She was trying, rigorously, to be normal, to seem – happy and joyful and excited and not at all tense about the wedding next weekend, but the note had rattled her, to say the least. She hadn’t told anyone about it – she certainly did not want to ask Brooks about it – so it was still burning a hole in her pocket and in her brain while she stood at this unfortunate gathering, overwhelmed by everything.
It had even been difficult enough to look Brooks in the eye while they spoke tonight – she had excused herself from his side without quite knowing where she was heading instead – and it took her a moment to decipher the familiar face as more than a looming reminder of her past. If Miss Woodcroft had been the first time in her youth she had tried to act on a true feeling, Miss Scamander had been the first person she had tried to talk about her true feelings to. She had seemed a safe receptacle for her secrets then; but they had never talked quite as candidly since, and indeed, Effie hadn’t seen her in quite some time.
So it did seem ominous to her that Marlena should be resurfacing this very minute, when her nerves were fraying by the minute about the prospect of being married. “In the flesh,” Effie replied, with just a slight strained edge behind her bright plastered smile, wondering if Marlena recalled her and that awkward conversation of many years ago less or as well as she still did. But of course she was an Unspeakable these days – of course that meant she knew Brooks, too. “Hello, Lena. How are you?”
It had even been difficult enough to look Brooks in the eye while they spoke tonight – she had excused herself from his side without quite knowing where she was heading instead – and it took her a moment to decipher the familiar face as more than a looming reminder of her past. If Miss Woodcroft had been the first time in her youth she had tried to act on a true feeling, Miss Scamander had been the first person she had tried to talk about her true feelings to. She had seemed a safe receptacle for her secrets then; but they had never talked quite as candidly since, and indeed, Effie hadn’t seen her in quite some time.
So it did seem ominous to her that Marlena should be resurfacing this very minute, when her nerves were fraying by the minute about the prospect of being married. “In the flesh,” Effie replied, with just a slight strained edge behind her bright plastered smile, wondering if Marlena recalled her and that awkward conversation of many years ago less or as well as she still did. But of course she was an Unspeakable these days – of course that meant she knew Brooks, too. “Hello, Lena. How are you?”
