The Library of Light and Shadow

by M. J. Rose

  “Are you sure? I’m so possessive of my books. I always worry if I lend one, I’ll never get it back.”

  “Like love,” Marsden said, “books are meant to be shared.”

  Finally, it was time to push on. We said our good-byes and walked out to the car.

  I’d no sooner shut my door than Sebastian remembered something he’d forgotten to tell the artist. He ran back to the villa and knocked on the door, and Marsden opened it.

  In the shadows, the two men stood on the threshold, speaking.

  What is it that makes us see something for the first time that we’ve literally witnessed hundreds of times before? My brother was half of my soul. We’d shared a womb together. Despite his inheriting nothing of the witching power from our mother, what we shared was atypical. And yet there was so much about my twin that I didn’t know, made even more evident by us having spent the last four and a half years apart.

  His success at the gallery was partly a result of his charm but had more to do with his artistic sensibility. Sebastian had an artist’s soul, even if he didn’t create paintings or sculpture himself. He’d created an artistic life. His gallery was itself a work of art, a sensory delight, with just the right lighting, velvet settees, and comfortable couches on which patrons could sit and contemplate the paintings. The gallery served tea or coffee in the loveliest Limoges china and champagne in the most delicate Lalique flutes. Chocolates, meringues, and madeleines were always perfectly arranged on silver trays alongside linen napkins embroidered with the gallery’s logo—an Art Deco blue-and-green geometric rendition of Sebastian’s initials that he’d designed himself.

  Unlike me, Sebastian was an extrovert and had plenty of friends of both sexes. Our early days in Paris had been the only time his popularity had been challenged. For the first time, he had to work at developing connections, but he very soon overcame that. Growing up with three sisters had sensitized him to what pleased and upset us, and women seemed to adore him in that wild, liberated way that so many of us, in both France and the United States, had assumed after the war. In the aftermath of so much sorrow, rules were bent. Lovers embraced with abandon, fueled with too much drink and sometimes too much opium or cocaine.

  Sebastian reminded me of a bumblebee, buzzing from flower to flower. As predicted, he had just parted ways with Carlotta Simpson. I’d met so many of his women over the years and knew how quickly he tired of them. I’d stopped looking for the one who might snare his heart. And now I knew why.

  Seeing him in the doorway with Marsden, something in my mind clicked. I understood that Sebastian wasn’t supposed to be with a woman. He was attracted to men, specifically in this instance to Marsden.

  I had known quite a few homosexual artists in Paris while at school and then in New York. There was more tolerance in France, our easy lifestyle allowing a subculture to thrive. The third sex, some called it. But being a nonconformist, even in our country, even in the most liberal times, could still be a terrible burden to bear. I had no prejudice, and if my brother preferred the company of men in his bed to women, it was fine with me. But why hadn’t he told me?

  Watching him say that second good-bye on the veranda, I thought perhaps the two were not yet lovers. Perhaps Sebastian didn’t even yet know himself where his attractions pointed, although I doubted that.

  Sebastian joined me in the car moments later. Once we were on the road, with the wind whipping through our hair and the lavender-scented air blowing all around us, I brought up his friend.

  “Marsden is fascinating. His work is, too. Have you known him long?”

  “A few months.”

  “He is the real thing. I can see it in his work. He’s arrived and is only going to get better now.”

  “I quite agree. You’re a good judge, Delphine. Not every artist is an astute reviewer of other artists. Too often, there’s some jealousy that gets in the way,” he said.

  “I envy that he can observe a scene and only see what’s in front of him. My life would be simpler if I didn’t have the burden of learning such dire and dark things about people.”

  “But then you wouldn’t be as special. You’d be just another painter struggling to make it. You’d have some awful little studio in Montmartre, burning coal and wearing gloves without fingers during the winter so you could still paint without freezing.”

  I laughed at the image he painted. “Maman and Papa would never let me! You’d never let me.”

  “Quite right. We’d all save you from such an existence. We’d never put our Delphine in danger.”

  He turned from the road to look at me and smile. It was true. I could no sooner imagine him or my parents allowing me to suffer than I could imagine myself allowing him to. Yet he had told Marsden my secret, and that was unlike him.

  “You told Marsden a lot about us,” I said, not quite sure if I was actually as annoyed as I sounded.

  “He’s spent a good amount of time in Cannes. He’s had dinner with Maman and Papa several times. It’s not as if I told a stranger.”

  “Regardless, you know I don’t like being discussed. We don’t like being discussed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want to be different from anyone. I don’t want people to think of my peculiarities when they look at my art. It keeps me on the outside of things. The power we have is unnatural to most of the population, even now. I don’t want to be misunderstood or seen as a threat to anyone. You can’t have forgotten.”

  My temporary blindness had been no accident, you see. At age eight, I had not yet experienced the consequences of our legacy. I didn’t know how dangerous it could be to show off my psychic abilities. I’d learned a spell and wanted to impress my classmates with my trick. During lunch, I lit a crust of bread on fire. Tales of my witchcraft spread. My classmates and I had all grown up on the same fairy tales. Everyone knew about wicked witches, sorcery, and magic potions. I became an oddity. An object of scorn and ridicule and curiosity. One of my classmates, who had become convinced that I was giving her the evil eye and causing her to do badly on tests, took matters into her own hands. Her father owned a laundry service. She pilfered a bottle of lye from his store and threw it in my face one morning in the schoolyard.

