'Dad?'

'I'm in here, sweetheart.'

Sure enough, there he is, looking through a chest of documents inside his bedroom. Meg leans against the doorframe, blowing hair out of her face.

'Where's the turquoise thing from Egypt? I want to show Thomas.'

'It's a scarab.'

'It's a dung beetle.'

'You've been spending a lot of time with that boy. It's-'

'Unseemly? You're not about the lecture me about etiquette, are you, because that would be bloody ironic, not to mention hypocritical.'

'I was going to say it's unwise. You don't want to get too fond of him.'

'Father, please. Just tell me where to find the bloody beetle.'

'It's in the chest on top of the wardrobe.' Meg nods and begins the far too difficult task of retrieving the chest. After she's tried climbing on a chair (which she breaks), jumping up and throwing her shoes at it, her father relents and easily brings it down for her. There might be more grey in his hair than gold, but he's still strong.

'Meg?'

'Found it! Yes dad?'

'Meg, you won't…do something silly, will you?' She stops her hurried movements. She looks up. Her father's eyes are worried, too blue, and his mouth seems weak.

'Dad.' She whispers.

'I don't like you being alone. On the ship there was always-'

'I'm not alone, dad. I have Thomas.' He nods, and she goes to hug him. He clutches her, buries his face in her hair, thanks a God he does not believe in that she exists.

'That woman – the one you never rally speak about. She came from here, didn't she?'

That breaks through the silence, and he find his throat is dry – cannot quite speak.

'It's fine – you don't' need to answer. Just – you can talk to me, you know.'

He nods. He can't do anything else.

Then she's raced out of the door, and he's alone.

For a moment, John Smith is still. He fights the urge. He bites it back. But then he gives in.

He goes to a box beside the bed, takes a key from around his neck, it clicks in the lock.

Inside there is a scrap of silk, blue as a river. Upon it the faded, broken, ghostly skeleton of a leaf, snatched out of the air when he lay wounded on a ship, watching the shrinking figure of a young woman, and listening to the wind. It is bone pale, and delicate as a dream.