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When Madeline gets home from a productive day at the studio, there's a package waiting for her, brown paper and bubble wrap peeking out of her apartment mailbox.
She's half-hoping it's the stickers Theo promised he'd send her a week or two ago when she catches sight of the name on the upper left corner: Granny.
The world stops, just a bit, and she remembers her grief and denial-wracked trek back up the mountain. Letting go, or at least trying to. There's a dark bird feather tucked right in between her watercolor brushes, just to remind her that it happened.
Breathe, Madeline. Breathe.
Madeline hadn't gone to Granny's funeral and she's almost forgiven herself for that. It was just... too much. She'd hoped it would be the slow fade, like Oshiro becoming more and more peaceful as he let go of each old part of his hotel. Maybe the way she used to want to go, just so eventual that you blink one day and it makes the most sense in the world. But Granny was too stubborn to ever leave gracefully - she left with a laugh and a holler and one day she was there, calling Madeline from Celeste Mountain's half-frozen payphone and then gone, with far too much left behind.
Her breathing has settled back down again - the golden feather floats. Madeline grabs the letter from the dead and makes a beeline towards the scissors in the kitchen. She's never been great at these - all attempts to open packages nicely usually end with a fine snow of shaved carboard on the table. But this one comes all out in one piece, a crisp piece of lined paper and a small cloth bag.
Miss me yet, kiddo? Ha ha ha, well I sure don't, though I'm pretty sure the mountain does. The rascal keeps spinning me around in circles when I travel the path past the gondola. Just my luck, the mountain will throw this letter around for months and it'll reach you after your next visit. But don't let that stop you - I won't let it stop me from writing this! Come back and visit soon, grab that sweet blockhead Theo if you can. I'll make pie.
PS. Found this in my old boxes when cleaning out the house. Figured you'd appreciate it more than this mountain fashionista. Ha!
Tears spring to her eyes and Madeline lets herself feel them a while. She misses her so much it's like a phantom limb, right where she used to be able to reach. Ha, look at her. Granny would have laughed at that bit of metaphor, told Madeline to stick to video games and leave the writing to old codgers like her. Maybe she could draw the feeling out instead, colorful ink splashing across the page in something that makes the shape of recovery.
There's a small lump in the cloth bag - Madeline draws it out into a single rose gold chain with a delicate bird hanging on the end, pearl dangling from its beak. Who knew where she'd gotten it - maybe from Theo's grandfather, or any number of mountain travelers. Or maybe it was like the pie Granny had just 'happened' to bake extra around the anniversary of Madeline's climb up the mountain, and happened to stay miraculously intact in the mail.
Madeline sob-hiccups, just a bit, and struggles with the fiddly clasp to fix the necklace around her neck. Like a little piece of the mountain she gets to carry around with her.
"Thanks Granny," she says to the air, to the bird, to whoever's listening. "Thank you."