Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“I have done nothing but in care of thee,

 Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who

 Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing

 Of whence I am…” -- The Tempest

When Cosette woke, the first thing she noticed were the clustered houses in the distance, ragged children huddled in wonder.

She was on a beach of some kind, she realized, tasting a salty coarseness in her mouth. She spat out the sand as she struggled to sit up. 

All trace of the storm was gone.

It was their father-daughter tradition: every week, they’d go walking in the gardens, and then they’d get ice cream or go see a movie. Or they would spend the entire evening there, sitting on a bench and talking.

Her father had gone silent for a moment as a group of college students strolled past them. That was another thing Cosette never quite understood about her papa. He would always lower his voice when people walked by. It was just one of many odd behaviors her father had.

Cosette went months without thinking about all this, and then she went months when this was all she could think about.

“Look,” her father said. He was pointing at a scrawny grey bird hopping along the edge of the fountain. Cosette tried to come up with some reason this bird was special.

“It’s pretty,” Cosette said.

Her father flipped furiously through his little birding journal. “I think I saw the same one three weeks ago. Right here. I had a note about it.”

The tiny black notebook looked almost comical in her father’s big, eager hands. When he arrived at the entry he was looking for, Cosette noticed that the filled pages far outnumbered the blank pages. The notebook's corners were worn, too. She had seen her father run his thumb over the gold corners often, even when the notebook was in his pocket. It made Cosette wonder if he had always been rich. Would someone who was born rich treasure painted gold trim so much?

“It’s a different one,” said her father, peering at the page. “The one from three weeks ago had an injured leg.”

The cloudy light of evening scattered over the water and dully mingled with the fallen leaves on the surface. Cosette looked curiously after the bird.

“Maybe it healed, do you think?” she asked. It did seem to be walking funny, but so did all birds, lurching and strutting.

“It could have,” said her father. He held the worn little notebook delicately in his hands, almost like one would hold a wounded bird. 

Cosette walked along the beach, struggling to recount how she had gotten there. There was a storm—of that, she was sure. But had it been a dream? Was this the dream?

Cosette was tempted to consider the possibility that she was dead, but despite church with her father every Sunday, she never quite believed in the afterlife—at least, not in storybook way Bible Study pictures drew it. Still, she also didn't quite believe she could dream up a place like this.

Where was her father, anyway?

The margins of the sand slipped into greenery, and the soles of Cosette’s sneakers met the firm comfort of soil and concrete.

This looked like a park of some sort. Empty swings creaked in the incoming sea breeze, heavy with brine and the sweet suggestion of unknown flowers. The woodchips crunched under her feet as she crossed to the play structure and clambered up the cold metal rungs to the top platform, perching right at the mouth of the faded blue slide.

Between the trees, she could still see the beach she came from. The ocean gleamed in the cold grey sun.

The structure wasn’t too tall, of course, but Cosette had always felt safer and more secure in high places—cradled by the height. Everything is small. She is untouchable.

Her heartbeat was disquietingly urgent in his chest.

When she was a kid, Cosette had always imagined Heaven--or wherever it is you go--as a park. Parks have a little of everything good in this world: the people, the nature, the art, even music sometimes, and pets, and the scent of food trucks. A park is humanity distilled to its best and simplest parts. 

Maybe that’s why she felt no shock or fear when she found herself in—Ariel Park, the rotting wooden signboard read, the gold paint dulled and chipping in the hollows of embossed letters. Or maybe she felt no fear because Ariel Park felt so familiar--but no. Cosette figured the familiarity--that sense of carefully constructed quiet and peace--was what contributed to that feeling of something grievously wrong. The more complete the peace, the more it added to the danger. 

The ocean breeze brought the scents back with it. The sweet, sharp smell of life; the undercurrent of decay. 

Maybe she did invent this park from her memory. 

She was only just beginning to remember. 

It was a sharp, silent morning, the sunlight clear and hard. She had walked from the beach to here, her feet had crunched over the wet grass, the light dazzled off the surface of the water in the fountain—

Water.

She couldn’t think what had happened, other than the storm. She didn’t wonder any longer if she was dead--she knew she was not. But she always believed there was a wide spectrum between life and death, and just the fact that she wasn’t dead didn't help her much. 

Ariel Park. Ariel Park. She repeated the name in her head over and over, but she couldn’t get it to make sense. She can’t get it to make connections, bring up memories, or in any other way exist in a finite space and time. It was just there, a fact, something known. 

But she certainly hadn’t been there before. She couldn’t have been.

She was walking amongst the trees, walking along a stream scabbed over with fallen leaves. On the other side of the stream were rows of ruined tenement houses, tall skeletons among the trees; the winding fire escapes had become one with the vines and the walls gaped open to let the light through.

The light was coming through, and she was remembering.

“Who’s there?”

A voice.

“Who’s there?

A voice, again.

Cosette startled backwards. A boy was emerging from behind a half-sunken pickup truck.

“Who are you?” Cosette called back, remaining where she was on the other side of the stream.

The boy did not come closer, his figure clinging stubbornly to the side of the car. He wore a soft blue sweatshirt and gold-rimmed glasses, and he had a fanny pack clipped around his waist. His hair was tousled, like he had just gotten out of bed. He didn’t look like he belonged in a broken world like this.

“Are you from this place?” Cosette tried. 

“No?” he tried, as if unsure himself, and relief washed through her—he seemed as disoriented as she was. “Then—you’re not from here either?”

“No.”

He cautiously stepped forward, towards the stream, and Cosette mirrored this motion. Now that they were closer, she could see that he was around her age—twelve or thirteen.

“How’d you get here?” he asked.

She thought back. “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. 

“I don’t, either, actually.”

This shared confusion emboldened her. Cosette went on, “The last thing I remember is being on a boat with my father and there being a storm of some kind.”

“It’s the same with me,” he said. “I was on a boat.”

Cosette took the final step across the little stream. “My name’s Cosette.”

“Marius,” he said, hesitating for a moment before extending his hand. She shook it. “Were you with anybody?”

“No,” he said. He faltered. “You were, you said you were with your father?”

“Yeah. Have you seen him?” she said. “I think I washed up here alone.”

“Sorry, I haven’t seen anyone.”

“Oh.”

“He might be fine,” the boy offered. “He’s probably fine. We survived. And we were completely unharmed.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Well. Do we have any way of trying to call for help?”

“Shouldn’t we look for him first?” asked Cosette. “He might need immediate help.”

“But we can’t help him if we don’t have help.”

“But how can we ask for help?”

“There,” said Marius not ten minutes later. He shrugged a little. “It’s the classic move. It must have worked in the past if it’s such a popular movie trope.”

They were back on the beach, both staring down at the sand.

“I saw an article in the news,” replied Cosette. “I think some lady got stranded and she did this.”

“And it worked for her?”

“Yeah.”

“How long did it take?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh.”

Cosette and Marius both gazed down at the big, crude, ridiculous letters they had dug in the sand, studded with smooth rocks: “HELP!”

“There are lots of airplanes flying over the sea every day. Some of them must be flying over here. Wherever this is. They’ll see the message.”

“Yeah.” Marius looked up from the sand and smiled tentatively at her. “Should we try to look for your papa?”

“Sure. And if he comes looking for us, he’ll know we’ve been here if he sees our sign.” 

Now that the shock was wearing off and her senses were returning, the thought of her father tugged at her insistently. The possibility that something had happened to her papa loomed too large for Cosette to even approach it. At the moment, all she could comprehend was a simpler, more concrete fear, one she already had previous experience with. What if her father was worried about her? Cosette had never been quite so afraid as when she watched her father worry over her…

“Let’s walk along the beach,” suggested Cosette, hoping that the sound of her own voice would dispel the image of her father’s frightened childlike eyes. “He can’t be too far from the shore if he washed up like us.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “We can return here in—how's right before sunset?"

“Do we have a watch?”

“Oh. Right. Well. I did, but—” Marius checked his wrist, tugging up his sleeve to see. A smooth white watch face stared back at them, the slender gold hand ticking. Marius' eyebrows lifted with surprise. “It’s still—” Marius looked up at the sky, then looked back at his watch. “Whoa.” He turned to the watch to her. “I never learned how to tell time by the position of the sun or anything, but that seems about right.”

“That’s amazing,” said Cosette, also peering at Marius’ miraculous watch, the little hand determinedly ticking on. “It’s still working. The water didn’t get into it or anything?”

“I guess not.”

“Amazing.”

Neither of them pushed the subject. All this was too much to think about.

The two had begun to walk, mutually picking a direction without a word of discussion needed. Cosette suspected that the boy was floating in his own shock, too, just like she was.

“You know,” said Cosette, “I was just in that park over there.” She pointed at the half-visible play structure sheltered by trees. “The fountain had running water.”

“I passed there, too,” replied Marius. “Want to hear something really weird?”

“Yeah.”

“It was hard to tell because of the sunlight, but it looked like there was this one building behind the park that was still lit up. You know those signs on movie theaters? What’s that called?”

“A marquee,” supplied Cosette.

“Yeah. A marquee. It had this glowing marquee thing.”

“That’s so weird. It looks like this whole place—this whole island—was abandoned years ago.”

“Yeah. There’s no way there could still be running water and electricity,” said Marius. “I watched this one program that said if humans disappeared from the earth, power would run out within a week.”

“I read something like that, too. I used to be really into apocalypse stuff.”

Marius grinned. “Hey, me too. Too bad I don’t have my apocalypse kit with me, though. Just when I need it.”

Cosette tried to think of something to say in response, and by then, the moment had passed. 

Anyway, Cosette was distracted thinking about how she used to watch apocalypse programs on TV back in elementary school, and how her papa would come in and see the screen and get that disappointed look on his face and ask her to please watch something else, anything else—this will give you nightmares, he insisted. 

