The Everlasting Rose (Belles, The)

by Dhonielle Clayton

  Blood rushes down my lips and chin and neck, the salt of it seeping into my mouth. My nerves are raw with power; all three arcana gifts sear through me.

  I could kill them all. Not one of them helped Amber. Not one of them tried to stop Sophia.

  The room almost dissolves around me. A carousel of light and shapes spinning as the heartbeats slow to a stop.

  The door opens. “Stop!” a voice hollers.

  It’s Charlotte. She hobbles forward with a cane to support her. Her curly brown hair towers over her, thick with magnolia flowers, and her eyes hold strength. “You don’t want to do this!”

  The Iron Ladies stand proudly in their masks. Padma and Auguste edge into the room and stare at the horror I’ve unleashed.

  “You aren’t this person,” Charlotte says.

  “I am,” I reply. “It needs to be over.”

  Sophia’s body jerks forward and rolls around the floor. Her breath is ragged, and she starts to hiccup.

  “Valerie is dead because of her. Arabella. Amber. She’s hurt so many,” I say. “She will keep doing it. She will never stop.”

  “And she hurt me,” Charlotte says. “But I want her alive.”

  “Why? She poisoned you. Kept you asleep for six years.”

  “She’s my sister.” She looks down at Sophia with tears in her eyes. “Just like you forgive your sisters for their mistakes, I will forgive mine. Let me deal with her.” She steps closer to me. Her hands reach out to touch my shoulder. “You don’t want her death on your heart, and the rest of these people are innocent—complacent, maybe, but not evil. I need you to help me fix the problems she’s created.”

  Padma cautiously approaches me and puts a hand in mine. “Just let go, Camille. Just breathe.”

  The rage inside me fights to get out. I close my eyes. I don’t know if I can stop it. The portraits of the guards and Sophia are a swirling tornado. The blood is a river gushing from my nose still.

  “You can,” she whispers.

  I release everyone in the room. All around me people gasp for air. I collapse forward. Sweat streams down my face and arms and legs. More blood pours from my nose and over my lips. All the light in the room disappears.

  I’m swept into tumultuous dreams of our very last beauty session before the Beauté Carnaval. Back when we were still little girls. Back when we didn’t know anything outside of the walls of the space we were born into. Back when we thought we were divine instruments to be treasured instead of used. Du Barry had us listen to visiting courtier women and their complaints about their bodies. We noted how they asked us to reset their insides, shifting the bone and marrow into new shapes more beautiful than their natural template.

  My sisters and I hovered around a long treatment table like a ceremonial fan, gawking down at one woman’s limbs. She’d traveled over six golden imperial bridges and on one canopied rivercoach through the Rose Bayou to get to us from the Silk Isles. Tiny clusters of beauty-lanterns drifted over her like midnight stars. Perfect balls of light revealed how the gray of her skin made her look like a piece of fish that sat out all night.

  We’d been so eager to use our beauty caisses for the first time and the items on the carts that the servants had wheeled in: tiered trays bursting with skin-color pastilles and rouge pots, brushes and combs and barrel irons, tonics and crèmes, bei-powder bundles, waxes and perfumes.

  The woman’s soft moans stretched out like an anxious bubble between us. Tensions were high during our final session before we traveled to the imperial island, before we displayed our talents for the queen, before we found out who would be named the favorite, before we were told which one of us was most important.

  There was a woman waiting on the table. There would be people at court waiting to be changed, and anticipating perfect results. There would be expectations.

  My sisters and I exchanged nervous glances. Edel had turned as pale as the white lesson dresses we all used to wear. Padi’s black Belle-bun always caught the beauty-lantern light as she nosed around with careful and cautious curiosity. Hana had gotten in trouble for giggling when we’d catch a glimpse of certain body parts, and her long black braid hung down her back like a rope, swishing left and right as she trembled with laughter. Amber’s cheeks had been permanently red from intense focus. Valerie always rubbed her hands together with a smile, antsy to make sure she did whatever she could to make someone’s dreams come true.

