Before Ever After (9 page)

The boy clutched the locket and looked up at her. Isabelle had never seen eyes filled with so much trust. She reached out to stroke his cheek. A sharp pain stabbed her womb. She gripped her stomach and screamed. The terror of hearing her voice echo in the mausoleum was almost worse than feeling her thighs grow sticky. Boots trampled nearer, summoned by her cry. She looked down at her skirt and watched it turn crimson. It was a comrade’s blood, she told herself. It had to be. But as it pooled thick and hot beneath her on the floor, she could no longer pretend. Her child, the one she hoped would have Stephane’s smile and her eyes, was gone.

Isabelle could hear the soldiers searching the crypts nearby; it was only a matter of time before they were discovered. In her heart, she had known
from the moment he said good-bye that Stephane would never be coming back. There was no time to mourn or feel pain. She cupped the boy’s face in her hands. “Whatever you see, whatever you hear, do not move. Do not make a sound. You will grow up. You will grow old. And when you do …” She kissed her locket and tucked it beneath the boy’s clothes. “Remember me.”

Isabelle gathered what little strength she had and dashed out of the tomb. If she could not protect her own child, she would save someone else’s. “I surrender!”

The soldiers grabbed her by the arms and led her away from where her gray angel was hiding. She was no longer scared. She was now drifting away from the stench of gunpowder and blood, away from the choices that had led her to this lonely end. But perhaps she would not be alone anymore, she thought. She remembered how Stephane had kissed her good-bye days before. She would see him soon, with their child. And Papa—she smiled—he would be waiting for her, too.

She did not look back. She kept her eyes focused ahead of her, beyond the rows of graves and trees, at a wall at the end of the path.

THE PART OF THE STORY MAX DID NOT TELL SHELLEY

I
t was Sunday. One last barricade remained on the Rue de Belleville. It was held by a single man for a quarter of an hour before he fired his last shot and walked away.

Julien met a young soldier weeping on the street as though it was his side that had lost. The soldier saw his face and fell back at the sight of his amber eyes—the eyes of the dead girl that had taken his soul with her to her grave. Duty was not supposed to feel this way. The soldier told the man where he had left his daughter. It was only because the man was too numb from grief that he did not kill the soldier where he stood.

That evening, when the rains had driven everyone else away, the man stood over an acrid lime-filled grave in the northern corner of Père Lachaise. He clawed at the mud until his fingers were raw. He dug deeper, in a blind, frantic search for something he was desperate not to find. And then he saw her. Lying in the rain as she once had on stone steps a lifetime ago. But he could not save her this night. He wiped away the wet dirt from her face.

“She said you would come,” a small voice said from behind him.

The man stumbled back and drew his pistol. A boy stood over him in the rain. The child reached for a chain around his neck and drew out a locket of beaten gold. He slipped it off and pressed it into the man’s hands. “She was right. It kept me safe.”

The boy had scampered back into the shadows of the graves when the man found the strength to move. Tears streamed down his face and onto his daughter’s. “Forgive me,” he said, though he did not feel worthy of forgiveness.

But it did not matter. There was no one left to absolve him. He had failed to keep his family safe. Once again, he was utterly alone.

A
nd that was it,” Shelley told Paolo. “That’s all Max told us about Isabelle.”

“And Julien?” he asked softly.

She frowned. “What about him?”

Paolo reached under his collar and hooked his fingers around a gold chain.

Shelley thought she heard a wind chime. A tiny one.

Paolo drew the chain from his neck. A weathered locket dangled from it. Charms clinked against the round gold shell.

She swallowed hard. “Where … where did you get that?”

“It was a gift … from Nonno.” He clutched the locket, his fingers trembling around it. The charms rattled louder.

Shelley steadied his hand with hers. The locket grew quiet. Paolo did not. Shelley heard him drag every breath into his lungs, each one heavier and more ragged than the one before it. Her own breath caught in her throat, and she realized she was breathing just as hard.

“I cannot remember a day when this was not around my neck. Nonno told me that it was my father’s.” Paolo’s voice shook. “But now … I
believe it might have been someone else’s.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes.

His neck, Shelley thought, seemed to be straining under a much heavier weight than the thin chain that hung from it.

“Shelley, I think Julien was …”

Shelley willed Paolo to stop speaking. There were certain things that were never meant to be put into words: your age after you turned twenty-five, your weight after the holidays, and how the man you married could possibly be more than two centuries old. She jumped out of her seat and ran to the lavatory, hoping to outrun what Paolo was going to say next.

Absurdity and possibility collided against each other and bounced off the walls of the airplane’s lavatory. Shelley ducked and hit her head on the stainless-steel sink.

Paolo knocked on the door. “Shelley? Is everything okay?” Concern replaced the trembling in his voice.

She found his question highly amusing. Max was Julien and she was anything but okay.

