The Nightingale

Vianne went to the window, lifting the blackout shade.

In her yard, apple branches hung like broken arms from the trees; the gate hung sideways, two of its three hinges ripped out. Across the road, the hayfield was flattened, the flowers crushed. The refugees who’d come through had left belongings and refuse in their wake—suitcases, buggies, coats too heavy to carry and too hot to wear, pillowcases, and wagons.

Vianne went downstairs and cautiously opened the front door. Listening for noise—hearing none—she unlatched the lock and turned the knob.

They had destroyed her garden, ripping up anything that looked edible, leaving broken stalks and mounds of dirt.

Everything was ruined, gone. Feeling defeated, she walked around the house to the backyard, which had also been ravaged.

She was about to go back inside when she heard a sound. A mewling. Maybe a baby crying.

There it was again. Had someone left an infant behind?

She moved cautiously across the yard to the wooden pergola draped in roses and jasmine.

Isabelle lay curled up on the ground, her dress ripped to shreds, her face cut up and bruised, her left eye swollen nearly shut, a piece of paper pinned to her bodice.

“Isabelle!”

Her sister’s chin tilted upward slightly; she opened one bloodshot eye. “V,” she said in a cracked, hoarse voice. “Thanks for locking me out.”

Vianne went to her sister and knelt beside her. “Isabelle, you are covered in blood and bruised. Were you…”

Isabelle seemed not to understand for a moment. “Oh. It is not my blood. Most of it isn’t, anyway.” She looked around. “Where’s Ga?t?”

“What?”

Isabelle staggered to her feet, almost toppling over. “Did he leave me? He did.” She started to cry. “He left me.”

“Come on,” Vianne said gently. She guided her sister into the cool interior of the house, where Isabelle kicked off her blood-splattered shoes, let them crack into the wall and clatter to the floor. Bloody footprints followed them to the bathroom tucked beneath the stairs.

While Vianne heated water and filled the bath, Isabelle sat on the floor, her legs splayed out, her feet discolored by blood, muttering to herself and wiping tears from her eyes, which turned to mud on her cheeks.

When the bath was ready, Vianne returned to Isabelle, gently undressing her. Isabelle was like a child, pliable, whimpering in pain.

Vianne unbuttoned the back of Isabelle’s once-red dress and peeled it away, afraid that the slightest breath might topple her sister over. Isabelle’s lacy undergarments were stained in places with blood. Vianne unlaced the corseted midsection of the foundation and eased it off.

Isabelle gritted her teeth and stepped into the tub.

“Lean back.”

Isabelle did as she was told, and Vianne poured hot water over her sister’s head, keeping the water from her sister’s eyes. All the while, as she washed Isabelle’s dirty hair and bruised body, she kept up a steady, soothing croon of meaningless words, meant to comfort.

She helped Isabelle out of the tub and dried her body with a soft, white towel. Isabelle stared at her, slack-jawed, blank-eyed.

“How about some sleep?” Vianne said.

“Sleep,” Isabelle mumbled, her head lolling to one side.

Vianne brought Isabelle a nightdress that smelled of lavender and rose water and helped her into it. Isabelle could hardly keep her eyes open as Vianne guided her to the upstairs bedroom and settled her beneath a light blanket. Isabelle was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

*

Isabelle woke to darkness. She remembered daylight.

Where was she?

She sat up so quickly her head spun. She took a few shallow breaths and then looked around.

The upstairs bedroom at Le Jardin. Her old room. It did not give her a warm feeling. How often had Madame Doom locked her in the bedroom “for her own good”?

“Don’t think about that,” she said aloud.

An even worse memory followed: Ga?tan. He had abandoned her after all; it filled her with the kind of bone-deep disappointment she knew so well.

Had she learned nothing in life? People left. She knew that. They especially left her.

She dressed in the shapeless blue housedress Vianne had left draped across the foot of the bed. Then she went down the narrow, shallow-stepped stairs, holding on to the iron banister. Every pain-filled step felt like a triumph.

Downstairs, the house was quiet except for the crackling, staticky sound of a radio on at a low volume. She was pretty sure Maurice Chevalier was singing a love song. Perfect.

Vianne was in the kitchen, wearing a gingham apron over a pale yellow housedress. A floral scarf covered her hair. She was peeling potatoes with a paring knife. Behind her, a cast-iron pot made a cheery little bubbling sound.

The aromas made Isabelle’s mouth water.

Vianne rushed forward to pull out a chair at the small table in the kitchen’s corner. “Here, sit.”