Everything became very quiet. The street noises abated. I sensed rather than heard a whoosh of words, almost like a breeze was speaking to me in a manner different than how we humans normally communicate. The air itself told me Julien would be all right. That I needn’t panic. As I was being given that strange but comforting communiqué, just as the collision appeared inevitable, a wind came up out of nowhere, for it was not a rough-weathered night, picked up Julien—yes, picked him up like a mother lifting a babe—and blew him backward. He sailed two or three feet in the air, just enough to remove him from the path of the oncoming carriage, and landed in a heap on the sidewalk.
I ran to him.
He’d straightened himself out and was sitting on the curb, watching the carriage as it continued on down the street as if nothing strange had occurred at all. But it had. I had seen it.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” but he clearly wasn’t. His eyes were troubled, and his face was drawn.
“Julien, what just happened?”
“I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“But just now, it looked as if someone threw you backward.”
“Someone? There was no one here. I understood almost too late what was happening and jumped backward.”
I stared at him. That was not what had happened. Did he believe it or just want me to believe it? I was about to question him further, but he was standing, brushing himself off, speaking to me.
“It’s getting late. Let me walk you home.”
“What went on at Dujols’s? Why did you run out like that?” I asked.
“I told you I didn’t want to go. All that mumbo jumbo makes me nervous. I don’t believe it. Dujols probably was moving that glass himself.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To impress you so that you’ll give him what he wants.”
“You mean the grimoire?”
“Yes, the grimoire and anything else he can get you to share with him.”
“Julien, what was the spirit talking about when he or she said that about it not being your fault—”
Julien interrupted. “It wasn’t a spirit; it was Dujols.”
“Fine. What accident did he reference?”
“Nothing that matters anymore.”
Julien’s whole demeanor was different. He’d retreated. Around him was an aura darker than the night sky. When he started walking again, I had to hurry to keep up.
“Something is bothering you. I’d like to know what it is.”
“All right. Today of all days is the anniversary of my father’s death.”
“I’m sorry. So sorry. Do you think that was the accident the spirit referred to?”
“Yes, and I was responsible. I was responsible for my father’s death . . .” He had slowed down. His voice had softened. I could see his face, and the expression he wore was crushing. I couldn’t bear to hear the pain in his voice. And the longing. And the love.
“The accident was my fault. We were in the carriage. I had the reins—” He broke off.
“And it haunts you.”
“Of course, wouldn’t it haunt you, too, if you were responsible for someone you loved dying?” His voice was bitter.
“The spirit said it wasn’t an accident.”
“Dujols said. Believe me, I know what transpired. I was driving the carriage. We were arguing. I wanted to come to Paris and study architecture. He wanted me to stay in Nancy and work with him and his brother in the family firm. I loved my father. I loved making furniture, but . . .”
“You know that was your father tonight. He was telling you it wasn’t your fault.”
“Losing him was more pain than I’d ever known. I can’t even entertain what you are suggesting. My sister put us through all this already. Organizing séances, visiting charlatans who claimed to see visions in crystal balls . . . My brother and I had to stop her.”
“But what if it isn’t nonsense? What if it was your father’s spirit tonight? He said it wasn’t your fault. Was there someone who benefitted? Who was the ‘she’ he referred to who loosened the wheels?”
Julien started walking faster again, as if he were racing to the answer. “The only ‘she’ would have been my stepmother.” He shook his head. “My brother and sister and I hated her. She was obsessed with money, with having the best dresses, the finest china, the biggest house . . .”
“Did she love your father?”
He stopped midstep. Turned to me. He was thinking, hard.
“Yes . . .”
“Did she inherit money upon his death?”
“Yes, there was a will that he’d made when we were young that he’d never changed. It left everything to his wife when his wife was my mother. He never actually named her in the document, just referenced his wife.”
“And your stepmother, what happened to her after your father died?
“Nothing unusual. She continued taking care of my brother and sister. I moved to Paris to study with Cingal.”
“Did she remarry?”
“About two years after my father’s death.”
“Is it possible she’d had the man she married as a lover when she was with your father? That they plotted the accident? That she didn’t love your father as much as you all thought?”
“I don’t know . . . I suppose so . . .”
He spoke slowly as he put it together in his mind. “You know . . . I did just remember something. I wasn’t supposed to be in the carriage with him that afternoon. He was going to meet with a client at the factory. At the last minute I asked him if I could get a ride into the city. I seem to remember my stepmother tried to get me to stay home with her and help her do something, and my father telling her it was fine . . . that I could come.”
“You never wondered about that?”
“I was just seventeen years old . . . None of us ever suspected it was anything but an accident . . . I’d been badly hurt . . . Everything about the incident was a blur.”
“Except your guilt. And these years later you still haven’t forgiven yourself.”
Julien had pulled out his watch fob and was fingering the ring that hung on the chain. I’d seen him do this many times but had never questioned him about it.
“What is that?”
He showed me. In the moonlight, I examined the heavy gold ring with the initials inscribed.
“ ‘AJD’?”
“My father, Alain Jerome Duplessi.”
I undid the chain and pulled off the ring. Then I took Julien’s right hand and put it on his finger.
“That’s where it belongs. He’d want you to wear his ring. He’d be proud.”
For a moment Julien didn’t speak.
“Thank you,” he said in a gruff voice as he tried to swallow his emotion.
We walked on for half a block in silence.
“I still don’t believe any so-called spirit sent me messages. Don’t you see that this was some kind of sham to impress you so that you would give Dujols the grimoire.”
Before I could argue, he continued.
“The accident was well reported in the newspapers. So, I’m sure, was her remarriage. Dujols could have done some research, put it all together, and come up with a theory. He is a publisher after all.”
“Perhaps,” I said. But I didn’t think it was a set up.
From what my grandmother had explained about the legend of La Lune, I was beginning to understand. Somehow Julien’s guilt had been keeping him from trusting his emotions. La Lune needed Julien to be free of guilt so that he would be able to love someone again fully . . . love me, I thought. That was what she was waiting for, wasn’t it?
But would loving me be enough? What exactly did she require?—because there were still other obstacles. Charlotte here in Paris. My husband in New York. I shivered and pulled my coat tighter around me. La Lune had just hauled Julien out of the path of danger. Certainly, if she could do that, she could do the opposite, too.
Chapter 26
For the next few days, when I wasn’t at school or at the Louvre copying paintings or at Moreau’s atelier, I played detective and followed Julien.
When we were together, I’d ask about his plans, meetings, and appointments so whenever possible I could observe him with Charlotte. I needed to know more about her and about them together.
I spied on them. I watched them. Oh, how I hated the sight of her blond curls next to his dark ones. How I hated the way she put her hand on his arm when they sat in restaurants, as if she owned him. And that flirtatious way she looked up at him from under her lashes. Every action waiting for a reaction, every tease waiting for a response.