Everything That Burns

by Gita Trelease

  “What are you doing outside?” Camille asked as she hurried down the path toward her. Overhead, iron-gray clouds loomed. “It’s going to rain any minute.”

  “Why can’t I be out here?” She thwacked the wall. “Can’t I change my mind sometimes? Or behave differently?”

  Something was definitely wrong. “Has something happened to you? Rosier?”

  “Why should anything happen to Rosier? And if it did, why would it concern me?”

  “I just thought you might have been together—working on Les Merveilleux.”

  Sophie smacked the wall again, hard. Camille’s heart constricted. Had Rosier hurt her, somehow? At the back of the garden, near the roses, a fountain purled. As if she were trying to calm a nervous cat, Camille asked, “Would you tell me about your day? We might sit on the bench by the fountain.”

  “There’s no need to sit, as it will not take long to tell it.” Sophie pressed the branch against the wall until it snapped. “I’ve received a marriage proposal.”

  Bewildered, Camille asked, “Are congratulations in order?”

  “I don’t know!” Sophie said, flinging herself down on the bench after all.

  Camille sat beside her. As mildly as she could, she asked, “Who proposed?”

  “As if I have thousands of suitors! I have only one, and it was he who asked me.”

  “Rosier?” she guessed.

  “He is hardly a suitor! It was the Marquis d’Auvernay.”

  “Oh!” She looked more closely at Sophie. Were her eyes red? “What did you say?”

  “I told him I required time to consider the proposal with which he had so honored me.” She glared at Camille. “Isn’t that what a girl is supposed to say? Besides, I am far too young to marry.”

  Only a few months ago Sophie had insisted she was of marrying age. “If you wished, you might have a long engagement. Or do you not like d’Auvernay enough?”

  “What is enough? D’Auvernay is everything a man is supposed to be. Everything I wanted.”

  “But?”

  Sophie sighed. “Then I think of you and Lazare, how you are together.”

  How they had been, once. Now she fretted about Lazare, cynical at the revolutionary dinner. Talking about pretending in a way that made her worry he knew she was pretending not to have anything to do with magic. Uneasy that she might never be able to tell the truth. “You overestimate us, I think.”

  “Oh?” Sophie said, suddenly interested. “Has something happened?”

  “I fear—” In her mind she saw a road with a fork in it, the one path dividing into two, each of which ran away from the another. Like the branches of the carefully tended pear tree, growing apart. “I fear we will go our separate ways.”

  “You, part? You are made for each another!” A V of worry appeared between Sophie’s pale brows. “Aren’t you?”

  “What happens when people don’t tell each other things, because they’re afraid the other person won’t like them anymore? Or because they fear they’re becoming a different person, one the person won’t like—”

  “Hush! You always fret when he’s away and imagine awful things. You are prone to imagining, you know. When Lazare looks at you, it’s as if his whole being looks at you. And when you look at him, I see that you love him.” Sophie poked at the gravel with what was left of the stick. “I know d’Auvernay cares for me.”

  “Which is not the same as you loving him, is it?”

  Sophie shook her head.

  “And Rosier?” To hide whatever her face might reveal, Camille bent and plucked a dandelion growing up through the stones.

  “He’s not the kind of young man I planned to marry.”

  “And what kind was that?”

  “Someone like d’Auvernay, of course.”

  “But why? I understand you felt that way when we were poor, and trying to keep our apartment, and we needed a way out. Now you have your own business—”

  “What if that’s not enough?” Sophie’s voice wobbled. “What if something comes to take it away? If you heard the rumors the seamstresses and the customers tell … sometimes I wake in the night, alone in my bed, and I am so afraid, Camille.”

  She clasped her sister’s small hand. “Tell me.”

  “My fingers are ice, my heart beating hard in my chest, and all I can think is that I will never be truly safe. That the hunger and the uncertainty will come back. And whatever my heart says, my head says d’Auvernay is safe.”

