The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,63

It was the season of storms, when lightning streaked the sky.

Nina no longer ate her meals in her bedroom, joining her family in the dining room each day instead. The mass of the Beaulieus had returned to their homes with the coming of the rains, and now only the core members of the tribe remained. Nina felt more at ease with fewer people staring at her.

Her great-aunts Lise and Linette wrote to her when fall was ending and frost decorated the ground, the earth grown hard. They invited Nina to visit them in the spring. It would be a welcome distraction for all of them, they said. Nina had not thought about Loisail, she had pushed it from her mind, and she did not reply when her mother read her the letter.

The morning when the first snow of the season fell was the same morning Nina practiced a complex card trick, assembling all the cards into a fan that would then be reassembled in the shape of a sphere. When she was done working with the cards, she went to the window and opened it, breathing in the cold air. Snowflakes began to accumulate on her windowsill.

She realized, as she stood there with her head bowed, looking at the flakes, that she had utterly forgotten to say Hector’s name that day. She had forgotten to say it for several days.

Nina went back to the Devil’s Throne. This time she took her heavy coat, her gloves, scarf, and boots. The rocks were tinted white and the snow crunched beneath her feet as she climbed the outcropping and surveyed the sky. She had an odd sensation, as if she were an insect newly emerged from its silk cocoon that must dry its wings in the morning sun.

With the coming of winter, Oldhouse grew even more quiet and sedate. Nina and her mother went to the Évaristes’ household for a party, and all should have been merriment and excitement, but a few of the younger Évariste boys, who had returned home during their winter break, must have heard the stories going around about Nina because they gaped. She was used to such things: the tale of how she’d shoved Johaness Meinard with her talent had been popular a few years before. Still, it hurt to know she was the object of blatant gossip. Everyone from Vertville to Dijou would likely spare a joke or two about the Witch of Oldhouse this winter.

Nina’s mother, sensing her discomfort, asked again about Loisail. Her great-aunts had written a second letter and said the girl ought to stay with them for a couple of weeks.

“Or perhaps you’d rather stay with Gaétan and Valérie?” her mother asked.

“No,” Nina said quickly. “My aunts have certain natural history materials that Gaétan does not trouble himself with.”

This was an excuse, but it was also true. The old ladies maintained an impressive assortment of books and monographs on birds, which Nina found interesting. It was not her passion, but it would be better to spend her time reading about species of fowl than to have to endure living under the same roof as Valérie.

“What do you think? You could take off for a week.”

“Perhaps I should go for the whole Grand Season,” Nina said.

Her mother seemed surprised at this. “Nina, you do not have to.”

“I want to.”

She had climbed back atop the Devil’s Throne even after she’d broken her arm, and Nina had decided Loisail would be a similar feat. She would not spend her life eternally avoiding the city. She wouldn’t give anyone more reasons to talk about her or look at her sadly.

They had likely expected her to die of heartbreak, to wither and grow gray, but Nina thought she would not give them the satisfaction. Not to the silly folk who made jokes about her, nor to Valérie and Hector.

She still grew sad when she thought about him. But the feeling washed away quickly enough: she willed it to wash away as she willed the cards to turn.

It was more difficult certain mornings when, in the semidarkness of her room, she forgot to raise her defenses and Hector would intrude, unbidden, into her mind. She’d recall the exact way his mouth curved when he smiled, and this memory was utterly painful, drawing forth the wretched longing she’d hidden away. She could not wash this so easily, and the memory remained in the dawn; it stained her heart, like the sap of trees, which clings to clothes, to skin, to