“I can go home by myself.”
Nico crossed his arms. “It’s after eight and a long walk back to the complex. Don’t be stubborn.”
She sighed.
“Besides, you look tired. Did something happen?”
Fallon resisted the urge to show him the magazine. Not with Camille standing only a few inches away. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
chapter 7
CATCHING QUIET
“Can we stop at this café?” Fallon asked. Her stomach growled. The evening was comfortably cool, but she still shivered underneath her blazer as they headed home. The beans and noodles she had packed in her lunch box would have normally been enough to hold her, but for some reason she was starving.
Sebastian stepped up to the window and read the advertisement. “Organic ingredients. Made to order. Wouldn’t you rather have something greasy and freezer-burned?”
If her mother had heard Sebastian, she would have fainted dead away on the street.
“There’s a food truck usually parked about a block from here.”
“This is more my style.”
Sebastian opened the door, releasing the scent of arugula and spices into the air. “After you.”
The café wasn’t too crowded, so Fallon and Sebastian waited for their spinach-and-pepper quiche at one of the tables near the kitchen. Being inside the café distracted her from the fatigue that gnawed at her bones. He must have sensed her mood because Sebastian refrained from making any irritating remarks until after they had swallowed every crumbly piece of quiche.
“I feel better,” Fallon said. She finished her cup of water.
“Student government meetings get the best of everyone,” Sebastian said, “but you could be suffering the aftereffects of a charm. Have you ever used one before?”
She lowered her voice. “Not a love charm. What about you?”
“Never.”
“Does your fortune prevent you from buying them at Zita’s shop?”
Sebastian wiped his hands on a napkin. His voice fell flat. “Yes.”
She knew better than to press him for more information. As much as he seemed to have enjoyed the quiche, it hadn’t been magical enough to loosen his tongue. “That’s too bad. Femke and Mirthe have clearly denied themselves the satisfaction, but I’m sure the shop would sell Hijiri something.”
Sebastian’s expression clouded. “What did Camille mean when she said she gave you advice about magazines?”
Maybe it was the cozy café or the streetlamps outside that shone so gently on the pavement that calmed her. Her heart wasn’t beating in her ears. She told Sebastian about the day she had gotten her bad fortune and how she ran into Zita’s shop, frantic for a solution. Camille had suggested that Fallon’s lack of attractiveness was the root cause of the bad fortune. “After today, it’s clear that Camille doesn’t believe the magazine world can save me,” she said.
He balled up his napkin. “Fallon,” he said, “are you feeling well enough to take a detour?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on. You found a charm already. I think I’m onto one.”
If he was trying to make her feel better, he had an odd way of doing it. Fallon got up from her seat and stretched. Nothing ached. She felt awake and full. Plus, if she went with Sebastian, she might learn something more about what forms the old love charms came in. They couldn’t all be in magazines. “All right, but we can’t be out too late. I still have to make lunch for tomorrow.”
Sebastian lifted an eyebrow. “Sandwiches don’t take long.”
“Is that what you bring to school?” She laughed. “I cook my lunch. Using ovens and pans. Things like that.”
He seemed mystified by that. “I haven’t touched a stove in years.”
She doubted he cleaned them either.
* * *
Far from the main roads, Sebastian led her through neighborhoods lit by streetlamps and windows. Low stone walls separated the houses from the street; most people let their gardens grow tall enough for flowers and ivy to hang over the sides. Both big and small houses modeled themselves off of Grimbaud’s decorative architecture. Most houses were brick with paneled windows in shades of teal or coral. Cupids lounged above doorways. Front lawns usually had at least one wire stork, especially when a family lived inside. Fallon pictured the people living in the houses she passed; she didn’t like to peek in windows—it felt like an invasion of privacy—but Sebastian held no such qualms. He stopped periodically to stand on his toes, leaning on the wall to scan the properties.
“What are you doing?”
