by Parker Foye
She wanted him to have a good time, to be happy, to write his damned book. And who knew? A few months in the mountains could clear the cobwebs. Until then Luc could find entertainment with single men on vacation and looking to waste time with a willing body. Luc had one of those, didn’t he?
Not that he’d mention that part to his mother.
“You are certain about this?” Maman asked. When Luc nodded, she beamed. “Then I am happy for you. And just think, all that snow for Solstice! Won’t it be wonderful? So magical.”
Like magic wasn’t the entire problem with their family.
LUC unpacked his suitcase in the room he and Eloise would share for the season. Shoving his stuff into the old wooden furniture, some already decorated with fairy lights, Luc reminded himself it would only be a few months. And he’d look amazing with a tan, as long as he avoided goggle lines.
He might’ve become a little nervous between Birmingham and France, okay?
The chalets were owned by Luc’s tante Corinne, Maman’s sister, and located in a small ski resort called Les Menuires. Maman had been a Dufour when she fell in love with a British tourist, and they lived in Les Menuires a few years before moving to the UK. Eloise had inherited her romantic nature, Maman said, while Luc inherited her stubbornness—and the Dufour curse. Eloise had worked as a chalet host for years and loved it, though Luc never fancied leaving the city. But people changed.
“And here we are,” he muttered to his reflection. His hair fell over his scars, and he made sure to smooth out his scowl. They’d gone straight into Solstice season on arrival, with half the trees in the village already thick with lights. Everywhere a reminder something might go wrong for him.
Still, festivities aside, the opportunity to ski every day held appeal, and Luc didn’t even have to deal with customers. Tante Corinne had explained Eloise and their cousin, Amandine, would be chalet hosts, cooking and cleaning for up to eight guests a week, with Luc helping out as general handyman, driver, and extra pair of hands. With Luc to assist, they’d all get a decent amount of time on the slopes. He even brought his seen-better-days laptop in case inspiration struck.
Luc poked at the fairy lights draped around the mirror. If he stole one of the bulbs, the whole thing would turn dark and stop being so irritatingly cheerful.
“I can hear you plotting in there. Stop it.” Eloise leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, her snowman sweater rumpling into even uglier patterns. Although exhausted after the flight and transfer through the winding roads of the Alps, not to mention the stress of anticipating the sunset and wondering if tonight would be when his cuffs finally broke, Luc could find some extra energy to lose for the knitted monstrosity.
“I’m not plotting. But seriously, Solstice isn’t for weeks. You know that, right?”
Eloise sighed. “Even if the date had somehow slipped my attention, you’ve mentioned it six times today.”
“I have a lot of feelings.”
“Trust me, we’re all very aware of your feelings. The whole of Les Menuires is aware of your feelings.” Eloise pushed off the doorframe and looked at him pointedly. “Now are you going to mope in here all day, or are you going to help?”
While Luc could make a strong argument for moping, he decided against it. Best to save something in the tank for when they least expected. He grabbed his coat and followed Eloise outside. He stood on a thin layer of snow and inhaled the crisp, cold winter air. Like coming home.
One of the smaller resorts in the area, Les Menuires held nostalgic fondness for Luc. He’d spent a week throwing himself down mountains every winter until starting university, and despite the draw of bigger and brighter resorts like Val d’Isére and Val Thorens, Les Menuires would always be home away from home. Strange to return without Maman and Father, though. Like a rite of passage no one had mentioned.
The Dufour Chalets were tucked away in the Les Fontanettes area of Les Menuires, a short walk from the center where most hotels were located. The Dufours had owned the chalets since Grandfather Lucien—Luc’s namesake, and another bearer of the curse—left the family farm in Toulouse to pursue a life of fondue and alpine jumping back in the 1960s, landing on his financial feet when the area was later developed into a ski resort as part of Les 3 Vallées.
Some said he’d been looking for a cure for the curse too, but all he found was snow.
“Luc, help chop firewood!” Amandine’s no-nonsense voice broke into Luc’s brooding, her French-accented English as familiar as the mountains. They’d agreed to speak English at the chalets… unless complaining about a guest. “If we complete the chores, later we will try the wines.”