  I didn’t go back to a traditional school for years after that. My mother taught me at home after I regained my sight and enlisted tutors for the subjects that she wasn’t capable of teaching. I remained in a kind of social exile until I was thirteen and returned to the lycée.

  Sebastian, who had witnessed my assault, was quiet for a moment now and then said, “I am sorry. I’m sorry for failing you. First when that awful girl attacked you. And now.”

  I exhaled, exhausted by my current anger and memories of my painful past. But at the same time, I was reminded of the gift I had in Sebastian. My temper settled. “It is what it is.”

  “I don’t like that phrase. You picked it up in New York. It’s defeatist.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “How badly did that fool in New York hurt you?” Sebastian hadn’t asked me much about Tommy on the ship coming home or since I’d gotten back.

  “In retrospect, I don’t think I was ever really in love with him. Mostly, he just insulted my pride.”

  “But your pride matters to you even more than matters of the heart.”

  “What a terrible thing to say about me.” I could feel my temper rising again.

  “Maybe, but it’s true, isn’t it? Have you ever been in love?”

  I still didn’t want to tell my brother about Mathieu, especially at a moment like this. I realized I had no right to resent him for hiding his love affair when I had done the same exact thing and was continuing to do so.

  “Well, the truth is, given the family curse, it’s safer for Duplessi women to have hard hearts,” I said.

  “But not much of a way to go through life. Having your heart broken can be quite excruciating, but being in love is exhilarating.”

  “Spoken as someone
who has had his heart broken,” I said.

  “At least a hundred times.” He laughed.

  “And who broke it the worst?” I was fishing.

  “You, dear one. You. When you ran away to New York. When you separated us. I’m not myself when my twin is three thousand miles away across the sea. I opened my gallery to sell your paintings, and then you abandoned me. You forced me to find other artists—none of whom I loved. I was building a reputation as an avant-garde gallery owner, and then my star disappeared on me. Worse, the other half of my soul departed. Without any thought for me at all.”

  When I didn’t answer, he turned and examined my face.

  “You’re crying?” he asked. “I’m the one who was hurt.”

  “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I didn’t think—”

  “No, you didn’t, and that’s what hurt the worst. But it’s water under the bridge now. I survived. Asserting your independence was more important to you. I suppose I understand. You had to prove who you were. On your own without me.” He paused. “That’s not it?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Then what was it?”

  “I didn’t leave to become independent.”

  “Then why?”

  I shook my head again. I was tired of giving Sebastian answers just because he asked questions. “You’ve been pestering me for weeks to accept this commission, and I’m here, aren’t I? You wanted me to scry for Madame Calvé even though I never wanted to put on my blindfold again. But telling Marsden about me broke our covenant, Sebastian.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want an apology.”

  He looked at me as if I were a stranger instead of his twin. A moment passed, and then he grudgingly murmured that he was sorry.

  If I had the opportunity to save him, I would. My love for him was unconditional, but I was tired of being indebted to him. With startling clarity, I realized that I wasn’t a little blind girl anymore who needed him to guide me out of the rough water.

  Chapter 25

  The weather changed, and the sun disappeared behind heavy storm clouds that chased us the last half of the way to our destination. The Aveyron region was lush, and the green fields and grassland were even more vibrant against the gray skies. In the distance, the mountains created a majestic backdrop.

  My father and I hadn’t visited Millau, but I’d read about it. Like Cannes, it had been inhabited since the Gallo-Roman era, and its history was as rich as its soil. We drove past architectural ruins that made me want to ask Sebastian to stop so I could explore, but I knew we were expected at the château at a certain time.

  We reached an intersection where the ancient Roman road from Languedoc to the north crossed the Tarn river and joined the Dourbie. In a scene that Monet or Cezanne would have loved to paint, remains of a truncated medieval bridge jutted out into the water.

  I saw a man strolling out toward the very edge where the stone stopped. He was too far away for me to see his features or even his hair color, but something about him reminded me of Mathieu. Standing at the precipice, he looked down. As we drove past, I turned around to watch. I was afraid for him. His desolation showed in the way he held his head, in how his shoulders sloped, and in the color of the air around him. This man had a wide swath of green-blue coming off him in waves.

  “We need to go back,” I said.

  “What’s wrong? Where?”

  “To that bridge. There’s a man on it who is going to jump.”

  “There was no one there. And we’re expected at the château, and we’re already running late.”

  “There was a man standing there in trouble, and you’re concerned with upsetting our hostess?”

  He shook his head and turned the car around. There had been many instances like this in his life, and he’d learned that common reason was no match for a Duplessi woman and her hunches.

  Sebastian maneuvered the car as close to the jetty as he could get.

  “Delphine, there’s no one here.”

