dim wash from the street, letting her eyes adjust. The shelves looked like old friends in the half light. The counter where she had talked with customers about stories and characters. The bell above the door that had rung for her every morning. She touched the counter’s edge and headed for the front.

She locked the office, pocketed the keys, and climbed the narrow stairs to the apartment. The air upstairs held the familiar scents of home, coffee and soap and a faint trace of old paper rising from the shop below. She set the carrier by the door, laid out her travel clothes, and placed the document folder beside her backpack where she would not forget it.

Dinner was simple. She fed Sam and watched him eat, grateful for the way small routines steady a person when life is shifting under their feet. After cleaning up, she went downstairs to check the doors one last time, more for peace of mind than need. Back in her apartment, she set her phone on the charger. She did not look at the suitcase. Knowing it waited by the door was enough.

In bed, the room felt familiar and slightly out of focus, like a photograph of a place about to be left. The wind hummed against the windows. It did not sound unfriendly. It sounded like distance and an older city. She let the image form: a gate with a strange name, a hall of old stone, a landscape older than anything she had known.

Lucy closed her eyes and thought of her aunt’s letter, the paper, the ink, the careful signature. She let its shape steady her the way a handhold steadies a climb.

Morning would come early. Hannah would arrive with coffee and commentary. Burlington to JFK to Heathrow. She pictured each step in order until they settled into place. Then she drew the blanket up, rested her hand on the warm weight of Sam at her hip, and let the winter wind carry her toward sleep.

Tomorrow she would leave Vermont. Tomorrow, the journey would begin.