“Shelley?”

“I haven’t flushed myself off the plane, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She had in fact tried to but had only squeezed half a foot into the bowl when Paolo’s theory about Julien and Max had ricocheted over her head like shrapnel. Shelley unlocked the door. Paolo stood outside, the locket tucked beneath his shirt.

“You better not. You can’t bail out on me now.” Paolo eyed the reddish bruise forming on Shelley’s forehead. “Do you, uh, need some ice for that?”

“No.” She brushed past him and marched to her seat. She pulled out the in-flight magazine and flipped blindly through its pages. Max’s voice and his stories rang in her head. She was certain that they had grown loud enough for the other passengers to hear. She forced herself to look at the magazine. Sand. White, like baby powder. And palm trees. Boracay. She slammed the magazine shut and took a deep breath. “If Max was Julien,
and I’m not saying that he was, why would he tell complete strangers about his story? Why would he risk letting his secret out?”

“It wouldn’t have been much of a risk, would it?” Paolo said. “I mean, you and I can now see the similarities between Julien and Max—his sense of family, his protectiveness …” He paused, tracing the shape of the locket beneath his shirt with his thumb. “But I don’t think any tourist would believe that their tour guide was actually sharing with them an autobiographical account of events that happened more than a century ago, right? To them, what he shared was just a story.”

Shelley’s chest tightened. Max had left her with more than just one story—each gilded with razor-sharp details waiting to carve out more of the husband she remembered. “Paolo, Julien was just one of many men and some of them weren’t like Max at all.”

T
he tour group trailed Max out of the cemetery like a procession of mourners leaving a funeral.

“Why so glum, campers?” he asked. “I told you we needed to get the end of our story out of the way. Now that that’s done, it’s all tales of randy sex and comedy from this point on. Well, at least most of it is.”

“Max, what planet are you from?” Brad said. “I mean, really, how many happy pills did you pop this morning?”

“Yeah,” Dex said. “And where can I get some?”

“Turn left down that street and look for a man in dark glasses,” Max said. “Tell him I sent you. He’ll give you a good price. As for the rest of you, we’re off to our next stop.” He offered Shelley his arm.

She clung to it, eager to leave the cemetery and its ghosts behind. “Where are we going next, Max?”

Max stopped. He opened his backpack and took out a small leather drawstring pouch, then handed it to Shelley.

“What’s this?” She felt the weight of the bag in her hands.

“Go on, luv. Open it.”

Shelley dug into the pouch. Her fingers brushed against something cold. She pulled it out. Louis XVI turned his gold double chin up at her. She poured more of the gold coins into her palm. “Are these real, Max?”

“Of course, luv. You can pass it around so the others can have a closer look,” he said.

“This is no small change, Max,” Simon said. “Why on earth are you carrying this around with you?”

Max shrugged. “Pocket money.”

“Seriously, Max,” Jonathan said, “whatever is all this gold for?”

“A bribe, or at least it was intended to be one.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Dex said. “And what exactly was this bribe for?”

“Patience, mate, patience. You Americans are always in a rush.”

“I’m guessing you’ll keep us in suspense until we get to our next mystery stop, then?” Shelley asked.

“Does my lady protest?” Max touched her chin lightly with his fingers, grazing her lower lip with his thumb.

A current ran from Shelley’s lip to her crotch. “Not … not at all. By all means, lead the way, good sir.”

“But first a slight detour,” Max said. “Our morning’s adventure has made me rather thirsty.”

The group stood on the stone bank of the Seine. Shelley watched the wide brown river ripple in the wake of a bateau-mouche. Tourists waved at her from the boat’s glass-covered deck.

“So, who else is up for a drink?” Max asked.

“Max, you disappoint me,” Shelley said. “Are you telling us we’ll be joining one of those river cruises that come with free lunches? That hardly qualifies as off-the-beaten-path in my book.”

“I agree, but this might.” Max shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun bouncing off the river. “Here’s our ride.”

The name
Isabelle
was painted on the side of the red barge. Shelley wondered if it was a coincidence.

“Quick!” Dex grabbed her by the shoulders and angled her in front of the approaching barge. He raised his camera. “Say ‘cheese.’ ”

“Er, cheese.” Shelley knitted her brow. “Dex, don’t you want to be in the picture? I can take your photo if you’d …” Bright green billowed at the corner of Shelley’s eye. She turned in its direction.

The emerald sundress blew in the wind, clinging to the tall fiery-haired woman who emerged on the barge’s deck.

“Miren!” Max waved at her.

Miren waved back as the barge came to a stop beside the embankment. Max led the group aboard. He gathered Miren in a tight embrace and lifted her in the air. Miren laughed and ran her fingers over Max’s smile. Her years creased at the sides of her green eyes but did not diminish her beauty.