“No, it was m-me.” His voice had the same brokenness as before.
“Nino? Our Nino? You—you talk?” gasped Miss Clairoux. “I knew it. I just knew you could do it!”
Floralie grasped Miss Clairoux’s arm. “Shh! The guards will hear!” But even so, Floralie had to restrain herself from whooping with joy. The wind in her lungs swelled with pride, her bones shuddered—but she knew she could not express the happiness, not here, not now.
“Right, sorry,” whispered Miss Clairoux.
“I t-talk a l-l-little bit,” stuttered Nino.
“Street rat boy’s learned to talk, what a miracle,” grunted Mr. Tullier. “But that doesn’t solve our problem.”
“You’re right,” sighed Floralie. She slumped into the head guard’s chair. “We didn’t even find the flower. How’re we supposed to find Mama now?”
“Flower?” piped up Nino.
Floralie nodded, and scooted over so Nino could share the chair. “We came here to find a flower behind Monet’s Young Girl in the Garden at Giverny painting. How did you know I’d be here anyway?”
“I didn’t,” Nino muttered. He plunged his hand into his pocket and withdrew, among a handful of lint, a small pink flower. “Is this what you’re l-looking for? F-found it behind the p-painting. I escaped f-from Tom—”
“Tom? You were with Tom?”
Nino nodded. “He found me outside your old h-house. He was looking for you, and I stayed there with him before leaving for Paris. You g-got my drawings, didn’t you?”
Floralie nodded. “But why did you leave me drawings instead of just writing to me in plain English where you’d be going?”
Nino’s mouth twitched. “I w-wanted to tell you in your language—art. And b-besides that, I didn’t want Tom to f-figure out I was writing secret messages to you. Anyway, Tom said if I c-c-came with him, he would bring me to Viscaria, as long as I brought him to you after. B-but he tricked me. It t-turns out he’s no idea where Viscaria lives. I found Tom at your house in Giverny, searching for you. Then he brought me here and th-threatened to have police force me to tell where you were unless I told him. So I ran for it. I escaped to the Musée de l’Orangerie and f-found the Young Girl painting. The little girl reminded me of you, so I’ve been t-talking with her—the girl. Practicing.”
“Practicing what?” said Floralie.
Nino blushed. “The th-things I wanted to say to you if I e-ever saw you again”
“Then,” continued Nino, “the other d-d-day, I found the flower while talking with the little girl.” He handed the flower to Floralie.
Floralie pinched the flower between her fingers the way a crow might pluck a piece of gold off the ground. She dug into her bag and pulled out the crumpled eglantine page from the floriography.
Mr. Tullier and Nino leaned in close. Floralie smoothed out the page on her lap and placed the eglantine on the page beside the painted one.
“Mon Dieu,” muttered Mr. Tullier, lowering his glasses. “They’re a perfect match.”
“It’s a code,” said Floralie. “I think I know—”
The door burst open.
Floralie crinkled the eglantine page and held it tight in her fist with the flower as the guards marched in. Three men followed them, and so tight they had to cram inside that Floralie could see but only the tips of their hats.
The guards locked the door and shuffled sideways so the men could squeeze through. Two policemen slithered through the crowd and immediately yanked back Mr. Tullier’s and Miss Clairoux’s arms, holding them tight. The head guard locked eyes with Floralie, stretched out a sunflower-huge hand and pulled Floralie out of the chair. “Is zis ’er?”
A skinny hand weaseled through the crowd, followed by a fancy leather shoe beneath fraying trousers, a combination Floralie knew only too well. A pair of quicksand-colored eyes edged with worry wrinkles. And then—tears. Umbrella-weather-wet, dandelion-wild, Whitterly-End-in-April tears, all splashing down on Floralie as Tom swept her up in his arms.
Floralie stumbled back before wrapping her arms around Tom as well. Not once had she seen her brother cry like that. Not even when Mama left, and not even when Papa died. But strangest of all, was what Tom kept whispering in Floralie’s ear: “You’re home, you’re home, you’re home,” because Paris, as both Floralie and Tom knew, was not home and had never been home. But arms were a home. And Tom’s, Floralie believed, made quite a home. Quite a proper home indeed.