Eloise might try to jostle Luc into the—extremely preemptive—festive spirit, but Amandine tended toward straightforwardness. Wine offered a good bribe, but the axe in her hand made the most convincing argument. Bearing a strong resemblance to Audrey Tautou, Amandine could bench-press twice her own weight and had little patience for shirkers. Luc hurried to help.
He didn’t look at the sun.
FOLLOWING an afternoon of cleaning and repairing, sunset came almost as a relief. Amandine retired for the night, threatening an early start the next day. Eloise lingered in the kitchen, clattering about as she took inventory. Despite the offer of wine tasting, Luc claimed exhaustion and turned in for an early night; he’d had an unpleasant shock after stumbling across the family tapestry. He’d forgotten about the damn thing until Amandine switched around various decorations and it came to rest in the hallway instead of out in the trash where it belonged.
As a kid Luc loved tracing his name in the bespelled fabric, his fingertips tingling as the gentle charms reacted with his curse. He imagined the lives of people he’d never met and never would, delighted to be able to trace his family back until the names blurred.
Then he grew older and started wondering which bastard had cursed him.
Now the very concept of the tapestry drained him. All that history he failed to live up to. Luc hated it. But it wasn’t the only reason for his early night: he’d been resisting the urge to scratch across the top of his skull for hours, like his absent antlers were in velvet. When he was younger, Luc scratched fit to burst skin at the points where the itching centered. Thin silvery scars in his hairline served as permanent reminders of his familial legacy, and he grew out his hair to cover them.
Dressed in boxers and one of his many long-sleeved shirts, Luc curled up on his twin bed in the room he shared with Eloise. He’d turned off the lights, leaving the soft glow of Eloise’s fairy lights reflecting like starbursts in the mirror. They reminded him of something he’d seen as a kid, some floating charms in a shop window around Winter Solstice. He couldn’t remember the arrangement of the display, only how Maman and Father tightly gripped his hands when they found him.
Thierry had disappeared—died—that year. Luc hated Solstice.
He fussed with the buckles on his cuffs and traced the symbols. He could redraw them from memory, though he’d never discovered their meaning. The language of cursebreakers was a secret one, passed down from generation to generation, and they didn’t share. Even for television crews. Cursebearers had to try their luck with each cursebreaker anew, paying their money and hoping this one would prove fruitful. Hoping this one wasn’t a hunter in disguise.
Cursed or not, Luc recognized a losing bet when he saw one. He was relieved his family had abandoned the search for cursebreakers; better to burn out under a curse than go bankrupt chasing false hope. Sometimes he felt guilty about future Dufours, but he quashed the stray thoughts. The guilt wasn’t his to bear.
Luc gasped as a bolt of lightning shot up his spine and burst from the top of his head. He flinched wildly, knocking something from his bedside table, and heaved for breath when the shock finally released him. His hands trembled.
The bedroom door slammed open, light carving into the room. Eloise stood in the doorway. “Luc? Are you okay?”
Luc’s heart beat hard in his chest, surely so lo
ud Eloise could hear it. He swallowed around his fear, thankful for the dark. “Knocked something over. Don’t worry.”
“Are you sure?” Without waiting for an answer, Eloise carefully navigated the furniture to crouch by Luc’s bed. Lights flickered colors over her hair. “You’re looking pale.”
“It’s the altitude. Need to get used to it, is all.”
Eloise frowned but got to her feet. “Have some vegetables tomorrow. I know what you’re like.”
“I’m not a kid!”
“Keep telling yourself that. See you in the morning, Prancer.”
Luc jerked up to throw a pillow at the doorway as Eloise walked through it, fear temporarily forgotten. The brief flash of amusement sank as Luc did. He curled up, tightening his fingers around his legs when a shiver made his muscles cramp and release in rapid succession. He clamped his teeth around a cry as a violent tremor gripped him in its brutal fist. Tears burned his eyes. The curse had never affected him in such a way. If he knew what god was listening, he would pray. As it was, Luc hoped the altitude, or relocation, or some French soap even, had affected the curse. Anything other than his cuffs’ failure.
