by Max Candee
“Come on now,” I said gently. “You’re okay. Let’s get you out of there.” I helped her climb out.
“My tummy hurts,” she wailed; then she bent over and threw up in the bushes. I held her hair away from her face and patted her back. Poor little thing!
“Well, that was bracing,” André said with a small laugh of relief. I wanted to yell at him that he’d nearly killed us, but it wasn’t really his fault, and the Sisters Briault had taught me better manners than that.
Marie and Lauraleigh were running through the grassy field towards us. The relief on Lauraleigh’s face was evident when she saw that we weren’t harmed.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know. As we drifted over the house, a sudden wind picked up.” I shuddered, thinking of that black shadow I’d imagined crouched around the manor.
“Just a stray wind current,” André said with his usual gruff, good humor. His face was red, and he puffed a bit as if he had overexerted himself. “We sorted it out.”
Right. We sorted it out by crashing.
It was a long walk all the way around the house back to the car. Beatrice said her legs felt wobbly, so I carried her on my back. After a while, the jostling piggyback ride cheered her, and by the time we’d reached the convertible, she looked a little more in control of herself.
“You must stay for supper,” Marie suggested, leaning against her car.
I shook my head. So did Lauraleigh.
“Beatrice is not feeling well,” I said.
“And the Sisters wouldn’t like us to be away for so long,” Lauraleigh added. She looked at me and winked. She had gracious down to an art.
“Well, all right,” Marie said with a reluctant edge to her voice, and tapped the car roof a little too forcefully. “But we must organize a proper party so you can come see us again. Perhaps a sleepover? Wouldn’t that be nice, Gaëlle?”
Gaëlle nodded, but she didn’t seem enthusiastic.
“Sure,” I said. I really didn’t want to spend any time at Irvigne Manor, but to find out what was bothering Gaëlle, I could put up with André and Marie for one night.
“I’m hungry,” Candace announced. “Gaëlle, go fix me something to eat.” She waved us good-bye and disappeared into the house.
Gaëlle rolled her eyes but followed her new sister.
“Gaëlle is such a lovely girl,” said Marie with a charming smile. “She’s teaching Candace how to cook. They’re like two peas in a pod!”
I highly doubted that. It seemed more like Candace was bossing her around and Gaëlle put up with her for some reason. I really needed to get Gaëlle alone and find out exactly what was going on at Irvigne Manor.
For the ride back, Beatrice sat between Lauraleigh and me in the backseat of Marie’s convertible. She wouldn’t let go of my hand. I worried that she was going to have nightmares about the accident.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked her.
“I’m fine now. My tummy isn’t upset anymore. But I think you can have flying as your superpower, okay, Anna? I like to keep my feet on the ground.” She gave me a shaky smile.
I laughed. “That’s just fine. We’ll find other superpowers.”
“I think Anna Sophia has already found her superpower,” Lauraleigh said.
“What is it?” Beatrice asked.
“You should know. Her superpower is being a good friend.”
Coming from Lauraleigh, that made me feel really proud.
Chapter 3
Dear Diary,
My birthday party was a disaster in the real sense of the word, but not because of Jean-Sébastien. That was a nice change anyway, even if I almost died in a hot air balloon accident. Did you know that the word for hot air balloon in French is Montgolfier? I thought that was a funny word, but it turns out to be a name. The Montgolfier brothers invented the first hot air balloons in France in 1783. That seems like such a long time ago. I wonder what people thought back then, when they saw that giant balloon floating over them. They probably thought it was a demon or something horrible like that.
I guess I’m rambling. Who really cares about balloons when so much more exciting stuff is about to happen in my life? I’m almost too nervous to write it all down. What if someone should read this diary? Maybe that’s why I’m rambling about the history of balloons. Better if some stranger reads that than what really happened on the night of my thirteenth birthday.
I knew that something was up as soon as I saw Sister Constance’s sour face waiting for us on the steps of our dormitory…
* * *
Sister Daphne whisked Beatrice away for a quick supper before bath and bed. I hadn’t realized how late it was. Outdoor lanterns lit the stairs to our dormitory where Sister Constance was waiting. The dim light threw odd shadows on her face and made her frown seem even deeper.
“You’re very late, girls,” she said. “It’s well past curfew for a school night.”
“Yes, it is. Sorry,” said Lauraleigh. She didn’t bother with excuses. “It was nice of you to let the girls go for their balloon ride.” Lauraleigh had a way of diffusing Sister Constance’s irritation. I tried to study how she did it so that when I fell under the Sister’s glaring eye, I wouldn’t stammer or shake. So far, I hadn’t gotten the knack of it.
Sister Constance glared at Lauraleigh for a moment longer, but the girl just smiled back at her sweetly. And honestly, I didn’t understand why Sister Constance was mad. She knew exactly where we’d been. She’d even given us grudging permission to ride in that horrible balloon. It wasn’t our fault that André had taken us so far and then crashed.
“I suppose I should expect such behavior from you, young lady,” she turned her scowl my way.
