Visible (Ripple)

by Cidney Swanson

  Now that I think of it, it sort of launched last night with the movie. This is the kind of thing I am good at. Being the life of the party. Cheering people up. That’s it! No more Queen of Messing Up Relationships. From here on, I am the Queen of Good Cheer.

  I nudge Sam. “Let’s see if he wants company,” I say. “A distraction. We could go into town. I need croissants and more clothes.”

  Sam nods and we ask Chrétien if he would mind company.

  “But of course I would not mind,” he says, bowing slightly.

  We hike up to Carcassonne, which is a pretty kickin’ medieval town, all spires and cobblestones, enclosed by impressive walls. It’s a warm afternoon, and we are all enchanted by the way the sun hits the turrets and sparkles off leaded glass windows.

  Operation Cheer Chrétien Up is working well, if I’m any judge.

  After several purchases and several visits to patisseries, I’m just starting to think we should be getting back because the shops are closing and I’m finally tired. That would be my essay on this trip if I had to write one: “How I Went to France and Got Really Tired.”

  Beside me, Chrétien and Sam are talking about rippling and ‘thought signatures’ and I don’t know what all else. I just walk alongside them, occasionally letting the two of them go in front of me if it gets crowded or narrow. There are, after all, considerable compensations for walking behind Chrétien.

  We get outside the town walls, and Sam notices the sun’s going down.

  “It’s going to be in the eyes of any motorists driving home,” she says.

  “Shall we assume our chameleon forms?” asks Chrétien.

  “Hello,” I say from behind. “Visible girl. Still here.”

  “But of course, Mademoiselle,” says Chrétien. “I would be honored to transport you.”

  “Beam me up, Scotty,” I say.

  “I beg your pardon?” Chrétien looks puzzled.

  “He’s never watched the SyFy channel, obviously,” I say to Sam. Then, speaking to Chrétien, I hold my hand out and say, “I’m all yours.”

  This time I catch the heady scent of almond from some pastry we ate earlier that I couldn’t pronounce alongside the spice I can’t name. Cloves? Cinnamon? And then we’re invisible and we tear down the road. I remember Ma saying how Chrétien got her from our Midpines cabin to Las Abs faster than a car could have driven it, and now I get why she said she never wanted to ripple again. I mean, I don’t feel that way, but Ma drives like a little old grandma to save gas. She hates when I drive fast. And this is way, way faster than we could go in a car.

  I love it.

  Far too soon, we’re back to the cottage, and we come solid out front, me feeling breathless and exhilarated and realizing I didn’t say a single word to Chrétien the whole time. I give his hand a quick squeeze.

  “That was super fun!” I whisper.

  He smiles and slips from my grasp, in a way that reflects real life pretty darned accurately.

  Inside, Sir Walter’s cute little cottage looks a bit dumpy after the slate-roofed turrets of Carcassonne. But the fire is warm, and Sir Walter’s cassoulet for dinner is delicious, and soon I’m feeling drowsy again.

  “Gwyn. Wake up,” says Sam.

  I twitch. Open my eyes. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch. “Ripple me back to my bed?”

  Sam snorts at the idea. But then she takes my hand, ripples us both invisible, and pops me in my snug bed. I could get used to having someone like this always at my beck and call. I’m asleep pretty much instantly.

  Some time later, I wake up in pitch darkness. I heard someone shouting. A name. Marie-Anne! I can almost hear the echo fade from the room. I sit up, listening. It takes me a minute to place where I’ve heard that name before, but then I remember I heard it last night during Story Hour: The Lame Retelling of Cinderella. I blink my eyes. I’m thirsty as anything. Cassoulet is delicious, but Sir Walter sure didn’t skimp on the salt.

  I wander in the dark to the kitchen, stubbing my toe once on the corner of the wall and once on the table leg. I keep the swearing in my head, just barely, although that second time nearly does me in.

  “Hello,” says Chrétien. His sudden appearance accomplishes what the toe-stubs couldn’t: he scares the swear words right out of me.

  “Did I startle you?” he asks.