  Safety was both blessing and curse. “Perhaps there is no safe, not any longer.” Camille plucked a yellow petal from the flower and let it drift away in the cool wind. “What if we have to learn to live with the feeling that the walls around us could crumble at any time, the rug whisked out from beneath our shoes? What if we cannot find safety in another person, but in ourselves?”

  Sophie gave her a canny look. “But you feel safe with Lazare, don’t you? That is what I want.”

  Did she feel safe with him? As she pulled off another petal, she wondered: What if the paths they were taking didn’t curve back to meet again, but like the pear tree’s branches, grew apart forever, never crossing? What if the plans they’d hatched in the restaurant’s dreamy glow could never come true, because each choice they made was taking them farther away from each other—but unlike the gardener who pruned the tree, they did not know it?

  It chilled her to think of it.

  “And d’Auvernay will give you safety?”

  Sophie made an impatient sound. “More than Rosier will!”

  “Are you certain? What about everything you’ve done together on the circus—”

  “It’s not a circus.”

  “Les Merveilleux,” Camille said, exasperated. “I thought it made you happy. Not just the costumes, and the performance itself, but being with—”

  “No!” Sophie stood up. “I’ve no wish to talk about it any longer. I should have guessed you would take his side, since he is your friend and Lazare’s. If he wished to marry me, he would have asked!”

  All the hope and joy had gone out of Sophie’s face. She did love Rosier. But for whatever reason, he had not proposed. “Oh, Sophie! I do think he loves you—if that is what you want. You are under no obligation. You must know,” she said impulsively, “that he made Les Merveilleux for you.”

  Sophie flinched, as if she’d been slapped. Her lower lip trembled, though with anger or some other emotion, Camille could not tell. “Rosier is too unpredictable and foolish with his games and enthusiasms! Whatever kind of life would that be?” she said before turning on her heel and running down the gravel path into the house.

  “A marvelous one,” Camille called out as the glass doors banged open.

  But Sophie did not hear. She was already gone, and it had started to rain.

  THE LOST GIRLS SPEAK

  THE LOCK PICKER

  MY FATHER ALWAYS WISHED FOR A BOY

  My mother had lost two babies, both boys. But Papa wanted a son to follow him in his trade so he taught me to make locks, and keys, the things that protect the valuable and mysterious in our lives. He always said

  A LOCK WAS LIKE A PERSON:

  complicated, but something you could figure out

  if you listened hard.

  NO ONE EVER WAS SO KIND TO ME

  NO ONE EVER SO UNDERSTOOD ME

  We were happy until my mother died in childbirth. That little brother lived but two days, though we did all we could to keep him. But when at last he slipped through our fingers and was laid in the coffin in the crook of Maman’s arm, it was as if Papa too stepped into that grave and buried himself with them.

  Four months I worked on the unfinished orders in the shop. No new ones came. Customers saw Papa wandering the square, gaping in people’s windows for where my mother might be, and they wanted nothing to do with me, who was too little to be anything like a true locksmith.

  When they put Papa in the madhouse, I was sent to the orphanage.

  There I discovered I could
pick any lock they tried to put on me. And so I fled to Paris, city of ten thousand locks, where I could practice the only trade I have ever mastered.

  THERE IS NO LOCK

  that can

  KEEP ITS SECRETS

  from

  ME

  26

  The rain Chandon predicted continued for three long days. Despite the fires in every room, damp filled the house. In the streets, rain collected in dank puddles that soaked boots and stockings. It raised the level of the Seine and ferried branches and debris from upriver, floating dangerously below the surface. Like mushrooms encouraged by the wet, pamphlets and posters covered Paris, claiming the flooding was the work of magicians.

  She heard nothing from Lazare.

  Perhaps he hadn’t left Lille before the rains began and was now stranded at the border. If that was the case, surely he could travel by coach? But perhaps the corps kept him there. It was impossible to know. Restless, she wandered the house, frowning at the enchanted objects and even the servants—so much so that Sophie told her to rest.

