Stepsister

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “You can, but they won’t come. I’ve told them that you’re a man of dubious morals.”

  “I shall go to them, then,” Chance countered.

  Fate smiled smugly. “No, I don’t think so. I hear there’s a lovely young baroness who lives in the next village …”

  “Is there?” Chance said lightly, brushing invisible lint off his jacket.

  “She’s very fond of card games. And likes to bet kisses instead of coins—a proclivity her husband strenuously frowns upon.”

  “You can hardly blame me for what happened,” Chance said, aggrieved. “She never so much as mentioned a husband!”

  “The baron is a good shot, I’m told.”

  “Very,” Chance said ruefully. “He put a hole through my favorite hat.”

  “Word got to Madame LeBenêt. And the girls’ mother. I made sure of it. They’re scandalized. I wouldn’t set foot on the farm if I were you,” Fate said. She changed the subject. “What were you doing at the inn anyway?”

  “Sending a man to Paris to fetch me some decent champagne,” Chance replied. “Plus a wheel of Stilton. Good strong tea. And the broadsheets.” His warm eyes found Fate’s chilly ones. “The country is beastly. We must at least agree on that.”

  “Indeed,” Fate said heavily. “I recently sent to Paris myself for a few little luxuries to brighten the dreariness of life with Madame LeBenêt.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “The woman is so stingy, she uses the same coffee grounds ten times. I would sell my soul for a good pot of coffee.” She chuckled. “If I had one, that is. Ah, Marquis, if these mortals only knew, if they had the merest understanding of the grave, and of the eternity they will spend lying in it, they would eat chocolate for breakfast, caviar for lunch, and sing arias as they slopped the pigs. The worst day above ground is better than any day under it. Ah, well. We’ll soon be away from this place. At least I will.”

  They arrived at the cart. Chance tipped his hat to Losca. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said. “My magician was in the Wildwood last night and witnessed a rather romantic interlude. That’s one piece of her heart found, two to go.”

  Fate regarded him and with an acid smile said, “Finding pieces of a heart takes time. How is the skull looking? You know the one I mean, don’t you? At the bottom of young Isabelle’s map? How much time does she have left? Is it weeks? Days?”

  Chance pressed his lips together. The muscles in his jaw tensed.

  “Days, yes. I thought so,” Fate purred. She patted his arm. “Do enjoy your champagne.”

  Bette, chewing her cud, blinked her patient brown eyes.

  “Good girl, Bette,” Isabelle said, patting the cow’s rump.

  She sat down on a low wooden stool, leaned her cheek into the cow’s soft warm side, and started to milk her. Bette’s slow breathing, the rhythmic sound of the milk squirting into the wooden bucket, made a tired Isabelle feel even sleepier. She’d barely closed her eyes during the night. Images of Felix had crowded her brain. His angry words had echoed in her head.

  How could he accuse her of breaking his heart, when he had broken hers?

  Isabelle’s memories dragged her back in time to a place she did not want to go. After their kiss in the Wildwood, when they first realized they were in love, she and Felix had decided to run away. They both knew Maman would never allow them to be together, so they’d made a plan: They would take Nero and Martin and ride to Italy. Felix would find work in Rome as an apprentice in the studio of a sculptor. Isabelle would spend her days giving riding lessons, and in the evenings, she and Felix would visit the city’s ancient ruins, walking where the Caesars had walked, treading the same roads their armies had marched down.

  And when Felix was a sculptor himself, famous and very wealthy, they would travel to Mongolia and race horses with chieftains. Watch eagles hunt in the Russian steppes. Ride camels with the Bedouin. Discover the whole wide wonderful world.

  But Maman had found out about their plans. Enraged, she’d fired Felix’s father and sent his family packing. Before they’d left, though, Felix had climbed up the vine to Isabelle’s bedroom window and had sworn that he would come back for her. They would meet in the Wildwood. He needed a few days to help his family find a place to live, he said, and then he would leave a note in the hollow of the linden tree telling her when.