There was a day in May when Tom and Floralie blew soap bubbles into the streets of Giverny. The cars would honk, and when the road was clear, Floralie would leap off the curb to the middle of the road, shouting, “Look! I’m alive, Tom. Look at how alive I am.” But Tom would try and catch her by the back of her dress, crying, “No!” even though there wasn’t a car in sight and nobody drove fast in Giverny. Floralie would fling bubbles across the street and tell Tom they were beautiful. He got angry at first, but when Floralie settled down on the curb with him again, he and Floralie laughed in spite of themselves, and Tom said, “It’s not all so bad.”
“You can’t.” Floralie staggered back from Tom’s embrace. “Y-you just can’t turn them in to the police,” she repeated.
Tom tucked a handkerchief back into his pocket and laid a hand on Floralie’s shoulder. “Floralie, these people kidnapped you . . .”
Floralie pulled away from Tom, stumbling into the head guard’s chair. “But they didn’t kidnap me. There’s nothing dangerous about them. I came willingly to France—I led them here. And they’re my friends—and they’re more than that, too—they’re our—”
“Don’t do this, Floralie.” Tom sighed.
“Just listen,” pleaded Floralie.
But Tom wouldn’t listen. He pressed his lips together and said, “Come. We’re leaving.”
“Not without them,” insisted Floralie.
Floralie looked to Miss Clairoux and Mr. Tullier. Miss Clairoux nodded to her and said, “Go on, ma chérie. We will be okay.”
“Go on, now,” said Mr. Tullier.
Tom tugged at Floralie’s elbow, but again, she pulled away. “No. Not without my friends. I will only come with my friends.” Though her hands were shaking and her head spinning, Floralie gazed directly into Tom’s eyes. “They are coming with me to find Mama right now. And if you don’t allow it, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Floralie, I—” Tom’s face started to melt again, and he choked, “I don’t know where Mama is, and that’s not a lie. I’ve never known.”
“Well, I know. I’ve figured it out, and like it or not, I’m going to see her.”
Tom’s jaw went limp. “But that’s not possible. Papa destroyed all records, all traces of her, every memory . . .”
“Yes,” said Floralie. “But Mama didn’t. She left her flowers behind. Don’t you remember, Tom?” And ever so carefully, Floralie uncurled her hand and revealed the eglantine flower.
Something like a ghost flitted across Tom’s eyes. He took the flower, turned it once in his hand, then placed it back in Floralie’s.
Floralie tucked it into her bag, then looked to Miss Clairoux and Mr. Tullier. “And we’re not her only survivors,” she breathed. “Mr. Tullier and Miss Clairoux—they’re Mama’s parents. Tom, they’re our grandparents.”
Tom’s eyes widened. “I thought . . . But Mama never said . . . Why wouldn’t she tell us?”
“Long story,” said Miss Clairoux, and Mr. Tullier nodded.
Tom eyed Floralie. “Are you sure?”
Floralie nodded. “Absolutely.”
Tom closed his eyes, took a breath, then turned to the policemen. “Let them go.”
The policeman holding Miss Clairoux stammered, “But—but, sir—”
“I said, let them go,” repeated Tom.
Mr. Tullier’s policeman nodded and loosened his grip on Mr. Tullier. “As you wish,” he said, but he turned his gaze to Nino, narrowed his eyes, and muttered, “but not the boy.”
“Him?” piped
up Floralie, turning to Nino. “Why not him?”
“Parce que,” said the policeman, looking to Tom again, “while Floralie Laurel belongs to you, Monsieur Laurel, zat boy does not. Zat boy belongs to ze orphanage. Zat boy is ze missing Konstantinos Leventis.”
Miss Clairoux’s policeman let loose her arms and lunged for Nino.
“NO!” cried Floralie, and she clutched Nino’s wrist. But the policeman was stronger, and he pulled Nino away, a sliver of Nino’s skin coiling under Floralie’s fingernail.
Floralie lunged for the policeman, but Tom caught hold of her waist. Floralie punched at Tom’s hands, but his grip did not loosen. “I’m not losing him again!” she cried. “Not again, not him, too!”
Floralie grasped at the air as the policemen dragged Nino out of the office. “No! No, you can’t take him.” Floralie’s voice cracked. Somewhere, as if a thousand miles away, Floralie heard Tom’s voice: “Hush, Flory, hush, hush . . .”
