Chameleon (The Ripple Series)

by Cidney Swanson

  I shuddered, imagining being lost among the bones.

  “Okay, enough already with the fear factor,” said Mickie, looking severely at her brother. “Sir Walter’s right—it is time for Sam to get some rest.”

  “Of course,” Gwyn burst out, running to hug me. “And tomorrow morning, I’ll give you a proper makeover to hide the bruises. Better than those crap make–up jobs you did yourself back home.”

  I laughed softly and squeezed her hand as she said a final goodnight.

  Mickie placed a gentle hand at my back and led me to her own room. Carefully, she tucked me into the soft bed under a thick down comforter.

  It occurred to me as I lay drifting towards sleep that I’d never told them about the emergency call I’d placed on Deuxième’s behalf. How had I forgotten to mention that? Because you don’t want them to know. I turned over in bed, curling my knees towards my belly. It was the truth. I feared none of them would approve. They’d see it as an act of foolishness, not mercy.

  I didn’t feel right, keeping something this important from the rest of them. Their voices rose and fell in the sitting room until sometime around midnight, but I didn’t get up to tell them what I’d done, and then I fell asleep.

  Sometime later, Mickie came in and checked on me, pulling my bedspread over my shoulders. I should have told them about sending help for Deuxième. Guilt settled upon me, a familiar, well–worn garment.

  I fell into a hard sleep after that. My dream was a familiar one. Maggie and me in Mom’s car, me in my booster–car seat, because at seven, I didn’t tip the scale past sixty pounds. Maggie seatbelted, stroking her new kitten. Me wanting to hold it so badly. Maggie agreeing, making me swear to hold tight to the kitten no matter what. The car arriving back on our street and Maggie opening her door.

  The noise spooked the kitten, who clawed and bit me. I squealed and released it.

  Maggie ran calling for her new pet.

  No, Maggie, I wanted to scream. No, Mommy! But I couldn’t make the sounds come out. The car seat release baffled me. I heard Harold’s car revving up and I clawed frantically at my buckle. Mom shouted and I looked up as the car struck them.

  I tried to keep my dream–self from looking over my shoulder to where Maggie and my mom bled. I tried to stop my dream–self from making the horrible call to 9–1–1.

  Usually this was the moment I would wake myself, moaning and crying No!

  Instead, I slept on.

  The dream shifted and I huddled in a corner of Dr. Gottlieb’s office while she argued with her brother Hans. She sketched a crayon picture of Mom’s car and shouted, “See? See? She’s right there!” She punctured the paper as she indicated my position in the car. “That’s the girl you were after! Now get back there and finish her off before I tell Father.”

  Hans stuck his tongue out at her saying, “You’re not the boss of me, Helga.”

  She threw a tin cup of milk at his face. “Father always lets you get away with murder, Hans, but not this time!”

  “Oh, that’s exactly what I’m getting away with,” Hans said, white teeth gleaming.

  I awoke from the nightmare, drenched in sweat, with the name “Helga” on my tongue.

  Mickie entered the darkened room. “You had a bad dream.” She sat beside me, brushing hair back off my damp forehead.

  “Yeah.”

  “I have them, too.” She handed me a glass of water. “Drink. So you don’t fall back into the same dream.”

  I took the glass. “Does that work?”

  “Sometimes.” She gave me a crooked half–smile.

  I sipped from the glass.

  “Sam, you’re a remarkable young woman.”

  Would she be saying this if she knew I might have just saved one of Helga’s thugs? I frowned.

  “I mean it. You didn’t ask for any of this, and you’re jumping in with both feet. It says a lot about who you are. I’d do anything to keep Will safe, but I have no choice. He’s my baby brother.”

  I didn’t feel like I had a choice either; I loved him.

  “I’m covering my butt, too,” I said at last.

  She chortled. “I know. But thanks.” She stood and straightened my covers, bunched into a twisted wad during my nightmare. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to thank you for. For being such a good friend to Will. A lot of girls would have walked away, written him off after what he did …” She hesitated. “Kissing you, I mean.”

  I flushed. “He told you about that?”

  Mickie rolled her eyes. “Yeah.”

