Enchantée Read online

  It would certainly help. “Are you certain? With your health?”

  With her dirty fingers, Sophie carefully straightened the pleats on Camille’s sleeve. “Then you wouldn’t have to work la magie—”

  “That would be a lot of hats.” Camille dropped her smile when she saw Sophie’s eyes darkening.

  “Not everyone can work magic.”

  It had been a vexed subject ever since the beginning, when Maman had begun teaching Sophie the simplest kind of magic, la magie ordinaire. Sophie insisted she couldn’t do it. Camille knew she didn’t want to. And unlike Camille, who could do it and who must, Sophie had walked away from working magic at all.

  “Everyone’s struggling these days,” Camille said, pressing down her resentment. “We’re not the only ones. Apart from the nobles, all the people of France are hungry.” In the field, the farmhands worked their way through the green rows. “Perhaps this year’s harvest will be better.”

  “One harvest won’t make our lives better. Bread will cost a bit less, bien sûr. But we’ll still be scraping through the mud for scraps of metal.”

  “We won’t live off la magie forever. Something will change.”

  Sophie glanced sidelong at Camille. “Alain said he would take me to a dance at the Palais-Royal.”

  “And?” Camille said, uneasy.

  “And,” said Sophie, dragging her finger in curlicues along the top of the wall, “he said I might meet someone there. Plenty of noblemen come to the Palais-Royal for the duc d’Orléans’ entertainments. He said he’d buy me a dress to wear and a friend of his would loan me some jewels.”

  “Oh?” If Sophie went, what would she find there, at the crowded gaming tables or on the polished parquet floor of the ballroom? An aristocrat looking for a wife? Hardly. A girl for an evening or maybe a week. Not the fairy-tale romance she was wishing for. “Who’ll buy you a dress: Alain or the duc?”

  “Alain, silly.” Sophie gave Camille’s shoulder a little push. “I can marry rich, I know it. Find someone who’d take care of us.”

  Camille wanted to scream. Or give up. Of all the things that Alain did—his drinking, his gambling, his utter disregard for money—encouraging Sophie to marry high was the worst. Even when their parents were alive, this had been ridiculous. And Maman had encouraged it with her stories. She told them she’d lived at Versailles when she was a little girl: she’d had a pretty dog on a red ribbon, a white pony, her own enameled box for her rings. But her stories had the dim, dappled feel of dreams—nothing to hold on to. And after Papa had to sell the press, after her parents died, a rich husband for Sophie was a very dangerous daydream. She caught Sophie looking at her: her blue eyes large in her face, her lips parted, waiting. Hoping.

  She took Sophie’s hand, the bones under the skin light as a bird’s. “You’re only fifteen, ma chère.”

  “The queen married at fourteen.” Sophie sniffed.

  Much good that did her, Camille thought. The French people despised Marie Antoinette. “Still, why not wait? You might—”

  “Look!” Sophie slid off the wall. “There’s something in the sky!”

  Up, up against the slate-gray clouds, a large object shimmered. Something that hadn’t been there before. It was yellow and white, like a striped silk purse tossed high in the air.

  “Dieu, it’s a montgolfière!” Camille cried. “Remember?”

  Sophie drifted into the lane, watching the flying machine. “How could I forget?”

  Six years ago, Papa had taken them all the way out to the Palace of Versailles. Before they left, at home, he’d hoisted Camille up underneath the ceiling to feel how warm it was there compared to the cold morning floor. Hot air rises, he said. Remember that. She and Sophie were little then, and three bumpy hours from Paris to Versailles in a dray wagon had felt like a long way to go for a sack of hot air. Papa knew someone at the palace, a gardener who let them in through a narrow iron gate. There, in an enormous, crowded courtyard, it waited: a flying machine, its balloon made of paper and decorated like an embroidered pillow.

  Her father held her and Sophie in his arms so they could watch as the animals—a sheep, a duck, and a rooster—were loaded into the basket. The stiff balloon tilted in the breeze. People clapped and cheered, chanting “Montauciel! Montauciel!” Camille shouted in her father’s ear to ask who Montauciel was; her father laughed and tweaked her nose. Montauciel was the name of the sheep, “Rise-to-the-Sky.” How the crowd roared when the assistants released the restraints and the flying machine rose into the sky.

