As expected, neither Julien nor his mother looked Cinn’s way as he approached them. They wouldn’t be able to see him—he’d learnt that the hard way during his first handful of trips. He turned to Béatrice, who was plucking poppies from the field and placing them in a pile on her white dress.
Her head snapped up to him, her grey eyes so similar to Julien’s, he was momentarily stunned.
“What took youso long?” she said.
Before he could reply, she’d jumped to her feet and sprinted off. Not sparing a second, Cinn charged after her, fully prepared to tackle the small girl to the ground, if that’s what it took.
She was fast, but he was faster.
Grabbing on to the back of her dress, he yanked her backwards. Her small body stumbled backwards, touching his. He reached to gently wrap his arms around her, her sun-kissed skin warm.
A single intake of breath and an ethereal energy pulsed through her into him. She continued to fall backwards, impossibly furtherintohim, the boundaries between their forms blurring.
Then he wasn’t in a field. He was Béatrice, eleven years old, hiding under a table, behind a tablecloth. He was terrified. Terrified of the glimpse of feet he saw pounding across the floor.Père,her voice said in his head.Don’t let him find me.
“Où est-elle?”her father said. Where is she?
And then another set of feet came into view, and another voice—familiar, albeit younger. Julien. Their father repeated the question, but Julien seemed unwilling to give the answer he desired.
As Béatrice, his heart hammered with fear and guilt. He needed to come out from under the table. He needed to help Julien, before it was too late.
Then Julien’s feet were being lifted off the ground to be shaken like a rag doll, and all Béatrice could do was to press her fist into her mouth and silently scream.Julien!
Another pair of shoes thundered into the small sliver of floor, attached to thin legs. A woman’s voice unleashing a distressed series of French curses.
Then the legs went flying off to the right.
Reality flickered.
The sun was back.
He was back in Paris, on the bank of the Seine, if the glimpse of the Notre-Dame towers were anything to go by.
He—Béatrice—was older now, thirteen, and was sitting with their back pressed against someone. He turned to find Julien again, his shock of blond waves longer, his boyish face offering a glimpse into its future form. Julien smiled his dual-dimpled grin at Béatrice, before returning to his task: sketching the river. As his hand flew across his drawing pad, the slightest hint of his tongue poked out.
He shuffled back around to return to pressing his back against him, savouring the peaceful afternoon. Gazing up at the beaming sun, he desired to stay here forever, in this tiny slice of happiness.
Maybe it was because he already knew he wouldn’t cope with whatever came next.
The dread started in the pit of his stomach, growing until it consumed every piece of him. He opened his mouth to protest, to say something to stop Béatrice from taking them away from this place. Because where they were off to next was the worst day of her life. He could feel it.
“Please,” he whispered, shutting his eyes.
The gentle sounds of the river and Julien’s pencils faded away, replaced by a growing hum.
When Cinn pried his eyes open, there was a crimson lattice adorning his palms. The sound of someone sobbing—Julien, of course it was Julien—tore his eyes up to find him, barely older than in the last memory. This Julien screamed, a horrific sound of pure devastation, as he sat by the unmoving body of their mother, who was face down on a tiled floor.
All around them lay debris, the air thick with dust and acrid smoke, assaulting his eyes and making them water. Forcing himself to look through the haze offered glimpses of stained-glass shards across splintered pews, their vibrant colours muted by layers of grime. It was only when Cinn looked up to see the splintering beams of the vaulted ceilingshaking above them that their location became clear: they were inside a large church, its once-grand architecture now crumbling around them.
Béatrice was injured. One leg in particular throbbed, and he held it limp behind him as he forced her body to move towards Julien, whose face was pure devastation as he shook his mother and screamed nonsensical things in French.
“It’s okay,” Cinn tried to say as he attempted to place his arms around him.
Julien shoved him off, sending Béatrice tumbling backwards onto a shard of fractured stone.
“Julien,” Cinn croaked, as tears freely poured down his cheeks. Béatrice’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
He climbed to his feet on shaking legs, stepping towards Julien again, this time kneeling behind him to wrap his arms around his stomach. Julien’s whole-body sobs reverberated through his embrace, each shuddering breath piercing a knife a little deeper into Cinn’s own heart.
