"Peggy, pssssst," Eliza hissed in her sister's ear excitedly. "Wake up! Angelica's taking us to town!"
Groaning tiredly, Peggy stretched her back, sore from the rough divan, her sister's bright face glowing in the blurred, dim light of the lamps. Darkness was settling over the city, the windows bare, exposing the navy night. Only a stripe of lavender hung over the horizon, clinging onto the last moments of daylight.
Peggy was clinging on to the last of her consciousness.
"But we just got back from town," Peggy whined in between yawns. "We got back just before sundown, like daddy said. All the shops will be closed by now." Eliza rolled her eyes and grabbed her sister's arm, hoisting her to a sitting position.
In a softer voice, Eliza whispered, "We're not going back to that part of town."
"What? But if we're not going to town to shop then why are we going?"
Eliza only smiled.
"Peggy, we can't successfully sneak out if you're snoring loud enough to wake a camp of revolutionaries!" Angelica snapped. She flashed a perturbed glance at Eliza who only shrugged. Angelica harrumphed, making her way carefully, quietly, but quickly down the front steps of the Schuyler mansion.
"We'll, I'm sorry if I'm not going along with your plan to sneak out, when I didn't even want to come along anyway, and I'm very tired from already being in town all day and I just want to sleep-"
Once they reached the road Angelica let out a long sigh that fizzled out into the wind. The sisters were quiet as they held their skirts, walking one block and then another, passing one building and the next until Peggy doubted that they were actually going anywhere.
"Guys," she whined, "are we actually going anywhere, or is this like the time you took me to that lake and tried to leave me there because if you try that again I'll tell mom and dad."
"You'd have to tell them about us sneaking out," Angelica pointed out, and Eliza laughed. Peggy frowned, but Angelica told her that they were almost there, and she tended to believe her sister.
Shortly, Angelica brought them upon a university with tall arches and detailed stone work and gargoyles, carved eyes observing them more carefully than any professor ever could. Angelica grinned at the doorway, glancing into the windows where lamps illuminated faint silhouettes of scholars at work. Eliza gazed at the sky.
Peggy was confused. "Um, okay? So, are we going to go in, because that's probably a really bad idea, or are we just going to stand outside the windows like stalkers?"
"Neither," Angelica whispered knowingly.
Peggy sighed, frustrated. "Then what are we doing here?"
Turning to her sister, Angelica smiled, her eyes gleaming with intent. "We're looking for a mind a work to engage with in some friendly scholarly debate."
Scoffing, Peggy retorted, "Are you sure debate is all you're looking for, 'gelica? Remember your engagement?"
Peggy saw a grimace of pain flicker across her sister's face, but it dissipated as soon as it appeared. Peggy decided it was merely a stray shadow.
"Yes. Secret engagement, mind you. And just because I soon will be a married woman does not mean that I cannot participate in intellectual or other topics of conversation with another man. Sometimes words are more intimate than thoughts, but they are only intimate when they are shared. Words only hold the value of their intent, and when their intent is harmless, so are they." Peggy looked down at her skirts, frightened slightly by her sister's steel and vulnerability in her speech, surprised that she had never witnessed this part of her sister. She had never known that Angelica had so much longing in her, that much was evident.
Peggy imagined the worst of it would be remedied when her sister would marry John Church, finally able to be with the man she loved without their father cutting in with his disapproval. Angelica deserved to be happy, and John made her happy. Peggy could only guess that him being away to fight in the war was what was troubling her eldest sister.
"Well," Angelica breathed, "Are we ready to go in? Find some handsome lawyers to discuss historical empires and scientific theory with?" She smiled as she trotted up the steps, Peggy and Eliza following with their giggles, when Eliza cried "Wait!"
Peggy and Angelica turned to their sister, looking down on her from the top of the steps. Eliza smiled giddily under the stars, the moon settling above her head like a halo.
"Look at the stars," she said. Peggy could feel Angelica sigh, weary of her sister's whimsical detachments, wanting to get what they came for. But Peggy listened intently. "Look at all the moon, look at the shadows dancing in the streets, read the stories in the constellations," she smiled smugly at Angelica, "or make your own. Look out at the city." Eliza breathed out a long sigh like the world had been set upon her shoulder's, but it was a burden she was more than willing to take. "There's so many places in this world we have yet to see, so many things in the city that we have yet to see and do. We're so, so lucky to be standing here, alive, breathing, walking through the night, right now." Eliza reached up to take her sister's hands, and Peggy saw Angelica soften and smile. "And I wouldn't want to be with anyone else."
They were all smiling, Eliza's joy infectious. Eliza's wonder and gratefulness for every small glimmer of beauty in the world sometimes left people thinking she was dim, or forgetful, or unfocused, but Peggy and Angelica knew her as none of that and so much more. Eliza's heart was so pure that Peggy sometimes wondered if it could handle much more of the world than what was in the city - their city. She didn't know if her sister's fondness of the small miracles of life could ever be satisfied.
After the moment of silence that followed Eliza's comment stretched into a minute, Angelica dropped her hands to her sides, looked out to the girls and said, "Well, shall we?"
"Yes," Eliza and Peggy said in unison, and the Schuyler sisters found themselves laughing and smiling at the foot of the University library, the stars looking over them, holding stories that they could never be a part of. But they would make their own.