Rory sagged onto the couch, grappling with possible responses. Just how far did she want to take this?
“Rory? You still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Are you really thinking about doing this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well then, this is great news. I always thought it was a great idea. But after all the places we looked at last summer, why this one?”
“I don’t know. I saw it and I just knew. It was like it was sitting there, waiting for me.”
“One of those women’s intuition things?”
“Yeah, I guess. Would you be willing to contact her about a possible lease?”
There was a brief stretch of silence, the sound of a phone ringing in the background. “I can certainly do that,” Brett replied finally. “But I’ve got to be straight with you. We scouted at least twenty properties, and you passed on every one of them. If I’m going to go sleuthing around and lean on this woman, I need to know you’re actually ready to move.”
It was a fair statement and absolutely true. She had turned down every property he’d shown her. Not because she couldn’t have made them work or because she was squeamish about committing but because none of them had felt right. But this one—a building she’d never noticed until yesterday and had never set foot in—did.
“Rory?”
“I’m ready to move.”
FOUR
SOLINE
We may forsake The Work, but The Work will never forsake us. It will fight to keep us, throwing itself into our path, again and again, until at long last, we pay attention. This is what it means to be chosen.
—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch
29 May 1985—Boston
I’m startled when my phone rings at precisely 8:00 a.m. I don’t get calls anymore, or at least not many, and when I do, they seldom come before I’ve finished my coffee. I let the phone ring as I fill the carafe and push down the plunger of the press, hoping whoever it is will hang up. There’s no one I want to talk to.
The phone keeps ringing. I lift up the receiver and immediately hang it up. Seconds later, it rings again. I hang up again, without a word, hoping whoever it is will get the message and leave me alone. When it begins to ring a third time, I snatch the receiver from its cradle.
“I don’t want to buy anything!”
I am about to slam the receiver back down when I catch a sharp bark of laughter. It’s a familiar sound and a surprisingly pleasant one, even at this uncaffeinated time of day. My solicitor, and friend too, I suppose, who I’ve not spoken to in months.
“Daniel Ballantine—is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. And I’m not calling to get you to buy anything. I’m calling to ask if you’re interested in selling something. Or to be more specific, leasing something.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I had a call last night. We’ve had an inquiry on the Fairfield property.”
I feel as though a blast of cold air has just hit the back of my neck. “Someone wants my shop?”
There’s a pause, the polite but uncomfortable sort. “Well, it hasn’t been a shop for years now, but someone’s interested in your building, yes.”
“Who?”
“The agent didn’t mention his client by name, but if the guy found me, he’s obviously done his homework. Brett Gleason’s his name, with Back Bay Land Group. They’ve asked for a sit-down.”
“It’s not for sale or lease.”
Daniel makes the noise he makes when he’s frustrated with me, half grunt, half sigh. “Soline, it’s been three years—more than three, actually—and we both know reopening isn’t in the cards. The fire caused a lot of damage, and what with everything . . .”
Everything.
I hold out my free hand, palm up, staring at it. The shiny pink skin, mottled with bits of waxy white, the slight clawlike curling of the fingers. The other hand, the one holding the phone, is a little better, but not much, the result of second-degree burns sustained when a cigarette I left burning set my bridal shop on fire. There were splints, physical therapy, a series of grueling surgeries. More splints. Followed by more therapy. Until the doctors all agreed there was nothing more to be done.
“You mean my hands?” I say quietly.
“I mean everything, Soline. You came here alone and worked your ass off, built a name for yourself out of nothing. People will never forget the name Roussel and what it stood for. But you’re retired now. Why leave the place sitting empty? We’re talking top dollar in the current leasing market.”
“I don’t need the money.”
“No. You certainly don’t. But you don’t need the memories either. Maybe it’s time to let go of them and move on.”
His words touch off a spark in me. “You think that’s all it will take? I sign a contract, someone else moves in, and it all goes away?”
Daniel sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that. I know what you’ve been through and that there are reasons you’re reluctant to let go. But you wouldn’t be letting it go. Not completely. Though, truthfully, I’m not sure holding on is serving you at this point.”
I scowl at the coffee press, cursing him under my breath. Why did he have to call now, when I’ve been doing so well pretending to be numb? “I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“Just promise me you’ll think about it.”
I heave a sigh, weary of being hectored. “All right.”
“All right, you’ll lease it?”
“All right, I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow,” I snap. “The day after.”
“All right. The day after.”
I hang up the phone and go back to my cold coffee. I have to start over now. I remove the plunger and toss the tepid slop into the sink. I know Daniel has my best interests at heart, and not only because I pay him to. But there are parts of my story even he doesn’t know, parts I have put away for good. And after so many years, what does it matter? People like me—like the Roussels—are a dying breed, our gifts of little value to a world that no longer believes in la magie.
For generations, my family has been part of a kind of conte de fée—a fairy tale. Though perhaps fairy tale is the wrong term. Fairy tales have happy endings. Fables are meant as cautionary tales, lessons intended to teach us about life and its consequences. And over the years, the Roussels have learned much about consequences.
