Betrayed

by Lynn Carthage

  I can’t tell if it’s Yolande or Giraude. Her cleavage, where I might look for a mole, is covered by something she’s carrying: a loudly crying baby wrapped up in a blanket. She keeps looking behind her at the group of about ten people who seem worried and somehow reluctant.

  Tabby watches avidly. As the woman approaches, I instinctively reach down and scoop Tabby up, stepping backward so that we are further hidden in the long shadows.

  “Faster!” the woman hisses. “You know that if she catches us, she’ll kill us!”

  They hasten. I notice that they each hold a bag of sorts; they look like they’re fleeing. There are men, women, and a few younger children. The kids keep looking back at the chateau: maybe the only home they’ve ever known?

  The baby starts to cry, and the woman’s face becomes a snarl.

  So Giraude or Yolande had a baby, I think, and now she’s leaving under cover of night. All of a sudden, I understand. This must be Yolande, and she’s on her way to England where she’ll build the Arnaud Manor.

  And it looks like her family members are none too enthusiastic to be coming with her. Someone’s going to kill them if she catches them: Giraude? But why would Giraude want to kill her family?

  I know she’s capable of murder; I watched poor Etienne die under a mask of hornet stings. But what would her problem be with these people?

  My eyes narrow as Yolande shakes her child—Etienne’s baby?—in an attempt to stop the crying. Not the best mother in the world, is she, I find myself thinking.

  Someone else thinks that, too: one of the women runs a few steps to catch up with Yolande. “Let me take the baby,” she says. “I can stop the crying.”

  “Indeed,” says Yolande. Without a second’s hesitation, she hands over her child.

  The woman dandles the baby and over her shoulder she throws a look—no, I’d call it a pang—to a man still with the family group. The baby almost instantly ceases crying. The child just wanted to be lightly bobbed in some caring arms. Now he or she gurgles and makes happy sounds as the group keeps walking hurriedly.

  “You and Henri have had trouble with making babies,” says Yolande carelessly, and I feel awful for the look of pain that crosses the other woman’s face. “So you can have this one. Congratulations on your effortless delivery.”

  It’s hard to tell how the woman feels, and she says nothing. Is she pleased? Sort of, but she also looks guilty, as if she knows it isn’t right to take Yolande’s child.

  They walk along another few paces until the woman says so quietly that I almost don’t hear, “Thank you.”

  They reach two carriages that have been brought to meet them, white and gold coaches with rounded bodies. Coronets sit on top. Even the wheels have carved decorations, each axle a lion’s face. “Quickly now, before we’re seen,” says Yolande. “Climb in, climb in!”

  “Yolande, they’re too fine! We’ll surely be noticed!” says one of the men in the group.

  “We’ll switch carriages at Picpus,” she says. “Do as I say.” The horses snort clouds of moisture from their noses as they wait, dancing from hoof to hoof, for the people to load into the coaches. Their hooves make a crisp clopping sound on the dirt roadway. Yolande was smart to meet the coaches so far away from the chateau, in the dark.

  “Horse!” yells Tabby suddenly. She’s a tornado in my arms, twisting and hitting me until she’s on the ground, running with all her might toward the carriages.

  “No!” I shout.

  Toddlers are surprisingly fast, especially with the element of surprise. She’s zipping right along when—

  Oh no no no no no no.

  It’s changing, the light is changing, and I’m running with everything I’ve got, my arms reaching out to snatch where no little girl is because I’m not fast enough—

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Versailles lay abandoned for seven years after the death of Louis XIV; it was only in 1722 that the court returned.

  —Nooks and Crannies of Versailles

  “Oh my God,” gasps Eleanor, grabbing my shirt collar.

  “Where’s Tabby?”

  The fireworks are over in the present day. Tabby’s mom is in hysterics, and over her broken wailing her dad is trying to talk to authorities. A crowd of about ten people has gathered around in a semicircle, watching.

  I take a step backward.

  It’s my fault. I wasn’t fast enough.