Sebastian plucked a scarlet begonia and twirled it between his fingers. “I’m trying to remember the house. An elderly couple owns it. When I asked them for directions, they told me to look for the house covered in storks.”
“But everyone has storks.”
“Apparently, we’re looking for an armada of storks. Can’t miss it.”
“Don’t you have better directions?”
Sebastian’s mouth lifted into a half smile. He leaned forward and tucked the begonia behind her ear. “They live right next to the middle school. We’re almost there.”
The begonia’s petals felt like a kiss against her skin. Fallon blushed and plucked it out of her hair. Instead of dropping it on the ground, she put it in her blazer pocket.
Grimbaud Middle School did not have the appeal or history of the high school. The building was made of dull brown brick with small windows and a chain-link fence all around. Since she only came to Grimbaud to attend high school, Fallon didn’t know what the inside of the building was like. I didn’t have to get my rotten love fortune so early either, she thought with some relief.
Sebastian was a few steps ahead of her. He stopped outside of a white-brick house. The stone wall right outside it was decorated with little stork figurines. The figurines seemed to be melded to the stone; they wouldn’t budge when Fallon tugged on one. When she lifted her eyes, she finally understood what Sebastian meant: storks besieged the entire lawn.
Sebastian opened the gate and they walked carefully up to the front door. Fallon almost got her skirt caught on the beak of a wooden stork. An old man wearing a beanie and a long white beard answered the door. “We’ve been expecting you,” he said, introducing himself as Jonas Maes.
“I hope I’m not too late,” Sebastian said. He wiped his shoes on the welcome mat.
“Not at all.”
Fallon introduced herself to Jonas. She knew nothing of how this visit would bring them a love charm, so she decided to let Sebastian lead.
“Pleasure to meet you. My wife, Mathilde, and I are happy to share our story with you. Sebastian told us about his history project, gathering stories from around Grimbaud. We even found some photos of us when we were younger that can go into your presentation.”
Sebastian shook his head. “We’re not allowed to use photos, but thank you.”
Despite the mustering of storks outside, the inside of the house was neat and welcoming. Floral wallpaper livened up the plain furniture and a large patchwork quilt hung opposite the television set. Fallon sunk into a brown chair that matched her uniform while Sebastian opened his schoolbag. He rummaged around until he found a silver tape recorder. Then he opened up a packet of blank cassettes and wrote on the first one with small, mashed lettering.
“For the project,” he said, pinning Fallon with a don’t-argue-with-me look.
Fallon shrugged.
Mathilde Maes emerged from the kitchen with a tray of glasses filled with apple juice. She had arranged the Peak & Brown’s biscuits into the shape of a fan. Her hair was as long and scraggily as Jonas’s beard. “Please get comfortable. We could be here for hours!”
“She’s joking,” Jonas said. He sat down in the chair beneath the quilt and scratched his head through the beanie. “Our love story is very simple, but nonetheless magical.”
Sebastian sat cross-legged on the floor beside Fallon’s chair and placed the recorder on
the coffee table. The red button on the recorder glowed when he turned it on. “Jonas and Mathilde Maes, I understand that you met before Zita’s shop opened. Can you tell us about that?”
The loose question allowed the Maeses to start wherever they liked, which, to Fallon’s disappointment, meant rambling about their childhoods instead of about the shop. When they finally got around to talking about the charm that brought them together, she sat up straighter in her chair.
“Love charms were everywhere, for anyone to find and use,” Mathilde said. “In some ways, it was harder being in love when we grew up because the temptation to use them all was great. Everyone had their favorite love charm shops. But for the most part, using them was risky. Love charms used to cause more trouble than good. The police couldn’t keep track of the havoc caused by them, which used to be pretty funny to watch.”
“They were more clowns than policemen,” Jonas said, grinning. “Always getting caught in the cross fire of a lovers’ spat. Then Zita’s shop changed everything.”