And there was that one winter when there had been a blackout for a whole day. Cosette had known exactly what to do. She went around the house and unplugged everything, gathered every flashlight that they owned, and ordered her father to go out and buy a hand-crank radio and a selection of non-perishable foods.

“Those apocalypse shows really did scare you,” her father had said mournfully, bundled in multiple jackets, wrapping himself up in one more scarf as he went out the front door.

Marius was too tall, Cosette decided. He was around her age, and yet, he managed to be unfairly tall. A lick of hair stood up at the crown of his head, aspiring towards the sky, as if it were straining to catch up to the boy’s growth spurt.

Because Marius was too tall, it meant he walked too fast, too. At least the struggle to keep up created sufficient anxiety to fill up the space in her chest. She knew that a whole host of fearful thoughts were just waiting to move in, lurking right outside.

It was only when Marius glanced back at her that Cosette realized how ridiculous she was being—if she were lagging behind, of course he’d slow down to walk with her. What did she think he was going to do, just walk away?

Cosette hurried to break even with Marius again, and he paused and waited for her to catch up. He offered her a small smile, and she looked away, embarrassed that she hadn’t been able to keep up. She wasn’t too sure how she was supposed to interact with Marius, or if she had already done some things wrong.

“Where were you heading on your boat?” asked Cosette, hoping it wasn’t a bad thing to ask.

For some reason, this question made Marius nervous. “Oh, just to a relative’s,” he said. “What about you?”

The question made her nervous, too, she realized. “We were moving houses,” she said.

Silence settled over the two of them as the waves crept along the shore, murmuring curiously amongst themselves before retreating once again. Cosette glanced backwards. The 'HELP!' in the sand was out of view. 

“Wait,” she said, and Marius stopped. “Shouldn’t we leave some sort of trail to help them find us?”

“You’re right.” Marius gazed out at the sea thoughtfully, then turned to her with a hesitant smile. “Got any breadcrumbs?”

“No,” replied Cosette, “but something like breadcrumbs might be a good idea.” She considered. “We could make more signs in the sand. We can leave a new one as soon as the last one isn’t visible anymore.”

“Sure,” said Marius. “And we can leave instructions to meet us somewhere that’ll be safe for us to sleep at night.”

Cosette shivered, and it wasn’t the brisk sea breeze. They might have to spend the night. During the day, she could believe it was all a dream, but once darkness fell and she was laying down to sleep, she couldn’t pretend anymore.

“I don’t think the buildings would be safe,” she said, pushing down her fear. “They look like they’re falling apart. I’m scared they’d collapse.”

“Right,” said Marius, his brow furrowed. “I’d be scared to go inside, too. Who knows what could be living in there?”

“I haven’t seen any animals,” ventured Cosette, though hot fear was prickling within her chest. 

“That’s why,” said Marius. “I’m scared they’ve all taken shelter in the buildings. Or maybe they’re nocturnal.”

“That’s worse,” replied Cosette.

“Yeah, you’re right, that’s worse.”

Cosette thought. “The park might be our best bet,” she said. “It’s right off the beach. The play structure is still intact. We could try to camp out there.” And somehow, though she was unable to put her finger on why, Cosette felt the park was safe. It felt familiar, in a way. Or maybe it was just the running water, that one promise of civilization.

Come to think of it, maybe signs of civilization were a bad thing. But Cosette liked to believe in the good of people. There might be friendly people on this island who would help them find their way home.“Okay,” said Marius. “The park sounds fine. I’d be scared to sleep out in the forest with all those abandoned houses.”

Cosette tried to dispel that image from her head. “We’ll just write ‘ARIEL,’” she suggested. “And make arrows. They’ll find it.”

“Should we gather some sticks and stones?”

“Your clothes,” said Cosette as they walked away from their newly-made sign. “They’re dry.”

Marius nodded. “Yeah. Wait, were your clothes dry, too?”

“Completely dry.”

Cosette felt around her own collar. Sure enough, the fine silver chain necklace she was wearing was still there. 

“You know,” said Marius thoughtfully, picking stray leaves out of his hair. “I’m starting to wonder if there was a storm at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m serious,” he insisted.

She smiled reassuringly. “I know." 

“Oh." He ducked his head. "Like, something is very clearly not right here. We both saw the same thing, but did anything bad actually happen to us? No. And the sky right now is completely clear. Maybe the whole storm was in our heads. Like a Jedi mind trick or something.”

“Actually, you might be onto something,” replied Cosette, turning the thought over as hope rose in her heart. “My papa had his birdwatching binoculars with him, and the weather was completely clear before the storm, but somehow, we still never saw this island up ahead. I don’t know how to explain that.”

Marius’ face lit up, and he made full eye contact with her for the first time. She decided that his anxiously wide smile was actually kind of endearing.

“Maybe this is a military base or something,” he said. “Isn’t the military inventing invisibility technology?”

“I heard about that,” she said. “Whatever it is, if it has this kind of technology, there are probably people here taking care of that technology.”

“They wouldn’t leave it alone,” agreed Marius. “They’d be afraid of other people getting their hands on their special powers.”

“Maybe this is a secret testing ground for space equipment,” replied Cosette. “And they don’t want other countries to find out what they’re doing.”

Marius beamed triumphantly. “It’s aliens!”

If there was one thing chipping away at her shock, it was annoyance. Because unfortunately, the one friend she had on this island was turning out to be sometimes annoying.

The thing was, they had just passed a bus stop, graffiti curling vine-like along the edges of its cracked plastic windows. Plant life ran along the border of the asphalt and crept in through its cracks. 

“I wonder what used to be here,” Cosette had murmured. “See, there’s a bus stop. And—” She peered at the bus stop shelter. A halo gleamed off the jagged edges of a broken plastic panel, and through it, she could see a stretch of concrete, with faint, cracked yellow lines still visible here and there.

“A parking lot,” said Marius. “You can see the concrete bumper things.”

Cosette gazed at it. A shimmer rose off the asphalt, like that of summer heat. However, it was spring, and a cool ocean breeze suggested itself even now.

Cosette hesitantly walked through the broken panel, passing through its wavering illumination, stepping onto the curb on the other side.

“Wait, Cosette,” called Marius. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“It’s just a parking lot,” she called back, gazing up at the leaf-choked streetlamp rising like a strange tree out of the concrete. “If there’s anything sketchy, we’d be able to see it by now.”

“We should really go back towards the shore.”

Well, she’d had half a mind to turn back herself, but now that Marius was nagging her… “I’ll be right back,” she promised, walking on tip-toes from one concrete bumper to the next. 

“Where are you? I can’t see you.”

“Because you’re still in the trees.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Okay, if I don’t come back in ten minutes, you’re allowed to call for help.”

“Call for help? How?”

“If you just—shout or something—"

“Shout or something,” Marius repeated.

Cosette sighed. “Marius, I’ll be—”

The shimmer from the concrete brightened and overwhelmed her eyes.

The first thing that struck her was the silence, utter and complete. It wasn’t silent so much as that her entire sense of hearing had vanished completely, just as it wasn’t dark so much as that the concept of sight had lost its meaning. As she reached out, nothing answered her touch.

Tentatively, she took a step forward.

Something—a light touch, a ghostly breath—dusted against her arm. She jumped. In the absence of most of her senses, even the brief touch sent a cold sting through her whole body.

She took another step. Another phantom presence brushed against her. She backed up, bumping against…something. An apology sprang to her lips, but she pushed it back, knowing she had no voice here, anyway.

A breath ghosted the nape of her neck. She shivered, screwing his eyes shut and talking another step.

“Cosette.”

Hearing her own name—hearing it on her own head, as if it were her own thought—Cosette tensed. She wasn’t sure how to respond.

A hand squeezed her shoulder.

“We weren’t told to expect you, Cosette.”

The voice was not a sound she was physically hearing, and it she were asked to describe the qualities of the voice—its pitch, its accent—she would not have been able to. She was understanding this voice on a more fundamental level than all that.

She, too, responded using only her thoughts.

“I will leave,” Cosette replied, trying to free himself from the invisible grip. 

“You should not have come here.”

“Who are you?” 

“You do not know me. I am simply a messenger for Monsieur Javert.”

“Monsieur Javert? Who is Monsieur Javert?” asked Cosette.

“He is The Illusionist. He is the only one left on this island from the time before.”

“You know what used to be here,” Cosette said. “In the time before.”

“No time for questions,” urged the voice. “You must leave. This place is not fit for humans. If you stay too long, you’ll never be able to leave.”

“Wait,” said Cosette. “Where can I find this Javert?”

“The House of Illusions.” 

“The what?”

“The House of Illusions. You must go alone. He will listen to you alone.”

At the thought of facing this powerful man alone, fear coursed through her. There would be no Marius by her side to annoy her so much that she’d forget her fear just out of desire to prove him wrong.

“I recognize your soul,” the voice continued. “You have been here before.”

“I’ve never been here before in my life,” Cosette said, even as something within her called her out on a lie.

“Your soul bears the colors of this place, though they are faint. Your father has been here, too.”

“My…my father?”

“You carry his whole heart with you. I can see his soul in yours.”

“Is he alive?” asked Cosette, her heart revolting against the very question.

“Yes,” the voice answered. “You must go. You still have the strength to escape this place.”

Despite her fear of this strange spirit’s words, Cosette breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you.”

“Javert will listen to you alone.”

Her shoulder was suddenly freed from the spirit’s grip. Cosette lurched forward, unprepared.

She stood there for a moment. Then, fear bursting open in her heart, she broke into a blind run.

And all at once, the light returned, scalding her with vision as a fire leapt up in front of her. Skidding to a halt, Cosette turned and ran in the other direction, where a wall of fire surged forward to meet her. She choked on his own breath, stumbling.

The flames shuddered and soared. Yet, Cosette remembered what the spirit had said—The Illusionist, they had called Javert. And that boy Marius had said…

With her heart pounding, Cosette retreated several steps, counting them in her head.