  “She didn’t come back with me,” I say.

  “Go back and get her!” she screams, pushing me, as if she can shove me into the past.

  I nod, shaking from my sprint to try to reach Tabby. “I’ll try,” I say.

  I use intention to picture the area on the lawn where I last saw her, and I attempt to pull myself there.

  Nothing.

  “Go!” insists Eleanor. I’ve never seen such an intense look on her face. I understand what people mean when they say someone’s eyes are blazing.

  “I’m trying!” I yell. “I’ve never been able to control the time-travel part of it! It’s out of my hands!”

  “Try again. Focus!”

  I glare at her. It’s easier than paying attention to Tabby’s mom sobbing to the point of hyperventilation behind her.

  But I try, fiercely, tensing every muscle in my body with the desire to return. “There was a baby there,” I start to say. “Yolande was—”

  “Tell me that later,” she interrupts. “You have to get to Tabby. Her parents can’t go through this again.”

  I visualize the lawn with the carriages with everything I have, but I stay in the present day, where the howl from Tabby’s mom is a sound that makes me want to . . . I don’t even know.

  “You can’t do it,” says Eleanor. She raises both her hands to her white cap and wrenches it from her head, throwing it on the ground. “Then go get Phoebe—she has more power.”

  Not what I wanted to do, but before I can talk myself out of it, I move with intention to find Phoebe.

  She must want to be found, because I’m there within a second. She’s still at the beach, but she’s dressed. She’s wearing a white eyelet dress I’ve never seen before.

  She’s sitting on that same rock, looking out onto the ocean, her long legs bent in a languid triangle in front of her. She turns her head to look at me as I walk toward her.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Hi. Have you . . . been here the whole time? On this rock?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Well, I’m glad you used your time well,” I say. “But I need you.”

  “Yeah?”

  I hesitate, wanting to soften the blow but not knowing how to do that. The news is brutal, no matter how it’s phrased. “Your sister tripped with me . . . and she didn’t come back.”

  “What?” She’s instantly leaping from the rock down onto the sand. “Why didn’t you stay with her?”

  “She jumped out of my arms and started running right when things started to change.”

  “And you couldn’t grab her?”

  “Clearly not,” I say.

  She’s enraged, her eyes venomous. She’s almost scary, or she would be if I didn’t know her better.

  “Eleanor thinks you can probably go back and find her,” I say.

  “How am I supposed to do that?” she demands.

  I take a step backward and hold up my hands. “You seem to be the kingpin around all of this,” I say. “You can touch things at the Arnaud Manor when no one else can. You’re an Arnaud. You have more power.”

  “Power makes me an unpleasant person,” she says.

  “I’m not going to argue with that,” I say. “But give it a shot. Tabby needs you. You wouldn’t believe . . .” I trail off. I was about to tell her how upset her parents are, but although she’s a new, awful version of Phoebe, I don’t want to hurt her.

  “What?”

  I don’t answer. She shoots more eye venom. Even when I don’t like her, she’s still beautiful. Her auburn hair lifts in the wind and s
he looks up at me with an expression that reminds me somewhat of the woman who took over caring for Yolande’s baby: elation mixed with guilt.

  “Where did you last see her?” she asks.

  “On the lawn near the beginning of the Grand Canal. She was running toward horses that were waiting with carriages.”

  “She loves horses,” says Phoebe. She almost smiles and I can tell she’s reviewing a split-second memory of afternoons from before she died, when she might’ve lain on the floor with her sister playing with toy horses, combing their manes.

  “Good luck,” I say.

  I don’t expect it to work—tripping has been so out of our control—but she’s gone. The beach is empty except for me, the wind, and some gulls. She went somewhere, maybe not where she intended, but she’s gone.

  I wheel around, looking at the sand and the water. The Sangreçu blood leaps inside of me, a quick hum of activity. Phoebe said we used to like to come here. But I have an aversion to it . . . something linked to my past, not just our badly ended tryst here. The waves rush in and reluctantly scrawl back. They remember me. They are trying to tell me something.