  We’d been all together. We’d worked together. We’d go through this experience together.

  I’d felt like I had swallowed bayou butterflies that day.

  The sound of humming pulls me awake, slow at first and then all at once. My eyes startle open, sore and watery as the light hits them through gauzy bed-curtains. The memories of where I am and what happened slide into my mind and a wave of nausea hits me. Sophia. Charlotte. The Iron Ladies. The Coronation and Ascension Ball.

  I try to move, but my arms are threaded with needles and tubes, and my limbs hold the deepest soreness I’ve ever experienced.

  I attempt to speak, but words come out in croaks.

  “You sound terrible,” a voice says. “You should just not speak.”

  I turn my head to the right and see Edel’s grinning face. Tears spill out the sides of my eyes.

  “Ugh, don’t cry.” She inches closer, then clutches onto my arm like it’s the edge of a cliff and she needs to keep us both from tumbling off it. “I’m all right, and you’re all right.”

  The bed-curtains open. “Did you wake her? You weren’t supposed to,” Padma says, carrying a morning-lantern. The beams illuminate the rich brownness of her skin like honey drizzled on a square of chocolate.

  She climbs in on my left.

  “Where’s Hana?” I ask.

  “I’m here. I’m here.” She peeks her head through the bed-curtains. She looks different, so skinny she might be whisked away if a snowy wind became too strong. A soft day gown drapes her now wiry frame in the color of ginger and squash, and her black Belle-bun holds glass ornaments.

  “Are you all right?” I reach for her.

  She finds a space on the bed. “I will be. I arrived last night from the Fire Isles.”

  When we were little girls living at Maison Rouge with our mamans, we’d pile into bed together just so we’d be able to wake up near one another. We all had our positions: Edel would have to be on the edge so she could get out if she needed to, Hana loved being in the center, Padma along the foot, Amber in the middle where she could control everyone’s movements, and Valerie closest to Edel, her favorite sleep partner out of all of us. I was happy wherever, as long as I was with my sisters.

  The memory stings—the bed once snug with a tangle of legs and arms and warmth, and now, so few.

  I start to ask them if they’re all right and if we’re going to be all right, but we each make eye contact and lie there in silence. I hold their hands and trace my fingers over their skin and gaze at them, ensuring that my few remaining sisters are intact. I am filled with regrets and unrequited wishes.

  The doors open and Lady Pelletier pushes Charlotte in a wheeling chair followed by Lady Arane, Surielle, and Violetta.

  Hana, Padma, and Edel sit up.

  I struggle to rise.

  “Please don’t move, Camille,” Charlotte says. “Rest.”

  Lady Pelletier pushes her close to the bed, then leans down and kisses my forehead. I swallow down tears. The softness of her lips reminds me of Maman.

  “You look better,” Charlotte remarks.

  “Her levels are almost back to normal,” Hana reports. “A few more days of rest, and she should be back to her old self.”

  I don’t even know who that is anymore.

  “You saved us,” Lady Arane says to me. Her black eyes hold joyful tears as she gazes into the bed. “You opened the Observatory Deck and then created the perfect diversion.”

  “It didn’t feel much like saving,” I admit.

  “But you did it,” Charlotte adds, her v
oice strong and clear.

  “What happened? How many days has it been?” I ask, trying to piece together the rest of the night after I fainted.

  “It’s been three days. I’ve freed all the Belles, plus the Fashion Minister and Beauty Minister, from the Everlasting Rose and put my sister in her own prison, where she will stand trial for her crimes and get the help she needs. I don’t know if she will ever truly understand the damage she’s done, but I will spend my days impressing this upon her.”

  She purses her lips. “You missed my coronation,” she teases.

  “You are a beautiful queen,” Lady Pelletier adds with a smile. “Your mother would be proud.”

  We all kiss our two fingers and tap our hearts to show respect for the dead. I let my hand linger there, thinking of Valerie, Amber, and Arabella.

  “Where are the other Belles?” I ask.

  “I’ve seen a few of them,” Edel interjects. “They’re here at the palace.”