  Isabelle had packed a bag and hidden it under her bed. Every night, after Maman had gone to sleep, she’d climbed down the vine and dashed across the yard to the linden tree, hoping to find Felix’s note. But it never came.

  Summer gave way to autumn and then winter. Icy winds and deep snow prevented her from stealing out of her room at night, but by then it didn’t matter; she’d given up. Felix had meant the world to her, but she’d meant nothing to him.

  How many nights had she cried herself to sleep, with Tavi rocking her? Ella had somehow found out, too. She’d been nicer than ever to Isabelle, but Isabelle, heartsore and miserable, had been nothing but mean in return.

  And now Felix was back. Making a slipper for her. Making her think he still cared for her. Holding her and kissing her in the Wildwood, and then behaving as if she were to blame for what had happened. Or hadn’t.

  And here she was, distraught and losing sleep over someone who, no matter what he did, or said, still didn’t care enough to tell her why he’d walked away. It was foolish; she was foolish. She had more important things to worry about. She lived in a hayloft. She owned one dress. Her mother regularly mistook a cabbage for the Duke of Burgundy.

  Bette lowed impatiently. Isabelle hadn’t realized it, but she’d milked the cow dry. With effort, she pushed all thoughts of Felix out of her head and picked up the milk bucket. Bette was the last cow that needed to be milked that evening and Isabelle was glad. The day’s chores felt endless, and she was eager to finish.

  She picked up the milk bucket and hurried to the dairy house. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the angry voices arguing inside until she walked through the doorway.

  “You’re an idiot!”

  “No, you’re an idiot!”

  Hugo and Tavi were standing only a foot away from each other, shouting. Isabelle banged her pail down and got between them.

  Through the barrage of rude remarks and gestures, she was able to ascertain that Tavi had added things to one of the cheeses as she set it into its mold last night. Honey from the farm’s hives. Sediment from an empty wine cask. A dash of vinegar.

  “But that’s not the way it’s done!” Hugo thundered. “Did you see it? It’s ugly. It doesn’t look like the others. It has spots. And a strange smell. It’s different!”

  “Is it so bad to try something new?” Tavi thundered back. “All I want to do is see if and how the substances affect the flavor. Honey, wine dregs, vinegar—they all contain different microorganisms—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Microorganisms?” Tavi repeated. “Single-celled life-forms? You know … Leeuwenhoek? The father of microbiology?”

  Hugo gave her a blank look.

  “Microorganisms acidify the milk,” Tavi explained. “They curdle it. Cheese becomes cheese through the process of fermentation.”

  Hugo stuck out his chest. “Cheese becomes cheese through cheesification,” he said truculently.

  Tavi blinked at him. Then she held up her hands. “Fine, Hugo,” she said. “My point is, that if we alter just one factor of the … cheesification process, even slightly, we vary the result.”

  “So?”

  “So we might very well come up with something other than bland, boring white cheese. Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

  “I wish you had never come here.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “You’re changing things. Why do you have to do that?”

  “I wonder if anyone said that to Da Vinci or Newton or Copernicus.” Tavi put her hands on her hips and affected a put-upon voice. “Oh my God, Nicolaus. Did you have to make the earth or
bit the sun? We liked it so much better the other way!”

  “They were men. You’re a girl,” Hugo said, glowering. “Girls don’t change things. They bake things. And sew things. They wipe things, too. Like tables. And noses.”

  Tavi picked up a cloth and scrubbed Hugo’s face with it. “And asses,” she said, stalking off.

  Hugo swore. He kicked at a floorboard.

  “She likes to do experiments,” Isabelle said, hoping to mollify him.

  “I saw the cheese. It’s ruined,” Hugo said. “My mother will throw a fit.”

  “Maybe Tavi’s right. Maybe it’ll turn into something amazing,” Isabelle said. She picked up her pail and poured the milk into a vat. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  But Hugo’s thoughts were not on the cheeses anymore.

  “She’ll never get married,” he said. “No man wants a woman who won’t do what she’s told.”

  Isabelle bristled. “Tavi doesn’t want a man. She wants math,” she said, defending her sister.

