Lavender in Bloom

by Lily Velez

  Run away with me.

  Though penniless now, what he did still possess was his deep, abiding love for Noah. He believed in what the revolution had achieved where it concerned a man’s liberties. He believed society was steadily shifting. If nothing else, he believed in the vastness of what he felt for Noah.

  They could leave Avignon this very night—Jeremie had gone to pack up the books he most cherished. Then they would flee. To Lyon perhaps? It didn’t matter where. They could leave France altogether if it pleased Noah and embark upon one of Jeremie’s many pilgrimages, subsisting on Noah’s income as a farrier and Jeremie’s as a bookbinder. As long as they were together, Jeremie was certain all else would fall into place.

  Run away with me.

  Jeremie would wait for Noah at the Pont d’Avignon, where they’d many times stood over the Rhône river, where they’d once spoken of their dreams and hopes for the future. It’d now mark a new epoch in both their lives.

  Run away with me.

  Noah read the lines again and again, hiding behind the sessile oak on his hill, out of sight from the others, back pressed against the rough, uneven bark of the tree. He read it so many times, he could recall the slopes and angles of Jeremie’s every letter. The handwriting rose from the page like a grove of trees, and Noah wanted to ascend their leaning trunks, be held by their spidery branches, and glimpse the stars through their thick, leafy canopies. To retreat into the shelter of them and find sanctuary there.

  He pictured Jeremie penning the letter in some nondescript tavern along the road, hunched over a sticky tablespace in the flickering light of a candle weeping wax, deaf to the drunken cacophony of the other patrons as he transferred his soul from body to paper, just as the authors and poets he so admired had done for ages. He’d written these words knowing Noah would read them. He’d written them with a blind hope nesting in his heart. He’d chosen every one so carefully, understanding the rest of forever depended on the perfect composition of his words.

  Even when Noah had returned to the last of his chores with the letter hidden on his person, it was like a stone in his pocket. A tangible secret. In a way, it was as if Jeremie were right there with him, tucked within the folds of the letter, patiently waiting for Noah’s response. The weight of their futures contained within a simple page. Could anyone else see it? Did anyone else know it was there?

  He was sure his family did.

  “What did Jeremie speak with you about?” His father had asked just moments after Jeremie had left.

  Noah only shook his head in reply. Nothing. Nothing that could be repeated. Nothing no one could know.

  His brothers, who’d been approaching the barn for tools, found this peculiar.

  “Why didn’t he go in to see Camilla?” Elliot asked.

  “He flew out of here like the devil was on his heels,” added Colin.

  The questions only increased when Noah’s mother and sisters learned of the visit. It caused such a riot over supper as Noah was interrogated without end. He’d finally had to fabricate a wobbling lie about Jeremie only doubling back to close the bookshop indefinitely, but he didn’t know if any of his kin believed him. Camilla was especially certain he was withholding something of consequence. His mother and father didn’t press further, however, thus granting him the freedom to slip from the farmhouse when night finally fell to pace the lands and sort his thoughts.

  Run away with me.

  This he could’ve never predicted.

  Run away with Jeremie? Have a life with him?

  But men simply didn’t live together in such a manner. In fact, when he was younger, Noah had once heard the cautionary tale of two men who had lived ‘unnaturally’. They’d been burnt at the stake in Paris for what had then been a crime. The nation’s penal code had since changed as a result of the revolution, but as far as Noah had observed, it took far longer for people to change along with their new laws, especially in a nation as deeply rooted in its Catholic faith as was France.

  Still, to know a life with Jeremie…the mere idea ignited something in him. A life without a forced engagement to taunt them, without an audience to spectate their every move, without any expectations of who or what they should be. Jeremie could take Noah’s hand whenever it pleased him, kiss Noah until they were both breathless, trap himself within Noah’s arms and Noah within his. They could share in each other every night and know paradise in each other’s embrace.