  “Um, let me think a sec … YES!” The “s” sound comes out as a hiss because I’m whispering. “Of course, that would be in addition to the part where you woke me up.”

  “I awakened you, Mademoiselle?”

  “Yeah,” I say, fumbling for a cup in the dark. “Talking to yourself, I presume. I’ll thank you to keep the bed times stories un-intended for public dissemination, if you don’t mind.”

  “Bed time stories?”

  “That lame version of the Cinderella story,” I say. “Where she’s called Marie-Anne. I heard you speak that name and it woke me up.”

  Chrétien doesn’t say anything. Not even, I beg pardon, Mademoiselle.

  “Never mind,” I say. “I need a drink of water. If you’ll excuse me.” As I’m chugging down the water, I start feeling bad. I mean, Chrétien’s already had a sucky day. Time to reengage the Cheer Chrétien Up protocol.

  “Hey,” I say. “I’m sorry for my bad manners. I’m sorry about your day, too. And about Fritz. And I apologize for calling your story lame. It’s just different from the story I grew up with.”

  Chrétien lights a candle like he did last night.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I say.

  “Must we? Wherefore?”

  He actually wants to know why we can’t. Meet. Like this.

  “It was a joke. Ignore it.” I finish the water in my cup. “I’m always trying to be funny. Sometimes it’s not the right time for funny.”

  I look up and see those candle-illuminated cheekbones. So sharp they could give you a paper-cut.

  “It was a long time ago,” says Chrétien.

  I’m guessing we’re back to talking about his version of Cinderella.

  “I am told,” he continues, “that my friend Monsieur Perrault wrote the tale down in a fashion that has endured. Perhaps that is the tale with which Mademoiselle is familiar. With the fée marraine and the white mice and the slipper of glass?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Fairy godmother. Mice. Glass footwear. Although, the whole glass shoe thing always bugged me. I mean, talk about uncomfortable. I’ll take those cloth of gold slippers any day over glass.”

  Chrétien smiles, and I feel all warm and snuggly, like that moment when you grab a bunch of fluffy towels straight from the dryer. I smile back.

  “Marie-Anne would have liked your version of her story,” says Chrétien. “The movie with da Vinci.”

  “Oh, would she now? And what makes you so sure?”

  Chrétien’s eyes draw together. Puzzled. “We were married … intimate, you know. I just know she would prefer your version over Perrault’s white mice.”

  My mouth forms a tiny o of understanding: Marie-Anne was the wife he lost. He said her name into the dark night because he’s, you know, missing her and miserable without her and doesn’t even have her diary to console him anymore.

  “Oh, Chrétien, I am so sorry,” I say, the words rushing together in one multi-syllabic mess.

  “In what way do you believe you have occasioned offense?”

  I shake my head. “How many ways are there?” I take my head in my hands. “I didn’t know that was your wife. In the story. I thought it was something you just … you know, made up. I didn’t know that story … mattered to you, on a personal level.”

  “You have not offended me in your manner of speech about Marie-Anne,” says Chrétien. “And you are correct in that, while it is the time of sleeping, I ought to keep in better restraint those thoughts I have of her. Or upon any subject. I apologize for waking you.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “My internal clock is stuck on California time, I think.”

  �
��I have difficulty sleeping as well,” says Chrétien, sighing.

  We smile sadly at each other and then both look away. I watch the shadows cast on the far wall by the flickering candle.

  Chrétien speaks. “While it is most considerate of you to pass the time entertaining me, I must insist you return to your rest.”

  “Entertaining you?” I guffaw. “Right. Because I’m totally as fun as YouTube kitten videos. Said no one. Ever.”

  Chrétien looks at me, amused.

  Well, I live for the laugh. Although, I wonder what life would look like if I didn’t?

  “Shall I escort you to your sleeping chamber?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I’m wide awake.”

  “Perhaps, then, a stroll under the refulgence of the moon?”

  “Dude, where do you get these words?”

  Chrétien’s brows draw together.

  “Never mind. The answer’s yes.”

