Stepsister(65)

The ring would pay for Nero. The bracelet would buy her freedom. She could sell it and use the money to rent a room in the village for herself and her family. They could be free of Madame, her cows, and her cabbages.

Humbled by the gifts, Isabelle placed her hand on the ground, palm up, in front of the mother mouse. The mouse hesitated, then climbed on. Isabelle lifted her up until they were eye to eye.

“Thank you,” she said again. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You don’t know what this means to me. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

She kissed the mouse on the top of her head and gently set her down. Then she got up, clutching her jewels, and headed out of the ruins.

The sun was peeking over the horizon now. Songbirds were welcoming the dawn. By the time Isabelle reached the road, she was running.





Seventy-One


“You came back,” the burly man said as he unlocked the gate. “I didn’t think you would. Do you have my money?”

Isabelle, who had reached the gates only a minute before he had, was bent over, her hands on her knees, struggling to catch her breath. She’d run the whole way from the Maison Douleur to the slaughter yard without stopping.

“I have this,” she said, straightening. She dug in her pocket, pulled out the ring, and handed it to him.

He handed it back, aggrieved. “I said four livres, not a ring! Do I look like a pawnbroker?”

Panic seized her. Never for a second had she considered that he might not accept it. “But it—it’s gold. It’s worth more than four livres,” she stammered.

The man waved her words away. “I’ll have to sell it to the jeweler. He’s a tightwad. It’s a lot of trouble.”

“Please …” Isabelle begged. Her voice broke.

The man glanced at her, then tried to look away but couldn’t. Her face was streaked with soot. Her dress was soaked with sweat. One sleeve was stained with blood.

“Please don’t kill my horse,” she finished.

The man looked past her, down the street. He swore. Muttered that he was a soft touch, always had been, that it would be his undoing. Then he pocketed the ring.

“Go get him,” he said, nodding towards the yard. “But be quick about it. Before I change my mind.”

Isabelle didn’t give him the chance.

“Nero!” she cried.

The horse was standing at the far end of the yard, tied to a post. His ears pricked up when he heard Isabelle’s voice. His dark eyes widened. Isabelle ran through the mud to him and threw her arms around his neck. He whickered, then nudged at her with his nose.

“Yes, you’re right. We need to get out of here,” Isabelle said. She quickly untied him and led him across the yard.

In her haste to get to him, she had not seen the other horses in the yard. But she did now. There were two of them.

They must’ve come in after I left yesterday, she thought. They were bony, fly-bitten. Their coats were dull, their tails full of burrs. She looked away. There was nothing she could do.

More men had arrived. The burly man was now making coffee over a small black stove in a ramshackle shed. The others stood around, waiting for a cup, but soon they would pick up their sledgehammers and knives and start their work.

Isabelle led Nero past them and out of the gates.

As she was about to lead him away, she glanced back at the horses. No one had fed them or given them water. Why would they? Why waste food on animals that were going to die? They were old, used up. Worthless. Hopeless.

Isabelle squeezed Nero’s lead so tightly her hands cramped. The bracelet, the one she was going to use to buy her freedom from Madame, and Tavi’s and Maman’s, weighed heavy in her pocket. It weighed even heavier on her heart.

Isabelle looked up at the sky. “What am I doing?” she said, as if hoping the clouds might answer her. Then she tied Nero to the fence, took the bracelet from her pocket, and walked back inside the slaughter yard.

“What a fool Isabelle is,” many people would say. “What an idiot to throw her bracelet away on a lost cause.”

Never listen to such small-souled folk.

The skin-and-bones dog who shows up at your door. The broken-winged bird you nurse back to health. The kitten you find crying at the side of the road.

You think you’re saving them, don’t you?

Ah, child. Can’t you see?

They’re saving you.





Seventy-Two


Isabelle, her head down, walked up the road from the slaughter yard, past the outskirts of Saint-Michel, trailing the three horses behind her.

Madame is going to kill me, she worried. She didn’t even want Martin, who earns his keep. What will she say when she sees Nero and these two poor wrecks?

And then a more disturbing thought occurred to her. What if Madame is so angry, she threatens to throw us out again?

Isabelle hadn’t considered that possibility when she was bargaining for the horses’ lives—all she’d cared about then was saving them—but it loomed before her now. Tantine had been able to talk Madame into letting them stay after the sweaty dead dog disaster, but Isabelle doubted she would be able to save them a second time.

“Isabelle? Is that you? What are you doing?”

Isabelle looked up at the sound of the voice. She mustered a broken smile.