  “What happened?” Eleanor demands as soon as I return. I note that Tabby’s mom has stopped crying. She’s hugging her husband, head lolling on his shoulder. I bet she was given a sedative. Someone has draped a blanket over both of them.

  “I saw Phoebe and told her Tabby was stuck in time. She went somewhere—I’m not sure where.”

  “How was she?”

  “Not herself.”

  “I’m scared, Miles. Everything’s falling apart.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I say.

  She throws me a look of complete disbelief.

  “Phoebe’ll find Tabby and stay with her until they come back.”

  “As if that’s a given.”

  I glare at her. “We’ve always come back.”

  “I’ve always thought the forces guiding us were benevolent,” she says. “But what if they were always leading us to this moment? To stealing Tabby?”

  “No,” I say firmly, and I’m surprised at the sense of authority ringing from my voice. “Tabby could’ve been snagged a hundred times, here and in England. Her getting stuck in time was just a mistake.”

  “You truly believe it so?”

  God, her quaint language kills me sometimes.

  “I think Phoebe and I get sent back in time to witness particular scenes that help us understand stuff, whatever it is. The grand plan. When we get the information we need, we get whisked back. If Tabby hadn’t jumped out of my arms, she would’ve come back with me. It was the damn horses’ fault for being so cute.”

  “That’s encouraging, Miles,” she says. “Thank you for your words of cheer.”

  I give her a smile I don’t feel, but it seems to do the trick because she gives me a radiant one in return. “We’ll have Tabby back in her parents’ arms in just a few hours,” she says.

  I nod, still wearing the manufactured smile.

  Who knows where Tabby even is?

  Or Phoebe?

  “It’s time, then, to do the one thing you can do,” Eleanor says. “Act while your body is under your command.”

  Back to that: killing Giraude. I’m a terrible assassin; I’m just not attracted to murder.

  Maybe I could put her behind the steering wheel of my car without a seat belt.

  “Are you going to use your hands?” she asks.

  “I guess so. I hate the idea. But if she’s going to keep killing people . . .” I trail off, then gain strength. “She put us in this situation.”

  “That’s what I told myself long ago when I went into Madame Arnaud’s bedchamber with my knife.”

  “Right. We’re only reacting, as best we can.”

  “You can do it, Miles,” she says, and with my Sangreçu blood stirring, her face changes and she’s somebody else, but with the same kindly encouragement in her face. I can almost remember, almost hear a different voice filling the air, but in a second it’s gone.

  If Phoebe were here, we might concoct some kind of snare. She is so much more resourceful than me, so much of a planner, but I honestly can’t think of doing this in cold blood. I’ll just have to seize the moment, like Eleanor said, and let passion rule my hands.

  So, the first question would be: Where is the person I’m supposed to kill?

  I say good-bye to Eleanor, who will stay with Tabby’s family as an unseen guardian. I do a circle through the bushes, the last place I saw Tabby, just in case she’s come back and is too scared to move. She’s not there.

  I walk the lawns toward the chateau, thinking I might find Giraude in the hallway behind Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom. There are no tourists now; the grounds are closed to visitors except American expats talking to police officers about their abducted child named Tabby.

  My head aches thinking about what they must be feeling. They’re going to be forever changed by this—as if they weren’t already changed by losing their elder daughter. I trudge across the grass until I remember—I’m a dolt—I can just intention myself there.

  Easy.

  The hallway is dark and empty. I walk it without seeing a glow of candlelight from under any door. I emerge into the oeil-de-boeuf chamber with its oval window and look around. Security lighting provides all the illumination, and the subdued atmosphere makes me feel almost like I’ve tripped although I haven’t.

  I take a staircase up to the second floor, where courtiers kept their rooms. Oh yes, there it is . . . the light changing, just as I expected. All the doors have a glow emanating from underneath, and the murmur of voices behind them.

  One door draws me.