Me? I thought. What did I do? I rarely got into trouble. Okay, there was the time I tore my school uniform playing soccer with Jean-Sébastien and Luca. And there was the time I accidentally started a food fight in the cafeteria by spilling my Jell-O on a senior boy’s head. And the time… well, maybe I did get into trouble a little too often, but it was usually not my fault.
Sister Constance continued to glare at me, and I forgot all my arguments. I think she did that on purpose.
“Monsieur Nolan has been waiting to see you for over an hour,” she said grimly. “I’m not in the habit of entertaining gentlemen callers after dinner. If it were anyone but the esteemed solicitor, I would have sent him away.”
Monsieur Nolan! Maybe he had heard from Uncle Misha. I ran inside without waiting for Sister Constance’s permission. I heard her say something about unladylike behavior but didn’t care.
I found him sitting in the parlor of our dormitory. An empty cup of tea and a plate with crumbs sat on the table before him. His head had fallen back against the tall chair, and he was snoring softly. Monsieur Nolan had a round face with arching eyebrows that always gave him a look of surprise even while he slept. His thin black mustache curled up at the edges and quivered with each snore.
Monsieur Nolan was the first person I had met when Uncle Misha brought me to Luyons all those years ago. Being a solicitor, he took care of my parents’ estate. When Uncle Misha showed him the locket with my name, he immediately arranged for me to stay at the orphanage.
In the years since, I often wondered about Monsieur Nolan. He clearly knew more about my family and its history than I did, but he was never open to talking about it.
“Monsieur Nolan.” I shook his arm gently, hoping not to startle him.
He snorted and jerked awake. For a second, his eyes sparkled with fear as if he had expected to wake up to a monster. Then he recognized me and smiled. I wondered what kind of bad dreams he’d had.
“Ah, Miss Anna Sophia. Don’t you look lovely!”
I was tired and sore from the balloon accident. My hands were dirty, and I was sure I had dirt smeared on my face too. My hair probably had grass in it. Monsieur Nolan didn’t see any of it – or he didn’t care.
“You’re thirteen today,” he
said, still smiling. “Such a curious age for a young lady.”
Curious age? What an odd thing to say.
And speaking of being curious, I could no longer contain my own curiosity. “Have you heard from Uncle Misha?” I asked.
He frowned. “No, I haven’t. Is something wrong?”
I shrugged; then I remembered that Sister Constance had said that ladies don’t shrug. “I just thought he might have sent you something for me… for my birthday, I mean.”
“No, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t gotten anything from your uncle. But I did bring other treats.” His mustache curled up even higher as he grinned. He handed me a colorfully wrapped box.
“Is this from you?” I asked.
He nodded.
I knew exactly what it was. Monsieur Nolan knew I collected bears in all forms: bear statues, posters, jewelry, and so on. Every year on my birthday, he would give me a new plush teddy bear to add to my collection. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was really too old to play with stuffed animals now. He meant well.
I tore off the paper. From inside the box, I pulled out a large, fluffy red bear… with straps.
“I’m sure you’re too old for toys,” said Monsieur Nolan as if he’d read my mind. “It’s a backpack, a bear backpack. Isn’t that the most amazing thing? You can carry your books in it.”
I nodded. “Thank you. I love it!” I kissed his cheek. Actually, if I wore that backpack to school, the older kids would tease me to death. But I really did like it. It was quirky just like Monsieur Nolan.
“I do have one other package for you.” Monsieur Nolan’s smile faded, and his face turned somber. “I was told to give it to you after 6:43 p.m. on your thirteenth birthday.”
“6:43?” I asked. “Why so precisely?”
Monsieur cleared his throat, and he wouldn’t look at me as he spoke. “That, I understand, was the exact hour of your birth.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “Were you there? Did my parents tell you?”
Monsieur Nolan just smiled absently and ignored my questions as usual. He opened his briefcase and handed me a bulky envelope.
“Since the hour is late, you may open it as soon as you wish.” He stood and arranged his coat. “I suspect it is something you should do in private.” He turned to leave. Almost as an afterthought, he turned back and kissed my cheek. “Happy birthday, Anna Sophia.”
Monsieur Nolan left, and I ran upstairs (even though Sister Constance had said that ladies never run). After locking the door to my room, I sat on my bed, holding the envelope with trembling hands.
I had no idea what could be inside, but it had to be something from my parents. Who else would have entrusted it to Monsieur Nolan? This could be the day I’d find out who my parents were. Maybe I’d finally know why they left me with a family of bears when I was only days old.
All orphans want to know how they came into this world. Besides finding a new family, that was what the children at the orphanage had talked about most. When I had first arrived at the orphanage, I told my roommates that Uncle Misha had found me in a bear den. They all made fun of me for making up such a ridiculous story. After that, I pretended that I didn’t know anything about my birth or my parents. Even Gaëlle knew only that I came from Russia.
Part of me had always wondered if Uncle Misha had made up that story. Maybe he had just found me in a basket by the road, an ordinary baby. Maybe there was nothing special about me at all.