  Noah had certainly thought about that especially. Many times. At first, he’d thought himself a damnable creature for it. Uniting with another man? How infernal! How lewd! Then he’d recalled the way it’d felt simply for his lips to press against Jeremie’s, as if all of heaven had opened itself to him like a blooming perennial in spring, welcoming him into its bosom, covering him with its wings, and he had the sense that any act of affection between him and Jeremie thereafter would be of the highest, most glorious worship.

  But running away together…

  He and Jeremie would be outliers wherever they went, looked upon with the utmost suspicion, never truly knowing peace. He only needed consider how Monsieur Perreault had robbed him of his own peace with so little words. How many more Monsieur Perreaults were out there in the world at large, lying in wait to spring upon ‘indecents’ like Noah and Jeremie? The thought was a cold venom in Noah’s heart, dispatching chills on end through every limb.

  If this nameless handler of Jeremie’s had pursued him, had hunted him down all this way, a journey of several, long days, what was to stop him from hounding Noah and Jeremie beyond Avignon? They’d be forced to look over their shoulders with dizzying constancy every day.

  Unless they lost the man, Noah thought, warring with himself. They were two against one. Monsieur Perreault was indisputably a man of power, but he wasn’t God. All the earth wasn’t his footstool, his dominion. If they fled Avignon quickly enough, if they left while Jeremie still had a lead on his handler…

  With a sudden burst of conviction, Noah broke for the stables, his breath hitching as he tore a saddle from its rack and snatched reins and a bridle from a hook. He was fitting the crownpiece over his horse’s ears when his hands began to slow.

  Wait. What was he doing? He stepped back as if stumbling out of a daze. Monsieur Perreault meant to kill him. Kill him. And it’d been no bluff, no feint to take lightly. The man had meant his words.

  Noah and Jeremie could possibly evade their handler now, but what about a week from now, a month from now, a year from now when they’d lowered their defenses? And if this handler couldn’t discover them, what of another? Or another after that? And another even after that? Would Monsieur Perreault end his witch-hunt simply because they’d run off, thinking themselves heroes?

  Jeremie was the sole heir of Perreault Industries. Without him, his father would be nothing more than fertilizer upon his death, his magnificent empire split between his rivals like a kill amongst a pack of savage wolves. Madame Perreault was no better. She knew her future security as a dowager was also at risk if Jeremie abandoned his duties. As a woman, she couldn’t inherit all her husband’s assets. It was only through Jeremie that she wouldn’t end up destitute. All this to say she’d support any actions her husband pursued to break the wildness out of their son and outfit him with his responsibilities once and for all. What better way to do that than to remove the temptation entirely?

  So no, they wouldn’t stop scouring all of France for Noah and Jeremie, and when their search bore no fruit, they’d only broaden their parameters. Noah and Jeremie would be like fugitives, and Noah knew there’d come a day when they weren’t quick enough, smart enough, careful enough. He knew what would happen then, and it gave him a shiver in his chest as his stomach had the sensation of falling. He’d find himself as a pistol’s target—or worst, he’d see Jeremie put in the position.

  He instantly reared back from his horse’s stall as if the action might cancel the thought.

  No, no, no.

  A thousand times no!


  He wouldn’t risk Jeremie’s life, for if anything were ever to happen to him, whether by intention or accident, it’d be as if Noah were losing his own self, heart and lungs ripped from his very chest.

  In defeat, solemnly, he quietly returned the saddle to its place and hung the bridle and reins. His shoulders wilted. It felt entirely as if Monsieur Perreault were triumphing, and it made him frown in an angry way. He wasn’t doing this for him. He wasn’t doing it for Madame Perreault either. He couldn’t care less about them. Had nothing hung in the balance, he might’ve run off if only to spite them and put them in their place concerning ‘gentlemen and farmers’. At least it would’ve been a small fraction of the motivation and one with a satisfying reward.