There are many names for what we are. Gypsies, hexers, white witches, and shamans. In England we’re called cunning folk, though I’ve always hated the term. Perhaps because it conjures thoughts of slick-handed cheats, waiting to separate the unsuspecting passerby from the few pennies in his pocket, the charlatans with their phony magic and vulgar showmanship, making up fortunes and doling out platitudes. We are not those people. For us, The Work is sacred, a vocation.
In France, where I come from, we are les tisseuses de sort—Spell Weavers—which is at least closer to the truth. We possess certain skills, talents with things like charms and herbs, cards and stones—or in our case, needle and thread. There are not many of us left these days, or at least not many who depend on the craft for their living. But there are a few still, if one knows where to look. And for a time, I was one of them, like my mother and her mother before her, living in the narrow, twisty lanes of Paris discreetly known as the craft district.
We were the Roussels, a family of dressmakers—bridal designers to be precise—but with a particular specialty. The bride who wears a Roussel gown on her wedding day is guaranteed a happy ending. We are the chosen, or so the story goes. Handmaidens of La Mère Divine—the Divine Mother. And like all handmaidens, we’re meant to be content with our solitary lot, to sacrifice our happiness in service to others. Like the holy Catholic sisters, the black-and-whites as Tante Lilou called them, we are taught from a tender age that happy endings are for other people.
A gift, Maman claimed, tho
ugh looking back, I’m not convinced it was ever worth the price. And yes, there was a price. With magie, something must always be rendered. And the Roussels have learned only too well the price for disobedience.
A maléfice—a curse passed down through the generations—because one of us, some foolish Roussel whose name has long been forgotten, once used la magie to steal another woman’s husband, breaking the first tenet of our creed: do no harm.
A myth, probably, though I suspect like all myths, some thread of truth runs through it. And a thing repeated often enough takes on a truth of its own, like the steady drip of water carves its way through stone. And so the curse has been drilled into us, into my mother and hers, and hers before that, warning us against the unhappy fate of those who have strayed from their calling. Our hearts are to remain locked up tight, closed to temptations that might cause us to forget our true purpose—to ensure the happiness of others. So goes the Roussel catechism. But the heart often demands its own way, and the Roussels have fallen prey to both love and its consequences.
Superstition, some might say. But I’ve seen the evidence myself, or at least heard of it. Giselle, my mother’s mother, deserted by her failed-artist husband after giving birth to a second daughter. Tante Lilou, widowed when her handsome Brit husband rolled his car into a ditch the day they returned from honeymooning in Greece. Maman, abandoned by her mysterious young lover when she turned up pregnant. And me, of course. But that is a story for another time.
For now, let us return to The Work. Maman called it sacred, a vocation carved into our hearts long before we were born. That, too, is like the Catholic sisters, I suppose, though we take no formal vows. Our name is our vow. Our blood is our vow. Our work—charms painstakingly sewn into the seam of a white silk gown—is our vow. And we are well paid for our work.
In Paris, where fashion and name-dropping go hand in hand, we were relative nobodies. The name Roussel wasn’t likely to be heard in the fashionable salons, where the bon ton sipped champagne and nibbled tarte tropézienne. Such distinctions were reserved for the likes of Chanel, Lanvin, and Patou. But in the more discreet corners of the city, where women with certain skills were paid to keep other women’s secrets, Maman, born Esmée Roussel, daughter of Giselle Roussel, was known as La Sorcière de la Robe.
The Dress Witch.
The name passed to her when my grand-mère died and was to be mine when Maman finally laid down her needle. But it wasn’t a name I ever wanted for myself. I had inherited my mother’s gift with a needle and far exceeded her abilities in design, but I could never match her when it came to spell work. I had no patience for such things. Because my thoughts—my dreams—lay elsewhere.
Maman did her best to rid me of them. She was a harsh taskmaster, quick to scold and slow to praise. To her, I was selfish and ungrateful, a wildling who would come to harm one day if I didn’t stop my silly dreaming and bend myself to my calling. Un rêveur, she would bark when my mind would wander and the distraction came out in my hands. Daydreamer. I deserved it, of course. I was a daydreamer. As starry-eyed and fanciful as any young girl should be.
And like any other young girl, I kept my dreams in a book. Not the one I used to record Maman’s teachings but an entirely different sort of book. One with blank white pages just waiting to be filled with my very own designs. Pages and pages of clothes I would create one day and put my name on. Dresses and suits and stunning evening gowns in every color of the rainbow. Ocher and azure and aubergine.
Such were the colors of my girlhood dreams. Alas, we women seldom get the life we would choose for ourselves. Instead, our lot is chosen for us, by those who claim to know best, and before we know it, we’ve been shaped into someone we don’t recognize, remade in someone else’s image. For the Roussels, this is especially true.
For seventy years, we kept a salon in the Rue Legendre, with a small apartment above for living. It wasn’t much as salons go, small but smart, with shuttered windows and a purple door to distinguish it from its neighbors. Purple is the color of our kind, the color of la magie—of magick. We could have afforded to put on a better show, a fancy sign or smart canvas awnings, but our clients valued discretion almost as much as they valued Maman’s gift with a needle. And who could blame them? No woman—a French one least of all—wants it known that she requires help with les choses de cœur. Many did require it, though. Still, many were turned away, deemed a poor match with their chosen grooms and therefore ill-suited for a binding.