  It rose, but not like a bird. Like a saint in a church painting, straight up to heaven.

  That balloon had been made of paper—the Montgolfiers were paper-makers—but this one was made of a rippling fabric, silk perhaps. In its chariot-like basket, silhouettes moved back and forth.

  “We’ll get a better view by the field,” Sophie said. “Hurry! I think people are in it!”

  The balloon sailed toward them, higher than any church’s tower. Higher than anything. Like a dandelion seed, Camille thought. Like a wish.

  One of the two silhouettes bent over the brazier in the center. The other stood at the chariot’s edge, a spyglass to his eye. The wind caught his dark hair. Behind him, banks of clouds darkened to storm as the pale undersides of the poplar trees flipped over. Rain was coming.

  “It’s like something from a fairy tale,” Camille said, her voice low and reverent.

  “There aren’t balloons in fairy tales.”

  “In mine there are.” Though Camille knew hot air kept the balloon afloat, it still seemed impossible. The balloon rushed down toward them, its gondola swooping over the treetops.

  “It’s going to land right here!” Sophie dragged Camille forward, toward a gate in the wall. “Come!”

  As the balloon crested the trees, moving faster now, one of the figures heaved something large over the edge of the basket: an anchor. It plummeted to the ground, then scudded into the dirt. But the balloon continued to speed across the field, the anchor dragging uselessly below.

  Thick smoke billowed from the brazier. The machine floated too low, neither landing nor going up.

  “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Sophie bit her lip.

  Over the field, the balloon’s silk shuddered as it rushed along. One of the figures in the balloon shouted to the farmhands, “Help us, mes frères! Catch hold of the basket!”

  Frozen by fear or wonder, the workers stared gape-mouthed, sickles dangling from their hands, as the balloon dropped. Inside the gondola, the two silhouettes braced themselves.

  “They will die!” Sophie wailed, pressing her face into Camille’s shoulder. “Why won’t the farmers help them?”

  Suddenly the balloon careened into the ground, spraying dirt and stones. The impact flung the gondola and the balloonists back into the air, like leaves tossed in a storm. Lost. Powerless. Almost gone.

  In death, her parents’ bodies had looked heavy, but empty. As Sophie wept, they were hoisted onto wooden boards and carried down seven dark flights of stairs. Camille followed them. Papa’s arm had fallen loose of the winding sheet, his skin blackened with smallpox, the tips of his fingers gray with faded ink. All that light, snuffed out. She wanted to weep when she thought of the space Maman and Papa had left behind, like holes scissored from the sky.

  “Stay here!” Camille shouted. Then she grabbed her skirts and ran.

  7

  Past the flowering chestnut trees near the fence, through the open gate, and into the soft soil of the field, Camille ran. She ignored the shouts of the farmhands and the violent jump of her pulse.

  The balloon sped toward her, now only a few feet above the ground.

  “Messieurs! Save us!” yelled the dark-haired balloonist. But the farmhands scattered, shielding their heads with their arms and careening toward the trees.

  Camille lost her footing in the loose soil, caught herself, kept running. With each breath, her chest fought against her stays. Her lungs ached, sh
arp dust in her throat.

  As she drew closer she saw the balloonists weren’t men at all but boys, not much older than she. One of them—small, thin in his shirtsleeves—was pulling hard on a rope tied to the balloon’s opening over the brazier. “The release valve is broken, Lazare!” he yelled.

  “Whose fault is that?” the other one said. Behind him, his hair streamed out like a flag, his cravat a flash of white under his soot-streaked face.

  “Yours!”

  “If we’d had enough ballast, we wouldn’t be in this predicament!” the dark-haired one shouted back. His face was tight with fear.

  Far away, as if in a dream, Sophie called her name.

  Camille was almost there. She saw how the gondola was fashioned only of woven willow branches, with simple leather straps holding its door closed; she saw how the taut ropes vibrated with strain. It was so fragile. In an instant, it could be smashed. Smoke poured from the brazier as the white-faced boy braced himself against the basket’s edge.