  No, he was doing this for Jeremie. Jeremie, who knew him as no other ever had. Jeremie, who’d become his dearest companion over the course of a single summer. Jeremie, whom he cherished. Jeremie, for whom he’d do anything.

  Even if it meant saying goodbye.

  Despite his rationale, though, he lingered at the mouth of the barn, second-guessing himself. Why shouldn’t they be happy? It simply wasn’t fair. His actions would break Jeremie, and it pained him. Severely.

  But he was only protecting him!

  Perhaps if he were to meet him at the Pont d’Avignon if only to explain his reasons…

  He turned and started for the saddle again, but he stopped after only a few steps. It was a dangerous idea. Upon seeing Jeremie’s face, he’d only lose his resolve. He’d abandon all sensibility and be swept away by all that he felt for him.

  He couldn’t send word either, though, as it was now the middle of the night and the horse courier came by their way so sparingly anyhow. All he could offer was his silence, his absence, and hope it conveyed what it had to.

  He pressed his forehead against a wall of the barn and closed his eyes. What an end to it all. Silence? Absence? It was abominable and a gross discourtesy. It would’ve been impolite and crude toward a simple acquaintance, but toward one to whom his soul had been bound? It was cruel and callous.

  I won’t be dissuaded, he tried to convince himself as argument for going into town. But then, wouldn’t that be far more scathing toward Jeremie, that his presence wasn’t affecting enough to reverse Noah’s decision? It became clear there was no way to spare either of their feelings.

  He left the barn. He didn’t trust himself not to ready his horse, but he also wanted to breathe in the fresh night air, thinking it might help to clear his mind. When he did, he saw that a window of the farmhouse was illuminated. It was then he realized how selfish he’d been. Not once tonight had he even considered how his departure might affect his family.

  They would never be able to look upon his face if ever they learned the truth of such an egregious deception. They loved him dearly, yes, but even love had its limits, and this was simply too much to ask of them. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he brought such disgrace, such heartbreak, such indignity upon them. He recalled the unadulterated abhorrence on Monsieur Perreault’s face that evening and knew he couldn’t bear to see his own family behold him in like manner, to have them shun him.

  For Jeremie, it’d been an easy decision. He reviled everything his father was—an unfeeling man driven simply by success as defined by high society and the accumulation of wealth. For Noah, it wasn’t so effortless a choice. His family was all he knew. It would be a brutal unkindness not to sever ties with them, as he would otherwise look them in their eyes and be a liar and a sinner with every word, but it was that very severing he couldn’t stand. He’d already lost a family once. Must he lose one yet again?

  At this, his protests slowly waned and subsided. His family depended on him. They needed him even if Noah had at times questioned his place among them. If he were to run away, and with Jeremie, the Perreaults would expose him, and it meant Noah would never have a place to which he could always return, a place where he’d always be accepted, a place called home where love always prevailed.

  The more he thought on it, the more his decision solidified, until he felt he was making the wisest choice.

  His heart protested, of course. How it protested! Such that Noah thought it might tear itself to pieces in remonstration. He knew it hurt. He hurt, too. He told it this, but its pain didn’t lessen.

  He returned to his hill and sat with his back against the sessile oak’s trunk, facing the direction of the town center. Even now, his lips burned from Jeremie’s kisses, as if the sun itself had pressed its face against his mouth. The ghost of Jeremie’s hands touched him still, and Noah yearned for, ached for Jeremie’s body pressed against his own in a way that made him almost unfamiliar to himself. He was a man possessed.

  Please, please, came his heart’s appeals.

  I’m doing this for Jeremie, was Noah’s reply. Jeremie deserved a life of brilliant fullness. So long as he was with Noah, he’d never have it. Theirs was a narrative for which there was no happy ending. Noah didn’t think they should have to live like criminals, always chased, always threatened, but it’s precisely what awaited them if they continued down this road. The stakes were too high and the risks too great. Noah wouldn’t endanger either of their lives.

  Please, his heart whispered.

