The Invisible Hour

Mia arrives in Blackwell and studies the town, remembering her childhood. She thinks of her unborn daughter, recognizing the limitations that her daughter would face in this world, similar to the limitations she herself faced in the Community. She crosses the town square to the library, thinking of the freedom that books could grant both her and her daughter. However, the library is private, and because Mia is unmarried, she cannot read or borrow books there.

Mia follows the road out of town, observing the beauty of the natural world around her. She walks to the tavern and sees Nathaniel’s pail by the back door. She taps at the window, attracting his attention. He comes out to her and brings her to his room. They spend the night together. The next morning, he sees the book as she puts it under the mattress and demands to see it again. She refuses, arguing that seeing it might cause him to change it. He storms out—the first time she sees the darkness in him. While he’s gone, she puts the book in her satchel, but when she moves to hide it in the fireplace, the book falls, and she sees that it has changed. The passages that were meaningful to her begin to disappear, and when she looks in the mirror, she sees that she is also becoming paler, slowly becoming invisible. She realizes that staying is no less dangerous than facing Joel.

Nathaniel tells Robert that he’s staying in Blackwell a while longer. Robert sees Mia at the window and cautions Nathaniel not to move too fast. Joel, who has followed Mia, poses as a carriage man. He tells Nathaniel that Mia belongs to him. Nathaniel tells Mia about the man, and she sees Joel walk into the woods. Joel found the satchel and took the book when he couldn’t find the painting. Mia feels panic and sees in the mirror that she is becoming even more transparent.

While Nathaniel gets them lunch from the innkeeper’s wife, Mia hurries out into the woods after Joel. She demands the book, but Joel offers a trade—the book for the painting and safe passage back to their own time. He threatens both her and Nathaniel if she doesn’t agree to the deal. They agree to meet the next morning.

Mia returns to the tavern and spends the day with Nathaniel. They walk by the river and into the woods. The pools near the river remind Mia of ice skating with Ivy. As they lie by the river, Mia tells him how she almost died by suicide, but his book saved her. Mia decides not to tell Nathaniel about her pregnancy but instead to have one perfect day together. She shows him the library in Blackwell and tells him that she found his book there. She tells him about the farmer’s market and how she hasn’t eaten an apple since she was a child because she associates them with the Community. He tells her that she should eat apples because doing so would reject the narrative that Eve is responsible for original sin. While Nathaniel steps inside the library, Mia goes to the sheriff’s office, leaving a note for the following day. When she returns, Nathaniel gives her an apple, and she eats it, delighting in her new appreciation for the fruit.

That night, as they lie in bed, they both know that she is leaving. She tells him that he will love again and what he’ll name his children, and she says that she wants him to be happy without her. When she wakes, she leaves the letter Ivy sent to her via Helen Connelly on the desk, a roadmap to what will become The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel wakes after Mia has left. He finds the note she left him and her mother’s letter. He imagines his later life and finds inspiration in the letters. He chooses not to chase after Mia and embrace his real life. When he later writes The Scarlet Letter, he inscribes a copy for Mia and places it carefully in the Blackwell Library.

Mia meets Joel after she’s hidden the painting, her earrings, and an inkwell from the tavern in the barn. He brings a rifle to ensure that she keeps her end of the bargain. He gives her the book, from which the words are still vanishing. He makes her kneel in front of him at gunpoint. She tells him where to find the painting, and as soon as he walks into the barn, she moves quickly, locking him inside. The note she left the day before directs the sheriff to find a thief in that barn.

Mia takes a final survey of the world around her, petting the collie that has come up to her and thinking hopefully of her and her daughter’s futures.