Stepsister(56)

“What are you talking about?”

“Microorganisms?” Tavi repeated. “Single-celled life-forms? You know … Leeuwenhoek? The father of microbiology?”

Hugo gave her a blank look.

“Microorganisms acidify the milk,” Tavi explained. “They curdle it. Cheese becomes cheese through the process of fermentation.”

Hugo stuck out his chest. “Cheese becomes cheese through cheeseification,” he said truculently.

Tavi blinked at him. Then she held up her hands. “Fine, Hugo,” she said. “My point is, that if we alter just one factor of the … cheeseification process, even slightly, we vary the result.”

“So?”

“So we might very well come up with something other than bland, boring white cheese. Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

“I wish you had never come here.”

“That makes two of us.”

“You’re changing things. Why do you have to do that?”

“I wonder if anyone said that to Da Vinci or Newton or Copernicus.” Tavi put her hands on her hips and affected a put-upon voice. “Oh my God, Nicolaus. Did you have to make the Earth orbit the sun? We liked it so much better the other way!”

“They were men. You’re a girl,” Hugo said, glowering. “Girls don’t change things. They bake things. And sew things. They wipe things, too. Like tables. And noses.”

Tavi picked up a cloth and scrubbed Hugo’s face with it. “And asses,” she said, stalking off.

Hugo swore. He kicked at a floorboard.

“She likes to do experiments,” Isabelle said, hoping to mollify him.

“I saw the cheese. It’s ruined,” Hugo said. “My mother will throw a fit.”

“Maybe Tavi’s right. Maybe it’ll turn into something amazing,” Isabelle said. She picked up her pail and poured the milk into a vat. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

But Hugo’s thoughts were not on the cheeses anymore.

“She’ll never get married,” he said. “No man wants a woman who won’t do what she’s told.”

Isabelle bristled. “Tavi doesn’t want a man. She wants maths,” she said, defending her sister.

“Maths won’t get the two of you out of here. A man would, though. And I’m going to see if my mother or Tantine can find one,” Hugo said, stalking off. Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Good luck. If Maman couldn’t manage it, I doubt they will.”

Alone now in the dairy house, Isabelle ventured to the back, to see the cheese that had caused all the upset. It was on a rack on the left side of the room. She spotted it immediately.

Hugo had called it ugly, but Isabelle found it interesting. Its odd green spots, its lopsidedness, the pungent smell it gave off—they all set it apart from the other cheeses, which seemed dull and smug to her in their sameness.

“You might do something with yourself,” she said to the cheese. But her hopes were not high. Being different was not something that was tolerated in cheeses.

Or girls.





Fifty-Nine


The evening was warm and clear. The setting sun was painting the sky in brilliant shades of orange and pink; the scent of roses hung in the air.

It was calm. It was peaceful. Isabelle prayed it would last.

Tavi and Hugo were sitting side by side on a wooden bench, in the shade of the barn. Working silently. Neither had spoken to each other since their fight in the dairy house yesterday.

At least they’re not yelling any more, Isabelle thought.

She and Maman were sitting on the grass across from them. They were all shelling beans into a wide bowl for a soup Madame planned to make. Isabelle glanced up at Tavi and Hugo every now and again. She was eager to keep the peace. She knew that their being here was Tantine’s doing, not Madame’s, and definitely not Hugo’s. Staying here depended on working hard and not making themselves objectionable. She would remind Tavi of that tonight when they went to bed.

She and Tavi slept next to one another now in the hayloft. They talked before they fell asleep, much more than they had when each had had her own bedchamber in the Maison Douleur. Last night, Isabelle had told her sister about meeting Felix in the Wildwood and had showed her the slipper.

“I thought you were walking better,” she'd said. “And?” she'd added expectantly.

“And nothing. There is no and.” Isabelle had decided to keep the argument, and the kiss, to herself.

“That’s too bad. I always liked Felix.” Tavi had gone silent for a bit; then she’d said, “Just wondering …”

“Wondering what?”

“If you were still searching for the pieces of your heart. Because I’d say that he’s definitely—”

“Not one,” Isabelle had said firmly, turning on her side.

“The bowl is full,” Hugo said now, dispelling Isabelle’s thoughts.

She stood and stretched. “I’ll take it inside to Madame and get—”

Another one, she was going to say, but her words were cut off by a hair-raising scream.

She and Tavi looked at each other, alarmed. Maman dropped the bean pod she was holding.

The shriek came again. It was coming from the dairy house and was followed by a single shouted word: “Huuuuuuuuuuugo!”