“Too bad I was already engaged when her love charms really took off. I would have trusted Zita with my money. Her love charms are more stable and powerful than the ones we had as kids,” Mathilde said.
Fallon shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She had a hard time believing that love-charm production had been as chaotic as Mathilde said.
“I was the insecure one.” Jonas said. “When Mathilde told me that she would be moving after graduation, the news tore me apart. I couldn’t imagine being parted from her. So I used a charm that’s been passed down through the middle school for ages. Too bad the young folks can’t use it anymore.”
Mathilde swatted his shoulder. “You don’t know if that stupid charm worked anyway.”
“It did! You didn’t move after all.”
“My father found another job in town. He was lucky,” she insisted.
Sebastian waited patiently for their bickering to end. “What was the charm?”
Jonas explained that in middle school, it was tradition to steal your crush’s lock off the locker and hang it on the northwest corner of the fence before sunset. If you did, you and your crush would end up together—and stay together always.
“You don’t know how many thefts were made because of that charm,” Mathilde said dryly.
“Were there any limitations on this love charm?”
Jonas nodded. “It only worked for middle schoolers. Once you graduated, it was too late to try the charm.”
“Personally, I don’t think it worked at all. It was just an excuse for bravery. Jonas seemed more relaxed after stealing my lock, so it was easy to get him to open up to me more. I fell more in love with him the longer I spent time with him. That’s the magic.”
“Oh, Mathilde.”
Another question burned on Fallon’s tongue. “Did you ever see Zita? In person?”
The old couple exchanged a glance. “No.”
Sebastian turned off the recorder and held it in his hand as they walked out the door. Fallon looked back at her untouched glass of apple juice, wondering what brand it had been. Never eat or drink anything you haven’t seen in the packaging when you’re a houseguest, her mother always said. But part of her felt guilty to have ignored Mathilde’s hospitality.
“The storks are quite a sight,” she said as they said good-bye.
Mathilde flashed a sad smile. “Storks bring babies, so we thought that having a lot of them around would help me get pregnant. Collecting them became a hobby, then something desperate, and before we knew it, Jonas and I couldn’t walk inside our house without stepping on one. So they’re outside now, for better or for worse.”
Fallon felt like she had to ask. “Did you have a child?”
The old woman shook her head. “It was impossible. But then, eventually we came to accept it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. There are some facts you can’t change.”
A lump formed in Fallon’s throat. Just looking at the storks made her want to cry.
* * *
Fallon’s energy fell as soon as she and Sebastian had said good-bye to the Maeses. Whatever was in the quiche that helped her wake up had run out, and she found her vision blurring as they treaded sidewalks and ran across the cobblestone streets.
About three miles from the complex, Sebastian left the pavement just as they were going to cross a bridge.
Fallon blinked. “Where are you going now?”
Sebastian pressed a finger to his lips.
Maybe he’d found another charm. Curious, Fallon forced her feet to follow him.
Grass grew on either side of the bridge, mixed with infallible weeds and food wrappers. The ground dipped as it led underneath the bridge. Sebastian took off his blazer and laid it on the ground; he sat so that Fallon would have enough room to use it too. She felt, once again, as if her fairy-tale role wasn’t right. Only trolls (or realistically, Grimbaud’s homeless) sat under bridges. The water cast diamonds on the cobblestone belly of the bridge above their heads. Shadows of silverfish darted through the water.
“You didn’t have to come,” he said.
Fallon frowned. “You’re supposed to walk me back. As in, all the way to the complex. This doesn’t have to do with charms, does it?”
“It’s a hobby of mine.”
“Like collecting storks?”
Sebastian softened. “Yeah, just like that.” He leaned against the bridge and grabbed another blank cassette from his bag. Labeling it would have been difficult at night without the streetlamps nearby, so he popped the tape straight into the recorder. “This is going to sound strange coming from me, but can you be absolutely quiet for fifteen minutes? I want to catch it while I can. I’ll explain afterwards.”