One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...eight...nine..ten.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she burst into a wild sprint straight towards the fire.

An explosion of light assaulted her eyes. All of her limbs growing loose, she lurched forward, flopping onto the hard asphalt. The cold sun burned brightly through her. All of her energy melted into the ground, and with only a second to register that she had made it, that she had escaped, her consciousness snapped like an elastic.

“Hello? Hello?”

Cosette peered upwards. She wasn’t in the lot anymore and the sun wasn’t burning in her eyes. Now, she was lying down on the bench at the bus stop shelter, and an unfamiliar face was hovering over her.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You’re awake!” exclaimed…oh. Yes. Marius. She’d forgotten where she was for a second. “What happened?” he asked. His voice was suspiciously hoarse. “You just disappeared!”

“Did you start yelling for help?” asked Cosette.

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I thought you got eaten or something. Where were you?”

“I think I talked to some people,” she said. “I’m fine now, though. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“It’s fine,” said Marius. “Who’s some people?”

Cosette struggled to a sitting position. “I think it was a spirit, actually,” she said, looking away.

To her surprise, Marius didn’t question or laugh at her or anything of the sort. “Cool,” he said. “What kind of spirits?”

“I don’t know, but they work for someone,” she said, encouraged. “Have you seen anything on this island called a House of Illusions?” 

“I don’t think so,” said Marius. “Why? What did they say about it?”

The boy asked that question with utter genuineness, and Cosette was grateful for it. “They said I’ve got to go in there by myself to meet some man. I don’t know why.”

“Oh,” said Marius. “Huh. Okay.”

Cosette felt bad about leaving Marius behind, but she reminded herself that this was probably something it was best to be left out of, anyway.

“Who’s the man?” asked Marius.

“Apparently the only human left on this island now is some person named Javert.”

Cosette didn't mention the part about the spirit claiming she and her father had been on the island before. She couldn’t even begin to wrap her head around that one.

“So someone does live on this island,” said Marius.  “This Javert person—he lives all alone?”

“That’s what they said. He’s been by himself here for years.”

“That’s really sad,” said Marius. “I can’t imagine what that’s like. He must be lonely.”

“Yeah.” Cosette had an uncomfortable vision of her own father sitting in the living room with frozen dinner. “Maybe Javert’s here because he likes the solitude.”

“Maybe,” conceded Marius. “Huh. I knew I saw electricity here and there…” His eyes sparked. “Wait. The House of Illusions, you said?”

“Yeah.” Cosette brightened. “Do you know where it is?”

“I know exactly where that is,” said Marius, already running. “Come on.”

It turned out that both of them were rotten at running. They had slowed to a stumbling, out-of-breath walk within a minute.

“I guess this is why I get picked on in PE,” panted Marius. “I mean, also other things.”

Cosette looked around. They were right near where she was before.

“The park?” asked Cosette, peering up at the play structure for some clue. “That’s the House of Illusions?”

“No,” panted Marius, pointing just beyond the trees that bordered the playground.

And there it was—a small brick building, its yellowed marquee glowing faintly, the lettering unreadable behind the thick greenery.

“The movie theater you talked about,” said Cosette, her face breaking into a smile. “It’s a house of illusion. That’s brilliant.”

Marius grinned back. “Well, we don’t know yet. We’ve gotta go inside to check for sure.” He frowned. “Or, more like, you…”

Cosette lingered outside the glass ticket box. 

“Scream if you need help and I’ll come in,” said Marius.

“Okay.”

“Please don’t die,” said Marius.

“I won’t.”

There was this one week when Cosette had been absent from school four days in a row. She’d had a pretty bad fever, but by the end of the week, she was finally feeling better. Still, her papa insisted that she stay home, wanting to make sure she got completely well.

There was something happening at school that day. Cosette had no memory of what it was now, but it was probably some project or some theme day or something equally insignificant. Still, she had looked out the window with longing as two of her friends walked to school. Her papa hadn’t missed that look, and so he took her to the movies to make up for it.

It was before noon on a weekday, and it was some animated children’s movie, and so she and her father had the movie theater all to themselves. Cosette remembered giggling the whole time and trying to stick her tongue out far enough to see if the sour straws had turned her tongue purple. It wasn’t an easy task, especially since the movie theater was pretty dark. 

Or maybe these memories were from other times at the movie with her papa, countless hours of childhood blurred together into a single memory.

There was one thing, though, that she was sure happened this particular morning. Her father was often so tense in public, walking faster than usual, startling when retail employees addressed him. He’d carefully maintain eye contact and a smile, both of which dropped away at the first available opportunity. 

On this day at the movie theater, with the whole place all to themselves, he had laughed in a way Cosette had never heard him do, his big shoulders shaking with it. He rolled up the sleeve of his sweater and turned their empty popcorn bag inside out and used it as a talking puppet, whisper-imitating the drawl of the onscreen cartoon villain. Cosette shrieked and and laughed and ducked away from the ravenous mouth of the paper bag, her head still light with the absence of fever.

Standing in the side aisle, Cosette peeked into the auditorium. It was coated in a fine film of darkness, the empty chairs standing in attention to the empty screen, heavy theater curtains hanging at its sides. Trailing vines and flowers still draped themselves over the steps, clambering eagerly over the rails and armrests, but unlike on the outside, they seemed immaculately trimmed and as much part of the decor as the painted ceiling and the gold leaf alcoves flanking the screen. She’d never seen a movie theater this fancy, even without all the plantlife.

Cosette took a few cautious steps forward, gazing into the empty auditorium. There was a light coming from somewhere, she was sure of that. She shouldn’t have been able to see that well otherwise. When she gazed up at the ceiling, she saw no light coming from there. 

The silhouettes of the empty chairs rose phantomlike in the luminous dark. Cosette again thought about that day with her father, the two of them having the theater all to themselves.

On the wall, a silver square of light shimmered to life, bringing Cosette back to the present moment. She whipped around.

And there—there was the source of light. A faint glow emanated from the high window of the projection booth, and—

The silhouette of a person.

When Marius asked her later where she got the courage to do what she was about to do, she could only wonder if it was because she still felt safe within her thin glass bubble of shock. Or maybe it was because when she thought about going to the movies with her father—when she recalled how raptly he gazed up at the screen and how he would whisper in awe at the special effects and how surprised he looked at the sound of his own laughter—she kept picturing her papa having no friends and always going to movies at non-busy hours, sitting in empty theaters all alone and—

Cosette walked silently up the side aisle steps, hugging close to the wall. When she reached the last row, she sidled in past the folded seats until the silver light pitched to a blinding white. She clambered up onto a seat and stood, squinting against the light, peering into the window of the projection booth. She was still too short. She reached up for the ledge of the window, her fingers digging in with determination, and she balanced on the seatback on tippy-toes.

She could just barely see above the window, and she had to squint past the light of projector, but it was enough. 

There was a man there kneeling by a big metal machine, adjusting the lenses with careful, elegant fingers. His greying hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail, but even so, a strand of it escaped, and Cosette watched as he tucked it behind his ear, barely pausing in his work. His lips pursed in concentration. 

Cosette reached up and tapped lightly on the glass.

The man glanced up in surprise, and through the glass, severe, sorrowful eyes met her own. Despite the fear gathering swiftly in her chest, Cosette offered him a friendly smile.

The man rose, his black trench coat rippling behind him, his figure wavering and disappearing in the white light.

Cosette stayed where she was, even as her whole body protested the strain to stay eye-level with the window. 

The man did not return.

Of course he’s a recluse, she chided herself. He’s watching movies all by himself. You scared him off. You should know better after Papa.

She began to carefully lower herself down, feeling for an armrest with the tip of her toe.

“Mademoiselle.”

At the sound of that gravelly voice, Cosette nearly fell. 

“I apologize,” he muttered.

Cosette regained her bearings, the sole of her shoe thankfully meeting the solidity of an armrest. Her heart thundered in her chest, the one sound at last breaking through the stunned silence within her.

She climbed down and turned around.

He was standing at the foot of the stairs, all the way down the side aisle. Even with Cosette having the higher ground, she couldn’t help but notice that this man was taller than she had anticipated—possibly even taller than Papa. The silhouetted trenchcoat only seemed to add to his height. Standing against the silver screen like that, he seemed almost like a character in a film.

“Hello,” she said.

He nodded stiffly. “What is your name?”

“I’m called Cosette.”

“And I’m Javert.” 

Still unsteady on her feet, Cosette went down the steps towards him.

“I was wondering if you could help us. We washed up here on your island—"

“I know.” He reached into his pocket and took something out. “I had my messenger send for your party. I’m looking for this man.” He held up a picture, seemingly a clipping from a newspaper article. The sheen of the laminate reflected back the light. “Is there anyone in your party matching this description?”

Cosette peered at the article. A dark-haired man wearing a suit stood in front of a modest staircase, his hand resting on the bannister, his smile restrained. Cosette didn’t recognize him—until she did.

“That’s my father,” exclaimed Cosette. “Have you seen him?”

For the first time, Javert seemed genuinely taken aback. "Your father?”

“Yes. Where is he?”

Javert peered at her. “How old are you?”

“I’m almost thirteen,” she said. “Why?”

Javert’s frown deepened. “No matter,” he said. “You’re not with him? You can’t tell me where he is?”

“Why are you looking for him, anyway?” asked Cosette, regarding him suspiciously.

“Your father, Cosette, is a dangerous criminal who has been on the run for decades.”

Maybe she was still numb, but she found that somehow, this didn’t surprise her. Or maybe she didn’t yet believe him. Or maybe it was that this—it made sense, actually. Not the dangerous part, but the criminal part. She had always known her father was hiding something--maybe even running from something--and this would certainly explain a lot of things.

Play along, she thought. Don’t let this man think you’re on his side.

“I know,” she said. 

“Good. I brought him here to this island in the name of justice. I will see that he is taken into custody.”