One did not simply walk in off the street and commission a gown from Maman. To become a Roussel bride, three things were required: a referral from a previous client, a vow of discretion, and absolute honesty. And even then there was no guarantee that the prospective bride would be found worthy. There was a process, tests that must be passed, questions asked and answered, and of course the readings, all of which took place in Maman’s little sitting room at the back of the shop.
The would-be client would arrive at the appointed time. Alone. Never with her mother in tow. A tray of refreshments always awaited—a plate of biscuits and sweet dark chocolate served in thin china cups. The bride would settle into her chair with her refreshments. Maman would smile her disarming smile over the rim of her cup, and the questions would begin.
How long have you known your young man? How did you meet? Does his mother approve of you? Does yours approve of him? Have you discussed having children? Have the two of you been intimate? Does he please you physically? Has he ever been unfaithful to you? Have you been unfaithful to him?
Occasionally, they would try to lie, but it did them no good. Maman could smell a lie before it left someone’s mouth. And the price of a lie was to be turned away.
After the questions, she would move on to the true test. The women were instructed to bring a personal article of their own to the interview and also one belonging to their fiancés: a hairbrush or a ring, something each used and touched every day. Maman would hold the items in her hands one at a time, letting her eyes go soft and her breath go deep, until the images began to come up. Echoes, she called them. Of what has been and what is to come.
It will sound strange to you, like make-believe. It was stranger still to watch it through a keyhole when I was a little girl, spying on things I did not yet understand. And then one day, Maman explained. Every soul creates an echo. Like a fingerprint or signature that becomes infused in the things around us. Who we are. Where we belong. What we’re meant to bring to the world. No two echoes are alike. They are ours and ours alone. But they’re incomplete—one half of a perfect whole. Like a mirror without a reflection. And so each echo is constantly seeking its other half, to complete itself. That is what we look for in a reading, a sign that the lovers’ echoes are a match.
Nearly two-thirds of the brides who sought Maman’s help were turned away, and no amount of money could entice her to change her mind. These were critical considerations, after all. It was her reputation on the line, and she must be careful of it. One failure could ruin her, ruin all the Roussels.
I was twelve when she began to school me in earnest. A year earlier than her maman began with her. When I asked why, she said there wasn’t time to wait. I would need to be ready when the time came. I didn’t understand then. I wouldn’t for several years. But I did as I was told. And so began my lessons at the knee of the Dress Witch.
My training consisted of three parts. The first was divination, which, according to Maman, was where any sorcière worth her salt should focus first. It is known by other names. Scrying, dousing, invocation. Naming it one rather than the other makes no difference. La magie is a supple thing, powerful yet pliant, adaptable to many forms and uses. Smell. Sound. Sight. Touch. Even taste can be used if the practitioner is sufficiently schooled. For the Roussels, it is touch and the ability to channel a person’s story—one’s echoes—through our fingertips.
When it comes to spells—and to happiness—there is no such thing as one size fits all. Good magick, effective magick, is about kno
wing your client’s story, who they are and how they live their lives, what makes them tick. To be effective, you must get at the truth.
We would work every day after the shop closed, with items Maman found or picked up cheap at one of the secondhand stalls. She taught me to go quiet inside, to soften my gaze and slow my breath—so very, very slow—until everything fell away and the images shimmered to the surface. Loves, losses, babies, weddings, accidents, illnesses, flicking past my eyes like pages in a scrapbook. Afterward, Maman would quiz me to see if my readings matched hers.
I was terrible at first, overwhelmed by the kinds of things that came up. I was young and found being privy to the intimate details of a stranger’s life uncomfortable, as if I’d been peering through their blinds or reading their diaries. Maman would simply roll her eyes. The echoes do not lie, she would remind me. They are a person’s memoir, stripped of fancy and self-delusion, the raw and unvarnished truth, and those truths are the foundation for everything else.
By everything else, she meant charm crafting.
A particular charm must be created for each Roussel bride, the words carefully chosen and shaped into a kind of verse, meant to dissolve specific impediments and ensure a happy outcome. The writing of a binding charm is considered sacred work and is to be entered into reverently. Never in haste and never, ever with the intent to bend the will of another. Both lovers must come willingly to the union and must have full faith in the charm’s binding power. Faith is the cornerstone of all magick. Without it, even the most powerful charm is useless.
When the charm is complete, it is sewn into the dress, discreetly worked into the seam that will lay closest to the bride’s heart. The words should be wrought in white silk thread, the stitches nearly invisible to the naked eye, as a guard against copying and misappropriation. Binding spells call on powerful magick, and in careless hands can do harm that is difficult if not impossible to reverse. But in skilled hands, a thoughtfully worked binding assures both protection and happiness. On the wedding day, when the lovers exchange vows, their union is said to be envoûtée—spellbound.
The Keeper of Happy Endings Page 4