  I could hear his voice still. I just want to be friends no matter what, okay?

  Mickie continued. “It’s not the first time he’s acted on impulse. Drives me freaking crazy. But I love him.” She laughed softly. “From the moment Mom first placed him in my arms … He’s the moon and the stars to me, Sam.”

  I nodded.

  “So, just … thanks. Thanks for still being his friend.”

  I held the truth in my hands at last, like a smooth stone I could turn over and over on my palm. Will had kissed me impulsively. I didn’t mean the same thing to him that he meant to me. The moon and the stars.

  A heaviness settled into the deep reaches of my belly. “Everyone does things they regret,” I whispered. “I’ll always be his friend.”

  Since that’s all I can be.

  Chapter Seventeen

  QUEEN OF RELATIONSHIPS

  Our third full day in Paris was devoted to all things Museum. After flaky croissants with Nutella, we set off to conquer the Louvre with Gwyn, who made sure I had a decent amount of cover–up on my face. I saw lots of Art. Really. Old. Art. Even the Mona Lisa looked tired behind her layers of glass. I liked the portraits by David; the men and women from the time following the French Revolution looked like they could hop right out of their portraits and join us for a mid–day meal. Of course, some of them might have lunched with Sir Walter back in the day.

  Our French friend spent another day away, apologizing to Mickie that he had matters to which he must attend.

  “He said he hasn’t heard any thoughts from Helga’s thug, which means we’re safe,” said Mickie, grinning.

  Or does it? I wondered.

  For lunch, we shuffled back to the Latin Quarter. It was a University district, and there were lots of cheap places to eat. Mickie insisted we try something besides crêpes, and we settled on a Middle–Eastern restaurant where neither Will nor I could read the menu. We pointed to what other students our age were eating. Mickie got some kind of sausage which she wouldn’t eat, and Will ended up with seafood. Gwyn and I had chicken on couscous and it was fabulous. Then, because Mickie was still hungry, we stopped at a patisserie for cream–filled delicacies and café–au–laits.

  “Ma seriously needs to learn to make these,” said Gwyn, holding up the last bite of her pastry. “What’s it called again?”

  “Mille–feuille,” I replied. “For the flaky layers.”

  “Thousand leaves,” Will murmured to Mickie, who was trying to work out what “me–foil” had to do with leaves.

  Gwyn licked her fingers clean, sighing with content. “Only one thing we can do to top that.”

  Will’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve been looking forward to the Cluny Museum.”

  Gwyn rolled her eyes. “Not a chance.”

  “We’ve got those worksheets to turn in,” I pointed out. The Cluny Museum, our afternoon stop, held all–things–medieval, and we were required to visit it.

  “Ah, but that is where our delightfully geek–ish friend Will comes in,” said Gwyn. “Who, I might add, just volunteered to enjoy it on our behalf while you and I indulge in pedicures.”

  “Pedicures?” I asked. “Gwyn, we’re in Paris.”

  “What, they don’t have toes in France?” she asked.

  “Go,” said Mickie. “Will’s going to be impossible at the Cluny. He’ll be spouting about how Sir Walter used to kneel at altars just like the one behind the rope, or how the tapestrie
s were probably sewn during the Papal Schism.”

  “Woven,” said Will.

  Mick looked at him blankly.

  “Tapestries were woven.”

  Mickie’s eyelids dropped to half–mast. “See what I mean? Go do your pedicures. You can copy off Will when we get back to the hotel.”

  “You’re the worst chaperone ever,” I said, squeezing Mick’s hand.

  Gwyn and I hurried back along the busy boulevard to our hotel.

  “I bought these amazing colors at this little shop in Amboise,” said Gwyn. “They change color. You know, with your mood.”

  “I’ve heard of that,” I said.

  Gwyn guffawed. “Yeah, it’ll be all the rage in Las Abs in about, oh, five years.”

  We entered the hotel and greeted the desk clerk. As we rounded behind him to the elevator, we both felt a moment’s awkwardness, recalling our shouting match here last night.

  “Have I apologized in the last hour?” asked Gwyn.

