Before Ever After (8 page)

Julien touched his cheek. It was wet. Sticky. His fingertips found a glass shard. He pried it from the paste of sweat and blood on his skin. He wiped his hand on the bedclothes and rose. Heat sliced through the ball of his foot. Blood trickled from his sole, hiding the sliver embedded in it. He squinted through the weak light. The floor glittered with the jagged pieces of a broken dawn. Screams poured through the shattered windows. He stepped around the maze of glass and peered outside. The Versailles army was swarming through the streets. Julien whispered her name:
Isabelle
.

This was the first time since he had stolen her from her father that he regretted his decision. That night, seventeen years ago, had been rancid with her mother’s misery. It had soured the air with a stench worse than milk left in the sun. It was on her breath, on her skin, and in the tears she
spilled over her newborn’s cheeks when she abandoned her at the door of a once grand home. Julien could not blame her. The house belonged to her daughter’s father and its wet stone steps were still better than the lice-infested bed her baby was born in. Leaving her child in the rain was a mercy. She could never offer her daughter more than that.

But Julien knew that Isabelle’s father would give her even less. He had made choices that made Julien forget that he had once been bound to him, however distantly, by blood. The man was a gifted drunkard, but a far worse gambler—an unfortunate assemblage of talents that Julien correctly predicted would, sooner rather than later, send him to the bottom of the Thames with a rusty knife twisted in his back.

She had been so small, Julien remembered. He thought he would break her, as he ran from her father’s house, through the cold night rain, to the ship waiting for them at the dock. Once they were safely onboard, sailing toward Paris, Julien looked into Isabelle’s bright brown eyes. She was all that he had left and that was more than enough.

He grasped for the chain he wore around his neck and slipped it off. A crude locket made of two small half-shells of beaten gold dangled from it. It had been another child’s once, a token of protection. Julien could no longer recall when he last believed in any shape of superstition, but in his daughter’s eyes he found a new reason to have faith. He tucked the locket inside her coarse blanket. Tiny pink fingers reached out and grazed the tip of his slightly hooked nose. He breathed her in. Spring and promise. Untainted. He nuzzled her cheek, hoping to remember the smell of her skin forever.

Tonight, however, as the streets of Paris ran with blood, a part of Julien wished that he had never intervened. If he hadn’t saved her that night, she would now be hungry and hard—a whore like her mother. He could live with that kind of guilt. At least in London his precious girl would be somewhere else, anywhere else, but here.

Julien dressed, clothing himself in the thin hope that the army had not yet reached Isabelle’s home. He tucked two pistols into his coat and a dagger into his waistband. He raced downstairs. The courtyard was still dark. He called for Alessandra. She emerged, happy to see him. Julien gathered her in his arms. His fingertips found a passing calm in the softness
of her feathers. Her eggs had been better currency than gold during the war when Paris was living off rats and moldy bread. He squeezed his eyes shut, tightened his fist around her small neck, and snapped it. He took his dagger and slit her throat. Blood gushed out. Julien stained his white shirt crimson and plunged into the chaos outside.

The sun erased the shadowed corners that had sheltered Julien. It left him with only one place to hide: in plain sight. The Versailles soldiers had little interest in bloodied corpses slumped against walls, and Alessandra’s blood made it easy to pretend to be one of them.

Julien watched the army sweep through the makeshift barricades with brutal efficiency. They tore through walls of houses, outflanking the barricades and killing all defenders and whoever else had the misfortune of standing nearby. By midday, all of the roads to Isabelle’s home were blocked by the carnage. He could do no more than to stand shoulder to shoulder with the city’s defenders and keep his daughter safe for as long as he could. Shots flew over the barricade. Julien’s shirt turned a brighter shade of red.

I
sabelle! Get up!” Stephane knelt beside the bed and shook his wife awake.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Isabelle was unsure if she was still asleep. Dawn had barely crept into their small bedroom. Stephane’s hand trembled against her skin, but the dark kept her from seeing the terror in his blue-gray eyes.

