Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (27 page)

“We brought along the Sound and Seek toy as confirmation, but Mirthe and I already had our suspicions. We thought that if Zita truly
was
here in town, there was only one place she could be without being seen by the townspeople,” Femke said.

Before the raid on Zita's shop, the twins searched their mother's office for her maps of Grimbaud's sewer system and the keys to the various entrances. “What we found,” Femke said, “is that the sewer system is connected all throughout town, except in Verbeke Square. The entire area is sealed off. Mom's never been able to get in. Says so in her notes.”

“So you suspect that Zita's living underground, in the sewers underneath Verbeke Square,” Fallon repeated, just to be sure. Surely someone as rich and respected as Zita must have been living in luxurious hotels and on first-class train cars. The clue wrecked what she had always imagined Zita's lifestyle to be like.

Then Marion's words came back to her. She had described Zita, or In
é
s, as someone emotionally turbulent. Someone whose heart could be battered as easily as an umbrella caught in a hurricane. Someone like that might prefer to hide in the dark. Fallon couldn't assume anything at this point. “So we're going to find a way into the sewers beneath Verbeke Square on the night of the Welcome Love Fair?”

“That's exactly right.” Mirthe smiled. “We've got the right key and map. The entire town will be distracted by the fair. And we're going to find Zita.”

“Then let me tell you what Sebastian and I discovered,” Fallon said. Her own adventure had been mild in comparison, but her heart fluttered with hope as she told the twins about In
é
s Aandekerk and how she'd almost married Dorian Barringer, Sebastian's grandfather. “I don't know how she feels about Dorian after all these years,” she said, “but Marion seems to believe that seeing Sebastian might make Zita's heart soften toward us. She loved Dorian passionately. Meeting his grandson may be a good experience for her.”

“That's amazing,” Mirthe said. “I'm all fired up.”

“Phase three is looking beautiful,” Femke said.

“We have the spinsters and bachelors on our side too,” Fallon said, catching their excitement. “We're not alone in this.”

“Leave ironing out the details to us. We'll have another meeting. All of us.” Mirthe flapped her capelet like a bat. “January thirty-first is just around the corner.”

*   *   *

With winter break crawling to a close, Fallon had to use her last vacation day wisely by restocking her school supplies. “I can't just wait for the police to arrest me,” she said to herself, folding her shopping list in half. “The only crime you're going to be guilty of today is buying cheap loose-leaf paper.”

Grimbaud was abuzz about the break-in. No matter what store she walked into, she heard nothing but theories and outrage about the thieves. This was no ordinary robbery attempt. This was a personal attack on the town.

Any anxiety she felt transformed into frustration. The break-in shouldn't have eclipsed the removal of Love's statue.
Whose side are you on?
Fallon thought, staring at the townspeople she passed. The scent of roses was overwhelming.

In Verbeke Square, the pink-lemonade storefront looked no worse for the intrusion. Two brawny officers guarded the front door, while another kept an eye on the love-fortune machine. The lace shops opened their doors, unperturbed by the ruckus caused by the break-in, while the caf
é
s reluctantly fed their customers.

Fallon inspected the area, searching for anything that resembled an entrance into the sewers, but spotted Martin instead. “Hello, Mr. President,” she said, jogging to catch up to him.

“Fallon Dupree,” he said slowly.

“That's me.”

Martin smiled slightly.

“Are you really by yourself?” she asked.

“Running errands.” He lifted his bag, revealing random items from a hairbrush to an ear of corn. “My parents thought I needed the fresh air. I would have been sleeping otherwise.”

“Do you typically sleep in on the weekends?”

He shook his head. As the early riser in his family, he usually spent his weekend mornings getting student government work done and taking care of his little sisters. “But now, my sisters are the ones poking and prodding me in the mornings. I've been feeling drained lately.”

Fallon worried about Martin's health. His constant exposure to Camille's charm could be doing permanent damage. She wished she knew more about charms, like Hijiri and the twins. She felt helpless.