  “Hmm, I don’t think so.” My lips twitched as I tried not smiling. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Je suis désolée,” she murmured.

  The elevator arrived.

  “Has a nice ring to it in French,” I said, stone–faced.

  “In French,” huffed Gwyn, “You’re required to say ‘de rien.’”

  “Maybe next time,” I said.

  We reached the fifth floor.

  In Gwyn’s modest hotel room, we washed and loofah–ed our feet. I couldn’t remember the last time my toes had seen daylight for this long. Chipped polish clung to several of my toes.

  Gwyn chattered away about things back in Las Abs, who’d dumped whom just before Christmas to avoid buying an expensive gift. As I brushed polish on her toes, I relaxed back into the contour of our old friendship. Gwyn could carry both sides of a conversation with anyone nowadays, but I still remembered a time she’d been timid—the day that had cemented our friendship.

  In second grade I’d punched a bully in the stomach for calling Gwyn “slanty–eyes.” Of course, the bully had his revenge. All the next week, he’d pretended to see my mom’s ghost.

  “Did you see her? Did you see her?” He would stare, wide–eyed, pointing.

  “Where?” I would ask every time, aching inside.

  After a few days, he’d told me he was making it up. “Your mom doesn’t even care enough to haunt you.”

  I’d punched him again.

  Gwyn’s voice brought me back to the present. She stared at me with eyebrows raised. Awaiting an answer.

  “Sorry, I missed the question,” I said, finishing the second coat on her toes.

  “Liar,” Gwyn growled. “I’ll ask Will if you don’t give me an answer.”

  “Ask Will what?”

  “Honestly, Sam.” She sighed in exasperation. “Will. You. Dish me the dirt on you and Will,” said Gwyn.

  I studied the chipped polish on my toes. Bright orange. A remnant from Halloween.

  “So?” she asked.

  “We’re friends.” The words stuck in my throat.

  “Friends! Hang on while I text CNN with the breaking news.” She shook her head and reached for my left foot.

  “We are friends.”

  She rubbed polish remover over the chipped orange. “And you, I take it, still want more.”

  I picked at the polish on my other foot.

  “Well, who wouldn’t,” she said. “He’s gorgeous, he loves to hang out in stuffy old museums, and he’s got freaky genes. What’s not to love?”

  “Shut up,” I said, a hint of a smile forming upon my face.

  “Sam, I am the Queen of Relationships. You can tell me anything.”

  I sighed as she set down my left foot, beckoning for my right.

  “It’s hopeless,” I said.

  “Queen of Relationships, Sam. If it’s broke, I can fix it. Give me something to work with here.”

  “Wouldn’t that make you the Doctor of Relationships?”

  “No, Queen is fine.”

  “Or the Plumber of Relationships?”

  “Okay, if my polish weren’t still wet, I would so get up and kick your despondent butt.” She glared at me. “Come on, Sam. Nothing’s hopeless.”

  Tears hung on my lower lids. “I think this might be.” The words came out in a whisper. I told Gwyn how Will had kissed me last fall. How he’d back–pedaled almost before my lips had dried. How he just wanted to be friends.

  Gwyn shook her head as she applied my final coat. “Boys are dumber than a box of rocks.”

  I laughed in spite of my tears. “A box of rocks?”

  “Something Ma’s aunties used to say. Maybe it’s Confucius.” She stared at my toes. “Oooh, they’re changing.”

  My toes were, indeed, changing color. “What’s pinky–lavender?” I asked.

  She read a small typed sheet that had come with the lacquer. “Pink is ‘lucky in love,’” she said. “Well, that’s hopeful. For you anyway.” Her own toes looked blue.

  “What’s blue?” I asked.

  “Passionate.” She frowned. “Green is ‘devoted lover,’ and purple is ‘blessed by your lover.’ What happened to angry, excited, happy, and sad?”

  “This is France,” I said, shrugging.

  “Yeah, I guess. Paris, city of love and all that.”

  “I think it’s the City of Light, actually.”

  She shook her head at me. “Everyone knows Paris is the city of lovers. And you need to show Will a little pink nail polish tonight, okay girl?”

