RoseBlood(6)

“It’s the only time I’ve ever touched alcohol,” I say over a catch in my throat. “Can’t you give me another chance? I made one stupid mistake and you’re sending me to prison.” It might sound like a barb, but prison is something I probably deserve, which makes it a legitimate fear. “Just admit it. You want me gone so you can play house with your new fiancé without me there.”

“RoseBlood is hardly a prison,” Mom says. “How many foreign boarding schools offer admittance only to American kids? This is a rare opportunity . . . a taste of French culture in a setting that feels like home.”

I suppress the desire to point out that she’s quoting the RoseBlood brochure almost word for word, and instead focus on how she avoided my accusation about her fiancé. A burst of contentment sneaks in unexpectedly. I smirk on the left side of my face. I won’t risk the right because she might see it.

I’m so glad she’s met someone after all these years of raising me alone. And Ned the Realtor is a really nice guy who treats Mom like a queen and me like a princess. I’m actually glad he moved in. It’s nice to have some semblance of a family again. Still, I’m not about to admit any of that since I’ve found some leverage.

“No Wi-Fi in the place,” I say. “That means no Internet access. And we’re out in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service. How am I supposed to stay in touch with you . . . with Trig and Janine . . . anyone on the outside?”

“They do have a landline, Rune. You’ll be able to call home.” The other half of my smirk has found its way to her mouth. “As for the absence of texting . . . I’ve got the perfect substitute.” She bends over to sift through the shopping bags at her feet, the small ones that were left over after stuffing the trunk full.

I watch, suspicious, as tissue paper crinkles beneath her fingers. We spent the morning driving through the Louvre-Tuileries neighborhood, touring the grand squares, gorgeous gardens, and trendy bistros from the comfort of our limo. We visited several boutiques but were never apart any longer than it took for me to try on my uniforms—three sets comprised of a fitted jacket, vest, long skirt, and ruffled shirt—that look more like Victorian riding habits than any modern dress code. Even the gray, white, and red color scheme is drab and lifeless enough to make us all look like wax museum rejects. Mom stood there and handed me the separate pieces from the other side of the dressing room door. So when did she have time to shop behind my back?

Wrist-deep in a zebra-striped bag fringed with pink feathers, she draws out a rectangle. Tissue paper loosely drapes the gift.

I take it, biting my inner cheeks to contain a smile. She knows how much I like presents. Both getting and giving them. “What did you do?”

She shrugs, the same mom who used to insist we open one Christmas gift a week early every year because she couldn’t stand to wait any more than me. I love that side of her.

I feel a prick behind my sternum, as the biggest reason I don’t want to attend this foreign school hits me hard and sudden. For the first time since we lost Dad, my mom and I are about to be apart.

An ocean apart.

I force myself not to look at her, afraid I’ll break down.

With stiff fingers, I unwrap a fabric-covered box of rich brocade—black and gray striped with red-ribbon embellishments. A hinged lid opens to reveal fancy French stationery. Lacey black scallops trim the edges. The paper is a grayish shade, as soft and translucent as the light filtering through clouds outside. When I hold up a piece and open my hand behind it, I can see the silhouette of my fingers and palm. An embossed ribbon, shimmery red to complement the satin ones on the box, embellishes the stationery’s top. Matching envelopes are tucked in the corner next to a black feather quill. The set is exactly what I would’ve picked for myself.

“So . . . I’m supposed to write to everyone?” I ask, hiding how touched I am. “Kind of archaic, don’t you think?”

She tilts her head, smug. “Looks like you won’t be in solitary confinement after all.”

The smile I’ve been suppressing pushes its way out. “But I don’t have addresses or postage.”

“Ah.” She digs a roll of global stamps and an address book out of the zebra sack. She must’ve had them hidden in her overnight bag.

Sneaky. Another thing I’ve always loved about her.

She points to the red ribbon embossed on the stationery. “Did you really think I’d let you be thousands of miles away from me without a thread to bind us?”

Just that one reference and I’m back at the beginning of first grade, afraid to leave her side until she reached into her purse and retrieved a long red strip of yarn, tying it around my wrist. We’d spent the night before in Dad’s hospital room, talking on a toy phone made of empty soup cans and yarn. I’d poured out all of my fears to both of them, and they’d comforted me. When we left the hospital, Mom pulled the yarn from the cans and promised that all of her and Dad’s love and protection were woven inside the thread, and as long as I had it with me, they’d be there.

I still have that strip of yarn, marking a passage in my favorite fairy tale picture book that Dad used to read to me: Les Enfants Perdus, which translates to “The Lost Children.” It’s an old-world French version of Hansel and Gretel, a bit more grim, with the devil and his witch-wife holding two lost siblings—Jean and Jeanette—hostage in a forest. Together, the children escape, using their minds and wills to murder and outsmart their dark tormentors before they can be eaten. Although the book’s pages are water damaged and crumpled, I’ve never thrown it away.