  Faster. Faster. She forced her legs to pump.

  The chariot thudded hard against the ground. The basket did not break; the boys clung on.

  Four lengths. Two lengths. Then she was an arm’s-length away.

  Crouched against the railing, the black-haired boy braved a smile, his eyes on Camille as she ran alongside them. “Save us, mademoiselle! Grab the edge!”

  In his gaze, she saw herself as someone else. Someone who might do something.

  She grabbed the gondola with both hands.

  The balloon’s momentum yanked her into the air. Under her feet, the field rushed sickeningly away. Scrambling over the objects in the gondola, the black-haired one grabbed her arms and pulled her higher. “Hold tight, mademoiselle, and watch your feet!” he shouted into the wind.

  “Don’t let go,” she managed to say. His face was so near she saw the flecks of gold in his eyes, the determination in his face.

  One agonizing breath.

  Two. Three breaths.

  And then it was over. With a sudden shudder, the balloon plunged to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. The gondola rocked and then was still. Camille clung on, breathless, her mouth sandy with grit. Her legs were shaking so badly she wished she could sink to her knees, right there, in the dirt.

  The boy was laughing.

  Camille wiped the dirt from her mouth. “This is funny?”

  “We’re not dead!” The boy threw an arm around his friend, then reached out to Camille. “But you, mademoiselle! You saved us!”

  A wild laugh burst out of her. She had. She, Camille Durbonne, whose only talent, according to Alain, was to briefly turn nails to coins, had saved them. And yet, here stood both boys, unbroken and solid.

  “I was happy to do it,” she said, and she meant it.

  The other boy sighed. “We were never in any danger.”

  “Never in any danger?” Camille couldn’t help herself. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been here? Your balloon would have smashed to pieces!”

  “Bah,” the other one said. “It would have bounced.”

  But the dark-haired one, the one who had held her as they raced above the earth, didn’t reply. Instead, he leaned on the basket’s edge and looked at her.

  Even beneath the soot and dirt, he was ridiculously handsome, with his warm, copper-brown skin and glossy ebony hair. High, finely cut cheekbones set off his deep-brown eyes, which were fringed with lashes a girl might envy. Black, expressive eyebrows curved above them; a scar skipped through the left one, slicing it in half. But what was most striking about him was that his whole face was animated with a kind of light that made him the most alive thing in the landscape. As if an artist, sketching out the scene, had used a gray pencil to draw everything except one figure, on which he’d lavished his richest paints.

  “Incroyable,” the boy said.

  “What is?” Camille wondered.

  “You have to ask?” he said, surprised. “You, of course. Our rescuer.” Leaping lightly over the basket’s edge, he stood suddenly in front of her. “Lazare Mellais,” he said, bowing very low, “your servant, for life.”

  She curtsied. “Camille Durbonne.”

  “Mademoiselle Durbonne, there aren’t many people I can say this about, but after what you did today, I’d hazard that your disregard for your own life is probably equal to mine.”

  She wouldn’t have thought that before today. The way he was looking at her made her feel braver. A bit reckless. “What else is there to do with a life than spend it?”

  “Fetch the champagne, Armand,” the boy said, his gaze not leaving her. “Let’s celebrate.”

  “I’m not your servant,” the pale boy snapped from inside the basket. “Besides, it’s going to rain.”

  It was true. Behind the trees, anvil-shaped clouds loomed. Their bottoms were iron-gray with rain. Soon the storm would be upon them.

  “I know it’s going to rain,” Lazare said. “Tell me, quickly—why did you do it?”

  Camille shifted her weight, uncomfortable. How could she explain? After her parents died, her life had become so narrow, tight as a fetter. But sometimes surviving wasn’t enough. A person needed more than a roof and food. She needed to hope, to believe she could do something.

  “I thought I could,” she said.

  “We wouldn’t have needed her help if we hadn’t run out of fuel,” the other boy said, coming forward. He was slight, narrow-shouldered, a streak of white running through his brown hair like a badger’s. His fingers were stained blue with ink and black with soot; in his hand he held a pair of shell-rimmed glasses which he polished determinedly on his sleeve. “That was your job, Lazare.”

