Stepsister(46)

Isabelle glanced over the railing. Her stomach clutched with fear as she saw that the fire was climbing the walls to the first floor. It was licking the staircase, too.

“Maman, we cannot take the mirror,” Isabelle said, her panic rising.

But her mother only stared at the glass sorrowfully. “I can’t leave it. I’m nothing without it. It tells me who I am.”

Isabelle’s heart was battering her ribs. Everything inside her was telling her to run. But she did not. Instead, she sat down next to her mother.

“Maman, if you don’t leave the mirror, you will die.”

Her mother stubbornly shook her head.

“Maman,” Isabelle said, her voice breaking, “if you don’t leave the mirror, I will die.”

Would it matter to her mother if she did? Isabelle didn’t know. She was nothing but a disappointment. Was there ever a time she’d pleased Maman instead of making her angry?

Maman looked at Isabelle. In the icy depths of her eyes, something was shifting and cracking. Isabelle saw it and saw that her mother was helpless to stop it. “You are strong. So strong,” Maman said. “I saw that in you when you were a tiny baby. It has always frightened me, your strength. I would rock you in my arms and wonder, Where is there a place in the world for such a strong girl?”

Below them, a giant wooden ceiling beam gave way. It crashed down to the foyer, bringing much of the second floor with it. The noise was deafening. The dust and smoke it threw into the air were blinding. Isabelle covered her head with her arms and screamed. When the dust cleared, she peered over the railing again and saw a jagged, gaping hole in the foyer floor, next to the stairwell. In the darkness, with fire raging all around it, the hole looked like the gateway to hell.

“Maman … please,” she begged.

But her mother, still gazing at the mirror, didn’t seem to hear her.

Isabelle’s stomach squeezed with terror. But another emotion rose inside her, pushing the terror down—hatred.

How many times had her mother summoned her to her room, stood her in front of that very mirror, and looked over her shoulder? Frowning sourly at the way her dress bunched here or puckered there? Disapproving of her freckles, her crooked smile, her wayward hair?

How many times had Isabelle lifted her eyes to her own reflection only to see a miserable, awkward girl looking back at her?

That mirror, and all the others in her house, had stolen her confidence, her happiness, her strength and courage, over and over again. It had stolen her soul; now it wanted her life.

From deep within the house, another window exploded. The sound of breaking glass told Isabelle exactly what she had to do. She stood, tore the mirror from her mother’s hands, and, with a wild yell, threw it over the banister. It hit the stone floor below and shattered into a million glittering pieces.

“No!” Maman screamed, reaching through the balusters. She stared into the flames for a few long seconds, then looked at Isabelle helplessly.

“Get up, Maman,” Isabelle ordered, taking her hand. “We’re leaving.”

Together they started down the stairs once more. When they got to the bottom, they saw that most of the foyer floor was gone. Only a narrow strip remained, running along one wall and supported by burning joists. One misstep, and they would fall to a fiery death.

Isabelle led Maman along what remained of the floor, hugging the wall the whole time. When they got close to the door, they had to jump across a two-foot gap where the floor was gone completely, and then they were outside, and a sobbing Tavi was running to them.

Isabelle quickly pulled her mother and sister away from the inferno to the sheltering safety of the linden tree. From under its branches, their clothing singed, faces stained with soot, their arms around each other, the three women watched as the fire raged, collapsing the Maison Douleur’s walls, bringing its heavy slate roof down, destroying everything that they owned, their past and their present.

“And, with any luck,” whispered an old woman, dressed all in black and watching from the shadows, “their future.”





Fifty


As the sun rose the next morning, Isabelle stood under the linden tree, gazing at the smoldering heap that had been her home.

Her dress was soaked. Tendrils of wet hair stuck to her skin. A heavy morning rain had doused the fire, but not before a strong wind had swept glowing embers across the yard, to the chicken coop and the open window of the hayloft.

Tavi had wrenched the door of the coop open and had chased the birds out of the yard to safety. They were gone now, vanished into the woods. Isabelle had got Martin out before fire took the stables. He stood under the linden tree with them, shaking raindrops out of his mane. Tavi and Maman sat huddled against the linden tree’s trunk, asleep under some horse blankets Isabelle had managed to save from the stables.

Everything in the mansion had been destroyed. Clothing. Furniture. Food. Any paper money Maman had had was ashes, any coins or jewelry had likely melted or were hopelessly buried under piles of hot stone and smoking beams.

Not one neighbor had come to help them. To see if they were hurt. To offer food or shelter. They were utterly alone. Destitute. Friendless. That terrified Isabelle even more than the fire had.

Chilled from the rain, numb inside, Isabelle did not know what they would eat that day or where they would find shelter that night. She did not know how to take the next step. She could not see a way forward.