  “You want me to take off my shoes for Will?”

  “No, dweeb. I meant you need to help him realize he’s ‘lucky in love.’” She giggled. “Removal of clothing is at your discretion.”

  A loud knock sounded on Gwyn’s door.

  “Ask who it is first,” I said, a prickle running along my spine.

  “It’s us,” said Mickie’s voice.

  Gwyn opened the door.

  “Just checking to make sure everything’s good with you,” said Mickie. Her eyes dropped to my new toenail polish. “Nice shade of blue.”

  Gwyn giggled and I felt my cheeks burning as Will came into the room

  “Did I say something wrong?” asked Mickie.

  Excerpted from My Father’s Brilliant Journey, by Helga Gottlieb

  During the setbacks suffered by my father in the nineteenth century, he came upon what would be a breakthrough in the creation of the New Race of Mankind. In this journal entry made in 1812, we see the exact moment—the birth, as it were, of a phoenix from the ashes of my father’s despair:

  The Emperor is a fool. They are all fools. Napoleon’s plan to take the Russian wasteland will destroy him, and France with him.

  But does he listen to me? Bah—the fool. He hears only the voices of those who worship him, which I will never do. Let Napoleon be to me as one already dead. I will raise up another leader, one more worthy of my Great Plan.

  Not for Napoleon’s glory do I labor and study.

  My studies. Alas, I remain vexed regarding my researches. Why will the secret of my ability as a chameleon not divulge itself to me? Why could Elisabeth not bear me a child who lived? I still see in my mind’s eye the row of five tiny graves. What fault lay in her? None of my children by other women show any sign of extraordinary ability, either. I must continue to seek a woman whose blood runs as true as my own.

  And perhaps I was a fool to disregard the words of Waldhart’s mother. The Well; always with her it was the Well of Juno.

  Chapter Eighteen

  JUST FRIENDS

  Our toes fresh and beautiful, Gwyn and I joined our group for an hour–long boat ride on the Seine River. Which basically meant freezing our butts off to see famous buildings lit up at night. Another group on board had booked a champagne–cruise, creating confusion when students accepted tiny flutes of bubbly. Once the chaperones caught on, it became Mickie’s job to make sure no one drank any.

  I stood with Will on one side a
nd Gwyn on the other as the Eiffel Tower came into our sight–line. Just then, twinkle–lights began dancing up and down the landmark tower. Everyone sighed. I watched as couples around us succumbed to the romance of Paris by night.

  “I’m getting pictures,” Gwyn said, winking at me and then leaning in to whisper, “City of Love. Think Pink.” She pushed through lip–locked teens to the edge of the boat.

  But watching others kiss didn’t make me feel boldly romantic. Just a little embarrassed.

  “Let’s move,” I said to Will. We wriggled through flashing cell phones, cameras and lovers to the empty side of the boat.

  “Sir Walter told Mick where we’ll be spending Christmas,” said Will.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Carcassonne. It’s south, pretty much on top of one of those red dots,” Will said.

  “I wonder if he’s got family in the area.”

  Will shook his head. “Mickie asked him did he have anyone … left.”

  I looked up, curious.

  “The short answer’s no, but he told us some family history you should hear. He had this cousin besides Helmann, when he was a kid. Elisabeth de Rocheforte. And he loved her, but she married Girard—Helmann—who treated her badly, and eventually she fled him, moved to a French settlement in Arcadia.”

  “That’s Canada, right?” I asked.

  Will nodded. “Walter had hoped she’d come to him, but she refused. She said stretching their lives was wrong and unsatisfying and that she was done with it. In Arcadia, she had another man’s child and was pretty much his wife, outside church law. Sir Walter’s always kept an eye on her descendants, who were eventually kicked out by the British—”

  “And resettled in Louisiana,” I said—I knew that bit of history.

  “Yeah, actually,” he said, looking at me with respect. “The Cajuns. So finally Sir Walter saw her descendants dwindle to where he knew of only one girl left, a twelve–year old named Sophie–Elisabeth. He often visited her family in the U.S. He adored her. This past year, she died after participating in the program that killed all those Helmann’s carriers back in the U.S.”