“We have been betrayed.” Stephane choked on his anger. It hardened the angles of his plain face, erasing the gentleness that Isabelle had fallen in love with. “The army breached the walls last night. Soldiers are pouring into the city.”

Isabelle closed her eyes. This was the nightmare her father had warned her about, the one from which the morning could offer no escape. She
shut her eyes and hoped that when she opened them again, she would be curled in Stephane’s arms.

“The council is assembling at the Hôtel de Ville.” Stephane stood up and grabbed his coat.

Tears seeped under Isabelle’s eyelids, forcing them open. She rose from the bed. “I’ll get dressed.”

Stephane shook his head and held her firmly by the shoulders. “Stay here. Keep the windows shut and lock the door.” He turned to leave.

Isabelle grabbed her husband’s arm. “Please let me come with you, I beg you. Do not leave me alone!” Her nails dug into Stephane’s arm while the rest of her froze with panic.

“Your father will be here soon. He will keep you safe,” Stephane lied. He did not know where Isabelle’s father was or if he was even still alive. What he did know was that Isabelle was safer in their home than in the chaos outside. Once the Versailles soldiers were pushed back, he would come back for her. He had to. He kissed the small swell of her growing belly and ran out of the room before his tears could wash away his resolve.

Isabelle curled into the shape her husband had left on the sheets of their bed. It was still warm from the night he had spent lying on his side, stroking her belly until she fell asleep. She ran her fingers over her stomach. She would not follow Stephane to take up arms with his comrades, but she would do whatever it took to protect their child. Parents were supposed to keep their children safe. Her father had taught her that.

She reached for the gold locket beneath her nightclothes. It was far less elegant than any of the other jewelry her father had given her, but there was nothing she treasured more. The charms inside it tinkled softly when she walked, whispering that they were always close by, keeping her from harm. Perhaps today, Isabelle thought, she would find out if they truly worked. Her father had never given them the chance to protect her. That was his job. He had always hovered close enough to scoop her up before she scraped her knees and rescue her from towers guarded by fire-breathing footstools during her childhood games. But her father was not
with her now, and all she had to protect her was the faith he had clasped around her neck.

Stone and wood clattered beneath her window. Isabelle cracked the shutters open and peered outside. Tables and chairs were being dragged across the street. Her neighbors were building a barricade. She clutched her belly. The barricade would keep them safe until Stephane returned home and her father joined them. She rushed outside to help.

The faces of the people around Isabelle could not have been grimmer. They spoke little as they erected a wall out of whatever they could pry off the ground. The bed she and Stephane had made love in the night before was wedged between what used to be their kitchen table and a neighbor’s stool. They were unrecognizable now, stained with sweat and dread.

Children, no higher than her waist, tiptoed to pile paving stones. The younger ones believed it was a game, laughing as they raced to gather rocks. Isabelle ruffled their hair and cheered them on. It helped her pretend that the tangle of pillows, cobblestones, and prayers would keep the bayonets from ripping through their skin. Fingers tapped her arm.

Isabelle lived in that second of buoyancy and belief. In that moment, anything was possible. Stephane had returned. Her father had found her. Either—no, both—were a breath away from where she stood. She was saved. She turned around, ready to throw her arms around them and never let go.

A thin hand held out a brick to her. A shy smile peeked over it. The boy—no more than eight—pressed the brick into Isabelle’s hands, grazing her skin with his. His fingers were as rough as the stone he offered. She fought back tears. Rescue had not come. She pushed the brick back into the boy’s palm and closed his fingers around it. “Keep it. Hold it tight. When the soldiers come, it may serve you better than this wall.”

The barricade could go no higher. Courage had run out soon after the stones did. The rain began to pour down on them, washing away what
little hope Isabelle had left. She did not seek shelter. Rain, unlike the silence that filled her home, was an old friend. Each drop was like a tiny mirror, reflecting how she felt inside. When she was little, she had looked forward to the rain. It had made her bed feel warmer as she listened to the lullaby tapping on the roof. Her father had always hovered closer when it rained. He would come in right after a flash of lightning, just before the thunder cracked, to make sure that she was not afraid. She never was.

Until now.

