Everything That Burns Page 19

  “My point exactly,” Sophie huffed. “What if they come here?”

  “We’ll protect her. Timbault has a musket, remember?”

  “But why? She’s just a girl—”

  A girl like me. Like the girl I once was, when I was trapped and we had no money, and barely any hope. “I have to help her.”

  “I know you care for the girls, which is only right and good, but this is too much. You already helped them keep their house. After all, how well do you know her?”

  “Is it because she’s poor? Or a revolutionary?”

  “We were poor. Papa was a revolutionary. As are you, in your way,” she added, almost reluctantly. “But I don’t worry you’ll run off with my best jewelry.”

  “She won’t.” How would she make Sophie understand? “It’s like what happened to us with Alain, except Odette has no one else to help her. I was lucky enough to have you.” And magic.

  “We were lucky to have each other.”

  “Please? It’s only a few days.”

  “Fine,” she conceded. “But if she steals anything, I’ll blame you.”

  “Fine,” Camille laughed. “I promise she’ll keep her hands to herself. I’m going up to see our guest settled.”

  “Your guest,” Sophie clarified as Camille ran up the steps. “Don’t forget!”

  Odette’s room was a pretty one, intended as a guest room for a noblewoman. All the furniture was delicate, the bed hangings as well as the carpet a moonlit, silvery blue. Odette stood by the window, looking out. “The room faces the garden.”

  Camille frowned. “I thought—that’s what you would prefer. Isn’t it more restful? With the fountain?”

  “I like to watch the street.”

  Odd. “We can switch it, if you like.”

  “It’s not necessary,” Odette said. “I won’t stay long.”

  “Let me know if you change your mind. It’s no trouble, truly.” A chambermaid came in with a basket of wood and a candle, and proceeded to lay a fire in the grate. Odette followed her every movement. As if … making sure it was done the way she wished? But surely Odette had never lived like this, a maid to wait on her.

  It smells like home. What had she meant?

  “I’ll let you settle in,” she said finally. “We have dinner at eight. If you want anything, just ring the bell.”

  “Merci.” Odette’s gray eyes met Camille’s. “I didn’t want to say anything when I saw you with the girls, when Giselle first brought you to Flotsam House. But I remembered you right away, from the streets. When I was running.”

  She felt the shame of it like scalding water. Camille had been too frightened for her own safety to say, Step into this alleyway. I’ll divert the constable, you run. Here are the last coins I have—spend them quick.

  As if Odette could read her thoughts, she said, “I could tell you wished to help. That mattered. Though I didn’t know where you were, or who, I knew I had a sister out there. At least there was one person in Paris who cared.”

  Again she was struck by how different this Odette was from the one she’d encountered in that darkening street. “I wish I had done more.”

  Odette held up her hand. “It’s water under the bridge.” She glanced around the cozy room. “Would it be possible to bathe?”

  Would it be possible to bathe?

  There it was again: a refined turn of phrase. The other girls didn’t speak like that. “Of course. I’ll let Adèle know.”

  Odette seemed barely to be listening. Instead, she drifted over to a low chair by the fire, kicked off her dirty shoes, and wiggled her stockinged toes into the deep plush of the carpet. Even though her stockings were riddled with holes, there was something charming about it: the fiery revolutionary, who seemed never to think of her own ease and enjoyment, relishing the creature comforts provided by centuries of magic.

  Her reddish eyebrows were drawn sharply together, her wide mouth determined, as she stared into the fire. The hardness in her gray eyes was like steel, like that of a general about to send his soldiers into a battle. Camille pulled the door closed, not wishing to disturb her.

  As she went downstairs, she wondered again over Odette’s strange phrasing. It reminded her of when an enchanted coin lost its magic. The in-between moment, when she saw what it still was but also what it’d once been. What had Odette been doing when Camille first saw her, running from the constable? What had happened between that time, when their paths had first crossed, and now?

  Perhaps there was one more Lost Girl story to tell.

