Girl One(107)

Beside me, Cate’s breathing had turned tense. The heat of the candles crowded in closer and closer, like curious eyes. For a second everything was tipped over and surreal. The world is nearly prepared for us: But the world had been ready for him all along. He’d been the one to leave us.

Bellanger held out his hand. A girl stepped forward, long red hair trailing down her back. She turned around to face the congregation, the pencil drawing an unconscious echo hanging over her shoulder. I had a sudden memory of Lily-Anne at the Homestead. I’d been allowed to come into the room after Fiona was born. Already four years old, considering myself a grown-up, I’d leaned over to look at the last baby born on the Homestead. I remembered her pulpy skin and the animal smell of Lily-Anne’s sweat and blood.

Lily-Anne’s face was replicated perfectly here—the sharp tilt of a nose and rounded cheeks, framed by hair so bright it seemed to be sapping the blood from the rest of her. Fiona seemed shaken, clutching herself, her expression blank. Bellanger put his hand on her shoulder, transmitting a message that I couldn’t decode. She held out her hand, palm facing up, and Bellanger reached into the front of his lab coat. With his free hand, he pulled out a dark glass bottle. He tipped a capsule into her hand, a flash of hectic red, and Fiona lifted her palm to her mouth. She swallowed and shut her eyes briefly. He squeezed her shoulder. Nobody else in the chapel reacted. It had the unthinking crispness of a practiced routine.

I was so transfixed by this exchange that I was startled by the muffled gasp beside me. “She’s pregnant,” Cate said under her breath, so low it didn’t disrupt the stillness of the room.

Once she said it, I couldn’t look away. Of course. Fiona’s belly was a soft swell between her hip bones. Based on the size, I’d say maybe three or four months. Early. I pictured the fetus, transparent skin, jellied and pink. A budding copy of the sister Fiona had lost. Fiona herself seemed so young to be pregnant. Too young—

“Your trust and patience has been a true gift to me,” Bellanger was saying now. “A gift I do not accept lightly, loyal friends. I take my role as guide and mentor very seriously. Fiona’s child will be as much a miracle as she is. But you are in the unique position to appreciate that miracles do not occur without miracle-workers. Behind every so-called impossibility is someone who has dedicated his very life to overcoming the limits of possibility. Remember: the goddess Athena leapt fully formed from her father’s skull. The goddess of wisdom. I cannot pretend that my path to Fiona was quite so straightforward—” Some gentle laughter here. “But I have dedicated my soul and my mind to not only bringing her into the world, but helping her understand herself. I will do the same for her daughter, certainly—”

But Fiona had found us. Her eyes moved directly through the gloom and the crowds, to land on us, where we stood back against the wall. She rose on tiptoes to whisper something to Bellanger, who stooped to hear her with an attentiveness that caught at some deep part of me, unspooling disgust and jealousy at the same time. His expression changed, tightening, and he looked up sharply now, peering into the shadows.

I didn’t wait for anything else. I walked toward them, confident, strong, shoulders back. I’d been six years old the last time we saw each other. It felt like I’d become an entirely different species since then.

The murmur had grown louder now, some people falling silent as I passed, others half rising, faces spread wide in alarm. Isabelle and Cate were right on my heels. Now that the ruse was up, I stared more openly at the women scattered along the pews, searching desperately for my mother. I felt all those gazes creeping in tighter and tighter. I turned, impatient, like I was chasing away a buzzing insect. Each face that wasn’t hers felt like a gut punch.

I stopped just short of the altar. Bellanger and I looked at each other. His expression was entirely unreadable to me. I didn’t know what he’d do. The decision hung there between us. I held his gaze and I thought: I could do anything to you right now. I could do anything.

For the briefest second, Bellanger’s eyes flicked past me, to the people waiting. The faithful friends, loyal followers, whoever the hell they were. Now that I was close, I paid more attention to the door right next to the altar. I wondered if it led to the outside, and if I could still make a run for it. The impulse came over me quickly, not so much fear as an instinctive desire to remove myself from this impossible moment. Then Bellanger looked at me and smiled like he’d been waiting for this: looking into a crowd and recognizing an old friend. “Josephine,” he said. “Girl One. My oldest daughter.”

I couldn’t answer. I had so much to say to him. It was pushing against the back of my lips. It was filling me up entirely. Years and years of things left unsaid. One-way messages that I’d absorbed into the echo chamber of my heart, no way to reply. A life spent communicating with him only through dreams and daydreams.

“Dr. Bellanger,” I said finally.

He opened his arms and I stepped forward. My breathing steadied as if my body responded to his unspoken command, the authority of its true creator. It was comforting, obeying him on the molecular level—it was a sick shock. Both.

Bellanger pulled me close. I stiffened, unable to move. I smelled an unexpected trace of that old cologne, a sharp, lemony bitterness. Eau Sauvage. It brought along a memory so strong I was dizzy with it. Being so small I fit inside his arms. Staring up at him—way, way up. The safety of him. My stomach twisted. Over his shoulder, I saw that Fiona watched me. She seemed drowsier now, out of it, but I caught the edge of something strange. A dark cloud, swift-passing. I thought of the way that bird had seemed to welcome us here with its death.