4308.274 · September 30, 1988 AD
Memorising the Light
Toast catches at the edges. Coffee steams in familiar mugs. Jasmine's hair is still tangled from sleep. It's just another morning in the Dallow house—except Violet is memorising it. The slant of light across the kitchen tiles. The scrape of her mother's knife on bread. The rustle of her father's newspaper, lowered too often, his eyes finding hers with something he won't name. When she fastens the family locket around Jasmine's neck, she tells herself it's just for safekeeping. Just until she returns.
30 September 1988. Morning.
The Girl Guides bus leaves in hours. Violet should be excited—campfires, starlit skies, adventures with friends. Instead, she stands in the kitchen doorway, watching dust motes drift through pale gold light, feeling the absurd need to commit every detail to memory. The scent of her mother's perfume. The creak of familiar floorboards. The shape of home.
Upstairs, Jasmine helps her pack, and laughter breaks through the heaviness—mismatched socks, too many books, a stuffed wombat smuggled into the pile. But when Jasmine lifts the silver locket from the dresser, the room goes still. Four generations of Dallow women have worn this chain. Grandmother to mother to daughter, a quiet inheritance of courage passed hand to hand.
You keep this close, Jaz. So you'll always know—no matter where I am—we're still connected.
At breakfast, her father watches over the rim of his newspaper, not reading. On the back porch, he grips the railing and speaks words he's never said before: If anything feels off, anything at all, you come straight home.
The door clicks shut behind her. Ethan's warnings echo in the warming air.
She doesn't look back.