  “Mademoiselle, may I introduce our head engineer, Monsieur Armand?”

  Camille curtsied, but the badger-haired boy merely nodded and went on talking. “You should have brought more straw for fuel!” He polished his glasses harder. “The air in the balloon got too cold.”

  “And extra fuel would have helped?”

  “More straw equals more heat!” Armand said.

  It isn’t as simple as that, Camille thought. “When you burn your fuel, you also burn some of your ballast, don’t you?”

  The boy replaced his glasses and squinted at her. “And?”

  “And then, if you need to rise, you’ve nothing to throw over to lighten the load.”

  A fierce blush crept up the boy’s neck. “How could you possibly know that?”

  She was about to explain but Armand looked away, crossing his arms. She’d been so desperate to join in the conversation that she’d offended him. And she didn’t want to be shut out from this new world that had appeared in front of her. She tried again. “Do you know? Yours isn’t the first balloon I’ve seen. My father took me to Versailles to see a montgolfière.”

  “In eighty-three?” Lazare exclaimed. “I was there, too.” Something faraway flickered in his eyes. “I kept wishing I were in the gondola with those animals.”

  “But instead, you got me,” Armand muttered, as a cool wind rushed along the field, tugging at their clothes, the collapsed silk of the balloon.

  “Don’t be angry, mon ami. We need a better release valve to let out the hot air. Otherwise we’re left hoping the hot air cools precisely as we’re flying over a field. Or that Mademoiselle is here to help us.”

  Armand scowled. “Where’s Rosier with the wagon? Any moment now the skies will empty on us.”

  “There’s still time to toast our savior,” Lazare said, bending his lanky form into the chariot and fishing out a wine bottle. “Lucky for us, I saved this one from being dashed on a farmer’s head.”

  “Any moment those farmers will descend on us, ready to dismantle the basket for firewood,” Armand snapped.

  From somewhere else—his pockets?—Lazare produced a handful of glasses. “Let’s pretend Armand’s not here,” he said in a stage whisper.

  “Really, Lazare, this is too much,” Armand complained. “Besides,” he said with
something like glee, “here comes Mademoiselle’s sister.”

  Sophie arrived, out of breath, blond hair straggling down her back, skirts splattered with dirt. She threw her arms around Camille. “Grâce à Dieu,” she said. “You frightened me!”

  Camille burned with shame. She’d been so caught up in the moment that she’d forgotten Sophie. What if she had fallen from the balloon, been broken on the earth? What would happen to Sophie then? Sophie would be one more poor girl turned out on the dangerous streets of Paris.

  Sophie’s blue eyes snapped with fury. “What were you thinking, monsieur? You might have killed my sister!”

  “My apologies, mademoiselle,” Lazare said, true regret in his voice. “It was reckless of me to ask for her help. But admit it, your sister was magnificent!”

  “She was,” Sophie said, apparently unable to resist the handsome stranger. “Magnificent and mad.”

  She had been reckless, too. Thoughtless. She could see that now. And yet. For a moment, as she’d stumbled through the field, her lungs on fire, her heart a drum, she’d felt alive. Free.

  Lazare held up the wine bottle. “Quick, a toast! To the mad dreamers, to all of us!”

  The thunder growled again, closer now. But underneath the storm’s low rumble, Camille heard something else. Hoofbeats.

  Riding toward them at a pounding gallop was a boy on a rangy gray horse, his mousy hair frizzing out under his hat so that it seemed in danger of pushing his hat off altogether. Tucked under one arm was a notebook whose pages flapped in the wind. Behind him trundled the covered wagon, its horses keeping to the edge of the field.

  “Très bien!” the boy on the horse shouted. “Stay just like that!”

  Lazare laughed. “Let me apologize in advance, mesdemoiselles.”

  Before Camille could ask why, the curly haired boy was hauling his horse to a stop and leaping to the ground. He dropped his reins in the dirt and sprinted toward the balloon, pressing his cocked hat to his head as he ran. He waved the notebook at them. “I saw it all! Wrote it down! Death-defying! A Great Moment in History!”