Still, no mouse.
“He must be st-stuck. He always comes to paper,” said Nino. “Help me tear down some wood.”
Floralie’s eyebrows jumped an inch. “Tear down some wood? Are you completely mad—”
“Please.”
Floralie sighed, but nonetheless crouched beside Nino and slipped her fingers into the mouse hole. The wood inside was loose and, unsurprisingly, rotting; it made her stomach squirm. She clawed at the wood, felt it chip away, debris collecting beneath her fingernails. Between the two of them, Floralie and Nino widened the mouse hole perhaps three inches before the wood became harder, thicker.
“I don’t think it’ll chip anymore,” said Floralie, but Nino was not in the mood for giving up.
Nino plunged his hand into his pocket, fished around, and pulled out a nail. He then poked the tip into another nail in a board of wood and screwed it out. He repeated at the other end, again on two other boards, and then loosened them from the wall. They fell with a thud between Nino and Floralie, sending spiders scattering to their corners.
“Wow.” The word escaped Floralie’s mouth hardly with her consent.
“That’s a lot of paper,” breathed Nino, for inside the rotting mouse hole was a palace of crinkled paper, dust bunnies, and stolen trinkets.
Floralie’s lungs felt too stunned to produce sound, so she pulled a fountain pen from Nino’s pack and wrote instead. This must be Philomenos’s wonderland.
The day Mama left, Floralie wrote her first letter. Her first poem. It went like this:
The lamplighter killed the moth last night
Sun at his heels, stars in his hair,
Shadows chased him up the ladder to
His chink of hallowed light
Unraveling the godforsaken wicked night—
That is not what killed her
This light, this brilliant, beautiful
Hallowed light
Was hers.
Belonged to her quick beating heart,
Lit for her warmth-seeking wings,
Danced with her skin paper-thin
Gleamed and glowed and glistened
For her, only for her
She cared for it.
She slipped under the glass
And was already
Ash
By the time
The lamplighter came back that dawn
As snuffer-outer this time around
And the flame slipped into ashes
Into ashes into ashes
The night is not what killed her
The moth
Never cared for the night.
Nino looked Floralie in the eye and smiled. Gingerly, they crawled inside the mouse hole. The hole was deeper than Floralie would have thought possible, and much taller. Specks of sunlight peeped through cracks in the ceiling, dancing like fairies across the paper floor. Shreds of newspaper hung around the cracks, fluttering like ghost curtains with the breeze.
Floralie squinted in the dimness, dust collecting on her eyelashes. A pile of chestnut fur curled up in a page of an old book caught her eye; Nino saw it, too. “There he is!” exclaimed Nino, scooting over to Philomenos. “You had me so worried, Phil—” Nino’s voice cut short.
Floralie held her breath. “What is it?” she said after a moment.
Nino gave no reply.
“Well, say something,” pushed Floralie. “What’s wrong?”
Nino turned. His head was cast down, but his face was scrunched into carnation-sized wrinkles. And in his palms, he cradled the mouse, limp and lifeless.
Words would not do. Words rarely “do” in these situations. Floralie slid over and wrapped her arms around Nino, his chin on her shoulder, and hers on his head. Nino smelled of dirt and too-old fish, but Floralie paid no mind. Neither moved, and neither spoke for quite a long time, not until Nino pulled away and laid Philomenos back into his paper bed.
Floralie stroked his fur with one finger. He was ice cold. “I’m sorry,” was all she could manage. “I . . . I was supposed to take care of him. It’s my fault.”
“No.” The fierceness took Floralie by surprise. It was not a tone Floralie had yet experienced in Nino’s voice. Nino squeezed shut his eyes, then opened them again. “It’s no one’s fault. He was old.”
“It was the turpentine.” Floralie felt as if someone had slammed her chest with a brick.
“What?”
“I didn’t want to believe it before, but I’m sure of it. Philomenos only started acting strange after running through a violet patch in Mr. Tullier’s garden with spilled turpentine. I was painting, and . . . it just happened. It’s my fault.” Floralie chanced a look toward Nino, and then back to Philomenos. “Are you mad? You should be mad.”
But Nino shook his head. He took a pen from his pocket and unwrinkled one of Philomenos’s papers. He began to scribble in the corner, and then stopped short, eyes wide.
I’m not mad. I couldn’t be mad. Not at someone who has given me such
The words cut off there, but Nino had circled thrice a word printed on the old paper: bonheur. Floralie knew it to be French for “happiness.” The word was framed by a watercolor illustration of a sprig of small pink flowers and forest-green leaves. The page was titled in spidery script, Armoise, which Floralie had learned at Mr. Tullier’s to be the French word for the flower “mugwort.” Beneath the illustration was a paragraph in French elaborating on the flower. Upon closer inspection, Floralie realized that every word was handwritten. Beside the page number in the corner, five words were scratched in tiny print: La Floriographie Complète, Sylvestre Tullier.
“This is it,” Nino breathed. “It was here all along.”
Floralie’s heart drummed against her chest as she fingered another fragile paper. This one read, Primrose. This flower’s definition was far more complex than the mugwort’s. It read, The sadness that accompanies a child’s imagination when others cannot believe in the unseen. The sadness of leaving childhood behind and separating imagination from reality. The sting of truth. Longing for belief.
“Impossible,” muttered Floralie.
“What?” said Nino.
“It’s just like the poem I wrote about primrose.”
She laid the primrose page down again as Nino asked, “Wh-what poem?”
“The one I wrote on the train back from Paris. Here,” and she rolled up her sleeve for Nino to see her “Sunshine Lungs” poem. “See?” she said, after Nino had read it. “The primrose definition . . . I mean, I wrote it differently, but it’s the same thing—childhood belief and imagination and sadness. Same themes. Strange, no?”
