Chloe in Willowmere

With the thirty-day heritage window hanging over the garden's future, Chloe sat down at her desk that evening and did what she always did when the stakes were high: she wrote. She drafted a careful, heartfelt letter to the city heritage office, citing Mr. Chen's grandmother's letters and the garden's documented history. Then, on an instinct, she brought the draft to Harriet Bloom. Harriet read it in careful silence, pencil already in hand before she'd reached the second paragraph. When she handed it back, the margins were full of precise, confident corrections — the language of someone who had once lived inside city hall. "I was a city clerk for thirty-one years," Harriet said simply. "I know how they think." Chloe read the revised letter and felt something settle in her chest. It was, by any measure, a very good letter.