Today the skies cried with her. Isabelle touched her cheek and wondered where her tears ended and the raindrops began. A blade of pain, hot and sharp, twisted in her belly. She bit down on her lip and clutched her stomach. She breathed slowly, waiting for the rain and hurt to stop.

Had it been hours or days since Stephane had left? The rain swept away the barrier between days. Only the sound of fighting gave Isabelle any sense of time. It grew louder with every breath. She longed for her enemy’s gunfire to put an end to her misery. Her clothes had already been stained dark gray with dirt and sweat, an appropriate color for her own funeral.

The National Guard huddled behind the barricade. A number of them had fallen back and brought news and instructions. Isabelle strained to hear their whispers. A last stand would be made at Père Lachaise. The group drew lots on who would stay and who would defend the walled cemetery. She scoffed at their efforts. Did it really matter where they fell? They were already dead. Including her. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. Her hands froze over the swell. Her baby. She had forgotten the reason she needed to stay alive.

Hope stirred in her womb. She saw the faces of Stephane and her father among the graveyard’s defenders as clearly as though they were standing next to her. She pushed her way to one of the National Guard bound for the cemetery. “Please, sir, could you take me with you? My family could be there.”

Another man’s blood had crusted in the lines on the officer’s face. He
opened his mouth to say no. Death would be swifter at the barricade, he thought, kinder. His friend’s blood trickled into his eye and he rubbed it clear. Then he saw her. Standing in front of him, beneath the layer of grime and desperation, was his dead comrade’s wife. He nodded, unable to tell her she would not find Stephane.

The rain was falling harder now. Isabelle searched the drenched faces of the two hundred Communards gathered at the cemetery. Filth and fear made them all look the same and yet glimpses of a familiar eye, ear, or tip of a nose made her throw herself into the arms of a startled stranger. A blast tore her from her quest.

The Versailles army ripped through the gates and opened fire. The cemetery’s defenders fell into the mud. Bayonets sliced through their clothes and found their flesh.

Isabelle ran, slipping in the sludge of soil and blood. She tripped over a broken headstone, tumbling against the foot of a carved angel. She glanced up. Its gray face was a blur through the rain in her eyes. It held out its hand. She grasped her answered prayer. It was rougher than she thought marble would be. And warmer. She remembered where she had first felt its touch.

“Hurry.” The thin boy from the barricade pulled Isabelle to her feet. “This way.”

They ran hand in hand toward a small mausoleum. Its iron gate hung from its hinges. They crept inside and pulled the gate closed. They huddled behind it, unable to breathe.

The sound of gunfire swelled. Isabelle held the boy tight, waiting for it to fall on them.

And then it ebbed.

Isabelle shuddered in the lull. It was then that she could hear what was really happening outside. Shouts. Scampering. Surrender. And then more shots—deliberate and cold. But even that faded with the rain. The cemetery grew quiet.

Footsteps nearby broke the silence in the crypt.

Isabelle and the boy clung to each other, trembling as one.

“We are safe here.” She pulled the boy closer, pressing him against the child growing inside her. She did not like lying to either of them.

Wet grass and mud sloshed under the heels of heavy boots.

Isabelle felt a wet heat flow through her dress, soaking her skin. The boy looked down in embarrassment at the urine on his trousers.

“It will be all right.” Isabelle reached for his hand. His fingers were clenched around the brick from the barricade. It cut into his palms. She wondered if he had ever let it go. His will to live was stronger than hers. It was her turn to feel ashamed. Tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her face.

The boy wiped her cheek and looked into her eyes. His smile was back, less shy and more determined. It quivered with the last of his courage. “Do not cry,” he said softly. He gripped the brick tighter. “I … will protect you.”

Isabelle saw the boy speaking, but it was her father’s voice that she heard coming out of his mouth. She still believed her papa’s words: parents were supposed to keep their children safe. But she was not a child anymore. The boy huddled next to her, however, was. She took her locket and slipped it over his head. Its charms clinked softly, the sound of her faith in the man who had never let her down. “My father gave this to me,” she whispered. “It will keep you safe. I promise. Papa will come. He will save us. You’ll see.”