  But would Odette tell her the truth?

  30

  The next day Sophie and Odette avoided each other, like planets in different orbits. They were polite and considerate, but watching them was like watching two wary lionesses in Astley’s circus. Already Sophie had complained that Odette was rude to the servants. “Give her a day or two to adjust,” Camille advised.

  Sophie frowned, irritated. “I thought she was leaving in a day or two.”

  But she did not. Instead Odette wandered the house, peering in every room that let her in.

  Meanwhile Camille dreamed her hands were painted black and she could not wash the color away, no matter how hard she scrubbed. When she was awake she thought she saw, in the tail of her eye, the ghost of the murdered boy. Trees in the garden became the poles from which effigies swung. It was a waking horror she could not blink away.

  Only in printing did she find refuge. She lost herself in it, the dark rush of bitter magic engulfing her like a river. Against the helplessness she’d felt in the balloon, the magic gave her power—and she relished it. Though most of her pamphlets were now printed by Arduin Frères, twin brothers who had several presses and apprentices, she still made a few print runs especially for Lasalle. They were signed, and commanded a high price. She printed another twenty of each of the Lost Girl pamphlets for Lasalle. And another fifty of her pamphlets on the women’s march on Versailles.

  Later that day, as Camille was finishing the last of a set of pamphlets, Odette wandered into the room. She trailed her fingers over piles of paper and picked up books to inspect their spines before setting them down as if they weren’t what she wanted. Idly, as if she were only making conversation, she pointed to the curving iron lever raised in its top position.

  “Some insist women aren’t strong enough to pull the lever, and so they can’t be printers.”

  “Rubbish,” Camille said with a smile.

  Thoughtfully, Odette ran her hand along the lever’s curve. “So much power. And so much responsibility.”

  The longing Camille caught on Odette’s face as she touched the press reminded Camille of a reflection she’d once seen of her own face in the window of a printer’s shop after Papa had died. “Did you want to work on something while you’re here? I could—”

  “What I write is different.” Odette unpinned a sheet from the line and began to read the pamphlet. When she came to the end, her mouth crimped with dissatisfaction. “Something new? It’s quite bold. Different than the girls’ stories.”

  “It’s not about the girls. Well, not directly. It’s meant to be different.”

  Odette’s eyes narrowed. “Are you criticizing the march?”

  “I’m still trying to understand it. It was … more complicated than I thought it would be. There was so much blood, so much killing—”

  “You are against spilling blood?”

  Camille stared. “Aren’t you?”

  “What needs to be done will be done.” She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Sometimes things happen. It’s not the fault of the revolution.”

  “Whose fault is it, then?” Camille snapped. “It wasn’t lightning that killed that boy.”

  “Have you never seen a farmer harrow his field to get it ready for planting?” Odette said scornfully. “There may be weeds growing there, but he uproots them so that new seeds can grow.”

  Anger crackled along her skin, fever-hot. “The boy was a weed?”

&nb
sp; “I didn’t say that.” Odette tapped the pamphlet. “I wonder why didn’t you write about the magician effigies?”

  Uneasy dread sifted through her. To write about them would have been to draw attention to them. “I saw only the effigies of the king and queen.”

  “Didn’t you hear the chants from your balloon? ‘Vive le Roi!’ the people cried. ‘Mort aux magiciens!’ You must tell the truth about what happened.”

  The tiny hairs on the back of Camille’s neck rose. What Odette was saying was no different than what hundreds of pamphlets and posters slapped up all over Paris had been saying since the king’s speech. But hearing it in her own house made her feel terribly exposed.

  Steady, she told herself. Slowly, she raised the lever and removed the last pamphlet from the press. The black letters coiled and gleamed. It gave her some dark comfort. Over her shoulder, she said, “I didn’t see them clearly enough.”

  “How could you not? They were swaying from poles! Black-fingered, tears running down their faces.” She chuckled, a rough sound, as if she wasn’t used to making it. “It’s probably the only thing the king and the people agree on. Include the effigies in your next one. I bet you’ll sell a lot.”