  “You are not, I judge, clothed for a walk in solid form.”

  I look down. I’m in a tank and boy shorts. And I didn’t think about this until just now? I am so losing my game.

  But that’s not it. Not really. It’s strange, but when it comes right down to it, I don’t want to play games with Chrétien. Not anymore. I’m not sure I know how to be friends with a guy—I don’t have a lot of experience with “just friends,” but I think, maybe, it might be nice to try it for once. And it definitely fits better in the Cheer Chrétien protocol I’ve adopted.

  I smile and hold my hand out. “We’ll be warm once we ripple.”

  Chrétien takes in my apparel again. His cheeks flush, which, in candlelight, just looks like darkening. He is all hard edges and lit planes.

  I drop my hand. “You know what? Let me quick put on a sweater.”

  He averts his gaze, nodding.

  I slip back to my room and grab my sweater. Then, for good measure, I pull on some leggings I bought in Carcassonne. Sneaking back down the hall, I shake my head. Who am I and what did I do with Gwyn?

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE GOLDEN SLIPPER

  A few minutes later, Chrétien and I are strolling invisibly along the drive in front of his father’s cottage. The moon is very … refulgent, indeed. It looks bright enough to read by. Or close to it. I hear Chrétien humming. I don’t recognize the tune, but it sounds lullabye-ish, almost. He breaks off abruptly.

  You must miss them a ton, I say, inside our invisibly melded brains.

  Yes, he replies, a response both simple and heartbreaking.

  I feel his heaviness almost like it’s my own. I want so much to make things better, but where would I even start?

  Would it help to … talk about them? I ask. I know I’m inviting him to visit the past, but it feels like the right thing to do, somehow.

  Perhaps. My father is now of the opinion he did me no service, leaving me to my own thoughts through the centuries.

  Through the centuries. I shudder. Well, my mind shudders. There’s no Gwyn at the moment.

  Was that super creepy? I ask. Being trapped all that time?

  I was not trapped, Mademoiselle. At any time, had I wished it, I could have regained motion and a physical form.

  So you didn’t … wish, I guess?

  It was restful. More so than slumber, perhaps. Time seemed … fluid … unimportant. I do not know when I would have returned of my own volition, had not my father asked it of me when he did.

  I try to think how to ask what I want to know. Are you … sorry you came back?

  No, he replies at once. I am most glad to have rejoined my father. To have formed so many new acquaintance. To live once more among the visible.

  He says he’s glad, but he seems sadder than ever. I’m about to say he can tell me whatever he wants, when he speaks again.

  In truth, I do not know whether to desire to have Marie-Anne’s diary once more or whether to be glad of its loss. Do you have the aphorism, ‘to open once more a wound’?

  Sure, I say. Ma uses that phrase. Or one like it. She doesn’t like when the aunties talk about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She calls it “reopening an old wound.”

  Yes, says Chrétien. Had our daughter lived, I should have liked to have kept my wife’s diary, but perhaps it is better to allow the wounds to heal now.

  As he says this, I feel hope settle around us like a warm blanket. We stroll (or whatever this is) in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the way the moonlight catches the tops of the trees, the roof, even Sir Walter’s car.

  Then Chrétien speaks again. I have yet one other remembrance of Marie-Anne. I wonder, would you like to see the slipper of gold and diamond in which she danced with le Roi-Soleil?

  You have her shoes? I ask.

  I have only one, he says. I keep it hidden in the pocket of a jacket. The jacket rests invisibly within the wall of Château Rochefort.

  I hesitate. Does this fall in the category of reopening old wounds? Or the category of cheering Chrétien up? He seems eager to show me the golden slipper. And, seriously, is there any girl alive who doesn’t want to see Cinderella’s shoe? Maybe there is. But I’m not her.

  I’d love to see it, I tell him. Is Château Rochefort far?

  Chrétien laughs. It is very close, Mademoiselle. Especially if you travel there with me.

  He picks up the pace like a jet taking off and we go from stroll to supersonic before he’s done talking. A minute later, we’re ascending a graveled side road. There are hardly any trees on the hill, so the castle catches my eye right away.