  At least Camille could escape by reading. Settling into bed one dreary afternoon, she opened the gothic romance, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Mrs. Radcliffe, where she had left off. As she read, the author’s description of the Scottish Highlands, with its vast gloomy moors unmarked by paths and its torrential waterfalls, began to merge with the storm outside. She could hardly keep track of where she was, and soon her head sank back against the pillow. As she slept, she dreamed of crossing through fields of heather, searching the sky for Lazare.

  When she woke it was to the slap of rain against the windows.

  It’s getting worse, she thought, and rolled onto her other side. Why was the rain so loud? Was the window open? Unable to sleep, she sat up. The fire in the hearth had shrunk to glowing embers. She held her breath, listening hard. There it was again. Scattered tapping, almost like rain.

  No rain pounded that hard.

  Pulling her silk dressing gown over her cotton chemise, she crossed the room and opened the shutter. Beyond the glass, the deluge continued. The street lamp remained lit, its circle of light reflected in puddles. At the edge of the light stood a figure. Tall, lean, his arms crossed and his head tipped down, the rain pouring off his tricorne hat. There was a weary slant to his shoulders that made her heart ache.

  She fumbled with the shutters, threw open the windows. “Lazare!”

  He raised his head, searching for her. When he found her, his expression changed. Brightening. “I’m coming up.”

  “What?” she said as she saw him take hold of the drainpipe that ran up the house’s facade. “Come to the front door!”

  “Too late,” he called up, and it was true—he was climbing quickly. Halfway up his foot slipped. The drainpipe creaked ominously, and her heart was in her throat, but he found a foothold in the roots of the ivy that covered the upper story and kept going.

  When he was nearly there, she took his hand—wet, slippery—and pulled him toward her. Then he was climbing over the sill and pulling off his hat, his eyes never leaving her. “You ignored the pebbles I was throwing for a very long time.”

  “I was sleeping! There is a front door, you know.”

  “I was in no mood for maids and footmen,” he said. “Not when I only wished to see you.” He ran his hand through his hair; water streamed down his wrists and into the sleeves of his coat.

  “What has happened?”

  “Lafayette offered to send me by coach tomorrow, but I could not wait. So I rode in the back of a cart all the way from Pontoise. Dieu, I’m exhausted.”

  “And very wet.”

  Smiling ruefully, he shook his head so that tiny droplets of water spattered everywhere.

  “Stop!” But she didn’t mind.

  He peeled off his dripping coat and draped it over a painted Chinese screen that stood near the fire. The rain had soaked even his waistcoat and chemise. “I’m afraid I’m too wet to even sit down. Mind if I—?” He gestured at his waistcoat.

  Camille shook her head and he quickly unbuttoned his wet garments and hung them on the screen. She was having some difficulty speaking. The fine fabric of his chemise had become translucent and clung to his skin, revealing the planes of his shoulders, arms, chest. Tenderly, she pushed back a lock of his inky hair so she could see his face. Fatigue had painted shadows in the hollows of his face, and his warm brown skin had gone dull and worn.

  But what mattered was that he was safe. She touched him along the muscled slant of his neck, where his shirt had fallen open.

  “I cannot tell if you are real, or something I dreamed.”

  “Do appearances so deceive?” He looped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”

  She rose on her toes. “You seem real,” she said. “But in my experience, appearances can be deceiving.”

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Around them, in the almost dark, the old house creaked and shifted. Outside, the rain fell restlessly. Camille thought of the spring, when they had kept so many secrets from each other, pretending at being someone else, trying to stay safe. But now she wondered if they’d been trying to protect each other.

  “Camille,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m sorry about the things I said at the dinner. I felt like everything was slipping away. Nothing seemed right, especially me. All the time I was gone I thought of you, wishing I had been different, said something different.” His brows drew together in a regretful line. “I’m a fool.”

  “You are not.”