  “Math won’t get the two of you out of here. A man would, though. And I’m going to see if my mother or Tantine can find one,” Hugo said, stalking off. Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Good luck. If Maman couldn’t manage it, I doubt they will.”

  Alone now in the dairy house, Isabelle ventured to the back, to see the cheese that had caused all the upset. It was on a rack on the left side of the room. She spotted it immediately.

  Hugo had called it ugly, but Isabelle found it interesting. Its odd green spots, its lopsidedness, the pungent smell it gave off—they all set it apart from the other cheeses, which seemed dull and smug to her in their sameness.

  “You might do something with yourself,” she said to the cheese. But her hopes were not high. Being different was not something that was tolerated in cheeses.

  Or girls.

  The evening was warm and clear. The setting sun was painting the sky in brilliant shades of orange and pink; the scent of roses hung in the air.

  It was calm. It was peaceful. Isabelle prayed it would last.

  Tavi and Hugo were sitting side by side on a wooden bench, in the shade of the barn. Working silently. Neither had spoken to the other since their fight in the dairy house yesterday.

  At least they’re not yelling anymore, Isabelle thought.

  She and Maman were sitting on the grass across from them. They were all shelling beans into a wide bowl for a soup Madame planned to make. Isabelle glanced up at Tavi and Hugo every now and again. She was eager to keep the peace. She knew that their being here was Tantine’s doing, not Madame’s, and definitely not Hugo’s. Staying here depended on working hard and not making themselves objectionable. She would remind Tavi of that tonight when they went to bed.

  She and Tavi slept next to each other now in the hayloft. They talked before they fell asleep, much more than they had when each had had her own bedchamber in the Maison Douleur. Last night, Isabelle had told her sister about meeting Felix in the Wildwood and had showed her the slipper.

  “I thought you were walking better,” she’d said. “And?” she’d added expectantly.

  “And nothing. There is no and.” Isabelle had decided to keep the argument, and the kiss, to herself.

  “That’s too bad. I always liked Felix.” Tavi had gone silent for a bit; then she’d said, “Just wondering …”

  “Wondering what?”

  “If you were still searching for the pieces of your heart. Because I’d say that he’s definitely—”

  “Not one,” Isabelle had said firmly, turning on her side.

  “The bowl is full,” Hugo said now, dispelling Isabelle’s thoughts.

  She stood and stretched. “I’ll take it inside to Madame and get—”

  Another one, she was going to say, but her words were cut off by a hair-raising scream.

  She and Tavi looked at each other, alarmed. Maman dropped the bean pod she was holding.

  The shriek came again. It was coming from the dairy house and was followed by a single shouted word: “Huuuuuuuuuuugo!”

  Hugo leaned back against the barn wall and groaned. “It used to be quiet here. It used to be nice,” he said. “Well, maybe not nice but definitely quiet. Whatever my mother is screeching about, it’s because of you two. I just know it.”

  Another shriek was heard. “Hugo, come on!” Isabelle said, tugging at his hand. “It sounds like she’s hurt!”

  She started running toward the dairy house; the others were right behind her. When they arrived, they saw that Tantine was already there.

  “I was in the kitchen … I heard screaming. Is someone hurt?” she asked, a hand pressed to her chest.

  Before anyone could answer her, Hugo pushed the door to the dairy house open and stepped inside. The others followed. As Isabelle entered the room, an eye-watering stench hit her.

  “What is that?” she cried.

  “It’s a monster!” Madame LeBenêt shrilled. “It’s an abomination!”

  She was standing at the back of the room among the ripening cheeses, pointing at one. Isabelle ventured closer and gasped as she saw the offender. It was a monster—wrinkled, misshapen, furry with mold.

  “God in Heaven, the smell!” Tantine said, pressing a handkerchief to her nose.

  “Like dirty feet.”

  “Rotten eggs.”

  “Like a sewer.”

  “Like a dead dog,” said Hugo.

  “A dead dog that’s been rotting in the sun for a week,” Isabelle added.

  “And sweating,” Hugo said.

  “Technically, dogs don’t sweat,” Tavi pointed out. “At least, not in the way human beings do. Dogs especially don’t sweat when they’re dead.”