“I see you're school-supply shopping,” Martin said.

Fallon nodded. Even though Martin still looked unwell, his eyes were clear. He didn't slur his words. That was a good sign. “I came to see Zita's shop too. That break-in has shaken the town up, hasn't it?”

“Everyone's talking about it,” he said politely.

Fallon bit her lip. “What do you think the thieves were after?”

Martin smiled. “Just a few charms were stolen, so that leads me to believe it was a dare. Kids do that sort of thing all the time.”

Glancing at Zita's shop once more, Fallon sucked in her breath. The question poured out of her mouth before she could think. “What was your fortune this year?”

Martin raised his eyebrows.

“Sorry. Was that too personal?”

“It's just … no one ever asks me. I guess being the president means that I don't appear very human. No one needs to be concerned about me.”

Nico's very concerned about you
, she wanted to say, but she closed her mouth.

“I don't carry it with me,” he said, “not that I need to. It's easy to remember. My fortune said that someone from my past would be coming back into my life.”

Fallon stopped walking.

“It couldn't be more obvious,” Martin said balefully. “Camille's the one in the fortune. I broke up with her over the summer and she became a piece of my past. Her elbowing her way back into my life for the new school year seems on cue. I honestly don't know anyone else who could fit the fortune. I've lived here all my life. My past is my present.”

“You don't?” she almost whispered. “You can't think of anyone?”

“What's the matter?” Martin looked over his shoulder, confused.

Fallon's heart bellowed and her hands shook with a realization that left her dizzy. Maybe this is what Marion had meant when she said that poetry was twisted. The words either contained multiple meanings or meant something else entirely. And the fortune didn't take into account the one person that Martin wouldn't remember. “Do you have time?” she said too loudly. “Can you come with me?”

Martin's eyebrows just about launched themselves into his hairline. “Where to?”

“We're going to see Nicolas,” she said, taking firm hold of his hand. “He's got something to say to you.”

*   *   *

Fallon couldn't reach the Barnes Canal Cruises ticket booth fast enough. Part of this had to do with her excitement, and the other with Martin's lack of endurance. He could tear through an entire stack of student government paperwork in a day, but he wasn't good at running. Martin's face flushed red and sweat trickled down his cheeks despite the snow. But by the time they reached the canal, he looked more awake than usual.

Another tour boat had just launched, full of eager tourists and fidgety children. The engine roared steadily as it pulled away. The mermaid statue on the roof of the booth looked especially fierce in winter, crushing the two hearts in her hands.

Nico wasn't manning the booth. Fallon thought that he might have left on the last cruise, until she saw him tying up a boat. He wore a windbreaker sprayed with canal water. His hair stood stiffly in the wind.

“Okay,” she said, turning to Martin. “I lied about the talking thing. Nicolas
does
have something to tell you, but you're going to have to overhear him talking to me about it. Because I don't think he's brave enough to tell you personally yet.”

“As student government president, I should be setting an example for the student body,” Martin said, frowning. “I can't possibly eavesdrop.”

“You're going to want to hear this. I promise.”

Martin squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. “Okay.”

Fallon ushered him over to the boiled peanuts cart that had been left unoccupied on a lunch break. Martin hid behind the cart, which happened to be within hearing distance from Nico's favorite bench.

She ran over to Nico. “Hey, I'm back!”

“Bet Glastonberry wasn't as exciting as here,” Nico said, giving the rope one more tug.

“You're right. It wasn't,” she said. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure.” Nico knocked on the ticket booth and asked for a refill on his cup of coffee; in the winter, his parents installed a coffeemaker next to the cash register. They took a seat on the bench.

Fallon casually looked over her shoulder. Martin's plastic bag stuck out from behind the cart; she saw his breath join the steam from the boiled peanuts and knew he was still there. “I need a happy story, Nico.”

Nico laughed dryly. “Why would you come to me for that?”