  “I am. But we are all fools in love, n’est-ce pas?”

  Perhaps, she thought, gently wiping a few drops of water from his cheekbone. “Besides, can we not withstand a little separation if our paths take us away?” She wanted so much for it to be true.

  Reassuringly, he said, “Love is what matters. All the rest of it is—”

  “It’s important, though, isn’t it? The work we do?” Once again, she felt on the verge of telling him about the magic in the pamphlets.

  Outside, thunder rumbled.

  He raised a curving eyebrow. “The rest does not feel important when I am with you.”

  She felt it then, a rising certainty, that this was true. Her worries about them growing apart and their different paths—this was what mattered, that they wished to be together. “And now,” she said, “you are with me.”

  The floor dropped out from under her as he kissed her.

  It felt new, different now. His mouth on hers, his hands at her waist, bringing her close. He kissed her throat, lingering at the spot beneath her collarbone where her dressing gown had fallen open. She hadn’t known she could feel like this, the edges of her self dissolving until there was only the press of his body against hers. She caught his lower lip between her teeth, and he groaned. Slowly, his hot kisses drove her backward and it was as if she were walking through honey, deliriously sweet and treacherous—until she felt the solid bulk of the bed behind her.

  “Camille,” he murmured. His eyes were luminous, deeper than the night outside, framed by the sweep of his wet eyelashes. He took her hand in his. With agonizing slowness, he pressed burning kisses along the inside of her wrist. His hair, cool and wet, caressed her skin. “What do you want?”

  “You,” she breathed. “I want you.”

  There was a sound in the corridor, and both of them froze.

  Footsteps, and, under the door, the trembling light of a candle.

  “Camille?” Sophie called, urgent. “I heard a noise—are you well?”

  Instinctively, Camille pulled her dressing gown closed. Lazare grinned at her, and she had no idea what to do. He had erased her mind with his kisses. Help, she mouthed, but he only bit playfully at her earlobe.

  “Yes?” she stammered.

  “You’re worrying me—can I come in?”

  Teasingly, intoxicatingly, he kissed the hollow of her throat. Any more of this and she would cease to exist. “I�
�m trying to sleep,” she called out weakly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  A long pause. “If you say so.” Sophie’s shadow disappeared from under the door, and soon the flickering candlelight faded away.

  Lazare laughed, and she tried to clamp her hand over his mouth. “Quiet!”

  “You were nearly found out!”

  “I?” She choked back laughter. “What about you?”

  “I don’t count—I’m only something you dreamed, remember?”

  “But you’re not, are you?”

  He shook his head. His brown eyes were gone to black, his pupils wide with desire. “I’m not a dream.”

  “Prove it,” she whispered.

  As his body met hers, she tilted her head to meet his mouth. She knew there were no dreams like this, no dreams so alive and full of wanting. It was nothing she had ever felt before, but now it was everything she wanted. Her fingers fumbled at the neck of his shirt, pulled the damp linen over his head. Tentatively, her hands explored the line of his collarbone, dropping to the smooth slope of his chest.

  “Mon âme,” he murmured as he slid her dressing gown off, letting it fall to the floor. She pulled at the ribbons on her chemise so that it slipped off her shoulder. “How beautiful you are.” His mouth on her skin scorched, setting her on fire.

  Where once had been edges, boundaries, and borders now was ash.

  Why had she worried about diverging paths and pretending? In their fierce, suddenly desperate touch was sweet oblivion. Whatever she’d feared stood between them was gone. In this torrent of fire, there was nothing to hold on to except each other.

  And outside, the rain rushed down ceaseless until dawn, thrumming its sweet tattoo.

  27

  In the morning, she woke to Lazare. He lay stretched out on the sofa, lazily toasting a piece of bread over the fire. When she stirred, he smiled devilishly. “I may have frightened the maid,” he said, twirling the poker he’d put the bread on, “for which I am truly sorry. On the other hand, she returned with breakfast for two.”