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Quand le chat n’est pas là, les souris dansent. When the cat is away, the mice will play. —French proverb
And when we deliver the sick little mouse to her mother at Chateau le Blanc—when her body withers, when it bleeds—her soul shall stay with us forever. She shall nourish us. We will never be alone.
She’d watch the world with a deadened expression, refusing to acknowledge me or my weak attempts to comfort her. Only one person could do that. And he was gone.
To surrender and forget appeals more than to resist and remember. I am weak, and I do not like pain. The voice is so beautiful, so tempting, so strong, that I nearly let it consume me. And yet . . . I cannot. If I let go, I will lose something important. Someone important. I cannot remember who it is. I cannot remember who I am.
You are the darkness. The shadows press closer, and I fold myself tighter. A grain of sand below infinite black waves. This darkness is yours. Still I hold on.
Lou is my friend, he’d once told me. He’d been willing to follow her to Chateau le Blanc before I had. He’d kept her secrets. Shouldered her burdens.
He paused. “Also, Lou hasn’t blinked in half an hour.” I frowned. “What?” “She hasn’t blinked,” he repeated, dropping to the ground beside Coco and lifting a hand to her nape. His fingers kneaded gently. “Not once. She’s spent the last thirty minutes staring at the stained glass in silence. It’s unsavory. She even managed to frighten the priest away.” Unease pricked my stomach. “You timed her blinks?” “You haven’t?”
Ignoring both of us, cheeks still pink under Beau’s perusal, Célie sank into a deep curtsy. “Y-Your Highness. They alone have not forgotten their manners. Please forgive me.” He arched a brow, smirking at me over her bowed head. “I like her.”
“Further proof that there is a God, and He hates me.”
Fear makes people stupid.” With one last look between Célie and me, he shook his head. “But courage makes ’em stupid too.”
Fuck that. You’ve worked too hard and too long to give up now. Come on. You want more than oblivion. You want to live.
I loved Lou. I knew that. Felt it in my bones. I also couldn’t stand the sight of her. What was wrong with me?
Oh god. I’m now existing inside Nicholina le Clair. No. She is existing inside me, the body-snatching bitch. Hopefully I’m on my monthly bleed. She’d deserve it.
Shouting my thoughts—can one have thoughts without a brain?—into the abyss. I know you can hear me. I hope my uterus is rioting against you.
Has he noticed I’m not myself? Has anyone? Do they realize what’s happened to me?
He didn’t make it to seventeen.
And you are? I ask. If a voice could frown, this one does. I . . . I believe I was once called Etienne. Etienne, the others echo. Their whispers thrum like insect wings. The sound is disconcerting. Worse—I feel the moment they manifest his full name from his memories. From my memories. Etienne Gilly.
Their voices turn less amicable, less prim, less mischievous. We are sorry, Louise le Blanc. It is too late for you. For all of us. NO. I lash against the darkness with all my might, repeating the word over and over again like a talisman. I search for a golden pattern. For anything. There is only darkness. No no no no no— Only Nicholina’s chilling laughter answers.
I cleared my throat pointedly—“she heard you call her a whore.” Now she whipped around to face me. “She what?” I shrugged and kept walking. “At the Saint Nicolas Day celebrations, she overheard our . . . discussion. I think she took it well, all things considered. She could’ve murdered us on the spot.”
“You almost died.” “Yes.” Beau searched her face warily. “You mentioned that.”
“But Lou—” “Will die if we stay here. The villagers are going to raze this place to the ground.” He extended a hand. “Come on, little brother. We can’t help her if we’re dead.”
“In the book of Mark, Jesus cast demons into a herd of six thousand pigs—” “This isn’t the Bible, Nicholina isn’t a demon, and I’m not the son of fucking God.”
“Il n’y a pas de roses sans épines.” There is no rose without a thorn.
“Frankly, his silence is insulting. He could at least send a bird to shit on our heads or something.”
La nuit porte conseil. The night brings advice.
Hope matters most, I say fiercely. Hope isn’t the sickness. It’s the cure.
Hope isn’t the sickness. They hum their own litany now. Their own prayer. It’s the cure.
“Nothing? Again?” Célie shrugged helplessly while Beau lifted said hands in a lackadaisical gesture. “What would you like us to do, Cosette? Shit the pearls into existence? We aren’t oysters.” Her nostrils flared. “Oysters don’t shit out pearls, you idiotic piece of—” “Shit?” Nicholina supplied helpfully.
“You told me to hope, Reid, but hope means nothing without action. I will do whatever it takes to save her. Whatever it takes. Are you willing to do the same? Or shall Lou fall on the sword of your principles?”
“Hello! Yes, pardon!” My grin deepened when he pulled back abruptly, as if surfacing from deep water. Blinking slow. Breathing heavy. “As it seems to have escaped your notice, there are other people here.”