“Because you have one, don't you? I think it's the perfect time to tell me again.”

He took a sip of his coffee. “There's no ending to it yet.”

“You could be writing it right now. Come on. Indulge me.”

Nico's cheeks pinked as he settled back into the bench. “My father allowed me to work on the Sunday night cruise when I turned ten. Grimbaud Elementary had booked the cruise for its own Welcome Love celebration that night. The entire school had been invited. Dad wouldn't let me enjoy the party with my friends. Instead, I spent the evening helping parents and students find their assigned tables on the lower deck for dinner.

“When night fell, the kids ran around on the upper deck while the parents and teachers lingered at the tables. I remember having a hard time seeing that night; the houses didn't have as many lights on and some of the streetlamps flickered and went out. Maybe it was too much sugar or excitement from the cruise, but the kids started fooling around. Pushing each other. Shouting.

“And there was this boy, Martin Pauwels. He was a year older than me. I recognized him from the posterboards at school; he was an honors student and the school liked to boast about him in its newsletters. A couple of kids had circled him, making fun of his crooked glasses and perfect grades. He didn't stand a chance when they put their hands on him.”

When someone pushed Martin just hard enough to knock him overboard, kids became frightened and started shouting and crying for their mothers. Nico knew his father couldn't stop the boat in time, and the inky waters looked deeper than usual, as if they could swallow a person whole. “So I climbed over the railing and dived,” he said.

The water was January-cold; it climbed up his nose and burned his lungs. He swam back toward the spot where he'd seen Martin fall and sank underneath the water, his hands out, blindly searching. He found a coat, then a wrist, and wrapped his arms around Martin, kicking toward the surface. The older boy had lost his glasses in the water. His eyes were closed. Nico kicked for the bank and hauled them both ashore.

“Dad was inching the boat as close as he could to the bank,” Nico said, “and shouted for me to check Martin's pulse. I couldn't feel it.”

But Nico had been trained in giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As a Barnes, he'd grown up practicing on a dummy. He panicked for a heartbeat, but pulled himself together and tilted Martin's head back. “I wasn't supposed to feel anything when I pressed my mouth against his,” he said, “but it's not like I could help it.” Each time he returned to give Martin more air, his lips tingled and his cheeks grew hot. He almost missed it when Martin started breathing again, but he quickly pushed his own confusing feelings aside long enough for the paramedics to arrive.

“He was okay,” Nico said, blinking back tears. “I saw him breathing and coughing up the canal water. But he didn't open his eyes. When I went to school the following week, he didn't seem to recognize me. Maybe his parents didn't tell him, but I discovered that I couldn't either. Whenever I tried, my stomach twisted and I started shaking.”

Fallon rubbed Nico's shoulder. “You knew it then, didn't you?” This had always been her favorite part.

“Yeah. I loved him.”

“Still do,” she corrected.

Nico played with the lid on his coffee. “Still do,” he echoed.

When Fallon peeked over her shoulder, she didn't see the plastic bag or Martin's cloudy breaths anymore. Her idea had spawned purely from Martin's fortune, but ignoring Nico's fortune had cost her:
Your love will go unnoticed by the one who matters.
If Martin was never to know Nico's feelings, then anything could have pulled him away from his hiding spot behind the cart. He must not have stuck around long enough to hear Nico's full confession.

She wanted to climb onto the bench and yell until she lost her voice. She and Sebastian might have had dooming fortunes, but she had hoped, after speaking with Marion, that she could do something for her friends. Fighting fate was harder than she had imagined.

 

chapter 22

BELOW

Fallon might have struck out with Nico and Martin, but Hijiri was different. Zita's fortune for Hijiri had insisted that she change to inspire love, but she didn't think Hijiri needed a makeover to do that. Joining the rebellion had allowed her to change for herself and in her own time. Fallon thought of the haircut as a gift only because, like her family, she had an eye for finding quality. She knew that with a little love, Hijiri's hair could be healthy.