As Floralie sunk back into Tom’s arms, she realized that his words were not a thousand miles away. They were two years away. They were the same words he had whispered as the medics carried Papa’s dead and drunken body out the door. They were the same words he had used as Papa laid Mama into the backseat of the taxi, the taxi that would take her away forever. And his hands, his hands were the same ones that had held her each time, except now they were three times stronger.
Floralie craned her neck to see the policemen tugging Nino along behind them. When they reached the corridor’s end, Nino was but a mouse-sized speck in the gap of the doorway. And then, he was gone.
Floralie spent the night pacing up and down Rue Claude Monet, waiting for her father to come stumbling, drunk, down the cobbles. When he did come, he said Floralie should never have got in the car with Mama.
But so often, Mama drove Floralie to the countryside. To the fields of lavender and tulips and pink-and-white-striped carnations, to the sunlit forests and the tall, tall mountains. And Floralie wondered to herself how she was supposed to know when Mama was her mother and when she was a stranger.
Tom gripped Floralie’s hand the way he had when Floralie was little and they had taken a train ride up the Swiss Alps. Floralie had clung to the window, admiring the long drop down, but Tom had clung to her hand “just in case.” There was no danger, and Tom’s hand offered little safety; but still, he clung, and still, Floralie let him.
“So what now?” grunted Mr. Tullier once they were out in the rain again.
“L’Asile de Sainte-Rose pour les Femmes Sauvages,” said Floralie. “That’s where she is. It means the Asylum of Saint Rose for Wild Women. We’ll find her, then we’ll find Nino.”
Tom wrapped his jacket around Floralie and spluttered, “But how do you kn—”
“There’s a taxi!” Floralie cut him off, and she waved the taxi down.
“It’s best to trust her, dear,” advised Miss Clairoux to a befuddled Tom, as they clambered into the taxi.
The taxi traveled through the Paris streets, sloshing through puddles and clattering over cobblestones. Floralie’s heart pirouetted faster with every turn the taxi took. If she were to paint this moment, she would paint it like Monet—wild, rushing, running colors. She would paint it the way salmon paint rivers in late-autumn evenings.
“We must be nearly there,” said Floralie as they passed a statue of a saint with her hands clasped in prayer.
Indeed, the taxi turned one last corner and then rolled to a stop. “’Ere is ze place,” said the driver.
Floralie gazed to a large, soot-stained building. Scarcely any lights were on, and iron bars sliced across the door’s window.
“Merci beaucoup,” said Tom, giving the driver a handful of francs.
The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle when Floralie, Tom, Mr. Tullier, and Miss Clairoux stepped out of the taxi. “You’re sure this is it?” said Tom.
Floralie nodded. “I’m positive.”
The four treaded up to the asylum, and Floralie took the rose-shaped door knocker. Knock-knock-knock.
A clattering came from inside as if someone were fiddling with an extensive amount of locks and chains. Finally, the door creaked open.
“Qui est là?” barked a woman from inside. She pulled the door open all the way, a dimly lit staircase rising into view. The woman was short, barely any taller than Floralie, but far stockier. Judging from her white apron and cap, she was clearly a nurse. She scowled at the looks of the four sopping wet, mud-spattered visitors.
Floralie cleared her throat and spoke in French, as dignified as possible: “I’m Floralie Laurel, and I’m here to see my mother.”
“Oh,” said the nurse. Her voice melted to a cloyingly sweet tone. “And who might your mother be, young lady?”
“Viscaria Laurel. She came here three years ago. She’s tall with blond hair and—”
“No one here is named Viscaria,” and the nurse nearly shut the door, but Floralie yanked it open, splinters pricking her fingertips.
“I meant Alice,” pleaded Floralie.
Tom narrowed his eyes. “What—” he started, but Floralie gave him no time.
“Alice Laurel. Viscaria was her stage name from when she was a dancer.”
The nurse’s mouth twitched and said, “Well, there is an Alice Laurel—at least, her married name was Laurel, if I recall. She now goes by her birth name, Alice Clairoux. Does that ring a bell?”
Floralie nodded as Tom gaped at Miss Clairoux. “Yes. Yes, that’s right,” said Floralie. “May we come in?”
