Celeste takes Erin's death particularly hard - especially after Shawn essentially tells her that it's all her fault, she didn't try hard enough, followed immediately by the departure of Jeanne and Cole. She mopes about for a bit (which makes it sound melodramatic, but really, she's actually quite depressed), then decides that she just can't stay at the orphanage any longer, there are too many hard memories. Arranging to travel in the middle of winter and making arrangements for showing up in Philadelphia six months ahead of schedule give her something to focus on, and she throws herself into this without really noticing whether any of the other orphans still at St. James might also be emotionally affected by her further departure. After a flurry of letters back and forth, she has everything more or less settled. She cannot start classes early, but she was always planning to get some sort of work to help support herself while she was studying, and manages to get a position at one of the college's boarding houses. She will be a maid-of-all-work for the next few months and then transition to simply a kitchen assistant once classes begin. With plans in place, she sets forth on the train.