  It’s in ruins, I say. Completely unnecessarily. He’s got to know this already.

  I find it fair to behold, nevertheless, he says.

  It’s more than fair-to-behold. It’s stunning. The moon lights up the stone to a nearly blinding white. The shadows are crisp, hard-edged like the angles of Chrétien’s face.

  Ohhhh, I sigh. It’s so … I don’t know what the words are. I feel this ache where I know my chest should be and this longing. For what? I’m not sure. It’s like I want to press into the castle, or like I want to fly into the sky to view it from above. Or maybe I want both at the same time. I want to run my fingers along every stone, listen for whispers of the people who built it, who lived here and died here.

  I hear Chrétien’s voice. You are sad, Mademoiselle?

  How does he know this? You can’t see my face, can you?

  He sighs. The heart sees what the eye cannot.

  I don’t know how to respond to that. It’s so … personal.

  How long has it been since anyone lived here? I ask at last.

  I know not. My father tells me the castle changed hands many times following the revolution. I am glad I saw that not. Some things are sad enough within the pages of history, are they not?

  Sad. That’s part of how the ruined castle makes me feel. Sad to have not seen it in all its former glory. But it is so achingly beautiful now, with stones tumbling down like cascading water, and leaves growing through the arrow-slits along the walls.

  Come, says Chrétien. Let us find the slipper of La Cendrillon, of the cinder girl.

  Sounds great, I say. Which is a stupid thing to say, really, when you’re talking to the guy who married and lost Cinderella.

  Chrétien, do you mind if I ask a question about your story?

  I am at your service, he replies.

  So, in the versions I know, the prince always marries the girl with the slipper. Isn’t that kind of an important part of the story to change?

  Ah, says Chrétien. It is, indeed. I told you not the story in its entirety. Would you like to hear more?

  Sure, I say. But not if it’s going to make you sad. I mean, didn’t you just say something about not opening old wounds?

  Chrétien’s laughter, soft, fills my mind. Mademoiselle is observant. But, perhaps I may find relief, even if I also find sorrow. But first, let us retrieve the slipper of gold.

  We pass through the castle wall, which I swear tickles, and t
hen we start heading down a staircase. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense unless castles have basements. This being France, I suppose it could be a wine cellar. I’m about to ask Chrétien where exactly his wife’s shoe is hidden when we pass through a door and into a large room where the floor seems to waver.

  I focus on the floor and realize it’s water. There’s an underground swimming pool here at Château Rochefort. Because, of course. Why wouldn’t there be?

  Wow, I say to Chrétien.

  This place is called the Well of Juno, he tells me.

  Oh. Yup. Sam told me about the Well. People died here. And started babies here. But, honestly, I can’t find it in me to be creeped out by all those things because the place is so lovely. Coming through a hole in the roof, there’s a shaft of moonlight—an actual shaft of moonlight—and it’s suffusing the whole chamber with this silvery glow.

  Chrétien has moved us close to a wall now, and it must be the wall where he hid his stuff, because he asks if I want to come solid to look at the slipper.

  I peel my gaze from the water and say, yes!

  A second later, I’m slipping my hand from Chrétien’s. I expect it to be cold, but it’s nice in this cave, or Well of Juno, or whatever. Chrétien is holding a satin robe-looking thing. He gives it a quick shake. It looks like something out of, I don’t know, Downton Abbey or Pride and Prejudice, so basically, something Ma would love and no guy alive would be caught dead wearing today. Chrétien checks the pockets. The first one is empty, which makes him frown. Then he checks the second one and pulls out the world’s smallest dancing shoe made of solid gold.

  Okay, so obviously not solid gold, but now I get why the cloth of silver in the story was such a big deal. This must be made of … cloth of gold, and it’s breathtaking. The diamond buckle is beautiful, too. And huge, like the square kind of buckle you see on pilgrims’ shoes. The diamonds catch a bit of moonlight and throw it back at the ceiling. I gaze up, my head shaking in wonder, and then I look back at the shoe.