Stepsister(63)

“I can’t believe you’re asking us,” Isabelle said. “I thought you hated us.”

“I do hate you. But I’m desperate and you’re smart.”

“Marry her anyway,” Tavi suggested.

“Live at her house,” Isabelle said.

“There’s no room for me there. Her family lives in a little cottage behind the inn. She has so many brothers and sisters it’s bursting at the seams.”

“There has to be a way. We’ll think of something. We will,” Tavi said.

Hugo nodded. He mustered a smile. But Isabelle could see that he didn’t believe her.

They walked on down the road in silence, uncertain and aching. Hugo aching for Odette. Tavi aching for formulas and theorems. Isabelle aching to be pretty. Or so she told herself.

But alongside the ache, perhaps because of it, was a determination, too.

Neither Isabelle, Tavi, nor Hugo knew if any of them would ever be able to show the world what they were, not what they weren’t. They didn’t know if they’d be able to save their hearts from breaking.

But tonight, maybe, just maybe, they could save a horse. A difficult creature who didn’t know how to be anything but what he was.

They hoped for him, deep down inside. All three of them.

Because they didn’t dare hope for themselves.





Sixty-Seven


Hugo let out a low whistle. He was standing at the top of the front steps to the Maison Douleur holding his lantern out in front of him. The steps had survived the fire, but nothing else.

Isabelle and Tavi were standing next to him.

It was much worse than Isabelle remembered. Parts of the house which were still standing the morning after the fire had since collapsed. The roof, three of the walls, the floors and ceilings, had all crashed down. Only the back wall remained upright. Stone, mortar, and wooden beams lay tangled in treacherous, teetering piles.

“We’re going to have to move slowly or we’ll bring rubble down on our heads,” Hugo said.

That was not what Isabelle wanted to hear. They’d had a late start. Madame and Tantine had stayed up late; Hugo hadn’t been able to sneak out until eleven thirty. Isabelle had to be back at the slaughter yard with something of value by seven, they hadn’t even begun to search yet, and now Hugo was saying they’d have to go slow.

Fear chattered at her, telling her that there wasn’t enough time. That the rocks were too heavy to move, the beams too large. That even if she dug to the bottom of the ruins, she wouldn’t find a thing of value, that the flames had taken it all.

As she stood there, at a loss how to begin, or even where, a loose rock tumbled down off the back wall into a pile of debris with a loud crash. It made her jump. It felt as if the Maison Douleur was warning them off.

Isabelle thought of Nero, standing in the slaughter yard staring into the darkness. She walked back down the stairs, climbed into the remains of her home, and refused to listen.





Sixty-Eight


“Hup, Martin! Hup, boy!” Hugo shouted, urging the horse on.

Martin leaned into the rope harness and pulled with all his might.

He was tired. They all were. They’d been searching for hours, crawling over charred debris with their lanterns, moving whatever stones they could by hand, and using Martin to move heavy beams, but they’d found nothing.

“Come on, Martin! Hup!”

Martin dug in, and the beam slid out of the rubble and across the grass. Hugo patted him and unknotted the rope.

“Anything?” he called out.

“No!” Isabelle shouted back.

Sighing, a weary Hugo turned Martin around and together they walked back to the ruins. Isabelle and Tavi were busy digging in what had once been their drawing room. Moving one thing often loosened something else. More than once, they’d had to jump out of the way of falling roof tiles or a chunk of lath.

Although no one knew it, the beam Hugo and Martin had just slid out into the yard had also destabilized debris. It had been supporting the pile of burned timbers Isabelle was picking around. Her back to the pile, she didn’t see it shudder, then start to slide.

But Hugo did. “Isabelle! Look out!” he shouted, lunging for her.

He grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the way. She stumbled and fell against him, knocking him off his feet. They both hit the ground. The timbers crashed down near them. The jagged edge of one caught Isabelle’s shoulder, slicing an ugly gash into it.

Tavi screamed. She clambered to Isabelle and Hugo and helped them up.

“That’s it. We’re finished here,” she said, her voice quavering. “I’m sorry we didn’t find anything. I’m sorry for Nero. But there’s nothing here. Oh my God, Isabelle. Look at your shoulder!”

Tavi made her sister leave the ruins and sit down under the linden tree. There, she pressed a handkerchief against her wound.

Isabelle didn’t want to sit. “I’m all right,” she said, taking the handkerchief from Tavi. “I’m going back. Just one more time …”

“No,” Tavi said. “You could’ve been killed. Hugo could’ve been. We’re leaving.”

Hugo had joined them. He lay down in the grass, spent. Tavi sat next to him. Isabelle reluctantly joined them.

“Are you all right?” Tavi asked him. He nodded, his eyes closed. “Thank you for saving Isabelle. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to her. To either of you.” Her voice caught.