Welcome to France.
Chapter Two
BOLSTERED by a hearty breakfast of croissants, water, and ibuprofen, Rob Lentowicz took in the hill. There were patches of grass and only lower ski runs were open, but Rob craved snow beneath his edges. He hadn’t had a chance to get on the mountain for a few years since he’d been acting as his mother’s research assistant in South America. And as metaschemata—shape shifter by any other name—liaison in Moldova. And in another role he still wasn’t sure about, based on a yacht in the middle of a lake that didn’t actually exist most of the time. The work all sounded great anecdotally, but in reality, it involved bugs that didn’t respect any known repellant charms on—or off—the market.
People in line chattered to one another in French, and Rob shared excited smiles with people when they caught his eye. He shifted his weight as he waited his turn. He’d decided to start with a blue run to ease himself back in; the piste led down to the center of the village, almost straight to the wooden terrace of a local hotel. Later in the afternoon he wanted to take the gondola, a covered cabin lift running high up the mountain and linking to the network of runs and lifts comprising the Three Valleys. For his first run, though, Rob decided to play it safe. Even the best charms were no substitute for caution.
Finally the trio ahead of him got on the chair and were lifted with a creak of cables, the chair swaying as it rose. One foot in his bindings, Rob skated forward on his snowboard when the liftie beckoned. The liftie held the chair steady as Rob climbed on, and two kids with skis followed him onto the bench, eyes glued to their phones. The liftie stepped back, and the safety bar came down. The chair lurched forward.
Absurd as it sounded, Rob had forgotten how big mountains were. His breath caught as they rose, the side-to-side movement seeming more exaggerated than when he’d been watching. He exhaled in a rush when they hit the main stretch of the lift and the motion smoothed as the thick cables crackled with subtle magic. His lift-mates never looked up from their phones, where warming charms made the air around their fingers glitter. Rob curled his fingers in his gloves. He should’ve packed better.
Whatever. It was his first time in Les Menuires, and no one could tell Rob he was doing it wrong. Unlike his actual “first time,” during which Lydia Charles had directed him so firmly, he became half-convinced she had a camera crew in her closet. Turned out it was just him in there.
Rob propped his snowboard with one foot beneath the base to ease the pressure on his strapped-in foot and twisted around to look at the village growing small behind them. The chair lurched as he moved, and he grimaced, turning carefully back around. He’d forgotten about that. The chair shuddered as it passed a support. Rob focused on the light shimmer over the distant peaks, the sky an impossibly clear blue. Rob wanted to take a picture on his phone, but he also wanted to retain use of his fingers. Wind bit at his exposed cheeks, and he ducked his chin under the high collar of his jacket. The chair began to slow on the approach to the station pole, and the kids finally put away their phones, disparate strains of tinny music singing from their helmets. Pulling his goggles down from his helmet, Rob let the kids pop the safety bar, and they all shuffled forward.
Here it comes.
Rob’s heart skipped when he put his deck to the snow and let the gentle push of the chair propel him from the landing area. The kids skied confidently away, leaving Rob alone with the mountain and his heartbeat. He let gravity and the gradient of the slope draw him away from the chairlift and toward the top of the piste, where a small clearing waited. Between the crest of the hill ahead and the bank of snow behind, Rob had himself a little moment, at one with the universe.
“Watch out!”
Rob jerked to one side, but too late. Some clown crashed straight into him, out of control on their skis, and Rob went down hard. Something crunched in his knee as the weight of his snowboard made the joint twist his strapped-in foot, and Rob quickly scrambled to a sitting position, maneuvering the snowboard to relieve the pressure. As he did, he snorted at the skier: they’d popped out of their bindings, and skis and poles went every which way in a full yard sale, leaving the skier flat on their back. Dignity didn’t place high in winter sports.
Flexibility too was overrated. As he moved his knee, Rob grimaced at the twinge of pain. “Fuck.”
