After rehearsals we went home, and at night, we ordered pizza and practiced our accents.

Okay, we watched Harry Potter movies. And Jane Austen adaptations. And more Harry Potter movies. And talked to each other with exaggerated English accents. But we got better at it as time went on. April even joined us, even though she had no accent to work on. So of course she picked it up faster than we did.

One night, after we’d watched Shakespeare in Love, I noticed Caitlin watching the closing credits with a thoughtful look on her face.

“We just studied Romeo and Juliet in school this year,” she said. “Ms. Barnes didn’t say anything about any of that stuff happening when Shakespeare wrote it.”

I fought against a smile and lost. “That’s because it didn’t. Dramatic license, kiddo.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She looked at the screen again. “So what’s the play he’s writing at the end?”

“Twelfth Night. Have you read that yet? They don’t teach it in high school as much.” She shook her head. “You might like it,” I said. “Mistaken identity; everyone falls in love with everyone else. It’s pretty fun.” I thought for a moment. “We can’t talk about it at Faire, though. For one thing, I don’t think tavern wenches can read. For another, isn’t it 1601 at Faire? It was written around 1601 or 1602.” We couldn’t risk anachronism, even if it was only a few months’ overlap. Simon would probably give me detention.

Between accents and history lessons, time passed in strange ways over the next few weeks. I stopped paying attention to the Monday-through-Friday of things, since school let out in early June and for the first time in ages I didn’t have an actual job. Taking care of April and running her house—without making it too obvious that I was doing all the things she couldn’t—was a job in and of itself. With Faire obligations on top of everything else, I had plenty on my plate.

Instead, we marked the passage of time by April’s appointments. Follow-up appointments gave way to physical therapy sessions, all marked on my calendar app. After dropping her off for her first physical therapy appointment in a small building downtown, I wandered the block in search of a cup of coffee. I found something better: a bookstore called Read It & Weep.

A bell chimed as I pushed the door open, and as soon as I stepped inside I felt like I’d come home. I hadn’t had a lot of time for reading in the past two or three years, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. The smell of the books, the promise in the shelves of printed pages . . . I loved stories, and always had.

I took my time exploring the shop. There was a section up front with new titles, giving way to shelves and shelves lined with used books. It didn’t take long for me to find a used copy of Twelfth Night in the classics section, and I snagged it to read with Caitlin. When I reached the back I discovered the world’s smallest coffee bar: basically an espresso machine, a coffeepot, and a few platters of pastries wrapped in plastic. The owner met me behind the counter and I wasted no time in ordering a latte from her.

“There you are, Emma.” She slid the coffee cup across the counter in my direction with a smile.

I shook my head. “Emily. My name’s . . .” Then I took a good look at her for the first time. I was an idiot. I’d just bought a coffee from Chris Donovan, our Faire’s Queen, and I hadn’t even noticed. In my defense, though, it wasn’t like I talked to her much during rehearsal. She was one of the ones in charge, so something always had her attention. Also, she looked different in this light, not to mention more professional; here she wore her blond-white hair up in a twist and had on a twinset and pearls instead of a faded T-shirt.

I smiled as I took the coffee. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” I bobbed a quick curtsy, which made her laugh.

“I’m just Chris here.” She took my money and made change from a small cashbox under the counter. “You’re April’s sister, right? How are you enjoying Faire so far?”

“It’s . . .” I dropped the change into the tip jar while I struggled with this question. The people who were into it were very into it, I’d noticed, and I didn’t want to insult her by telling her that deep down, I still thought it was a little silly. “It’s interesting. Just seems a little intense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s a fund-raiser, right? But we’re spending a lot of time getting accents right, learning history . . . are people going to care that much?” I held my breath, waiting for her to frown and tell me I didn’t understand. She wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

Instead she considered my question. “Short answer? Not really. But at the same time, yes. It’s a fund-raiser, sure, but it’s grown over the years into a pretty big event. We have talent coming from all over the country to perform. It’s not one of the big Faires by any means—we certainly have nothing on the Maryland Renaissance Festival.”

My eyes widened. “There’s another one?”

Chris laughed. “Oh, honey, there’s tons of them! Maryland’s one of the biggest in the country; they even have permanent structures they keep up year-round. We’re small potatoes—tiny potatoes, even—compared to them. But we do our best and take it seriously, and so we’ve gotten a reputation as a solid smaller Faire. And of course there’s the educational aspect. The kids participate in a living history project where they can demonstrate their knowledge to paying patrons while wearing period costumes, and it doesn’t feel like learning.”

“Wow.” I took a sip of coffee. “I have to say I didn’t think of it like that.”

“It’s all right.” She shrugged. “Not everyone does. And you’re new around here, so you haven’t seen it grow gradually like we have. Sometimes I remember the early years, when the whole thing took place on the high school football field.” The bell over the front door chimed, signaling a new customer in the shop, and she came out from behind the counter to head to the front of the store. “Very different than being out in the woods.” She continued our conversation as she walked, so I followed.

“The woods?” I remembered now how Stacey had mentioned the site at one rehearsal, and I had no idea what she was talking about, or where I was going to be spending the rest of my weekends this summer. “We’re going to be in the woods?”

“Ohhhh. You haven’t seen the site yet?” Chris chuckled when I shook my head. “Can’t wait to see what you think.”

“What who thinks?” A new voice came from the front of the shop and as I rounded the corner behind Chris I bit back a sigh. Simon. Great. I took in his jeans and button-down shirt and wondered if he owned a pair of shorts. Unlikely. He didn’t even dress down at rehearsals on Saturdays. But he wasn’t wearing a vest, so this had to be a casual day for him.

He blinked when he saw me, his dark brows drawing together in a frown, so he was obviously as thrilled to see me as I was to see him. His green shirt was open at the throat, and I could see the neckline of a white undershirt in the V. This man wore a lot of layers. Clothing as armor. What was he protecting?

If Chris noticed any tension between us, she blissfully ignored it as she gestured in my direction. “I was telling Emily about the site. She didn’t know we were going to be out in the woods.”

“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow. I hated people who could do that. Mostly because I couldn’t. “What do you think?”

“I think it sounds great.” I would have crossed my arms, but there was a very real danger I’d spill my coffee if I did. “I was a Girl Scout. Camping was my favorite. I don’t have a problem with the outdoors.” Why? Why did I say that? I was a Girl Scout, sure. But I’d faked having the flu to get out of going camping, because the idea of sleeping on the ground, where there were bugs . . . I suppressed a shudder. But Simon had challenged me, and if he thought I was going to back down, then he didn’t know a thing about me.

He nodded once. “Good.” A slightly awkward silence stretched between us, and he opened his mouth as though he were going to say something else, but instead turned to Chris.

“I wanted to make sure you had everything I ordered. For the summer reading lists?”

“Oh. Yes.” She moved behind the front counter and woke up her laptop. “I placed the order last Monday, and I got about half of them in yesterday. Should be getting the rest . . .” She tapped a few keys and squinted at the screen. “Looks like tomorrow. So I’ll get the display up by this weekend.” She shrugged. “No one’s asked about them yet, so you should be okay.”

“I’m not surprised.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “The school year just ended. The last thing these kids are thinking about is next fall.”

“You’ve always got one or two overachievers in your AP classes, though.” She tapped some more keys, bringing up another screen. “Oh, wait. They sent a different edition of Pride and Prejudice than the one you asked for. Let me go get it and make sure it’ll work. I can exchange it if you need me to.”

She bustled into the back room of the shop, and Simon and I stood in silence for a few excruciating moments. I searched desperately through the corners of my brain for something to talk about, before settling on the most obvious.