Cosette nodded slowly. “But you can’t find him?” she asked.

“He has always been very skilled at hiding from me."

“But I thought you were a magician.”

He glowered, as if offended by that very label. “I am an illusionist. My skills are limited to that capacity.”

Marius was right, then. The dryness of their clothes—it all made sense. “The storm,” Cosette said. “None of that was real. You created it to make my father come to shore.”

Javert stared down at her and did not reply. Cosette realized the look was supposed to be intimidating. But teachers who were deliberately intimidating had never much scared Cosette. She felt sorry for them, mostly, that they had jobs they so obviously hated and that they were pathetic enough to take it out on people a third their age.

Cosette stepped towards him, deciding on her tactic. “I’ll help you find my father,” she said solemnly. “I know his tricks. I know how he tries to get away from things.”

“You would have your own father arrested?” asked Javert, looking her in the eye.

It took everything Cosette had to speak the next words. “It’s what he deserves,” she said.

Javert nodded once. “Come, then.”

Javert packed a few essentials in a messenger bag and then showed her the way back to the entrance. She got to the glass door of the lobby before Javert and held it open for him. He paused, nodded curtly in thanks, and passed through, with Cosette following after him.

Marius was standing by the glass ticket booth, and he startled at the sound of their footsteps.

“Uh—” he began, looking up at the tall man.

Javert stared back down at him, unimpressed. “Who is this?” he asked Cosette.

“This is my friend, Marius,” she said. “Marius, this man says he’s with the police. He might be able to find my father for us and finally get him taken away.”

Cosette met his eyes carefully.

“Oh, thank God,” said Marius. “Oh, sorry, I don’t know if you’re religious. Sorry.”

Cosette exhaled softly with relief. “I’m religious, but I don’t care,” she said, and they both looked away.

If keeping up with Marius’ stride was a struggle, keeping up with Javert’s was another story entirely. The man’s height wasn’t the only problem. It was also that he knew the land well enough to step nimbly over roots, rabbit holes, ruined curb. Marius and Cosette both stumbled after him.

Cosette’s shoe met a hard shape, and she nearly tripped. Luckily, Marius didn’t see, as he was struggling to take off his sweatshirt and had somehow gotten his head stuck. Cosette would have giggled at the sight if her curiosity were not greater.

The girl kicked at the hard object on the ground, shaking leaves off the top and revealing what was underneath.

“Look,” said Cosette. Marius came to her side, smoothing down his hair and only mussing it further.

“Is that—?”

“It might be.”

He knelt down to brush off more of the leaves, revealing rusted metal. “Yeah, these are train tracks. That’s crazy.”

“We will follow these tracks,” said Javert without even turning around. “They will lead us around the island.”

“How big is this island?”  asked Marius.

“Oh—careful,” interrupted Cosette. Spotting a gnarled tree root in Marius’ way, Cosette grabbed his arm and maneuvered him around it.

“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t see that.”

Javert paused and turned back, noticing the gap between himself and the children. “Try to walk faster,” he said. “Your father is crafty, and we mustn’t lose time.”

“Yes, sir,” said Cosette, herself being pulled away from a fallen tree branch by Marius.

“The island can be circumambulated in under three hours,” said Javert. “However, I rarely venture to the other side. It is a lawless place.”

“Lawless?” asked Cosette, already out of breath. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The denizens of this island follow a certain set of codes such that we can all coexist here peacefully,” said Javert, not glancing back at either of them. “However, one group has defied these laws and has shunned proper society altogether. They have taken up residence on the far side.”

“I thought you were the only one who lived here,” said Marius.

Javert continued, “This land no longer has human inhabitants, but after enough time spent here, one learns how to communicate with the nonhuman,” he said. 

Cosette and Marius exchanged a glance, but Javert refused to elaborate. 

“We are going to consult the Leporids,” said Javert. “They dwell mostly underground, and their warren spans the entire island. It is illegal for them to have open rabbit holes on the civilized side, but as you can imagine, their hearing is excellent, and even when underground, they can hear everything going on aboveground.”

“So they can give us information about where my father might be,” said Cosette.

“Yes.”

“That’s perfect,” she said.

The path varied little along the track. Tall trees grew alongside the rails, allowing in sunlight that gleamed dully off the rusted metal. Shallow pools of water weakly offered back the sun’s reflection, and an occasional signpost stood stubbornly by the wayside, crooked and choked with flora.

“It’s kind of beautiful,” ventured Cosette. “Not pretty, for sure, but beautiful.”

“It is,” said Marius. “You know, I’ve always wondered what the world would look like if humans disappeared. Oh, we talked about this. The apocalypse thing.”

“Yeah. I’ve wondered, too.”

“I didn’t actually want to see it in real life, but.”

“Here we are,” she said.

“Here we are.”

Cosette again found herself struggling to keep up with Marius’ pace, but she reminded herself that he wouldn’t leave her behind—it’d be bad for both of them if they parted ways. She deliberately slowed to her natural pace. Well, a little faster than that, since they were both still following after Javert.

“What’s your favorite subject in school?” Perhaps the silence was uncomfortable for Marius, too, if he was bringing up random questions like this.

“I don’t know,” said Cosette, and immediately regretted her answer—it didn’t rank among the brightest things she could have said. “Is it bad that I like everything?”

“No,” replied Marius. “That’s a good thing.”

“It seems like a cheesy thing to say,” Cosette said. “But I genuinely like learning about everything. Maybe I’m just not good at anything in particular.”

“That means you’re good at learning, which is the most important skill of all.”

She smiled. “That’s a really nice way of looking at it.” The gap between themselves and Javert was widening, and exchanging a glance, the two of them quickened their pace. “Oh. There’s one class I really like this year,” said Cosette. “It’s a poetry class. All my other classes—even my literature class—they're all about breaking things down, but I liked the idea of just enjoying the way something makes you feel.”

“You should talk to my friend Jehan,” said Marius. “They said that’s the whole reason they like poetry. They said that poetry invites you to just sit with it, like…what they’d say? Like a childhood friend inviting you to their lunch table.”

“I can tell they’re a poet just from that,” she said. 

“They are. I feel like you two would be really good friends.”

“I’d love that,” said Cosette.

The silence sat awkwardly between them for just a moment before Marius asked her another question.

“Do you like your school?”

“I’m homeschooled,” replied Cosette.

She always felt a little defensive when she admitted this. After all, people had their stereotypes about homeschooled kids like her. The worst part was that she worried the stereotypes were true: that everyone could see that she wasn’t used to hanging out with other kids, that everyone could see she didn’t know how to dress or what to talk about or what movies were popular.

“I’m homeschooled, too,” said Marius eagerly. “Or at least, I used to be. I just started going to a school this year.”

“No way,” said Cosette, smiling with relief. “Did you like homeschooling?”

“Yeah, I kind of miss it,” said Marius. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” said Cosette. “I still go to the school once a week and I still get to see kids in my church group. And I’m dyslexic, so it’s nice for me to learn things at my own pace, anyway.”

“I am, too!” said Marius. “Dyslexic.”

“That’s so cool,” said Cosette. “Both of us. That’s part of what's nice about homeschooling. I don’t feel like I’m being rushed to absorb stuff. So I can really make sure I understand the stuff, instead of just being stressed about making sure I finish reading at the same time as everyone else.”

“Right. I hate it when they tell you to read a passage silently—”

“—and you see everyone else’s heads come up—”

“—and you’re on the second sentence,” finished Marius, and the two of them giggled.

“Yeah,” said Cosette. “And then you just lower your head when the teacher is waiting for someone to talk.”

“That’s the worst,” said Marius. “And you can always tell when a teacher’s about to call on you."

“Yeah,” said Cosette. “That’s the only time I ever wonder if I’m psychic. I feel like I always know when a teacher is about to call on me.”

“Me, too. And I’m always right,” said Marius. “That’s the worst part.”

“Yeah. I hate it.”

“Oh,” said Marius. “My Latin teacher is also dyslexic, and she has this giant poster in her office that says ‘Dyslexics of the World—UNTIE.”

Cosette giggled. The world in which life would go right back to normal after all this was a world she wanted to believe in.

“The Leporids can be talked to if you sedate them,” said Javert from ahead of them, and both of them started. “We will have to go retrieve the sedative before we venture into their burrow.”

Marius and Cosette roused themselves from their engrossing conversation.

“What’s the sedative?” asked Cosette, hurrying to catch up with him.

“It is ingberry—a fruit that can be found by the sea. Leporids like to chew wood, so we will need to coat bark with it.”

“Okay,” said Marius. “Does it hurt them?”

Javert turned back, utterly puzzled by the very question. “They are Leporids,” he said. “And no, it does not hurt them.”

“Okay.” Marius was still confused, and so was Cosette.

They were following along the train tracks again, and they had reached a point where several tracks crisscrossed. As they walked along, Cosette made a game of trying to follow with her eyes which track was which, all the while listening to Marius explain the symbolism of Leia strangling Jabba the Hutt with her own chain.

As the three ventured into the thinning trees bordering the beach, the group fell once again into silence. Cosette took the opportunity to be angry with her father. It felt—it felt good. The anger was thrillingly present, unlike that hollow, empty space inside her, that looming well of possibilities that she refused to acknowledge.

Sometimes, Cosette would be woken up at odd hours in the morning by the sound of the front door quietly shutting. Cosette was a deep sleeper. All the windows in the house could slam and she would sleep right through it. But the careful, surreptitious sound of her father’s footsteps in the foyer and the dull thud of the door against the frame—no click, since he would be twisting the knob in his hand to avoid excess noise—that’s what would unfailingly wake her up.

And sometimes, her papa would disappear into his room and stay there for so long that Cosette hesitantly knocked to make sure he didn’t need medical attention. He would always apologize profusely for worrying her. Then he would hardly eat anything at the dinner table, and she would see his hand trembling on the silverware. She would try to tell him about something that had happened at school, and he would nod and ask the right questions and even smile, but she could almost feel the way his focus trembled on her, struggling to remain in place. Then, inevitably, he’d excuse himself again and all but run upstairs.

