The Everlasting Rose (The Belles, #2)(91)
The city of Trianon disappears in the distance, fading to a mere smudge. I crane to see its outline, wondering if I will ever return, if I’ll ever want to. I wanted nothing more than to be the favorite and to stay in Trianon and the royal palace forever, but I had no idea what it would be like, all the horrors that would come to pass. A dream turned nightmare.
I curl into a little knot, limbs and body lost in the folds of my dress, and sink into the weight of all that’s happened.
“More newspapers and tattlers,” Bree says, sliding one stack into my lap and another into Hana’s.
“Sit with me?” I ask her.
“I need to prepare tea.”
“You’re no longer an imperial servant.”
“I know, but—”
I pat the cushion beside mine. “Just sit with me awhile.”
She concedes.
We sit in the window and go through the headlines in the Orléansian Times:
MINISTER OF BELLES FLEES! GEORGIANA FABRY MISSING
THE LEADER OF THE IRON LADIES INVITED TO MEET WITH HER MAJESTY QUEEN CHARLOTTE
LOCKED IN A TOWER OF HER OWN MAKING! DISGRACED ALMOST QUEEN SOPHIA HELD IN THE EVERLASTING ROSE TO AWAIT TRIAL
RIOTS AND UNREST SPARK IN THE SPICE ISLES!
“What do you think will happen?” Bree asks.
I turn the page and the headlines scatter. “I don’t know.”
“Will things go back to what they once were?”
“Can anything go back? All I know is that we will take care of one another and those with us, and help Charlotte.” I trace my fingers along the underside of my wrist, the veins there a reminder of the arcana. And a choice.
She opens the Trianon Tribune and reads silently.
I close my eyes. Images circle inside my head with nowhere to go, like flies in a jar. I drift in and out of sleep. Time passes, more than three hourglasses’ worth. The world outside the carriage gets quieter and quieter.
The wheels sink into soft earth. I recognize the feeling and know we’re close to home. When I was younger, I loved the mud between my toes and the tiny worry that you might drift down and through the center of the world. If we were the slightest bit dirty, Du Barry would send us for a scrub treatment, and it was never pleasant. I miss those little-girl days before I was so excited to leave home—to crash into the world and discover its secrets.
We rattle along the wooden bridge to the carriage-house, and I hear the familiar late-night noises of the Rose Bayou—the hum of crickets, the bleat of frogs, and the buzz of fireflies. Above me a quilt of branches is heavy with snow-white moss.
The carriages are parked inside the brick carriage-house, which sits on a platform in the middle of the bayou. Behind me, the wooden bridge pulls away, returning to our closest island neighbor—Quin. During the warm months, rows of fruits and vegetables in every color, shape, and size grow along high hills and mountainsides, and we could see teams of workers tending to the millions of plants from my bedroom window.
Would everything settle back in place like a reset bone?
As the bridge disappears behind me, so does the path to the outside world. Maybe that’s a good thing now. Maybe time away from the world will help.
I gaze ahead across the water. Home hides among the Rose Bayou’s cypress trees. The newspapers used to say the Goddess of Beauty placed Belles on an island of milk and blood because of these white bark trees and their red leaves.
I wish the sight of them gave me the relief I crave, but it doesn’t. What will it feel like to be here without Amber and Valerie? Will I be able to do all the things that need to be done?
Bayou boats arrive at the carriage-house pier.
We climb in.
Snowflies skip along the surface of the water, their little bodies white sparks brightening the dark. I want to plunge my whole hand in, like I did when I was a little girl. I want to see if the water is still the same.
The warning Du Barry used to give me rings out in my head: “Sit up, Camellia, and hand out of the water. This bayou is full of the unknown.”
I leave a sliver of the window open to watch as we pass through a dense thicket of cypress trees where the boats slow to curve around their trunks. I want to reach out and pluck one of the roses growing out of the dark waters, but the feeling of Du Barry’s eyes upon me lingers. Even if she isn’t here.
Maison Rouge appears ahead. The pointed roof rises above the trees. Sill-lanterns sit in each window and cast red light over the island. Stone crypts freckle the land, and the Belle-graveyard seems endless, spilling into the dark forest that lurks in the mansion’s shadow. Maman and I used to play hide-and-seek in the graveyard when she wanted alone time for us away from the other mothers and little girls. We’d zip around those vaults and fill the space with laughter instead of death. Back then, I wasn’t afraid of dying, and I never thought there’d be a day when Maman would be placed in one of the graves. They were just stone pyramids to hide behind until my mother found me. Now, they feel real and used. Ready to receive the bodies of my sisters.
The boats are tethered to the dock, and the servants help us onto the platform. We follow a path of stepping-stones along the walkway to the house. Twisted cypress trees block the stars. The noise of our feet adds to the melody of the bayou. I jam a key into the lock just as Du Barry once did.
I slide the entryway doors open with both hands. The floors are warm beneath my feet, and the walls and corridors and rooms carry the scent of charcoal and flowers. The familiar smell of home.