  Camille’s jaw clenched. She noticed that Odette was wearing a black Kashmiri shawl, embroidered in cream silk, that showed off her pale skin and red hair. It was one of Camille’s favorites. “Are you going out?”

  “I plan to visit a few of the cafés in the Palais-Royal. Last I heard, the talk was of aristocrats fleeing France. Imagine if we had a net to catch them in? Those émigrés are traitors and cowards fleeing the problems they helped create. Perhaps we shall devise a plan.” Gesturing to a stack of the new pamphlets, she asked, “May I take a few with me? I know some people who would be very interested to see a different point of view.”

  “Please do.” Camille wiped her fingers on her apron, and laid a blank sheet of paper in the press as Odette gathered up the pamphlets. When she was at the door, Camille said, “Wait, Odette.”

  “Yes?”

  Did Odette really believe that blood had to be spilled for change to happen? That some people, maybe the boy or maybe the magicians, had to be sacrificed for the revolution? And if she did, why? Was there something in her story that would explain it?

  “After what happened at Versailles,” Camille said, “I was hoping you might tell your story along with the other girls’. Yours would be the final one. Would you be willing?”

  Some strong emotion passed over Odette’s face and then, like a storm cloud, was gone. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  * * *

  Instead of sending the pamphlets with Daumier, she went to see Lasalle herself. The bookseller and his friends—the priest and the butcher—were drinking wine and laughing when he rose to greet her.

  “More of your exclusives, très bien!” Taking them from her, he placed them reverently on a table. Glancing at the title, he said, “We could sell a hundred more of these, you know. Everyone who wasn’t there wants to know what happened.”

  “If I did, they wouldn’t be exclusives, would they?”

  “Touché!” Lasalle acknowledged. “Is there something you’re looking for?”

  “There is … do you have any engravings about the women’s march?”

  “Bien sûr!” He took her to a table covered with sheets of densely printed paper: newspapers and pamphlets and posters; slim, cheaply bound books that could be read and discarded as you would a newspaper; engravings in stark black-and-white. A few were about the march. In one engraving, the women marched with shovels and scythes over their shoulders. In another the women—along with what were clearly supposed to be men in women’s clothes—streamed into Versailles. And there was Odette: a young woman standing on the back of a horse, her arms flung out to embrace the crowd, giving a speech. Powerful and certain. A figure for the revolution.

  Sifting through the engravings, she eventually discovered a drawing of the scene at the gates: the press of people, the boy’s crumpled body, the effigies on their poles. And there—magicians painted with tears, their hands black with soot. Suddenly light-headed, she steadied herself on the table. She didn’t know what was worse, that people wanted magicians dead—or that she hadn’t been brave enough write about it.

  “Sickens the stomach, does it not?” Lasalle said pleasantly. “Anything else?”

  She picked up the engraving that showed Odette on the horse. “I’ll take this.”

  “That’s a fine one—such power in that girl!”

  “If it was a girl,” the butcher said. “Many were men dressed as women. Can’t imagine a girl on a horse like that.”

  If Camille could have scorched them with her glare, she would have. “As it happens, I know her. Her story will be the next one I write.”

  “Pardon, madame!” said the butcher. “It is just that there are so many rumors, one never knows what is true or not these days—”

  “How much do I owe you for the print?” she asked Lasalle.

  “It’s on the house. Bring me the story of that girl on the horse and I will sell every copy of it.”

  Odette had told the truth about the effigies, and Camille had been shown to be the liar. Then why couldn’t Camille shake the feeling Odette was keeping a secret?

  THE LOST GIRLS SPEAK

  THE REVOLUTIONARY

  I STARTED LIFE AS THE DAUGHTER OF A RICH MAN

  I remember the unending food, the servants, the feeling of SAFETY, that nothing could ever be too much or too difficult. Until it was, on the day my father left.

