Days pass in between the letter and the first practice.

The aftermath of sorrow and luck in such quick succession leave Emmeline in a state of confusion, unable to distinguish aspects of one from aspects of the other. Both were entirely unexpected on arrival and having now had them sit in her chest for a week, she is heavy with emotion. She is tired, perpetually, but cannot sleep.

The ceiling of her bedroom looks different in the dark. She has a skylight; her room is an old attic, a choice she made when they moved in. Her parents obliged her with its conversion and she only regrets it when climbing the stairs seems an infinite task (recently this is every time). Otherwise, the solitude and sense of distance are welcome. At night, now, the window looks like a canvas, blue-black as an oil spill or a wing with far, far away specks of light that could easily be white paint. It used to scare her, sleeping under it; she had convinced herself somehow that robbers or gun-wielding murderers or doctors with syringes and face masks would climb onto the roof and drop down into her bed as she slept. An illogical solution to this was to sleep, for years and years, with all of her curled under the duvet, corners held tight in her fists, only the smallest of gaps for air. Every day feels a bit like this now - like if she loosened her grip at all she'd fall apart, or like she's already fallen apart under the covers and if they were to be lifted, there'd be nothing holding her together.

It's the night before she is supposed to meet the other members of the group (which according to the admissions letter is called BCMS, or 'Beaufort College Musical Society'. It lives up to her preconception that all rich things must sound like they cost money, not satisfied with the truth of their own expense.) and Emmeline thinks she should probably be nervous but having slept for a grand total of seven hours this week in total - it's now Thursday, or maybe Friday, she doesn't know how late it is - she doesn't have the energy left to muster the feeling. Her heart seems to roll over in her chest with a hollow thud when she lingers on the thought of it, but she's disconnected from that. From herself. She becomes a stranger, sometimes.

As she lies awake, she tries to count the stars. It's impossible, of course - but she's always thought that if she could just look hard enough, for long enough, at this one small, vast expanse of sky, she might be able to do it. Impossible things are like that. People believe that as much as they cannot be done, there must be some way to get halfway there. Maybe there will come a day when no things are impossible anymore. Is impossible subjective? Space travel would've seemed impossible once. Talking to someone on the other side of the world. Making light. Emmeline doesn't know, which she thinks is the point. Life would be boring if knowledge was easy to gain.

She's very philosophical in these black hours. All the things she's supposed to be are stripped away by the emptiness of the air and she is left with only her core - poetry, exhaustion, and a lot of unanswerable questions.

Maybe she sleeps. Either way - she blinks and it is dawn and her alarm is harsh in her ears. Her head is loud and numb with fatigue but she pushes herself up and through the early morning. Breakfast is a bit unthinkable, but she butters a slice of bread and tries to convince herself to eat it. As much stress as this day is bound to bring, she doesn't want to throw up or have her hands shake or be even more devoid of energy. Devoid: of the void? Her French is rudimentary, although she loves the language, but she thinks that it's a good word regardless. She wants to store it away somewhere for later use, like burying acorns for winter. An idea to revisit. Not even all of an idea, really - a fraction of one.

It stays with her, echoes in her mind, useless, until she has to leave for school. This week the vague anxiety about losing her grades had caught up with her, and her parents had been pushing her to go back so she gave in to both forces. Emmeline doesn't really like school. It can be exceptionally lonely sometimes, even for one such as her who isn't particularly interested in company. Watching everyone else talk, though - it infects her with a need to have a conversation: she can't remember the last time she actually spoke to anyone other than Pip in full sentences, definitely not of her own accord. Sitting at the dinner table with her parents is a very quiet affair lately. They might be trying to give her space and time to... mourn, she supposes, or maybe they just don't have anything to say to her. She hasn't been very active or present in her body and life so she can understand if it's this. She wouldn't have anything to say to herself either. She just thinks in circles and falls into rabbit holes to pass the time, then takes a breath and suddenly the day has fled. It's alarming, but it also means she doesn't have to really put a lot of effort in. Dragging around the weight of death and exams and depression and fatigue is enough to handle.

Today, though. Concentrate. Everything is work, recently. Paying attention to anything is work, let alone retaining it. She sleeps through the day, moving on cue with bells and picking at a sandwich around noon. Nothing feels real so it's very difficult to believe that any of it matters. God, she needs to close her eyes. She wants to be in the ocean. She wants to be asleep.

The school day ends without fanfare, and then it's time for her to go. She crosses the car park and field in a slight haze, although the fog is lifting or parting a bit the closer she gets to Beaufort. It's a place she's walked past hundreds of times and admired for its charm, the charm all old tangible things have, like they retain some knowledge or connection to the time they were made. Objects aren't people, she thinks, but sometimes they feel like they have minds and memories. At the gates, she isn't sure what to do. She realises, awfully, that she doesn't know her way around this huge, hulking thing of a building and she has no idea where the music society - whatever this is that she's signed up for - is going to be. Her hand touches the iron; she lets the radiating cold of the metal centre her. All her focus is in her palm, the fingertips tight around the railing. Emmeline is unprepared, then, for someone to brush past her. She jumps, like sparks.

A boy with a multi-coloured backpack and shiny purple headphones turns to look at her sudden movement.

'Sorry,' she says, nonsensically.

He takes off his headphones. 'What?' He has ridiculous hair, silver and curly. It looks recently dyed.

'Sorry,' she repeats, flustered a little. She'd sort of forgotten she was visible and him looking at her is disconcerting.

'No, I heard you, I was just confused.' After this bafflingly genuine response, he grins. Full on, just... smiles at her, in a cartoon way, disproportionate to the mildness of the day and the nothingness of their encounter so far.

'What?'

'You're my echo! Who are you, anyway?'

This boy does not make sense. 'Echo?'

'Ha!'

Something folds over inside her. 'I'm Emmeline.'

'I'm Felix. Hi, Emmeline.'

'Hi, Felix.' Now she hears it, the way she's only giving his own words back to him. Why do people make her feel so useless?

'What are you doing here?' He's still talking to her. She doesn't understand. Do people stop and talk to strangers? What is happening?

'I'm here for - ' She can't make herself say it. She adjusts her bag on her shoulder and clutches the acceptance letter. He notices.

'Oh! The fancy society thing! Cool! My best friend is in that, too. He's very talented, so you must be to have gotten in. Well done.'

'Yes, um.' Her mind is empty. Devoid, she thinks.

'Do you know where you're going? I could show you the way, if you want.' He's smiling, again, not meanly. Who is this?

'No - I mean, yes. Please.' Her brow crumples, her words catch up to her. 'No, I don't know where I'm going. Um. Could you show me? Please.' An exhale. Talking is more energy than it should be.

This seems to be the answer he wanted. The smile turns to a beam - beam, like light, like sunbeam - and she almost looks away. Then she does look away, sees her hand still gripping the gate, sees it let go. Emmeline turns to him, this stranger who fits the word exactly. She cannot imagine anyone more strange. Not outside fiction and abstract.

'Right then,' he says. His voice is both soft and loud at once, bright. 'Follow me, stranger.'

The echo (ha) of her own thoughts startles her, but he's walking away and she does need to get to where she's supposed to be, so she goes. Only as he's opening the door to PR6 for her and wishing her good luck does she realise she's forgotten to be nervous.

Then she looks up and sees Otho.