Stepsister(41)

How did the boy know Martin? And Nero?

Isabelle forced her eyes open. Slowly they focused on the boy’s face. Now she knew why his eyes had looked familiar. Why she wondered if she’d seen him before. She had. Every day of her childhood. Climbing trees. Dueling with mops. Playing pirates.

She still saw him every night in her dreams.

“Blackbeard,” she whispered.

“Anne Bonny,” the boy said with a bow. And the softest, saddest of smiles.





Forty-Five


“It’s been a long time, Pirate Queen.”

Isabelle didn’t trust herself to speak. She wasn’t sure what would come out of her mouth. She just nodded as best she could given that she was lying flat on her back.

He’s older, she thought. Taller. He has cheekbones now and stubble on his jaw. His voice is deeper, but his eyes are exactly the same, that faded indigo blue. Artist’s eyes. Dreamer’s eyes.

She longed to reach up and touch the face she knew so well, to run her fingers over the edge of his jaw, his lips. To ask how he got the tiny scar above his right cheekbone.

“Felix,” she said, sitting up.

“Isabelle.”

“It’s so … um …” She cast about for a word. “… wonderful to see you again.”

Felix gave her a worried look. “Maybe you shouldn’t get up. I saw the fall. You hit your head. Can you see straight?”

“I’m fine,” Isabelle said, standing up. Then she yelped. Pain, sharp and hot, shot up her leg as she put her weight on her bad foot.

“I think you should sit,” Felix said, his eyes on her foot.

Isabelle followed his gaze. Her white stocking had a bloom of red on it. The pain from the fall had been so intense, she hadn’t even realized she was bleeding. Felix took her hand and the warmth of his touch, the feeling of his skin against hers, made her feel woozy all over again.

He led her to a stone bench under a tree. She sat, glancing around for Martin. He was munching grass in the shade, his reins looped over his neck.

“He has a few scratches on his nose. Nothing terrible,” Felix said.

“Thanks. I’m fine now. I won’t keep you,” Isabelle said, forcing a smile. “You have a theater to build.”

“I do. And the marquis wants it done quickly. He’s paying us—my master and me—well for it.”

“Your master?”

“Master Jourdan. The carpenter in Saint-Michel. He hired me a month ago.”

Isabelle digested this. Felix was back in Saint-Michel. She didn’t know if she should be happy about that, excited, furious, or all of the above.

“So you’re a carpenter now,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. Instead, she sounded ridiculous. He’s sawing boards and hammering them together for God’s sake! she chided herself. What else would he be?

Felix nodded. “I learned the trade working for other carpenters. In other villages.”

“You were always carving, I remember that. You wanted to be a sculptor. Like Michelangelo.”

“I wanted a lot of things,” Felix said quietly, looking down at his scarred, work-roughened hands.

An uncomfortable silence descended. Isabelle longed to break it. She longed to shout at him, to tell him she wanted things, too. To ask him why he lied to her. But pride prevented it.

Felix looked up. His eyes met hers. They drifted down to her bloodstained stocking.

“I heard about it,” he said. “All of it. The prince. Ella. The glass slipper.”

Isabelle looked up. The bird that had spooked Martin was perched on a branch above them. “You know, I’ve never seen a raven that big,” she said, trying to change the subject.

Felix glanced at the bird; then his gaze settled on her again. “Why did you do it? Why did you hack off half of your foot?”

Isabelle blanched. “Ever hear of something called small talk, Felix?”

“I never made small talk with you. I’m not going to start now. Why did you do it?”

Isabelle didn’t want to talk about it. Not with him. But Felix was not going to let it go.

“Isabelle, I asked you—”

“I heard you,” Isabelle snapped. She felt cornered.

“Then why?”

Because you left. And took everything with you, she thought. My dreams. My hopes. My happiness.

But she couldn’t admit that to him; she could barely admit it to herself. “To get something—someone—I was supposed to want,” she finally said.

Felix winced. “You did that to yourself for someone you were supposed to want?”

“You know what Maman is like. I couldn’t fight any more. Not after I’d lost all the things I lov—” She bit the word off. “Not after I’d lost all the things that were important to me. Not after I became an ugly stepsister.”

“Ugly? Where did that come from? I never thought you were ugly,” said Felix. “I liked your laugh. And your eyes, too. I liked your hair. I still do. It’s russet. Like a red squirrel.”

“I have hair like a squirrel?” Isabelle said in disbelief. “Is that your idea of a compliment?”

“I love squirrels,” Felix said with a shrug. “They’re scrappy. And smart. And beautiful.”