The nurse sighed. “Follow me.”
The nurse led them inside, then bustled over to a small table. “And who do you have with you here?” she asked.
Tom, Miss Clairoux, and Mr. Tullier introduced themselves, and the nurse penned their names into a thick book atop the table. “Well,” said the nurse, “you must act with utmost emotional stability when seeing her. We cannot have patients becoming upset. Understand?”
Floralie nodded vigorously.
The nurse slammed shut the book and led them up the narrow staircase. The floorboards squealed with every step, and Floralie could have sworn the shadows following them along the wallpaper were shaped like women, wild roses in their cheeks, poppies in their hair.
A long hallway stretched before them. On one side, it was lined with doors, and the other side, barred windows. The view of Paris looked strange from those windows. The whole of the city blurred together and colors collided with colors like a finger painting so even the lights dimmed to gray. Floralie shook her head; it was just the raindrops.
The nurse stopped at the last door and pulled a ring of keys from her pocket. They jangled as she searched for the right one, and upon finding a key with rust that matched the lock, she jammed it into the keyhole and twisted.
Floralie’s feet went numb; her hands shook. She felt as if she were stepping into a dream. She had yet to tell whether it was a nightmare or a daydream.
“Alice?” the nurse whispered, peeking inside. “Alice, you have some visitors.” She turned to Floralie. “Go on in.”
It started with her talking to the moths. The fragile wings would flutter in and out of the streetlamp’s glow at dusk, just paper things. Mama would let them tiptoe along her finger, then give each one a name and promise to fly south with them in the winter. One she called Daisy and whispered to her, “You’re lovely. You’re beautiful, you’re small, and you’re innocent. I hope nothing hurts you.”
One evening, Mama and Floralie sat in the garden, lantern lit between them. Moths fluttered in and out of the flame. Most got away with no harm, but some would catch their wing in the fire, and spiral down to the soil. Mama dug graves for them. “People are like moths,” she said. “Loving things that burn their wings.”
A woman sat in a ghost-white nightgown at the edge of a bed. Her sheets were pulled so tight the bed looked more like a table than a bed. The woman did not look up when Floralie entered; she simply gazed off to the opposite wall, mouth closed, eye
s hollow.
“Mama?” whispered Floralie.
The woman turned, said nothing.
“Mama, it’s me. And Tom. We’re here to rescue you.”
Silence.
Floralie narrowed her eyes and took a step closer. She could hear the woman’s breath—heavy. Mama’s was light as feathers. Light as flowers. Floralie tore herself away from the woman and cut between Miss Clairoux and Mr. Tullier.
“Flory—” started Tom, but Floralie ignored him.
When she found the nurse outside the door, Floralie crossed her arms and said, “It’s not her. I’m looking for Alice Clairoux, not whoever’s in there,” and she spelled out: “C-L-A-I-R-O-U-X.”
The nurse smiled, a caramel-sweet, sticky, and sinister smile. “That is Alice Clairoux. Don’t believe me? Get a mirror—you’ve got her eyes. Perhaps some things have changed since you saw her last.”
Floralie bit her lip and stepped back into her room. She stared at the woman, sponging in her features. Green eyes—yes, Mama had green eyes. Pale skin—yes, just like Mama. Willowy figure—same as Mama. It had to be her . . . but why did she seem so different? It was like looking at a corpse of her.
Floralie was too preoccupied with the woman’s eyes to feel her feet drift across the room, but there she was, inches from Viscaria. Her blond hair was streaked with gray and cascaded down her back—no, it used to cascade. Now it hung like a piece of laundry left out on the clothesline in a thunderstorm.
Floralie lowered herself onto the bed beside Viscaria. “Mama, it’s me, Floralie,” she whispered. Her throat clenched up.
“Floralie?” said Viscaria. Her voice was hoarse, but Floralie still recognized a hint of melody to it. Mama looked to Floralie, tilted her head.
“Yes, Mama, it’s me, Floralie. I’ve come to rescue you.” Floralie took Viscaria’s hand. Frost-flower cold.
“I had a doll named Floralie,” said Viscaria. And then her head turned for the door, and she called, “Margot?”
“Yes, dear?” said the nurse, peeping through the doorway.
The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel Page 17