  “We’ve released them from the teahouses as well and given them accommodations.” Charlotte takes a breath. “And we’d love it, Camille, if you’d stay with us, and be our advisor on all matters related to Belles as we figure out what beauty work will look like going forward.”

  Lady Arane clears her throat. “Living without modifications does take adjustment and patience. The Iron Ladies will be moving our headquarters to Trianon to assist those who wish to make the change,” she assures me.

  The proposition stirs around inside my head. This last year I’ve felt like I’ve been trapped in a snow globe, shaken and jostled until the glass fissures and all the water leaks out. Before, all I ever wanted was to live at the palace forever in one of the beautiful apartments. But now, all I want to do is go home. Or to whatever is left of it.

  “Your Majesty, it would be an honor to help you with this and to be here with you, but I don’t believe it’s the right path for me,” I tell her. “I want to go back to Maison Rouge and take any Belles who want to come with me. While things are still settling across the kingdom, it will be a troublesome time for us. I need to be in a place that I know is safe, and I need to keep my sisters safe. And, if I may... I must also grapple with the things I’ve done—and the losses I’ve suffered.”

  Charlotte smiles knowingly. “I understand. I respect your decision. But I will still need your help. All of your help.” She gestures at Hana, Edel, and Padma.

  “I’ll stay behind,” Edel says, surprising us all.

  “You will?” Padma replies.

  “I won’t ever return to another teahouse,” she declares. “And if things are going to change in Orléans, I want to be a part of that change.”

  She reaches for my hand and for Hana’s. I can feel her pulse thrumming beneath her skin.

  “If I accomplish one thing in this life,” she says firmly, “it will be to ensure that the old way of doing things is done.”

  A week later, the journey home from Trianon feels a thousand moments longer than the one that first brought me and my sisters to the imperial island. Our hearts buzzed with the promise of being true Belles, stepping into our destinies, being chosen and placed. The two days drifted past us before we knew it, our fates sprawled out before us like paths to unknown places, full of promise.

  The horses’ pace quickens as the carriages travel north across imperial bridges connecting the main island to outlying ones. The ride home is shadowed with worries, a tapering storm that may reignite at any moment.

  We sit in silence. The noise of the road among us. Padma thumbs through Arabella’s Belle-book. Hana reads a stack of newspapers and tattlers. Rémy sleeps, his arm in a sling and his foot propped up. Bree stokes a small fire. The absence of Valerie, Edel, and Amber is like a cold weight in my chest. At least Edel is well. She’s taken her place at the palace at Charlotte’s side.

  I glance out the window at our procession—several carriages carrying Belles released from the Everlasting Rose and the teahouses—all those who wished to come.

  The city of Trianon disappears in the distance, fading to a mere smudge. I crane to see its outline, wondering if I will ever return, if I’ll ever want to. I wanted nothing more than to be the favorite and to stay in Trianon and the royal palace forever, but I had no idea what it would be like, all the horrors that would come to pass. A dream turned nightmare.

  I curl into a little knot, limbs and body lost in the folds of my dress, and sink into the weight of all that’s happened.

  “More newspapers and tattlers,” Bree says, sliding one stack into my lap and another into Hana’s.

  “Sit with me?” I ask her.

  “I need to prepare tea.”

  “You’re no longer an imperial servant.”

  “I know, but—”

  I pat the cushion beside mine. “Just sit with me awhile.”

  She concedes.

  We sit in the window and go through the headlines in the Orléansian Times:

  MINISTER OF BELLES FLEES! GEORGIANA FABRY MISSING

  THE LEADER OF THE IRON LADIES INVITED TO MEET WITH HER MAJESTY QUEEN CHARLOTTE

  LOCKED IN A TOWER OF HER OWN MAKING! DISGRACED ALMOST QUEEN SOPHIA HELD IN THE EVERLASTING ROSE TO AWAIT TRIAL

  RIOTS AND UNREST SPARK IN THE SPICE ISLES!

  “What do you think will happen?” Bree asks.