This envelope might tell me one way or the other, and for that reason, I was terrified to open it. I sat, staring at it for a long time before curiosity won out over fear and I opened it.
Inside was a card, a picture, and a carving of a hand curled into a fist. I studied the hand first. It was a bit bigger than my own fist and so realistic that I could imagine it opening to shake my own hand. The material was solid like soapstone but soft on the surface, almost waxy. It gave me the creeps. I set it down on my bed and turned to the picture.
It, too, was peculiar. One edge of the sheet was ragged as if it had been torn from a book. When I looked closer, there was a page number at the bottom: page thirteen. I wondered if that number had any significance since it was my thirteenth birthday. The picture might have been in full color once, but by now, it had faded to mostly greens and browns. It showed a house on stilts in a forest, like a trapper’s cabin. I immediately thought of Uncle Misha. His cabin had looked a lot like that, except for the stilts. And except for the skulls, of course – the house in the picture was surrounded by a fence, and each fence post was topped by a skull.
Then I noticed that the stilts looked an awful lot like chicken legs. They even had gnarled toes with claws. So, definitely not stilts. As I said, it was very peculiar. I put it aside for now and turned to the card.
The front was embossed with the face of a bear. I touched the bumpy image with a smile. I couldn’t remember my bear family, but Uncle Misha had said that the mama bear had taken care of me as one of her own. I had always felt a kinship with those amazing creatures. Maybe I had been a bear in another life.
I opened the card and read:
Dear Daughter,
I froze. I couldn’t read another word. I just stared at the letters written in a woman’s flowery hand. Eventually, I realized that I had been holding my breath. I let it out in a whoosh and read on.
I’m sure you have a million questions. I wish I could be there to answer them. You must be such a beautiful young lady by now. I only saw you once before they took you away, but you have your father’s eyes. Big and brown just like a bear’s.
I stopped reading and let that sink in. My father had brown eyes like me. It was more than I’d ever known about my parents, yet that little bit of information was surrounded in mystery. Who were “they,” and why did they take me away from my mother? I continued to read.
Since you are thirteen today, it’s time for you to come into part of your inheritance. I don’t mean the money. You will never have to worry about that. Monsieur Nolan has instructions to make sure you will always be taken care of.
But you have another inheritance. This one, you can tell nobody about and, unfortunately, nobody can help you with it. You must think that I know nothing about you since I held you for only a short time. But I do know you, Anna Sophia. I know that you love bears. How can you not? I also know that the moon loves you. I’m sure you can feel it by now. Doesn’t the moon shine a little brighter when it sees you? Don’t you sometimes feel like you could just pluck it right out of the sky? This is the gift I gave you when you were born. The moon is your power. Use it wisely.
I dropped the card in my lap. I thought of the way the moon seemed to follow me even during the day. How could my mother – the mother I had never known – know so much about me?
Trust Monsieur Nolan but no one else. No, that is poor advice for a mother to give to her child. Mistrust is only a short step away from suspicion, which leads to fear and hatred. Those feelings will shrivel your heart to a black stone. I want you to love and be kind to others as I’m sure you do. Just know this: There are people in this world who want to hurt you and use you for their own twisted ends. So love, yes. And be kind, yes. But also be wary.
I’m sure you want to know more, but I can only tell you that your destiny is to do great things. You can already feel that inside you, can’t you? More will be revealed when you are ready, but for now, I want you to learn to be yourself. For this reason, I am giving you some special tools. When you can, take the picture outside and look at it by the light of the moon. Keep the hand close to you at all times. In case of emergency, hold it in a flame.
And always remember, Anna Sophia, I love you more than my own heart.
Mom.
P.S. The hand’s name is Squire, and he’s ticklish.
I put down the card and stared at the hand carving and picture. I knew without a doubt that I would be sneaking out of the dorm tonight.
Chapter 4
Dear Diary,
* * *
Sneaking out of our house was easier than I’d expected. Sister Constance was such a dictator, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find her sleeping in front of the doors so none of the young ladies in her charge could escape.
To make sure my steps were silent, I tiptoed down the stairs, carrying my sneakers in my hand. I avoided the second stair from the top, which always squeaked. Sister Constance’s room was next to the parlor we kept for meeting visitors. I laid my ear against her door. A low, steady rumbling came from inside; she was asleep. I just hoped she would stay that way.
Before leaving, I went into the small kitchen off the parlor. This was more of a lounge than a kitchen. There was no oven or stove, just a fridge for keeping healthy drinks and snacks and a kettle for brewing tea. (Sister Constance didn’t allow sodas or other sugary treats.)
I was usually quite clumsy, and I had to work hard at being stealthy while I rooted in the kitchen cupboards, looking for a candle and matches. I knew we had some. At least once or twice in the past, storms had knocked out power at the Collège and we had to study by candlelight.
In the last drawer, I found a jackpot of candles in small glass holders along with a box of matches. I tucked them into my bear backpack along with my other treasures.
I didn’t have a key, so I left the front door unlocked, hoping that no one would notice before I returned.
