Stepsister(80)

“Isabelle,” he said. “I enlisted.”





Eighty-Eight


It was suicide.

Felix was a dreamer, an artist, not a fighter.

Isabelle tried to pull away. She tried to reason with him, but he tightened his grip on her hands and would not let her speak.

“I had no choice,” he said. “Not after Malleval. I can barely work. I can’t sleep. I see the dead in my dreams.”

Isabelle remembered the smell of smoke in the air, the bodies in the field.

“Can you blame me?” he asked her.

Her anger, her arguments—they all fell away. “No,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Remember your book? An Illustrated History of the World’s Greatest Military Commanders? In all the stories we read, the best warriors went to war reluctantly. Volkmar is a different creature.”

“He’s not a warrior, he’s a murderer,” Isabelle said, her voice hardening.

“What if he raids Saint-Michel? How could I live with myself if I did nothing to stop him?”

“When do you leave?” she asked.

“In four days.”

Isabelle felt the breath go out of her. “So soon?” she said when she could speak again.

“The recruiting sergeant wanted me right away, but I told him I needed a little time. I have a coffin to finish. A hand, too. And a general for my army of wooden soldiers.”

Isabelle looked down so that Felix wouldn’t see her eyes welling. The gold coins were still in her lap. She scooped them up, dropped them into the purse and cinched it shut. “I’ll wait for you. You’ll come back. You will,” she said, handing it back to him.

But he wouldn’t take it.

“You’ve seen the wagonloads of wounded coming back to camp just like I have,” he said. “And the wooden crosses blooming in the fields next to it. We both know I’m not much good with a rifle.”

“Felix, no, don’t say these things,” she pleaded, leaning her head against his.

His words hollowed her out. She had just found him, and now she was losing him again. Could the fates be so cruel?

“Go, Isabelle. Go for both of us. Leave Saint-Michel. And cows and cabbages. Leave Hugo and a life you don’t want. There’s nothing here for you. There never was.”

“There was you.”

Felix let go of her hands. He stood. His eyes were shiny, and he didn’t want her to see. He was a soldier now. And soldiers didn’t cry.

“Will I see you again? Before you go?” she asked.

“It’s hard, Isabelle,” he said.

She nodded. She understood. It was hard to say goodbye to the person you loved. It was excruciating.

“I’ll write,” he said. “If I can.”

While you can, you mean, Isabelle thought. Before a bullet finds you.

He turned to go, but she snatched at his arm and stopped him. Then she took his face in her hands and kissed him. Kissed him until she’d filled her heart with him. And her soul. Kissed him enough to last her a lifetime.

When she finally stepped away from him, her cheeks were wet, but not from her own tears. Felix shook his head; he pulled her back. Crushed her to him. And then he was gone. And Isabelle was all alone.

She pictured Felix on a battlefield. Running through mud and smoke. She heard the sound of cannon firing, the thunder of charging horses, battle cries and death screams. She saw Volkmar, crazed by bloodlust, swinging his fearsome sword.

Wrenching emotions took hold of her. Heartbreak. Anger. Terror. Grief.

And one more. One that had appeared in a haze of green, like a bad fairy furious that she hadn’t been invited to the party. One that Isabelle was quite familiar with, though she didn’t understand why she felt it now.

Jealousy.





Eighty-Nine


“There used to be so many spiders in here. Now I never see one. Don’t you think that’s strange? No spiders? In a stable?”

“Incredibly strange, Hugo,” said Isabelle distractedly as she hung up Martin’s harness.

She and Hugo had just returned from the market. They’d driven the empty wagon out to the fields, ready to be loaded again in the morning; then they’d walked Martin back to the stables. After putting him in his stall with oats and fresh water, they cleaned his tack and put it away.

Hugo frowned. “You’ve been very quiet. You barely said a word the whole way home from the market. Is something wrong?”

Yes, whatever was left of my heart was just ripped out, Hugo, she thought. That’s what’s wrong.

All she could think about was Felix and the gold coins he’d given her. She hadn’t decided what to do with them. At first, she thought she would hide them and hold on to them, as if by not spending them she could make sure he returned from the war.

She would marry Hugo and sacrifice her happiness if it meant Felix survived. But as she thought about it, she saw that holding on to a bag of coins couldn’t guarantee his life, and that she would be sacrificing Hugo’s happiness, too. And Odette’s. Maybe Tavi’s and Maman’s. And she realized she didn’t have the right to do that.

By the time Martin turned up the drive to the LeBenêts’, she’d made a decision—she would tell Hugo and Tavi about the money and they would figure out what to do with it together.