“Yes, Lou, you are like your mother.” I took her chin in my hand, forcing her to look at me. “But so am I.”
The water was freezing—shockingly and cripplingly so. My muscles seized on impact, and my breath left in a painful, startled rush. My lungs immediately shrieked in protest. Fucking fabulous. Fucking Reid. He’d meant well, of course, but couldn’t the heroic brute have checked the waters’ temperature first? Perhaps taken a dip himself?
The waters had healed us both. And suddenly, I understood. The Wistful Waters healed. They didn’t exorcise malevolent presences. I’d have to do that myself. Gritting my teeth, I launched myself at her.
She wouldn’t be changing the past by killing me. Part of me had died here already.
It didn’t take long. Not now. Not with him behind me. Not with Nicholina so incredibly alone.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know if it was true. With one last, ragged breath, she clutched me and whispered, “The dead should not remember, but I do.” Those eyes found mine again as the light finally left them. “I remember everything.” She slipped from our hold, fading into black mist, and was gone.
“Death isn’t an ending at all, Lou. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s the beginning.” Quieter still, he added, “You’ve lived in fear too long.” “Fear has helped me survive,” I snapped. “Fear has kept you from living.”
Pure sunshine. That was Ansel. Always the warmest of us all. “I don’t want you to go.” “I know.” “Will I ever see you again?” “Not for a long time, I hope.” “Can’t I come with you?” He looked to Reid and Coco and Beau then, who’d just started up a game of tarot. Beau cursed roundly when Coco took the first trick. “Is that really what you want?” he asked. Yes. I choked on the word, face hot and wretched, before shaking my head. He smiled again. “I didn’t think so.”
“I can’t just leave you, though. I can’t do it. I—I’ll never see you blush again. I’ll never teach you the rest of ‘Big Titty Liddy,’ and we’ll—we’ll never go to Pan’s or sneak spiders into Jean Luc’s pillow or read La Vie Éphémère together. You promised to read it with me, remember? And I never showed you the attic where I lived. You never caught a fish—” “Lou.” When I looked up, he was no longer smiling. “I need to find peace.”
A touch of wistfulness entered his expression. “Do you think . . . before you go . . . you could sing me the last verse?” He rubbed his neck, sheepish once more. “If you feel like it.” As if I’d ever had a choice. “Their babe they named Abe,” I sang on a watery chuckle, “his brother Green Gabe. Then Belle and Adele and Keen Kate. Soon dozens came mewling, but still they kept screwing, even outside the pearly gates.” His face burned so vivid a scarlet it rivaled my every memory, but he grinned from ear to ear regardless. “That’s indecent.” “Of course it is,” I whispered. “It’s a pub song.” His
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“I love you, Ansel.” My vision clouded as the waves truly descended, shocking and brutal. Though they pulled me away from him, I’d remember his smile until the day I died. Until the day I saw it again. His fingers slipped from mine, and he drifted backward, a beacon of light in the darkness. “I love you too.”
C’est l’exception qui confirme la règle. It’s the exception that proves the rule.
“Angelica,” I whispered in awe. “Sister,” Josephine hissed. But it was Coco’s whispered accusation that changed everything. “Mother.”
“Because who cares if you’re a prude?” Coco pulled Célie to her feet with both hands. She gestured to me. “Who cares if we’re whores? They’re just words.” “And we can’t get it right no matter what we do.”
“You should both show your scars,” she murmured. Célie dragged her braid across her shoulder to stare at it, fingering the tails of the ribbon in quiet wonder. Coco plopped her cheek atop my head, and her familiar scent—earthy yet sweet, like a freshly brewed cup of tea—engulfed me. “They mean you survived.”
“You’ve given us all a place, a purpose, when before we didn’t have one. You are the reason we’re here, Lou. And I don’t care about the waters’ truth—you are my sister. Never forget it.”
“Fine.” With a sigh of fatigue, Coco fell to her back, folding her hands on her chest. “Kiss him, then. Kiss him good. Just do it quickly. And when that inevitably fails, I’ll prick his finger, and we can make real progress.”
His nostrils flared. “Demon spawn.” She bared her teeth in a grin. “In the flesh.”
“What?” He whirled to face her then, seizing the ribbon and tearing it free. “You call them friends? They’re witches, Célie. They killed your sister!” “Yes, thank you for that kindly reminder.” She snatched the ribbon back, scowling and stepping around him. “You’ll be surprised to find my ears actually do work. I know who they are. More importantly, you know who they are, if you’d stop acting like a barbarian and listen.”
“What if he doesn’t love me?” Beau wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “Then I will become a rich man.” “You’re already a rich man.” “A very rich man.” “You’re an ass, Beau.”