  My mother wept for she could not live without him. He was a man of many moods, some of them dark, that we had both suffered under. But now? She called him her rock, her savior, and he was gone! Though I did my best to comfort her, she could not stop weeping.

  Two weeks later, I woke to an empty house. My mother had gone to join him and left me behind. She took everything, even her last year’s dresses, but she left me. I was worth less to her than her clothes.

  As long as I could, I lived in the costly apartment, but soon I was pushed into the streets. There I saw how the people of Paris lived: some like kings, like my father, and some like rats, like me. A flame sparked inside of me to speak out against injustice.

  I spoke on the street corners. I spoke in the parks and at the Palais-Royal. At first people laughed to hear a little girl with such a big voice, but then they listened and threw coins in my cap. One person who heard me was a girl who said I needed a home. A new family.

  Did I DARE to trust again? Was there someone there who would CARE?

  There was.

  They did.

  Poor girls with little of their own were the ones who saved me.

  They gave me the strength to stand.

  Now I stand and speak for all of those who are left behind.

  Now I speak out, to remind the people of their duty.

  We cannot hope for others to save us.

  WE MUST INSTEAD LIGHT A FIRE

  31

  The next day the weather was gray, the chill of autumn in the air. Above Paris, the clouds stretched into wisps. She wondered what Lazare would make of them. What weather did they foretell? A change to sunny skies? Worsening into storms?

  As promised, he’d come to the house yesterday, but she had been at Lasalle’s. The note she’d sent back had narrowly missed him, her messenger said as he showed her his empty hands. She guessed Lazare had gone out with his parents, or perhaps on an errand for the balloon corps. But she ached to be with him, her need for him a hunger, no different than food or warmth or shelter.

  A brisk wind rattled the branches of the trees, and she tugged the warm collar of her coat higher around her neck. She’d been up late, trying to lose herself in her work, and had taken the last exclusives to Lasalle herself, despite the magie-weariness deep in her bones. They were in demand, he told her. Could she write more?

  She had said yes.

  But if she was to keep writing a
nd printing, she’d have to find a way to manage the magic. If it was true what Odette had said, and effigies at Versailles were not the work of a few but were instead showing how all of Paris felt about magicians, each new pamphlet she printed with magic put her in danger.

  Though she waited for one of the magical notes to arrive, telling her of a discovery, nothing had come from Blaise or Chandon since they’d searched the library. She thought of the bonfires, the Comité’s hounds, scenting the air for magical things—for hadn’t it looked as if that was what the dog was doing? What if the books they desperately needed were lost, burned, and there would be no knowledge for her, no way out for them—

  “Madame!” At the edge of the park, her apron flashing white, stood Adèle.

  Worry gripped Camille as she hurried toward her. “What is it? Is Sophie not well?”

  “Nothing so bad as that, madame! Monsieur Mellais is at the house, and he says he wishes to speak to you before he goes.”

  Disquiet spilled through her, cold as ink. “Goes? Goes where?”

  “I wish I knew, madame. He said only he couldn’t wait long.”

  But when Camille rushed into the sitting room, her heart hammering beneath her stays, Lazare stood at ease by the fireplace, his elbow on the mantelpiece. His hair was loose, his cravat hastily tied. He straightened when he saw her. “My love.”

  At the sight of him the events of Versailles flooded over her, dark and devastating. Her whole being longed to throw itself into his arms—to take refuge there—but she held back. He was leaving Paris, Adèle had said. The longer she stood there, her dirty shoes on the thick carpet, her hat and gloves still on, she was certain that there was something wrong, a stiffness in his shoulders, a tightness around his mouth that set a warning ringing in her.

  He bowed, and then, taking her hands, drew off her gloves. How could she still take pleasure in it, the flood of heat through her body, when she knew he was leaving her? But she did. Slowly he kissed her fingers, as if he were trying to impress them on his memory. When he looked at her, his eyes were deep, unreadable.