“My point, dear Delphine, is just that you should be the one to decide how and with whom you share your gift, that perhaps your brother might be exerting too much control.”
I withdrew my hand and moved my fingers to the folio he’d given me. I fondled a page and focused on the thickness and smoothness that only an artist could admire.
“Thank you,” I said, focusing on the book now. “This is so lovely. So is the journal you gave me.”
Mathieu gave me a long look, acknowledging that I’d changed the subject.
“I hope you fill that with dreams.”
“The quote you inscribed in the journal, what you just said, so many things you say, and the fact that you create books. Are you a writer as well as an artist?” I asked.
Mathieu looked away from me, quickly picked up his glass, and downed what was left in it. Catching the bartender’s eye, he ordered another.
“Once I thought I could be a poet,” he said.
When he didn’t elaborate, I asked him why he’d said once. Perhaps the drink had made me bold.
“The same thing that changed everyone and everything. The war happened. My brother died. Even if I saved other men, my brother died. I lived. How do you make sense of that? Encapsulate it into verse? Everything I saw for all those years was an utter waste. All the pretty words I knew drowned in blood.”
Suddenly, I felt a cold, wet darkness surrounding him and me, like a mist falling over us. I watched his face change. A frown marred his smooth forehead. His eyes had gone almost black.
And then, even in the gloom, I saw the beginning of a faint glow emanating from his chest. Yes, the war had ripped him open and filled him with terrors and trouble. But some of his former spirit endured.
I leaned forward and did something I had never done before in my life. I initiated a kiss. And the longer he kissed me back, the more the light spilled out from inside him, warming us both.
“You make me feel better than I have in a long time,” he said, when our lips finally parted. “As if you’re pushing the bad memories away and making room for new ones.” And then he took my hand and put it up to his cheek and held it there for a long time.
Chapter 17
Two days after the gallery exhibit, Sebastian arrived at our parents’ house and informed me that we were going to take a drive.
“I’m still angry with you over that incident with Madame Calvé at the gallery,” I said. “You should have just come out and told me you wanted me to meet a prospective client.”
“And would you have come?”
“No.”
“So you see?”
“I don’t see anything. That’s exactly the point. I don’t want to see what the blindfold shows me anymore, Sebastian. I don’t want to peer into the darkness and pull out secrets that are supposed to remain hidden. It’s dangerous.”
“Because of one incident?”
“No, because of many incidents that I turned my back on, and so did you, and then one so large I had to accept that what I do is unnatural. It’s as complicated as Opaline communicating with the dead or—”
“You are a descendant of a witch, Delphine. So are Maman and Opaline and Jadine. You can’t take your ability, stuff it in a bag full of rocks, tie a rope around it, and throw it into the sea to drown it.”
I never wanted to talk about my almost drowning, and Sebastian knew that, but he brought it up slyly sometimes when I didn’t expect it. As if he needed to remind me that he’d saved me. As if I could ever forget.
“Let’s not argue now. It will ruin the surprise I have planned. Get your hat.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, as I grabbed the floppy straw hat with the black ribbon that I’d taken to wearing with every daytime outfit. Gone were the cloches in colors that matched the pastel dresses I had worn in Paris and then New York. Gone were the dresses altogether. My style had changed since I’d come home, partly because of Maman’s influence and the current fashions and partly because wearing different clothes made me feel less like the woman I was before.
Instead of my old style of narrow, hip-skimming, sleeveless dresses in pinks and greens that set off my hair, skin, and figure, I’d begun wearing only the new wide-bottomed pajama pants and long-sleeved tops in white or black. My outward appearance revealed the absence of color in my life.
“You’ll see. Just come with me.” Sebastian took me by the arm and walked me outside. In the driveway was a little cerulean-blue roadster, a Bugatti. My brother opened the door for me, and I climbed into the softest leather seats I’d ever felt.
As he pulled out of the driveway, I asked again where we were going. Ignoring my question, he instead asked me why I’d left the gallery without saying good-bye. “I went looking for you so I could ask you to join me and some of my friends for dinner. The Murphys wanted to get to know you. So did Marsden.”
“The crowd was making me feel like I was just one wave from being swept out to sea.”
Sebastian didn’t respond. He took a right at the next street.
“Are we going to Grasse?” I asked, recognizing the road.
“No.”
“Where, then?”
“You’ll see.”
“And when did you get this car? This isn’t what you’ve been driving.”
“A few days ago.”
“The opening must have gone very well indeed.”
“It did. I sold almost all of Marsden’s paintings and one of Maman’s. That large one of the bay. Americans love her seascapes.”
“Because she puts magick in the water.”
“You still believe that?” he asked, laughing.
It was what Maman had always said. That when she was finished with a painting, she blew magick on it to make it especially attractive.
“Of course. I’ve done it myself,” I said. “But not as successfully.”
“You amaze me.”
“Why is that?”
“Because with all your sophistication, you are so gullible.”
“Well, you amaze me,” I countered.
“And why is that?” he asked.
“Because with all your knowledge, you are so suspicious. Of course she blows magick on them. The very spell is in the grimoire from Grand-mère’s house. La Lune’s own spell.”
My brother took a deep breath, puffed his cheeks out, and exhaled very, very slowly. I used to count. Sometimes it could take him as long as twelve or fifteen seconds to let all the air out. It was his involuntary reaction to discussions that centered around our family secret.
“How can you not believe?” I asked.
“Delphine, of course I believe.”
“Then what?”
We’d had this conversation before, but Sebastian would never explain why the topic bothered him so much. I didn’t know if he was even aware of the reason. But I thought I was.
Sebastian pursed his lips, his signal that he was shutting down the conversation.
“I think that you should appreciate what we do and not be exasperated by it. Of everyone, you benefit from it the most. Without the gift, I’d be just another artist. Maman, too.”