  With deep satisfaction that I am able to do so, I grasp the doorknob and turn it. I silently enter a chamber lit by a candelabra on the round table where Athénaïs sits playing solitaire. Her blond hair is unpowdered, but in a massive construction that doubles her head’s size.

  The forces brought me to her, not Giraude.

  The instant I step into the room, she looks up, eyes wide, nostrils opening. “Sangreçu,” she breathes. “Qui êtes-vous?”

  I scrape back the chair opposite her and sit down. “I’m Miles Whittleby,” I answer.

  “Friend or foe?” she asks, switching to English. She stares at me, her blue eyes so wide and her skin so pale she resembles one of those china shepherdesses that adorn mantelpieces in certain homes. Her nostrils delicately flare again.

  “Friend,” I say, although I’m not sure that’s the case.

  “You look like a friend,” she says. “You are so very like someone I once knew.”

  “Who?” I ask. If Phoebe resembles Yolande and Giraude, who do I look like?

  “My king.”

  I frown. Seriously, I look like one of those powdered, frock coat–wearing fops in high heels? One of the Louis dudes? I resist the idea I look like a Bourbon.

  “Don’t look unhappy. You are quite handsome. What brings you to my chamber?”

  “I was looking for Giraude, and something brought me to you instead.”

  She nods. “I am Athénaïs although I have carried many other names.”

  “Where is Giraude?”

  “At this hour, I imagine in her chambers. The court has abandoned the palace in favor of Paris. Only a few of us still call it home.”

  “Why?”

  “Louis has died”—her face darkens—“after dismissing me. But I’ve returned. I sometimes sleep in the queen’s bed! Nothing to stop me.”

  “Wait—so there’s no king?”

  “Your education is sorely lacking. Of course there’s a king. There’s always a king! He is only five and for now his regent—who adores Paris—is leading our country.”

  “So the Arnauds have remained in the empty palace?”

  “The twins are Sangreçu. It is a healthy thing to withdraw from society and let people forget one’s face when it fails to change.”

  “Giraude is dangerous,” I say. “I have
to find her. Can you take me to her?”

  She laughs lightly. “She’s harmless and foolish.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She falls in love with the wrong people. She thinks she is important when she’s not.”

  “Is she part of the prophecy?”

  Athénaïs raises an eyebrow at me. “I shouldn’t be surprised you know of the prophecy, looking as you do.” She pauses as if considering whether to divulge confidential information. “I have come to believe she is not.”

  “Why not?”

  She starts to repeat the lines of Old English Phoebe’s stepdad read from the book on the train: “On a stronde the king doth slumber, and below the mede the dragon . . .”

  “Oh my God,” I interrupt. “That prophecy? It doesn’t make any sense. What does it mean?”

  She studies my face, and it feels like I don’t pass the test, that she was considering telling me but now she won’t. “Each generation is born and my hope arises,” she says. “But I can’t steer the stars.”

  “You have a lot of power,” I say. “You know where the Sangreçu vials are—”

  “And now clearly you do, too,” she interrupts. “You are expressly forbidden to drink again.”

  “There was only one vial,” I say.

  A bleak expression crosses her face. “It seems there are dark times to come,” she says. “I have tried to scry in my mirror, but it shows me a void.”

  It strikes me how strange it is to be sitting with a woman in the past by candlelight, her hair pulled into some towering structure that makes her face piquant, tiny.

  “Hard to know who to trust,” she mutters. “Yolande is ahead of herself with her pretensions to power . . .”

  “Don’t trust her,” I say. “She’s going to run away to England with her baby.”

  She smiles privately and looks down at her cards. “Thank you for the confidence you have bestowed on me, Miles. I will ensure that does not happen.”

  “Really? You can stop it?”

  The butterfly effect. Will it screw everything up if Madame Arnaud never establishes her manor in England? Will Phoebe never be born? I’m starting to wish I never said anything . . . but then . . . if the Arnaud Manor doesn’t exist and Phoebe’s family doesn’t come to live there, then they wouldn’t be visiting Versailles and I wouldn’t have to kill Giraude.