“Shit!” the skier said in an invective counterpoint. Rob watched the arsehole grab their poles and rush over, as much as one could in ski boots, and skid to their knees beside him. The skier yanked down their scarf, revealing full lips and a stubbled jawline. “I’m so sorry, some kid knocked me off the lift, and I couldn’t stop in time. First-day legs. Are you broken? Wait, parlez-vous Anglais? Français?”
“I’m fine,” Rob said once the guy paused for breath, his flash of temper eased by the obviously accidental nature of their collision. He waved his hand, still cradling his knee with the other. “Don’t worry about it. But can you help me up?”
“Of course. Please, allow me.”
The guy stood first, then gripped Rob’s hands and heaved him to his feet. Rob hoped his goggles hid his wince at the unexpected force. Unfortunately they couldn’t hide the way he staggered as his knee protested the weight. Only the guy’s strong grip prevented Rob from face-planting straight into the snow again, and probably his snowboard sliding off—with Rob still strapped in.
The guy bit his lip at Rob’s wobble. His eyes were hidden behind the reflective lens of his goggles, but Rob fancied they’d be huge and sympathetic.
“You’re not okay.” The guy sounded forlorn. “And I don’t carry fixers. Do you? If you’re craft, I mean.” His mouth twisted. “Sorry. Assumptions. Do you want to borrow my phone for—something? Gods. Shut up, Luc.”
Rob bit back his laugh at the dejected picture in front of him. Lately he’d become wary of the craft community, leery of those looking to profit, but the guy didn’t look like he could plot his way out of a paper bag. Rob adjusted his weight as his knee eased, getting used to the ache.
“Luc, is it?” At the nod, Rob continued, “Thanks for your offer, but it’s nothing rest won’t cure. If you wanted to help me down the slope, I wouldn’t say no.” He hoped the cold excused the blush heating his cheeks. First day and already limping.
“I can definitely do that. Would you like to ski—snowboard down? Are you able?”
Rob nodded. He refused to get on a blood wagon—one of the ski patrol’s stretchers—when they were scarce minutes from his hotel. “I’ll be fine. It’s only I’d rather the company. Just in case.”
While Rob haltingly explained himself, Luc gathered his skis and returned to act as a bolster while Rob strapped his free foot into his snowboard. Luckily, if anything about their collision could be called such, they’d crashed in a quiet corner between the lift and the piste so they hadn’t stopped any traffic.
Otherwise they’d both be limping home; powderhounds took no prisoners.
“By the by,” Luc said, checking Rob was stable and then clicking into his skis. “I’m Luc Marling. In case you need someone to sue later.”
“Rob, potential suitor,” Rob answered distractedly. He was reassured by the stability of his knee, though it ached. Relief made him cocky, and he grinned at Luc. “Race you to the bottom.”
“You’re injured, are you—Rob—hey! Rob!”
Luc’s shout was lost to the wind rushing in Rob’s ears. Racing on a short blue run was irresponsible, especially with an injury, but the corduroy lines were a siren song. Careful of others on the mountain, Rob traversed the fall line to the far left and buzzed Luc with a spray of powder as he crossed in front. Luc swore, and Rob laughed, then made a series of sharp, narrow turns, gathering speed. Wind stung his cheeks, and he forced his shoulders down from around his ears, relaxing into the stance he’d learned as a kid.
“I thought we were racing!”
Rob glanced toward Luc’s voice and found him a few feet farther down the slope. Annoyed at his absorption in carving tracks, Rob sank his hips and sped toward Luc. Past Luc. After a moment he realized the manic cackling he heard was his own.
“You arsehole!”
“Don’t be a sore loser!” Rob shouted over his shoulder.
Nearly crashing into the ski racks at the bottom of the piste took away some of Rob’s smugness, but he managed to hurl his weight backward in time, swearing as he landed on his arse in the snow. Dignity lost, he let himself fall into the snow entirely, spread-eagle. When laughter reached his ears, he twisted to see Luc doubled over, his skis sliding in jerky movements. Luc kept laughing as he popped out of his bindings and gathered poles and skis in a clearly practiced motion, then rested them against the racks and dropped beside Rob in the snow. He clapped Rob on the shoulder. His hand lingered there a moment.