My dearest Jane,

I hope you're developing as many affectations as you can, and criticizing plenty of other girls about their dancing, and threatening the livelihoods of the dormitory staff when they fail to press your skirts properly. I hope you get all of those insufferable habits of upper-class young ladies out of your system in these first few months, and tell me all about them in these letters so I can make sure you're moving through the proper stages of child development.

I've been reading up on child development, you know. Since some god of happiness brought you into my life as a fully-formed person and not some tabula rasa as Dr. Freud would have it, great chunks of my reading are not at all helpful, but they are extremely entertaining. Freud thinks you're supposed to be fixating on something right now, I can't recall exactly what, but apparently if you didn't get out of diapers early enough or don't suck on enough lollies at one stage or another it will affect what sort of deviant behavior you're about to start enjoying as an adult. Feeling any urges to eat incessantly, lately? Of course you are. You're a growing girl. And wouldn't Dr. Freud love to try a little of the deviant behavior he spends so very long outlining in his books.

I hope our little chat about deviancy wasn't too alarming for your last night in Australia, darling. I imagine you'd already picked up something about internal devices and all sorts of other facts of life through osmosis, just by living at Wardlow, but I wanted to make sure you were more-officially prepared for anything that might come your way at school. Handsome delivery boys have a special talent for climbing drainpipes near schools for young ladies, or at least they did in my day. Without you nearby, I can't observe you and see what the long-term consequences of our little talk might have been on your psyche. Are you scarred? Dr. Freud tells me that you almost certainly are. I hope not, because I'd never want any conversation like that to distress you.

Please don't feel I'm pushing sex on you by telling you the facts, my love. You grew up very fast in order to take such good care of your mother, and even more to help protect your friends from that beastly hypnotist. I'm so proud of the well-read, tough young lady you've become by your own efforts. But your grace was won in spite of those challenges, and you were forced into many life-changing decisions before anyone should have been ready for them – including choosing me as your guardian. I'd never forgive myself if my liberated habits compelled you to try anything sexual with anyone before you were ready, under pressure or out of boredom because you knew how to keep your body safe from certain ailments and conditions.

Even the most everyday intercourse plays with the boundaries of being unsafe, as you trust the most sensitive parts of your mind and body to someone else, but even more than that, the first few people you invite into your body will change you deeply. That's not a reason not to try anything whenever you feel ready, but – be careful. There are things like my affair with René that happen when you think you're ready for something, and find along the way that you aren't and can't find a way out. I imagine neither of us wants more of those big decisions on your plate than you need.

Let me know if you find yourself in a situation like mine with René, Jane. I'll be there in my plane with my pearl-handled gun before you know it. Or, if the situation requires more delicacy, I'll be there with large sums of cash and a pseudonym.

Are you going by a French pseudonym these days? What do your friends call you? Who are your friends? If you have no friends yet, tell me about your enemies. Tell me anything. I miss you dearly.

Your loving fairy godmother,

Miss Phryne Fisher

Dear Miss Fisher,

I'm quite well here! They have settled me into a room overlooking the stables. There are lots of horses, but it doesn't smell like it at all. You can only tell by the nice sounds of wickering in the morning. A whole staff is working hard to make sure there's no stink or poo about. You go into the barn and it's as clean as your Adventurers' Club friend's garage. I'm not sure if anyone else notices.

Please don't worry about scaring me off, or talking me into anything intimate, or me not writing. I'm short on friends here for the moment and you're the most important friend I have, with the best advice. All the girls have clean hair and smile at me politely. Everyone is so nice it's hard to tell anything else about them. Though I caught one reading a romance novel in the library. Perhaps your letters would actually come in handy with her, if you would write me the full account of some of your adventures.

I miss Bert and Cec and Dot, and all the Flowers living and dead. Though I suppose to take Flowers to Society you have to cut them, which kills them. Maybe that's why it's called a Finishing School.

It's hard being here where I'm from, Miss Fisher. I know you want the best for me, and the libraries here are larger. I could have any books I wanted with you, but I had to know what to ask for – here, it seems like I'm discovering a new author or authoress every day on hidden shelves. But I felt like crying when I realized nobody else was going to notice how hard the stable staff worked to keep things clean. The milkman came yesterday and I ran into him in the kitchens alone, since I'd gotten up early to start finding my way around. I tried to say hello but his eyes were stuck to the floor, like he wasn't worthy to look at me in my stupid school uniform.

It makes it harder to practice French when I don't feel comfortable talking to the other girls, and the staff want to be invisible.

