Rosalyn’s heart fell at the thought of attending the party by herself, meeting all those strangers, but she reminded herself that this was her job. And she wanted to get a sense of the caves, at least.
“Anyway, those photos, and that register of orphans,” said Rosalyn, going back to their earlier subject, “I hate to think of them up in that moldy attic full of ghosts.”
Emma’s eyebrows shot up. “You saw ghosts up there?”
“No,” said Blondine with a quick shake of her head. “But if therewereghosts, that’s where they would live.”
“Can’t beat that logic,” Emma said wryly. “But I suspect Madame Bolze is haunted by nothing but a long life that is not ending well. While you two were upstairs bothering the ghosts, she confessed how sad she was to be estranged from her children. So we decided she’s going to Tours to see her daughter, and afterward she’ll try to reconcile with her son.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Rosalyn. “Did you have to talk her into it?”
“It didn’t take much. I told her I would ask André to take her if she didn’t have any other way to get there.” Emma blew out a long breath, and stood to go. “Anyway, I’m done in, going to take a nap.”
As Emma rose and grabbed her crutches, Blondine said, “Madame Bolze must be so lonely, rambling around that huge old place by herself. At the very least she should have some grandkids running around, playing hide-and-seek, don’t you think?”
“The Vieille Ruche would be agreathouse for hide-and-seek,” Rosalyn said, though the threat of a fire still gave her pause. “But... maybe we should buy her some rope ladders for the upper floors. Just in case.”
?After Blondine and Emma left, Rosalyn sat down to sketch Madame Bolze’s attic while the chaotic image was still fresh in her mind.
As she drew, her mind wandered. What were ghosts, after all? Our wishes, our desires, our regrets and nostalgia?
Rosalynwantedto be haunted by Dash. She sought out signs, hoping he would reach out to her from beyond the gossamer wall that separated them.
As a child, Rosalyn had been drawn to the mystical in children’s books: worlds full of fairies and elves and faraway enchanted lands where magic was real. Even as she grew up she still believed, not in fairies per se, but in the magic of a hummingbird, the enchantment of the woods. At times the sunset would strike her as a gift from beyond; a happy coincidence would feel like the universe reaching out to her.
Her time with Dash had seemed like just such a fairy tale, a charmed life of love and connection and beauty and happily ever after.
But when he died, the magic had been replaced with a void, an absence. For the first time, she envied others their religious faith; it would have been far better to imagine there was someone in charge, someone with some sort of plan that required Dash’s death and Rosalyn’s agony. Surely there was a reason. There had to be a reason.
Dash sent no signs. There was no magic. Hummingbirds were on a desperate hunt for food; the woods were no more enchanted than she was. And the most glorious sunsets were caused by air pollution or smoke from wildfires.
The more she chased her husband’s ghost, the farther away he felt.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Lucie
Now that my life has become a whirlwind of scavenging ruins, cleaning wounds, organizing children, and picking grapes at night—not to mention how difficult it is to find enough water and privacy to bathe—I have grown weary of dealing with my long tresses.
Mamanalways says a woman’s hair is her crowning glory. Though I love and respect my mother, I fear her ways no longer apply; they have disappeared as surely as the Villa Traverne and our neighbors, the parties and society functions that once made up our lives.
The world has turned upside down, and I with it.
So I took a set of shears and bobbed my hair. Women are doing it all over; I saw pictures in one of the dog-eared magazines passed around from one denizen of the Pommery caves to the next.
Predictably, my mother is furious to the point of tears, and wonders aloud what has become of me, what is to become of us all; but her protests dissolve into prolonged coughing spells. She hasdeveloped a worrying hack, and no matter how much tea of anise I make her, she does not seem to improve.
On his last visit, Émile told me he quite liked my new hairdo. He said I looked posh, and modern. This time my fiancé sent a present of earbobs—which are wholly impractical but look grand with my newly cropped hair—but Émile brought me something I truly treasure: a translation of a book of stories by an American author named Edgar Allan Poe.
Émile and I stroll the lengths of thecrayèrestogether as I tell him about bringing in the harvest, and list for him what we have lately been able to scavenge from the ruins. He exhorts me to be careful on my expeditions, but I remind him that I have stayed alive this long, and have no intention of dying anytime soon.
At my urging, Émile tells me of the lice and the flies and the rats plaguing the soldiers, of the death and blood and destruction. He confides that his fellow soldiers have begun to see ghosts, and that he, too, sometimes feels an otherworldly presence come to stand beside him on the battlefield. He hopes I do not think less of him for telling me this.
And through it all, his sad, beautiful eyes tell me something else altogether.
I have been proposed to several times; I know when a man is falling in love. It is my own heart that takes me by surprise.
Chapter Thirty