When she thought about this, the anger dissipated again, leaving behind pockets of mysterious quiet inside her, the way a wave leaves tidepools as it retreats.

“Greedo only shot first in the Special Edition. He didn’t want it to look like Han just murdered Greedo in cold blood.”

“Greedo was a terrible person,” said Cosette. “Alien. Whatever he was. Bounty hunters in general are the worst, though. Greedo followed Han Solo all the way to Tatooine.”

“But I still think Jabba is even worse, since he’s the one who hired Greedo in the first place,” reasoned Marius.

“True.”

The group approached a narrow building rendered uncommonly beautiful by the tree growing up right through its roof, its branches twisting through the remains of broken windows, its roots upsetting the smooth lines of the walls.

“What is this place?” asked Cosette, scanning the disfigured facade for remaining signage or lettering. The building was cracked right open and light shone all through it, like a rich pomegranate sliced in two with its seeds spilling everywhere.

“This was once the public library,” said Javert, walking towards the wooden doors. “And this is the tree we’re looking for. Come.”

Marius and Cosette exchanged a glance and followed after him.

Cosette held her breath as she walked into the space. It was like a cathedral. Light floated in from the high windows and from the cracked roof, illuminating the rows of books lining every inch of the two-story walls. Fallen leaves and broken chairs were strewn over the cold linoleum, and she spied an abandoned librarian’s cart on the mezzanine floor. And right in the middle of it all was that big twisted tree.

Cosette touched her fingers to a frieze running along one of the shelves. “Look,” she said. “These are all different types of whales.”

“Whoa, that’s cool,” said Marius.

“Whales are my favorite animal,” she said. “Once, my papa took me whale watching, and we saw a humpback spouting.”

Cosette caught her mistake as the words left her mouth. It was fine, she reasoned. Even people who didn’t like their parents must have had at least one or two good memories with them. In any case, she had just made her story more complex and realistic.

Marius, meanwhile, was wandering around and taking it all in.

“All those books,” he said, his voice echoing off the walls. “They’ve just been here for years and years, sitting on the shelves.”

“I believe that is the definition of ‘library,’” said Javert. 

When Cosette looked up at him, she found that his look wasn’t malicious. Instead, to her surprise, he was offering them a small, wry smile. It was just the faintest flash of teeth, but her father was never a big smiler, either, so she had come to recognize even the smallest of smiles. Cosette smiled back as reassuringly as she could.

“It is,” she said. 

Javert cleared his throat. “You two can pick the fruit. I will gather wood outside. Fetch me if you need help.”

“All right,” said Marius. “How much do we need?”

“As many as you can fit in your bag will suffice.”

Marius looked down at his fanny pack. “Oh. Okay,” he said. “I’ll do my best.”

“Is this sturdy?” asked Marius, hovering by the staircase to the mezzanine level.

“We’ll see.” Cosette tested the first wooden step with her foot. It creaked, but stayed solid beneath her shoe. “Yeah. It seems fine so far. Let’s walk lightly in case.”

The two crept up to the mezzanine level, testing out each step before they placed their weight on it. Then, reaching over the railing, they started to pluck the juicy purple fruit off the branches.

“What even is this fruit?” asked Marius, putting one in his pocket.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,” she said, handing him another. “I still have no idea what this place is or what happened here.”

“Me, neither,” said Marius. He lowered his voice. “Okay, so what’s the deal with Javert?” asked Marius quietly, stuffing another fruit into his pocket.

Cosette glanced towards the door, but it was shut. “So apparently, my papa did something wrong in the past and Javert has been hunting him down for years. I was thinking there’s no way we can find my papa on our own, so I pretended like I want to help Javert arrest my papa so that he can lead us to him.”

“That’s really smart,” said Marius. “Wow.” Hesitantly, he asked, “Did your papa really do something wrong in the past?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Cosette. “But I’d still rather be on his side than this man’s side.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” They both glanced again at the library door. “But what are we going to do when Javert finds your papa?”

“I’m sure Papa will know what to do from there,” said Cosette. “Apparently, he’s escaped from Javert before.” She lowered her voice even further. “You were right about the storm, you know. Javert says he’s an illusionist. The whole storm was an illusion.”

Cosette heard a scrape as the door opened. She and Marius exchanged a meaningful glance before returning to their harvest.

“Have you seen the prequels?” Marius asked Cosette innocently as Javert’s figure loomed nearer and nearer in their peripheral vision.

“We are looking out for any large holes in the ground,” said Javert. “It should be fairly obvious where a Leporid dwells.”

And now Cosette was worried about tripping and falling into one without even seeing it.

A row of ruined shops squatted amongst the trees in the filtered light. Their windows were dirty, their awnings torn. There was even a rusted van still parked in front of one of the shops. It had a cupcake logo on the side. It was probably once the catering vehicle of one of these businesses.

“It’s like it’s haunted,” murmured Cosette, barely taking her eyes off the forest floor.

“I know,” said Marius, also addressing the ground. “I’m sure there are ghosts here.”

“I don’t know if there are literal ghosts here,” said Cosette. “But it’s like you can feel the presence of people’s lives here. You can see all the details of their lives, but their physical selves aren’t here.”

“Yeah,” agreed Marius. “But also literal ghosts. Ghosts definitely exist. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. So the energy of a human life has got to go somewhere. It just takes a different form.”

Javert glanced over his shoulder. “It goes to other biological forms. For example, if a cat eats an apple, the apple’s molecules become part of the cat.”

“Why would a cat be eating an apple?” wondered Marius.

Javert glowered. “It was an example.”

“Apple seeds contain cyanide,” countered Marius. “So they’re harmful to cats.”

“I didn’t say it was healthy,” replied Javert. “I only said that the apple’s molecules become part of the cat if the cat ingests the apple.”

“Cats can eat the outer flesh part of an apple, though,” Marius continued. “I know this because my cousin had a cat who always stole his apple slices. He had to go to the vet one time. The cat, I mean. It wasn’t because of the cyanide. It was because he ate too much apple and got an upset stomach.”

“That is unfortunate,” said Javert. He was silent for a moment. “Was the cat all right?”

“What?” asked Marius. “Oh, not really. He died a few months after that. I don’t think it was the upset stomach, though. He was just old. He lived until he was 21 years old. Apparently that’s a long time for cats.”

“That is unfortunate,” Javert said again. He attention was caught by something, and he stopped short. “This is odd.”

“A Leporid hole?” asked Cosette.

“No.” He reached into the hollow of a tree. Cosette and Marius peered over his shoulder. “Seaglass this far off the shore,” said Javert, turning a translucent blue stone over in his hands.  “And in a tree. Perhaps the crows have returned.”

“What do you mean?” asked Marius, and somehow, he looked even more panicked than usual. Maybe he was scared of crows.

“When there were still crows on this island, they would gather all the shiny objects they could find. I would find odd trinkets scattered all over the island.”

Cosette did not want to ask what happened to the crows. She felt that she probably didn't want to know.

“It’s pretty,” she said, studying the translucent stone in Javert’s hand, a lovely cornflower blue.

“Quite,” said Javert. He pocketed it. “I shall have to investigate later.”

The sound of crunching leaves floated faintly towards them. Marius and Cosette stopped.

“Do you hear that?” Cosette whispered. Marius nodded.

Javert turned back. “It’s a Leporid,” he said. “We must hide immediately."

“But aren’t we looking for…?” began Marius, trailing off at Javert’s glower.

Beyond a clustering of trees, Cosette spotted train cars, just up the track. 

“There?” asked Cosette.

Javert nodded curtly, and the three moved swiftly towards the carcass of a five-car train up ahead, covered in leaves and dirt. When they reached it, they sized it up, catching their breath.

“It’s sunken in the ground. We can’t crawl underneath,” said Javert.

Cosette gazed up and scanned the nearby trees.

“Can Leporids climb?” she asked.

Javert frowned. “No.”

“Follow me,” she whispered.

“What are you doing?” asked Marius as Cosette backed up several paces. “Cosette?’

Cosette broke into a run and leapt at the nearest tree branch. She scrambled for purchase, her hands slipping.

And then Javert was hoisting her up, his grip steady and sure. As Javert held her in place, she wrapped her arms and legs around the thick branch, pulling herself upright. 

“I’ve got it,” she said. “I’m good. I’m up.”

Cosette no longer resented the two of them for being so tall. 

Her arm braced on the trunk for support, Cosette unsteadily rose to a standing position. Planting her foot on a knot in the tree, she hoisted herself up to the next branch.

“It’s stable,” she said, carefully not looking down at the ground. “You can come up.”

“What do Leporids do?” whispered Marius’ voice from below, slightly strained as he pulled himself up to the first branch.

Javert was silent for a moment. “I forgot that you do not have Leporids in the rest of the world. They harvest bones to decorate their dens,” replied Javert gruffly, himself beginning to climb.

Marius’ voice came weak. “Oh.”

“This is why we need to sedate them.”

“I get that now.”

Cosette tried as hard as she could to erase that entire exchange from her memory. 

She crawled to the tip of the branch and looked down at the train roof. Cautiously, she let her sneaker dip down into the small pool of water and leaves that had collected in the dented surface. Then, she swung her other leg down and slid off the branch and onto the top of the train. 

“It’s safe,” she said, moving out from directly under the branch. “Come on.”

From the distance, the sound of crunching leaves grew louder. Cosette could see that Marius had heard it, too. He hurriedly pulled himself up to the next branch and started crawling her way, swiftly followed by Javert.      

“You’re almost there,” she whispered.

Marius swung his legs down and landed unceremoniously next to her, rattling the whole train.

“That was a terrible landing,” he said.

“But you made it.”

Javert lowered himself down onto the roof, wordlessly taking the space between them. All three of them listened. The footfalls were close by.