  “This dog does,” Hugo stated. “Look at it!”

  In the short time that they’d all been standing there, beads of clear yellow fluid had erupted from the cheese. They were rolling down its sides and dripping onto the floor.

  “That does it. I want you three out. Tonight!” Madame shouted.

  A grin lit up Hugo’s face.

  Isabelle’s heart lurched. “No, madame, please!” she begged. “We have nowhere else to go!”

  “Your sister should’ve thought of that before she ruined my cheese!”

  “Now, Avara,” Tantine soothed, taking her by the arm. “Let’s not be hasty. The girl made a mistake, that’s all.”

  “It was an experiment, actually, not a mistake,” Tavi corrected, peering closely at the cheese. “I’ll need to modify my hypothesis.”

  “Out!” Madame sputtered. “Tonight!” She turned to her son. “Hugo, take that—that sweaty dead dog out of here this instant before it contaminates the other cheeses. Throw it into the woods or toss it into a pit!”

  Tantine ushered Madame to the door. As Madame stepped outside, Tantine turned to Isabelle. “Help Hugo clean up this mess, child. I’ll set things to rights.” She patted Isabelle’s cheek, then hurried after Madame.

  Isabelle pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, trying to think. This was a disaster. What if Tantine couldn’t bring Madame around? What if she still insisted that they leave?

  “Happy now?” Tavi asked a still-grinning Hugo. “You got rid of us. Be sure to throw some dirt over our bones after we starve to death in a ditch.”

  “I … I didn’t think you’d starve,” Hugo said, his grin fading.

  “What did you think we’d do?” Tavi asked.

  “Don’t blame this on me! It’s not my fault. You’re the one who makes things hard!”

  “For whom?”

  “Can’t you make yourself likable? Can’t you even try?”

  Something shifted in Tavi then. She was always so flippant, trailing sarcasm behind her like a duchess trailing furs. But not this time. Hugo had pierced her armor and blood was dripping from the wound.

  “Try for whom, Hugo?” she repeated, her voice raw. “For the rich boys who get to go to the Sorbonne even though they’re too stupid to solve a simple quadratic equation? For
the viscount I was seated next to at a dinner who tried to put his hand up my skirt through all five courses? For the smug society ladies who look me up and down and purse their lips and say no, I won’t do for their sons because my chin is too pointed, my nose is too large, I talk too much about numbers?”

  “Tavi …” Isabelle whispered. She went to her, tried to put an arm around her, but Tavi shook her off.

  “I wanted books. I wanted math and science. I wanted an education,” Tavi said, her eyes bright with emotion. “I got corsets and gowns and high-heeled slippers instead. It made me sad, Hugo. And then it made me angry. So no, I can’t make myself likable. I’ve tried. Over and over. It doesn’t work. If I don’t like who I am, why should you?”

  And then she was gone. And Hugo and Isabelle were left standing in the dairy house, awkward and silent. Isabelle reached for the mop and bucket, which were kept near the door, to clean up the mess pooling under the sweaty dead dog.

  “Well done, Galileo,” Hugo muttered under his breath.

  But Isabelle heard him. “She could be. She could be Galileo and Da Vinci and Newton all rolled into one if she had the chance, but she never will. That’s why she’s the way she is.” She took a tentative step toward him. “Hugo, don’t make us go. Please.”

  “You don’t understand. There’s a reason I wanted …” He swore. “Never mind.”

  “What reason? What are you talking about?”

  Hugo shook his head. He moved toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Isabelle asked.

  “There’s an old wooden tea box in the barn. It’s lined with lead. Hopefully, it will contain the smell. I’m going to put the dead dog in the box, put the box in the wagon, then drive until I find an old well to throw it down. Maybe I’ll throw myself down it, too, while I’m at it.”

  Isabelle watched him go, a fearful expression on her face. This was terrible. She would go to Tantine. As soon as she and Hugo had this mess cleaned up. If the old woman hadn’t succeeded in changing Madame LeBenêt’s mind, they would be homeless. Helpless. As good as dead.