I miss you too, and Mother. I've told her everything is sunbeams and roses here, so please don't blow my cover. But I hope you can give me some good old Collingwood advice about how to find the girls I'll like here, and fast. Everyone seems to be walking around in this grey fog of politeness and I can't figure out anything about anyone. And my French is just terrible. You tried. But it's just … terrible.

Hugs and kisses to everyone,

Jane

My darling Jane,

I may be a miserable French teacher, but I know girls. Not in the way Mac does – I cede her expertise with adult women – but I can give you one tip for girls your age: they're all either insipid and not worth your time, or are waiting for you to show your hand before they share theirs with you, which is a little cowardly but perfectly reasonable. If they're being shy, it just means you're the bravest girl in the room (which you almost always will be, my love) and so you bear more of the responsibility to show them who you are first.

Be a little bit extra yourself while they figure you out, to help find your friends in the room. Peek up at the faces around you during prayers to find who's looking back (Dot never noticed you doing it, don't worry). Read whatever you want to read, in slightly more-public places. Braid a special ribbon in your hair, or ask the maid to do it.

It's not hard to give someone an opportunity if they already want to give you a compliment or say hello, or start a conversation about what you're doing. Why do you think I wear so many frankly ridiculous hats?

You might have to resort to more extreme measures if they still don't come to you, but give them a chance. Girls at your age are tricky but you can almost always count on them to be curious about newcomers in their midst.

That was a lovely thought about society ladies and cut flowers. Send me more of those twinkling observations so I can repurpose them in conversations with Inspector Robinson! He'll be so impressed with me, and I'll give you no credit at all. All's fair in wit and war.

We think of you whenever we have a hot cup of cocoa. Dot misses you, too. Perhaps you can write to her, as well? I pass along any general information from your letters but wouldn't presume to read them aloud, just in case you'd like everything to be "sunshine and roses" to Dot, too.

You have a right to a certain sliding scale of privacy as you grow up. I'm only telling you this because I wouldn't want you to think that you have to tell me things because otherwise I'll just use my detecting skills to remain in your life. Well – I might roll up my sleeves if I feel you're in danger, but I won't feel good about it later. Forgive me in advance?

All my love,

Miss Phryne Fisher

Dear Miss Fisher,

Don't you mean all's fair in love and war? You haven't sent me any news at all from home, and it's been months and months. I do appreciate your advice on the girls, and I'll get back to how that's going, but I want to make CLEAR that I want to hear what's happening from you as well. Dot gives me the most boring parts of the news. She writes everything that's happened every week after church, she says. It's like her notes on cases: very thorough and useful, but I'm missing all the color commentary and I hate it. I can read in between the lines about you and the Inspector. He's over to dinner an awful lot lately, isn't he?

I'm sorry I don't write back to Dot more often. It's hard to keep up when she writes so much. Please pass that along in some diplomatic way? I don't think I could find a way to tell her that wouldn't hurt her feelings.

I have a number of schoolmates who are Catholic like Dot – I asked her to send me a rosary a few weeks ago so I might fit in better, but if she hasn't already, maybe you could also tell her to cancel that? I put my foot in it the other day and almost certainly am not going to be able to make friends with those girls. They invited me to church with them last week. It was the first time anyone invited me to do something outside school hours, so I went. Church isn't so bad – all the stained glass in the church was so beautiful, and since everything's in Latin and no one really understands it, I don't even need to muddle through conversation with my terrible French. And all the songs sounded the same so I sort of chanted along and didn't stick out too much.

But oh, I was following along and everyone got up to get the little wafers and sip from the same big cup – and I couldn't help but think of all of us drinking from the same milk pitcher that awful day, and being lugged down into the crypt and not being able to move for ages. It just took me back, and I don't know why – all those people lined up like lambs to the slaughter, and if there was anything wrong with the wine we'd all be dead. I just couldn't go. So I sat back down and everyone had to crawl over me, and I was sweating for some reason and none of it made sense. By the time we got back to the school proper, I stank – truly – so now everyone thinks I'm a stinky Protestant, and they'll never invite me to church again.

I suppose Dot would be happy to know I refused to accept the holy host and drink the blood of Christ without the love of God in my heart. You can tell her that much. I'd rather if you didn't tell her the rest.

Do you know any ways of preventing yourself from sweating? I'm not sure what the best options are. Sweating through my church dress was a humiliating experience and I'd really rather not go through it again.

And in your next letter, don't forget to "spill the beans" on what's going on with you and Inspector Jack. I'll keep asking. You know I will.

Your not-so-fairy goddaughter,

Jane