“Lie flat,” instructed Javert.

Cosette gingerly lay back onto the bed of leaves and dirt, and Marius did the same. 

In the silence, all they could hear was the distant roar of the sea.

“It’s gone,” said Cosette. 

“It may have gone underground,” said Javert. “They—”

The car under them began to rattle. They fell still. By silent mutual agreement, they scooted closer together. 

The car rattled again, sending a shiver down Cosette’s spine. The distinct sound of footsteps on metal vibrated up through the walls.

Cosette burrowed her hand deeper in the leaves. Her hand met with a smooth surface, like glass. As quietly as possible, she turned over onto her stomach, wincing at the complaint of disturbed leaves.

“Cosette?” whispered Marius.

She brushed away a few leaves and peered down through the window. It was smudged with dirt and rain, but through it, she could see a vague shape huddled in a corner. She wiped the glass with her sleeve and carefully took away a few more leaves. 

“What the heck?” she whispered.

“I want to see,” whispered Marius, also turning over to look. Cosette scooted aside a little to make room. “Oh my God, that’s the biggest rabbit I’ve ever seen.”

“One of the rabbit holes must be near here,” muttered Javert. “Good.”

Both Marius and Cosette turned to him.

“The collecting information sounds good,” said Marius. “But the part about them possibly collecting our bones?”

“This is what we will have to avoid,” said Javert.

“Yeah, I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure,” replied Marius, earning him another patented glower as Cosette stifled a giggle.

“We’ll follow the Leporid to its rabbit hole,” said Javert. “Come. There’s no time to lose.”

A bridge stretched over a grassy stream, and the train tracks followed dutifully over it. Graffiti and vines spilled over the side.

The tawny Leporid nibbled peacefully on tall grass in the distance, and the group followed cautiously after it.

“I actually like the prequels,” said Cosette to Marius as they crossed over the bridge. “They’re not as bad as everyone says.”

“I love the prequels. There were some scenes that were just epic.”

“Some of it was good,” agreed Cosette. “I really liked Qui-Gon in the first one.”

“Me, too. And the duel on the volcano? Come on, you can’t beat that.”

“You get to see how Darth Vader became who he was,” replied Cosette. “You start to see that he’s not just some villain. Inside, he was just a kid and he was scared.”

“You may eat one of the fruit if you are hungry,” said Javert over his shoulder, walking ahead of them, as always.

Marius took one of the fruits out of his pocket. He and Cosette both eyed the misshapen purple lump and mutually shook their heads.

“No, thank you,” said Marius.

“We’re good.”

“What’s your papa like?” asked Marius thoughtfully, stepping up onto the rail and holding out his arms to balance.

Cosette did the same on the other rail. “Well, uh.” She glanced over at Javert. Marius nodded, and the two of them stalled on the rails for several moments, wavering as they tried to keep balance.

When the black trenchcoat was far enough away, Cosette said quietly, “My papa is, uh—” She realized that she hadn’t the slightest clue what to say. “He seems very old sometimes and he also seems like a kid sometimes,” she said. “Like, sometimes, I don’t know whether he’s taking care of me or I’m taking care of him.”

“What do you mean?” asked Marius. His voice was all curiosity—no judgment.

“I don’t know,” she said. She continued to walk along the rail, and Marius did the same. “For example, I was staying afterschool last week and my phone battery died. And I was nervous the whole time because I’d knew he was worrying about me. And when I’d got back home, he was almost beside himself. It’s like I’m still a little kid and he lost me in the supermarket or something. And sometimes, he—” She broke off. “The whole reason we were in the boat is we were moving away. I still don’t really get why. There’s a lot he never tells me. Anyway, we had to leave behind a lot of our stuff, and he just kept telling me it doesn’t matter, because I’m his whole life and he’s home as long as he’s with me and his life wouldn’t have any meaning without me. And when he tells me things like that, I’m always afraid that when I grow up and move away, I’ll be ruining his life. I mean, that’s not happening soon, but. Yeah. I don’t really know how to explain.”

Marius’ expression was more serious than she had ever seen it. “I know what you mean.” He stared down at the tracks, playing with the strings of his hoodie. “I’m raised by my grandpa. He and I never really agreed about anything. He judges all my friends and says awful things about them, and we fight all the time. We just had a big fight last week, so I was taking the ferry to go stay with my aunt for a while.” He fell silent. “I know he must know I’m missing by now, and I just feel so—I feel so guilty. And the worst part is that I knew he was going to worry about me, but—but that’s why I did it, that’s why I decided to go off without saying anything to him. Because it’s like with your papa. I know that even though we fight all the time, I always knew if anything happened to me, or if I even just stopped seeing him, it’d ruin his life. And I kind of did it on purpose.”

“His happiness isn’t your responsibility,” said Cosette quietly, squinting into the afternoon sun. “You’re a big part of his happiness, but it’s only fair if he’s also part of yours.”

“You’re right,” said Marius. “But it’s really hard when I know I’m the most important thing in his life, and maybe the only real thing in his life.”

At this point, Javert—by now disappearing into the grasses on the other side of the bridge—looked back.

“Come along,” he said, already hurrying in pursuit of his destination. “The Leporid just went underground.”

Marius and Cosette exchanged a guilty glance and followed quickly into the open field.

“Here,” said Javert, and even if he hadn’t, it would have been impossible to miss.

A fallen tractor lay on its side like a sleeping cat, exposing its rusty belly to the group. The object of their concern, though, was the huge rabbit hole in its shadow, almost the same size as the tractor itself. They could see several other similarly-sized holes further down in the field.

Cosette tried to ignore her nerves.

“How do we do this?” asked Marius uncertainly.

“Give me the fruit.”

Marius reached into his bulging pockets, and Javert raised his eyebrows.

“There would have been more room in your fanny pack,” he said.

Marius shrugged a little, and Javert took the fruit from him. He began to coat his pieces of bark in their juice.

“I’ll help you,” said Cosette, stepping forward and taking half of the bundle from him. Marius supplied both of them with fruit until all the pieces of bark were faintly purple.

“Now we’ll drop a few of them in,” said Javert. “If we hear the Leporid chewing, it will be safe to go in.”

Cosette found herself almost wishing that they wouldn’t hear the sound.

They did as Javert said, dropping a few in. Not a second later, they heard a shuffling noise. Javert ushered both children backwards. And then—

“There it is,” said Javert. Indeed, they could hear a quiet, content munching sound. For a moment, Cosette forgot that these creatures were deadly carnivores who wanted to harvest her bones.

“Do we just go in?” asked Marius uncertainly.

Javert took a long rope out of his messenger bag. “Marius, you take this rope,” he said. “There’s no telling how steep this slope will be, and we may need assistance climbing back out. If we need the rope, we’ll call to you.”

Marius took the rope in his arms. “Yes, sir.”

Javert motioned for Cosette to come.

“I will go first,” said Javert. “Follow me.”

He sat down at the edge of the hole and then dropped down, disappearing into darkness. Cosette and Marius exchanged a glance.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” said Cosette.

With Marius at her side, she followed Javert’s example, first sitting and then, taking a deep breath, allowing herself to slip down.

Cosette slid and tumbled against the steep slope, choking as dirt went into her nose. She squeezed her stinging eyes tightly shut. Skidding to a halt, she found herself in a fecund darkness, smelling of wet, raw earth.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

“I am here,” replied Javert.

She slowly rose to her feet, and she heard Javert doing the same beside her.

“Hello?” called Javert gruffly. “We wish to speak to you.” 

Nothing but silence answered.

Javert’s hand encircled Cosette's wrist, making sure she didn’t stray from his side in the dark.

“Will you cooperate with us?” asked Javert. “Will you tell us what we need to know?”

Still, nothing but silence. Javert took another step forward, and Cosette with him.

“Speak to us.”

Everything happened too quickly for comprehension. When they took one final step, something groaned beneath their feet. A dreadful creaking noise was their only warning, followed by a metallic bang, like that of a hatch closing.

Neither she nor Javert dared to breathe for a minute.

The two both took a few tentative steps forward. Cosette’s face collided with what seemed to be a bar of some kind, and she stumbled backwards.

“Are you all right?” asked Javert.

“I’m fine,” she said, knowing that Javert couldn’t see her pressing her hand to her nose.

Cosette heard clanging noises as Javert went about in the dark. The rattling grew more frantic.

“It’s my own Leporid trap,” he muttered. “They have always been against me. They lured us here on purpose and trapped us.”

Cosette’s heart beat frantically. “Is there any way to open the trap?” she asked.

“No. I don’t have the key.”

“Do you think they’re going to come for us?”

“It is very unlikely that they can open the trap, either,” said Javert. She heard him inhale sharply. “I think their plan, rather, is that we starve here.”

Cosette looked up to the small halo of light in the ceiling. “Can we call Marius?” she asked, her voice now pitching higher with panic.

“I don’t know what he could do,” admitted Javert.

She heard another loud bang, and it took Cosette a moment to realize that it was Javert throwing his own weight against the bars of the cage. The bang sounded again, and the whole cage rattled.

“Stop,” she pleaded. “Monsieur Javert, stop.”

She lunged towards him blindly in the dark, throwing her arms around him and pulling him back with as much strength as she could muster. They both stumbled backwards, hitting the other wall. Javert did not immediately shake her off.

“Let’s just sit a moment,” said Cosette, even though her voice was quavering freely now. “We can think about this.”

Silently, Javert acquiesced. As she sat down, she felt the hard metal bars digging into her legs.

There, in the raw smell of the darkness, they waited.

“I’m sorry,” said Javert finally. “I should have known better.”

“It’s not your fault,” replied Cosette, even as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, even as an inexplicable anger at everyone and everything rose inside her.

A faint blue light colored the air. Javert’s face seemed to hover, disembodied: blue eyes, a long nose, and compressed lips suspended in the darkness.