Fallon was about to argue, but he seemed so serious, so unlike himself, that she reluctantly agreed.
Once Sebastian pressed the record button, the world took notice. The steady wind that had been whistling under the bridge died off. Frogs ceased their croaking. Even the water murmured as softly as a mother around a sleeping child.
Fallon brought her knees to her chest and closed her eyes. The silence didn’t make her drowsy, like she expected. Instead, thoughts swirled in her head like a flock of birds. When the fifteen minutes were up, a bicycle raced across the bridge; her eyes flew open at the sound of tires on cobblestone.
Sebastian craned his neck, grimacing at the bottom of the bridge as if he could see through it. “That’s always the worse part. We’re lucky a car alarm didn’t go off. That happened to me once. I swear my heart jumped up into my throat.”
She hugged her knees.
“Now you know a terrible secret about me,” Sebastian said lightly. “Not the secret you want to know, but this is a good one. I’ve kept this from every girl I’ve ever dated.”
“I don’t think they’d understand.”
“There are less bizarre ways to scare a girl off.” Sebastian sighed. “I prefer the regular breakup speech. It’s straightforward and quick.”
“It hurts them either way.”
He sounded bored. “Don’t we break each other’s hearts anyway? That’s our world. We’re born with china toys in our bodies and we let people smash them over and over again.”
She dismissed his comment as a defense. “So what does recording silence have to do with it?”
“Nothing. You were right before, guessing that this was a hobby of mine. I like to wander around Grimbaud at night when people are asleep. And whenever I find a patch of quiet, I record it.”
“Why don’t you just listen to blank tapes?”
“Too artificial. Sounds that sneak into the recordings mean something. They help the quiet seem real. They’re probably sounds that you would hear even if this town never existed.”
Fallon wished she could see his face better in the darkness. Who was this boy who spoke of such philosophical things? Did someone trade places with the cold heartbreaker she knew?
“I hated sit
ting still as a kid,” he said. “I climbed trees despite scraping my skin on the bark, chased stray dogs until my lungs burned, and got a good few scars from tussles with the neighbors’ kids.” He rubbed the back of his head.
“You don’t strike me as that kind of troublemaker,” she said.
“I was unhappy then.”
“What changed? Something did.”
“I went to stay with my grandmother when I was twelve.” She heard the smile in his voice. “She runs a veterinary clinic in Glastonberry. It’s beautiful there; the clinic’s overlooking the sea. Grandma Marion’s a rough sort of person. She yelled at me regularly during the first few months, and I can’t say I blame her. I stormed the clinic the same way I had done back home, opening cages and trailing cat feces into the house. But in the end, we developed a truce.”
“So she straightened you out,” Fallon said with a laugh.
“She made me care about myself. Then I became handsome.”
Fallon snorted and covered her mouth.
“What? It’s a fact. Remind me to show you pictures.” Sebastian said. “Anyway, Grandma Marion is a believer in meditation. She used to make me meditate with her, facing the sea. I thought it was stupid until I moved here for high school. Finding quiet, so rare in Grimbaud, became a way to battle my homesickness. I feel like I’m back at the clinic with her when I’m listening.”
“Don’t you go home for the summer?”
“Yes, but it’s not the same. Summer’s a busy time for the clinic. Grandma Marion started signing me up for grooming classes last year. I spent my summer cutting terriers and poodles. They bite. A lot.”
“No scars?”
He wiggled his fingers. “You can inspect them if you like.”
Fallon snatched his hands before he could pull them back. If she couldn’t see his face, maybe his hands could provide answers. His palms were rough and warm, a little slippery. Was he nervous?
“These hands have cut the hair of a hundred dogs. It’s a privilege to touch them.”
“You could have fleas.” She dropped them.
“Don’t be so quick to dismiss me,” he said. “I can actually cut human hair too. I cut my own hair. If you ever want a trim or something, I could do it.”
Love Fortunes and Other Disasters Page 7