  I pointed. “He was right there.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “It had to be one of your visions. No one is there.”

  I knew Sebastian could be right; the man might be a leftover apparition, someone who had once stood there and left such a strong impression that I could see it still. But I had to be sure it wasn’t a trick of light that revealed him to me but made him invisible to my twin.

  I climbed out of the car and ran out onto the truncated bridge. Sebastian was right. There was no one there. What had I seen? A lost fragment of time? My mother had taught us not to refer to the people we saw in visions as ghosts. Such a term had too many implications. For one, that the people we were seeing were dead, when they often weren’t. Sometimes what we were witnessing was a spectral projection that wasn’t occurring in the present time or at least in that moment.

  The way my mother had explained it, there were moments in people’s lives so powerful that they remained behind, even after the people had moved on, and sometimes when the light fell a certain way, we could witness those moments.

  Could it have been a vision of Mathieu? Had he once visited this place? Stood on this very bridge? Looked at the sea and thought about me as I was thinking about him?

  “Are you all right, Mademoiselle?”

  The voice came from my right. I looked. There was a man there. But a wholly different one from Mathieu. And he was climbing up over the rocks, back onto the jetty.

  He had silver hair brushed back from his forehead that contrasted with a youthful-looking face only faintly lined. If not for his hair, I would have assumed he was about my age. His clothes suggested that he worked outside; his boots had mud on them.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be that terrible. Why don’t you just step back a bit?” His voice was so gentle I was caught by surprise.

  He thought I was going to throw myself over the edge? His earnestness and concern were evident.

  “No, no. I’m not. I wasn’t … I thought I saw … It was you. It looked like you had jumped.”

  He laughed, and the sound made me smile. “Actually, it was Pepin here.” The man had climbed all the way up now. I saw that inside his jacket was a little brown-and-white spaniel with lively black eyes. Seeing me, the dog squirmed.

  “We were walking when Pepin decided to explore the rocks down there. But he’s still a pup and got stuck. I had to climb down to get him.”

  I put out my hand, and Pepin licked it.

  The man smiled, and I noticed how fast the expression reached his eyes and how they crinkled at the corners.

  “Delphine?” Sebastian put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right, darling?”

  “I am. Turns out what I saw was a dog rescue.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful,” Sebastian said. “Now we really need to move on.”

  I turned to the man. “I’m glad you and your puppy are all right.”

  He smiled at me again, with eyes of an unusual golden brown color, as if rays of the sun were captured within their depths. And for a moment, I even thought I felt the warmth of the sun break through the cloudy day.

  Back in the car, Sebastian tried to make sense of the incident.

  “You must have seen him just before he started climbing down. He probably was standing there and calling to the dog. What you thought was despair was just frustration.”

  “I suppose so.” I no longer knew what I’d seen. I reached into my pocketbook and ran my fingers over the soft leather cover of my Book of Hours.

  The clouds darkened even more as we drove through the valley, and by the time we reached our destination, rain had descended.

  My first look at the Château de Cabrières was through a downpour, with lightning streaking the sky and thunder echoing in the valley. Although modest in size, with its moat and drawbridge and tall ramparts, the castle looked imposing and impervious. Whatever secrets it held, it would not give them up easily.

  Sebastian parked. “We’ll have to make a run
for it,” he said.

  “No, look.” I pointed.

  A butler was coming out to meet us with two big umbrellas. Reaching my door first, he opened it and held the umbrella over me, shielding me from the storm.

  Sebastian had come around and joined me.

  “Welcome to the château,” the butler said. “I’ll send someone out for your bags. Please, follow me.”

  As we approached the castle, even over the sound of the rain, I heard the most extraordinarily beautiful voice singing.

  I didn’t recognize the music. I wasn’t an opera fan; not understanding the words was so frustrating that I found I couldn’t concentrate on the art. But for the first time, I realized how with certain arias, words are irrelevant.

  I not only heard the song, but I visualized the sound’s aura. Mother-of-pearl, it shimmered, casting me in an opalescent glow. I heard birdsong, harp glissades, waterfalls, and what I imagined were the fluttering of angels’ wings. In the richness was a desultory tone that made it all the more moving and poignant.

  I felt the sting of tears in my eyes. Without knowing the aria or the opera it came from, I felt the singer’s pathos. And then, as if someone had lifted the needle on a gramophone, it stopped. Could that have been a recording? Until the abrupt end, I’d been certain it had been live singing.

  “This way, if you please.” The butler gestured.

  Sebastian and I walked up three stone steps to an overly large wooden door with an ancient-looking iron keyhole and a complicated latch system.

  The butler opened the door for me and gave a little bow, allowing me to enter first.

  In my life, I’d had hundreds of experiences with the unknown. I had put on my blindfold and seen sights I could never have imagined. But nothing prepared me for the emotional reaction I had when I walked over the threshold of the Château de Cabrières.

  My vision changed. I actually saw the room before me with more clarity than normal. As if I’d put on a pair of spectacles that fine-tuned my ability to see. Having had issues with my eyesight since I was eight, no one was more aware of or sensitive to the nuances of vision than I.