“We have the power of illusion on our side,” said Javert. “But this is why the Leporids retreated into the dark. When you are surrounded by illusion, blindness offers more clarity.”

“Mmmhmm,” said Cosette. She hated how her voice was trembling—with fear and anger both, perhaps. If anything happened to her, how on earth would her father go on? He should’ve found something else—a hobby or a friend or something—so that the burden of his life’s happiness wouldn’t be entirely on her not dying in this rabbit cage. That wasn’t her fault. 

“We can bargain with them when they come,” said Javert. “If they ever do.”

“This place,” said Cosette, her voice now thick with frustration. “I just don’t understand. This island. What’s going on here?”

Javert was silent for a moment. “So your father never mentioned this place to you?”

“No,” she said, voice twisted with bitterness.

“This didn’t used to be an island,” said Javert. “It was a group of cities by the sea once. But there was an…incident. To this day, I do not know what it was. We were not told. However, because of what happened, the government began to seal off our city. Our communications gradually failed, our roads were blocked one by one, and any and all shipments ceased. When our dams started to crumble, the waters rushed in, physically cutting us off from the mainland. And so this city began to experience its own apocalypse.”

“What happened to all the people who lived here?” asked Cosette.

“They were evacuated and redistributed throughout the world. They were told never to speak of this island’s existence. The government does not wish for anyone to find out what it is that happened here, and rightfully so.”

“And you never found out yourself.”

“I never questioned,” he said. “I do not question the wisdom of my superiors.”

“And you stayed behind,” said Cosette. “Why?”

“Someone needed to be steward of this abandoned island,” said Javert. “Someone needed to safeguard it and make sure that its secrets were never discovered. There was none better to do so than a master of illusion. They appointed me to this task, and it was my duty to carry it out.”

And in that moment, clarity came to Cosette. She still wasn’t quite clear on the history between her father and Javert, but now, she finally understood the illusionist's heart. Of course Javert was still chasing after her father. Javert had been alone on this island, utterly abandoned, for all these years. He held onto his faith in justice by a thread. Of course he had latched desperately onto this one mission, this one purpose. What else could he do but chase her father?

The orb of illumination spun in the air, as if suspended from an invisible thread. Javert reached into his pocket and took something out. It was the blue seaglass.

He held it up to the orb of illumination until its light shone from within the seaglass, brilliant in the dark. Then, the light ebbed back down, and the seaglass faded again into invisibility. Cosette found the cool stone being pressed into her palm.

“Here,” Javert said. “Hold it up to the light.”

There wasn’t much of it coming from the distant rabbit hole high above, but Cosette did as told, moving the seaglass around until it was visible as a dull blue glow.

“Look through it,” he said.

She squinted. With the limited light, the stone looked murky, yes, but…but all at once, the faint blue gained depth. Rolling waves curled with foam and a whale rose from the water, spouting joyfully.

“You said that you like whales,” Javert said.

The whales and the waves blurred, then, and Cosette blinked back tears. “Thank you,” she said.

Javert was silent for a moment, and Cosette could tell that he was debating whether or not to say something.

“Cosette,” he said brusquely, yet with an unexpected current of vulnerability to his voice. “I say this to you because you are still a child. I, too, had parents who were in and out of jail. In fact, I myself was born in prison.” He inhaled slowly. “However, I still managed to choose my own way and not end up down the same path that my parents did. It is not impossible. You don’t have to end up like the scum that your father is.”

And as Cosette gazed into the seaglass, the whales leapt and the sea crashed and Cosette was eight years old, her hair blowing in her face, swaddled in a bright orange life jacket. And her father was by her side, lifting her up so that she could see better, and—

Here in the dark, the thought of her father was so painfully near that she couldn’t keep it up anymore. If she was never going to see her father again, she couldn’t also have the last things she ever said about him be these awful, awful lies.

“Monsieur Javert,” she said, carefully fastening the stone to her silver chain necklace, everything going calm and still inside her. “Do you remember how I said I wanted my father arrested? And that I’d help you do it?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t real,” she confessed quietly. “I just wanted to get you to help me and Marius find him.”

The silence between them was interminable.

“You and he are just alike,” he muttered. “I should’ve known.” 

“He rescued me from abusive caretakers when I was little,” said Cosette. “He adopted me as his own daughter. He’s my Papa.”

“He’s a dangerous criminal and you know it,” countered Javert. “A thoroughly corrupt, immoral man.”

“What did he do?” asked Cosette.

“He never even told you?”

“What did he do?” she repeated.

“He was a thief,” said Javert. “In prison, he has made numerous attempts to escape. He broke parole and forged multiple different identities.”

“Why did he do all that?” asked Cosette.

“Because, as he’s exhibited time after time, he has complete disregard for the law and for the functioning of society.”

“But why?”

“Because some people are criminals, and they must be put in their place.”

“You don’t even know the story, then,” said Cosette. “You don’t know why he did those things. You don’t even care.”

“I don’t,” said Javert. “It doesn’t matter. And as soon as I encounter him again, I’m sending him back for life.”

“You don’t know anything about my papa,” said Cosette.

“It seems that you don’t, either,” said Javert.

In his voice, Cosette could hear nothing except the weary resolve of a man who had resigned himself to hatred long ago.

The darkness curled tight around her, squeezing the breath from her lungs. “You’re a monster,” said Cosette.

As the silence hardened, Cosette feared for a moment that Javert would begin to shout with anger. But then—

A voice bursting through the dark. 

“Cosette? Cosette?!”

Sheer disbelief brought Cosette immediately to her feet, dizzy with shock.

“Papa!” she yelled.

The cage shook as Javert, too, got to his feet. 

“Where are you?” her father shouted. 

“I’m right here!” Cosette whipped around, trying to find where the voice was coming from. “Papa? Papa!”

White light filled the burrow as Javert conjured his illuminations. Cosette craned her head up towards the voice. It almost seemed like the figure of her father floated down—or maybe it was just the hovering quality of Javert’s light. 

But then, standing right outside the metal bars of the cage, there was her father, wearing the same green sweater she had last seen him in.

“Papa,” said Cosette, rushing towards him. He grabbed her hands through the bars. His hands were big and warm.

“Step back, Cosette. I’m going to get you out of here.”

Cosette did, and her father gripped two of the bars. As she watched, stunned, he let out a great cry and wrenched the bars apart, just enough for a child to slip through.

Questioning how he got here—not to mention how he could bend steel bars—was the last thing on her mind. Cosette squeezed through the opening and into his waiting arms, already crying into the soft material of his sweater.

“You’re safe now, honey,” he murmured into her hair. His shaking fingers smoothed through her hair. She could feel his hot tears spilling over her own eyelids. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

When their tears at last began to run dry, when their shuddering breaths started to even out again, her father cupped her small face in his hands.

And then he glimpsed a figure over her shoulder.

Cosette watched as her father’s eyes widened, his mouth falling open just a little. He and Javert simply looked at each other, silently unfolding a whole history in the space between them.

An eternity later, Javert spoke. “Take your revenge,” said Javert calmly.

Valjean gazed back at him without words. Again, he planted his hands on both of the bars, and with a grunt, he forced them even more widely apart, wide enough for a grown man to fit through.

Cosette’s heart pounded. Javert watched him, clear-eyed and resigned.

“Do what you must. There’s no need to stall.”

Her father shook his head, just a little. “You have always thought so little of me,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

And all at once, the Illusionist was a child again. Javert stared at Cosette’s father in open astonishment, entirely uncomprehending.

At this point, the fact that her father apparently had wings didn’t even faze her. So much had happened that this was hardly the most emotionally pressing. And at the moment, the only thing she cared about was that he was there.

She was cradled in one of his arms and Javert was tucked securely under the other as he flew laboriously up through the tunnel, panting with the exertion. The powerful gust of his wings blew Cosette’s hair into her face; the light of the sky grew bigger and brighter.

And then they were free, and her father was landing the three of them on solid ground. When Cosette righted herself, the first thing she saw was Marius, staring at them with undisguised awe.

“Oh, thank God, you’re alive,” he said, dropping his entire bundle of rope, and he and Cosette rushed forward and hugged each other tightly.

“What happened?” asked Marius.

Cosette launched into her story—how the two of them had ended up in a Leporid trap—and Marius added in his—how he had seen a winged man sweeping in out of nowhere and pleading with him for information about Cosette.

“But how did Papa even find us?” Cosette asked Marius.

“He saw our ‘Ariel’ sign, and then he followed our trail.”

“Our trail?” echoed Cosette.

Marius sheepishly reached into his fanny pack and extracted a handful of colorful stones. “Actually, I was hiding pieces of seaglass in the trees the whole time,” he said. “All along our way. Just in case your Papa was looking for us. He got the picture pretty quickly because we just walked along the railroad track, and that wasn't too hard to follow."

“So the blue seaglass that Javert saw—”

“That was me,” said Marius, grinning. “I had a lot because, ah—you know, I was doing my whole running away thing. My grandpa knew I liked seaglass, so he always took me to this beach that had lots of it, and he let me spend all day picking it up, so. I had a whole seaglass collection in my room and I thought I’d take it with me to my aunt’s.”

“And you made a trail.” Cosette was grinning, too. “You’re a genius.”

His smile wavered. "No one's ever told me that before."

Their attention was then diverted by the other conversation taking place. Right behind them, her father and Javert were engaged in a quiet but no less intense counterpart of their exchange. Her heart sank with worry again as she remembered the things Javert had said about her father. 

“I knew our paths would cross again,” her father was saying. “I just hoped it wouldn’t happen this soon. I hoped I would at least get to see my daughter grow up.” He heaved a sigh. “All I ask is one thing, Javert. Let me accompany the boy back home and then give my daughter to the care of my friend Fauchelevent. Then I’m yours.”

Javert met eyes with her over her father’s shoulder. Cosette looked away.