  He swallowed the knot in his throat and paid his heart no heed. Instead, he tried to soothe it with thoughts of a different sort. He considered what he might do if he weren’t so afraid, if he weren’t so torn.

  He’d kiss his mother on the cheek, shake hands with his father, and ride his horse straight away into town. He’d stride across the Pont d’Avignon, breathless at the profile of his lover in the starry blackness, church bells tolling in the distance, clouds undressing the moon that its alabaster light might paint them ivory. He’d pull Jeremie to him, feeling a confidence he’d never known in waking life, and he’d embrace him and kiss him and touch him and make him feel all the marvelous, magical, indescribable things Jeremie had made Noah feel time and again.

  I’m sorry, he told his heart, but the apology was mostly meant for the one to whom it belonged.

  He felt something wet at the corner of his eye and touched it. When he drew back his hand, a tear stuck to his fingertip like a pearl.

  He didn’t know that he’d ever cried for another. It almost made him forget all reasonable thinking and charge into town. But no…no…it had to be this way. Noah wanted Jeremie safe and sound, wanted his family’s love for him to endure, wanted the ones he most cared for to know only peace.

  And so as the evening grew darker yet and the cicadas sang their unending song, as the air cooled and the silvery clouds thinned out in their slow drift above the earth, Noah simply stared into the distance, heart shattered and cheeks wet as he pictured Jeremie upon their bridge as lonely as ever, with only the moon and stars for company.

  36

  The moment Noah saw the crowd in town, he knew. He didn’t understand how he knew or why he knew, and for many years after, he’d wonder at this great sense of knowing that had instantly possessed him.

  Prior to this, he’d waged war against thoughts of the distressing kind as he made the trip into town with his father and brothers. They were passing through to bring the last of their wheat to Monsieur Benoit’s mill on the other side of the Rhône, and Jeremie’s bookshop was certain to be a stop along the way, as Noah’s family still fell in want of answers.

  If Noah’s unceasing prayers hadn’t fallen on deaf ears, they’d find the bookshop abandoned. It was his most fervent hope that his absence on the Pont d’Avignon last night had been enough to compel Jeremie to flee his pre-ordained life in solitude, even if reluctantly so. What had existed between them would never find a place in the world. Noah grasped this and accepted it. Through his nonappearance on the bridge, he was helping Jeremie to do the same. Best they let go for both their sakes and allow the paths they’d walked until now to diverge.

  Still, a part of him, the part painstakingly familiar with Jeremie’s obstinance, fea
red the other had instead remained in Avignon, believing perhaps Noah only needed more time to muster his courage, to quell the mutiny of rational thought arising within him. This had resulted in a mentally turbulent and therefore restless night for Noah, who’d half-expected Jeremie to return to the farm in the dead of night and call out to Noah’s window, asking what was keeping him so.

  At one point, he’d felt particularly uneasy, such that he’d thought he was taking ill. His heart, sensing his weakness, had sought to overthrow him. Please, please, it’d begged again, and he’d almost appeased it, had almost renounced all logic to go for his horse and leave the life he’d known behind. But once the turmoil had diminished to a bearable amount, he’d pulled the covers back over himself and unsuccessfully forced his mind to find the slightest sense of sleep.

  Up ahead, where the river cut into the land like a barber’s incision, numerous townspeople were pressed shoulder to shoulder, leaning forward on their toes to catch a glimpse of some spectacle. While it was the first day of autumn, which usually brought with it a fresh crispness in the air that never failed to revitalize Avignon’s inhabitants after a draining summer, there was something off about the sight. Merchants and patrons and families alike spilled out of the shops and homes that lined the town’s paved arteries, stuck in a disquieting stillness as they gazed toward the river and solemnly murmured to each other.

  The threads and pockets of people thickened into a congested crowd closer to the quai where Avignon’s boatmen unloaded their cargo of fish throughout the day. Noah’s father secured the horses and wagon and then led his sons to the fringes of the crowd, where he asked a man what the trouble was.