1941, London
She is folding her furs in the lobby of her aunt's house when she hears.
"The airplane people called," the maid says, lip working.
The chandeliers seem to droop in the musty hall.
Nancy nods, pinches both gloves off one fingertip at a time, holds a note between nails that she never quite seems to stop biting. "Send this reply, please." Sleeking her bob closer she turns and enters the lounge.
"Who says this?" Nancy tilts the freshly iced biscuit in her hand, smudging a drip away with her thumb.
Blank looks around the benchtop from the little girls caught licking sprinkles off sticky fingers.
"Um," Daisy says from her elbow. She stares at it for a moment before lighting up. "The Lord of the Rings! That girl- Eowyn!"
Nancy nods, a little smile hovering on her face. "Have you read it yet?" she asks Port. "She's not in it much, but once you've read her, you'll feel represented forever."
Port snickers. "Immortalised in literature, the great and terrible Amazon pirate captain."
With another smile Nancy reaches for the next biscuit. The purple-gone-wrong khaki swirls on her knife.
How many years bury the Amazon.
"Which word will you have?" she asks Daisy.
Blue eyes stretch in thoughtfulness and Nancy knows again the urge to be the Amazon they can look up to, the fierce they can aspire to, the women of both they can let themselves be.
"Grace," Daisy says. "My middle name."
Pulling the bowl of blue across the bench Nancy edges the word with a straight, strong line.
Fierce, she writes next.
Beautiful and strong.
You will survive this, she passes to Port, with a nod for her sickening mother at home today.
And then she goes back to the first biscuit and adds a sword inside the lettering.
All the girls except Port, still chattering, have disappeared outside when demure Miss Blackett from Coniston straightens, brushes dried sugar off against her apron, tips a driblet more black into the khaki.
She makes a Jolly Roger.
"You may take the plates in for the ladies, Mabel," she tells the maid. "I have another telephone message to make."