“Take them, Valjean,” he said. “Evening will fall soon and it won’t be safe to sail. You may spend the night here. In the morning, take a boat and bring the children home.”

Her father nodded. “Then I will return,” he said. “You will accompany me to the nearest police station and turn me in.”

“I will be waiting.”

At the end of afternoon, Cosette sat with her father at the low cliff overlooking the ocean. The movie theater was a short walk away, just inland of the beach, and so Marius and Javert had gone ahead of them.

Of course, the two started by relaying what had happened in the hours before they reunited. Finally, though, Valjean told her everything: how he had stolen a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving family, how he had spent twenty years in prison, how Javert had been a prison guard and how they met again as mayor and officer, right here in this very city, he said, before it became an island. How the townspeople had helped him escape with her by night in a little storm-tossed boat, just after Arras.

Her father’s tale took nearly an hour. He wept several times; Cosette did, too. 

“I’m sorry,” she managed at the end, wiping her eyes.

“For what?”

“I led him to you,” Cosette said thickly. “I don’t know if he told you. He said you were an ex-convict on the run and that he was looking for you. I thought maybe if we pretended we were on his side, he could lead us to you and then—" She broke off. “I don’t know what my plan was.”

“No, no, Cosette.” He wrapped an arm around her and drew her closer. “Cosette, if not for this, who knows if we would have found each other by now? Or at all? You’ve seen how dangerous this island can be. What if we all had to spend the night alone, out in the open? You rescued me. Again. Again, and again, and again.”

The light coming off the sea was blurred by tears.

“I don’t want you to go to jail,” she said, curling up to his side.

“We’ll make it work,” he said. His voice was losing its usual quiet precision. It sounded muddy, like he was crying still. “You can still visit me and we can write to each other. And if I’m good, they might release me on parole.”

“You don’t deserve this.”

“Cosette, I—you don’t know me,” he said abruptly, this thought breaking through mid-sentence. “The things I’ve done.”

“Maybe I don’t know everything about you,” Cosette replied. “But I know you.”

That was all it took for Valjean to start weeping again. 

This time, though, he quickly wiped away his tears, offering Cosette a reassuring smile. Then, he spotted the pendant hanging from Cosette's fine silver chain necklace. "That's so pretty," he said, reaching for it. "Where'd you get that?”

“What? Oh.” Cosette looked down and touched the small blue seaglass pendant. “Monsieur Javert,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Monsieur Javert?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

“I’ll get rid of it,” she said, beginning to take it off. “It’s not—”

Her father reached out to stop her. “No,” he said. “It’s very pretty. Keep it, please.”

Cosette hesitated, then decided that there was no way she could tell her papa all the terrible things Javert had said about him.

“All right,” she said. She continued taking it off anyway and held it out to Valjean. “Hold it up to the light from the sea. You can see things if you look through it.”

Valjean did as instructed, turning the pendant and squinting. From his sharp intake of breath, she could guess at what Valjean was seeing.

“That’s amazing,” he murmured as he continued gazing in.

“Isn’t it cool?”

“It’s beautiful. Do you remember the day—”

“We went whale watching.”

“Yes! And we saw that big whale.”

"And you got seasick."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

He turned away from the sea, its blue-grey glint still lingering in his eyes like a note of longing. Cosette took the pendant back from him, but still didn’t put it back on.

“Did Javert tell you how we acquired our odd magical powers?” asked Valjean thoughtfully.

With all the other big questions of the day, Cosette hadn’t even thought to ask that. “No.”

“It comes from being in environments of extreme pressure,” he said, “and entering a sudden crisis or moment of decision. But it has to be a moment of reversal, where you undergo some big change. It’s like so much pressure builds up and releases on the inside that it needs to show up on the outside somehow.”

“Yours was the Bishop,” said Cosette.

“Yes.”

“Do you know what Javert’s was?”

“I can only think that it must have been his decision to dedicate his life to the law,” he said. “We come from the same place, he and I. My crisis was my turn towards mercy. His crisis was his turn towards justice.

Cosette nodded, taking this all in. “It must get lonely,” she said, “living on this island all by himself. Master of illusions.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” said Valjean, his eyes very faraway. He finally turned back to her fully. “Put it back on,” he encouraged, noticing the necklace still in Cosette’s hands. 

Again, the words rose, but she didn’t speak them. Papa didn’t need to know all the horrible things Javert had said. 

“You said that you had a jewelry factory here once?” Cosette said instead, fastening the necklace again. She struggled with the clasp.

“Turn around,” said Valjean, and she did. He brushed her hair over her shoulder, running through it once with his fingers, and Cosette remembered how much she missed her father brushing her hair in the morning. Maybe when they got home, she’d ask him to start doing it again. “It wasn’t as fancy as a jewelry factory,” Valjean said. “We made glass beads.” She saw her papa hesitate before he continued. “Your mother worked in my factory, actually.”

“Will you tell me more about her?” asked Cosette eagerly. “When we get home?”

Valjean smiled, sustaining the fiction. “Everything. I’ll tell you a bit every day. You know, she used to take you to this park here all the time.”

“Ariel Park?” asked Cosette.

“That’s the one. She told me stories all about it. The other kids would be playing on the monkey bars or going up and down the slide, but you’d just climb up to the top of the play structure and sit there and watch people.”

And now she knew—that’s why it had felt so familiar. The swings, the gold-lettered sign—

“Ariel Park,” Cosette said reverently.

They rejoined Javert and Marius at the movie theater shortly. 

The concrete storage room at the end of the hall was exactly the kind of place that Cosette would have expected someone like Javert to live, but she still felt a pang in her heart to actually see it: just a mattress and a blanket in a corner.

“I’m afraid I don’t have other mattresses,” he said. “However, you are welcome to use whatever I have here to make yourselves comfortable for the night. In the morning, go to the beach and follow the rocky inlet until you see the place where my boats are docked. There is no need to return the boats to me.”

Cosette glanced up at her father. There was a strange look in his eye and a furrow in his brow, but he nodded nevertheless.

“That is very generous of you,” Valjean said. “But won’t you be back anytime soon?”

“I will try,” he said. “But don’t wait for me. I may be gone long.”

“Please come back,” said Cosette. “We do need to thank you for your boats.”

Javert nodded. He hovered in the doorway. “Is there anything else you will be needing?”

“We’ll be quite comfortable here,” said Valjean. “Don’t worry about us.”

Javert nodded once and shut the door.

Cosette crawled immediately into her father’s lap. He laughed, wrapping his strong arms around her.

“You’re getting a bit big to be doing this,” he observed.

“But I haven’t seen you all day,” said Cosette, hugging back.

He chuckled. “All day and an eternity.”

Cosette rested her chin on her father’s shoulder. “Javert’s not coming back to say goodbye, is he?”

His beard tickled her cheek as he shook his head. “No,” he said. “And speaking of which…” He let Cosette go. “Will you kids be all right here by yourselves for a while?” he asked, eyeing Marius, too. “I think I should go after him.”

“Do you think he’s going to try to get you arrested right now?” asked Cosette worriedly, intertwining her little fingers with his large ones.

“No, no. Not that. But I do think I should go check on him.”

“Be careful, sir,” said Marius, and only then did Cosette realize the way Marius was gazing at the two of them.

Valjean was already on his feet. “I will,” he said. “You’re sure you will be all right?”

If Cosette were being honest, she didn’t want to let her father out of her sight. Still, she smiled brightly at him.

“We’ll be okay,” she reassured.

Marius was unusually silent as they arranged their bedding. With a collection of various blankets and movie theater cushions, they made it work.

"Is your papa going to be okay?" he asked, hugging a booster cushion to his chest.

She knew he didn't mean just tonight. "We'll make it work," she said, not wanting to think about it.

He didn't reply, unfastening his watch carefully and setting it aside. Cosette reached back and fumbled to take off her necklace. She placed it right next to her own booster cushion, the one she'd be using as a pillow.

“Everything will be fine in the morning,” she said, switching off the lights, settling down in her own corner. “Your grandpa will be really happy to have you back and he’ll be more relieved than anything else. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” said Marius. He hesitated. “You know, I was just thinking about this one time when I was little. I told my grandpa that the other kids get notes in their lunchboxes. You know, like Post-it notes shaped like hearts or whatever. And the next day in my lunch, I got a full letter."

She grinned. "A letter?"

"It was so weird, too. It just said that I was a good grandson and he was proud of my schoolwork and that I have the potential to grow up into a decent man. I was so embarrassed when everyone in my class tried to read it. I got teased so much.”

“That reminds me of a time my papa came to my school,” giggled Cosette. “And he never comes to my school, so this was already really weird…”

An hour later, Cosette and Marius had tears in their eyes from laughing—and perhaps not just from that.

They fell silent instantly when they heard footsteps outside the door. Of course, by the jingle of the keys, they knew it was Javert. Still, it was sleepover code that the moment you heard parents in the hallway, you pretended to be fast asleep, and so that’s what they did.

Behind her closed eyelids, Cosette saw the room brightening just a little as the door opened. She opened her eyes a sliver. The silent forms of her father and Javert were stepping in through the door. Javert was wearing two jackets and her father was going without; Javert’s hair was down and it hung limp, like it was wet, but it was too dark to tell. 

The two men shuffled past her into the next room, and the door to that room shut, as well.

Cosette and Marius listened. Neither of them said a word. Neither of them slept.

All through the night, Cosette heard her father and Javert talking in the inner room, their voices low. At times, she heard one or the other pacing; at times, someone raised his voice; at times, she heard silences that stretched on for too long. And yet, with passing moment, Cosette was more and more certain that it could be well. Just as I promised Marius, she thought. 

“All my life creating illusions, and now it turns out I lived one, as well.”

“We all do. Do you know the Shakespeare quote? 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep'..."

The silence unfolded gently between them, then. Cosette fell asleep to that sound: of her father and Javert still talking, still trading silences, all through the night.