The Keeper of Happy Endings(16)

“She said you should come.”

I stare at her. “To London?”

“It’s still possible. But not for long.” She surprises me by reaching for my hand, her knuckles white as her fingers close around mine. “I want you to go, Soline. I want you to be safe. And you won’t be in Paris. No one will. You must go. Tomorrow.”

“Without you?”

Her eyes flutter closed. “Oui, ma fille. Without me.”

“But how—”

She shakes her head, cutting me off. “You can’t stay, Soline. I was a fool to think a pantry full of coffee and sugar could keep you safe. It won’t. Nothing will if they decide to come for you.”

The panic in her eyes is so raw, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I narrow my gaze, certain she knows something I don’t. “What reason could they have to come for me, Maman?”

Her eyes glitter, fever mixed with fear. “Don’t you see? They don’t need a reason! But they’ll find one. People always find a way to justify their hate—and give others an excuse to fall in line. They put words in people’s mouths, plant them like viruses, then watch them spread. People here in Paris—people we know—will be infected. And when the fever spreads, they’ll point the finger at anyone they think might save them. Please, I beg you, go to Lilou.”

“How can I go?” The words spill out more sharply than I intend, but she is asking the impossible. We’ve never been close—not the way most mothers and daughters are—but she’s my mother. I can’t just abandon her. “You’re so weak you can’t get down the stairs, and you can barely feed yourself. If I go, there will be no one to take care of you.”

“You must, Soline. You must go. Now.”

“What about The Work? Someone has to be here to do The Work.”

She lets out a sigh, clearly weary of arguing. “There won’t be any work, Soline. There will be no brides because there will be no grooms. The men will be gone. All of them.”

I feel the air go out of my lungs. I’ve heard stories about the last war, the shortage of marriageable men after, because they went off to fight and never came home. I never imagined it happening again. But of course, she’s right. Referrals have already slowed to a trickle, and it will only get worse. And then what? Still, I can’t do what she’s asking.

“I won’t leave you here by yourself.”

“You little fool!” Her eyes flash as she catches me by the wrist. “Do you think it will matter if you’re here when my time comes? That you can somehow stop what’s happening to me? You can’t. There is no magick for this. Or for what’s coming. There’s nothing left for you here.”

I turn away from her, stung by her harshness. Ours has always been an awkward relationship, filled with chilly truces and prickly silence, her disapproval always there, like a current running between us, because I’m a reminder of past mistakes.

Once upon a time, I had a father, a man who managed at least once to woo Esmée Roussel to his bed. I don’t know his name. I only know that he was a musician attending school in Paris and that he left without marrying her. Maman has never spoken of him, and Lilou was strangely silent on the subject, despite my curiosity. And so he has remained a shadow, a nameless lapse in judgment for which a baby girl was the penance.

I remember Lilou telling me once that Maman had been one of the most beautiful girls in Paris and that it had to do with the Roma blood running through our veins. She said it was what gave the Roussels the look of gypsies—and what gave us our magick—and that Maman had gotten more than her share of both. Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps Maman was beautiful once, but bitterness has hardened her, something I vowed would never happen to me. And yet I see her sometimes, when I stand at the mirror, the me I might become if I’m not careful, cold and brittle and so very solitary. But Lilou is there sometimes too, looking back, asking me what I will make of my life.

Lilou, who lopped off her hair and rouged her lips and called me ma pêche. Who followed her heart and married her Brit and left Paris far behind her. She was different from Maman in every way it was possible to be different, and I adored her. She wasn’t fond of rules and didn’t believe in regrets—or sin, which she claimed was a ruse to make women apologize for what they wanted. How I longed to be like her when I was a girl, to look the world straight in the eye and dare its opinion, to follow my own dreams and chase my own wishes. And perhaps I will one day—but not while Maman needs me.





EIGHT


RORY

June 16, 1985—Boston

Rory held her breath as she stepped into the row house’s murky interior. The power wasn’t due to be turned on until tomorrow, but as of 6:00 p.m. last night, the place was hers—lock, stock, and lease payment.

She couldn’t stay long. She was due at her mother’s for brunch at eleven. But the freshly cut set of keys Daniel Ballantine had handed her yesterday had been burning a hole in her pocket. Now that it was light, she was here to soak up the atmosphere and savor the moment.

A wash of dull light filtered in through the gritty front window, creating a murky underwater atmosphere. Rory squinted, willing her eyes to adjust as she wandered about the front room. In its current condition, the place could hardly be considered glamorous, though it had once been home to one of the most exclusive bridal salons in Boston, owned by a Parisian dressmaker known for her exquisite taste and avant-garde designs.