  I turn the page and the headlines scatter. “I don’t know.”

  “Will things go back to what they once were?”

  “Can anything go back? All I know is that we will take care of one another and those with us, and help Charlotte.” I trace my fingers along the underside of my wrist, the veins there a reminder of the arcana. And a choice.

  She opens the Trianon Tribune and reads silently.

  I close my eyes. Images circle inside my head with nowhere to go, like flies in a jar. I drift in and out of sleep. Time passes, more than three hourglasses’ worth. The world outside the carriage gets quieter and quieter.

  The wheels sink into soft earth. I recognize the feeling and know we’re close to home. When I was younger, I loved the mud between my toes and the tiny worry that you might drift down and through the center of the world. If we were the slightest bit dirty, Du Barry would send us for a scrub treatment, and it was never pleasant. I miss those little-girl days before I was so excited to leave home—to crash into the world and discover its secrets.

  We rattle along the wooden bridge to the carriage-house, and I hear the familiar late-night noises of the Rose Bayou—the hum of crickets, the bleat of frogs, and the buzz of fireflies. Above me a quilt of branches is heavy with snow-white moss.

  The carriages are parked inside the brick carriage-house, which sits on a platform in the middle of the bayou. Behind me, the wooden bridge pulls away, returning to our closest island neighbor—Quin. During the warm months, rows of fruits and vegetables in every color, shape, and size grow along high hills and mountainsides, and we could see teams of workers tending to the millions of plants from my bedroom window.

  Would everything settle back in place like a reset bone?

  As the bridge disappears behind me, so does the path to the outside world. Maybe that’s a good thing now. Maybe time away from the world will help.

  I gaze ahead across the water. Home hides among the Rose Bayou’s cypress trees. The newspapers used to say the Goddess of Beauty placed Belles on an island of milk and blood because of these white bark trees and their red leaves.

  I wish the sight of them gave me the relief I crave, but it doesn’t. What will it feel like to be here without Amber and Valerie? Will I be able to do all the things that need to be done?

  Bayou boats arrive at the carriage-house pier.

  We climb in.

  Snowflies skip along the surface of the water, their little bodies white sparks brightening the dark. I want to plunge my whole hand in, like I did when I was a little girl. I want to see if the water is still the same.

  The warning Du Barry used to give me rings out in my head: “Sit up, Ca
mellia, and hand out of the water. This bayou is full of the unknown.”

  I leave a sliver of the window open to watch as we pass through a dense thicket of cypress trees where the boats slow to curve around their trunks. I want to reach out and pluck one of the roses growing out of the dark waters, but the feeling of Du Barry’s eyes upon me lingers. Even if she isn’t here.

  Maison Rouge appears ahead. The pointed roof rises above the trees. Sill-lanterns sit in each window and cast red light over the island. Stone crypts freckle the land, and the Belle-graveyard seems endless, spilling into the dark forest that lurks in the mansion’s shadow. Maman and I used to play hide-and-seek in the graveyard when she wanted alone time for us away from the other mothers and little girls. We’d zip around those vaults and fill the space with laughter instead of death. Back then, I wasn’t afraid of dying, and I never thought there’d be a day when Maman would be placed in one of the graves. They were just stone pyramids to hide behind until my mother found me. Now, they feel real and used. Ready to receive the bodies of my sisters.

  The boats are tethered to the dock, and the servants help us onto the platform. We follow a path of stepping-stones along the walkway to the house. Twisted cypress trees block the stars. The noise of our feet adds to the melody of the bayou. I jam a key into the lock just as Du Barry once did.

  I slide the entryway doors open with both hands. The floors are warm beneath my feet, and the walls and corridors and rooms carry the scent of charcoal and flowers. The familiar smell of home.

  Ivy stands there waiting. Her face has settled back to its original shape. She opens her arms, and I fall into them.

  “It is so good to see you,” I say. “How did you get here before us?”

  “Always asking questions.”

  Her words make me smile. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  “Welcome home, my little fox.”

  “Are we going to be all right?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she replies. “Together we will.”