Floralie unwrinkled another paper. This one was for lily of the valley. The definition read, The return of lost happiness. Floralie could hardly believe her eyes. “This one, too, just like my poem, only simplified.”
Floralie uncurled four more pages; more flower definitions. These read,
Burgundy Rose: For someone who is completely and utterly unaware of the vast beauty within him- or herself.
Pink Carnation: I will never forget you.
Meadow Saffron: My happiest days are gone.
Mourning Bride: Unfortunate attachment; I have lost all; the way losing something hurts more for having loved it; caring about things that disappear.
“Philomenos must have the whole book here,” she said, unwrinkling another definition. This one read,
Mountain Pink: You are aspiring.
And that made Floralie smile very much indeed.
Nino began to leaf through the papers as well. Shiny objects glinted in the dim light, and Nino said, “Look. There’s tons of stuff here. Philomenos must have stolen all this stuff . . . but from where?”
Floralie turned to Nino and glanced down at the pile of trinkets before him. Her eyes widened, and then . . . tears. “Me.”
In some faraway place, Nino’s hand landed on Floralie’s shoulder. “What do you mean?” he said. “Are you okay?”
Floralie gave no reply.
She knew these trinkets. These were dollhouse trinkets. A tin of Parisian mascara, half used. A silver comb, daisy-blond hair knotted in its teeth. A rusty needle tucked into a spool of thread, pointe-shoe pink. A makeup brush, still powdered with blush. Floralie’s own drawing, a tiny sketch of a daffodil she had made four years ago. Everything was from Mama’s Palais Garnier dressing room drawer.
“We must have taken them when we moved,” said Floralie. “Before Mr. Duncan moved into the attic, we kept boxes of things up here because we had no time to sort everything when we arrived.”
“So Philomenos must have got into this box and stolen everything,” finished Nino.
Floralie nodded. “That’s how he got Mr. Tullier’s book. It belonged to my mother.”
“But what about your f-flower box? You found that behind your wallpaper. H-how d’you think that got there? It seems impossible,” said Nino.
Floralie shrugged, remembering Miss Clairoux’s story of Mr. Tullier’s blindness being cured, no matter how impossible it seemed. She laughed and said, “Angels, perhaps.”
And then Floralie wept. And wept. She wept harder than she had at her father’s grave, at her withered wallpaper, at her mother’s asylum, tears filling up the hollowed mouse hole. She let her sadness loose. She was not afraid. And Nino waited, and when Floralie was ready, he listened.
I don’t exist to her, she wrote. I’ve been stupid. The last words I said to her three years ago were, “Good-bye, Mama.” The last word she said to me was, “Who?” The letters grew shaky as Floralie’s fingers quivered; she gripped the pen tighter. How was she supposed to remember my name, when she couldn’t remember her own?
Nino did not write for a long time, but when he did, he wrote, I don’t know. But I think it’s your story. It hurts, but it will heal you. Stories are pesky like that.
Floralie giggled at that. Nino, she wrote. Will you come with me?
What? wrote Nino.
To France. Come live with me, me and Mr. Tullier and Miss Clairoux.
Nino grinned, yellowed teeth, crooked mouth. He took Floralie’s hand in his and wrote, Yes.
Floralie and Nino spent the rest of the morning sorting through Philomenos’s things, compiling the pages of Mr. Tullier’s floriography. For hours, not a word could be heard from the little mouse hole, for words are of little importance next to stories. And some stories unfold in gaps between stories, inside the broken spaces of mouse holes and poems. And Floralie realized now: She was the gap in her mother’s poetry. Lost and forgotten, it didn’t mean she didn’t exist. It meant she had space. Space to paint, dream, wonder. Space to flourish.
As she sorted with Nino, Floralie flew to her enchanted garden. And when she landed with a thud on the ground, she found the grass was green with springtime, flowers blooming beneath her knees, a sprout of a willow tree growing tall before her very eyes. When she stood, the weight of her arms took her by surprise; she was carrying something. A familiar silver box.
Floralie pulled open the lid. It was filled with gray ashes, and dropped in the middle was a smooth white stone engraved with the words, JE T’AIME, MA FLEUR. 1902–1903.
The growing willow now towered over Floralie, enclosed her in its leaves. Something else had appeared, too—a shovel. Floralie knew what she was here for. She picked up the shovel, knelt at the bottom of the willow, and dug. And when the hole was deep enough, Floralie placed the box of ashes inside, whispering, “Good night, my wildflower. Good night, Eglantine.” She filled the grave with dirt and watched as a flower grew, five pink petals surrounding a sunshine-yellow middle.
A splash of water hit the eglantine flower.
Floralie looked up to find her gardener there, watering can tilted and giving life to the flower. But the gardener was different now. She was not the unreachable, shadowy figure she had been before. And when she looked into Floralie’s eyes, the gardener laughed, a laugh like bells, and eyes like gardens.
The gardener’s water splashed Floralie’s hands, washing them of dirt. And as it did, Floralie laughed, too. “Hello, Mama.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Without the help of many people, this book would not be a book. Therefore, I extend thanks to Jenna Pocius, Charlie Ilgunas, Courtney Fahy, Sonali Fry, Rob Wall, Dave Barrett, Anne Heausler, Nadia Almahdi, Crystal McCoy, and the rest of the wonderful team at Little Bee Books. Thank you to my fantastic agent, Jaida Temperly, and everyone at New Leaf Literary. Thank you to Laura Noakes, Myra Goldberg, and Janet Karman, who helped shape this book. Thank you to my teachers who inspired me: Karen Sylva, Claudia Heller, Luann Duesterberg, Janet Armentano, Lori Whyte, Bridget Flynn, and Kirstin Peltz. Thank you to my family and friends who keep me sane and encourage me, especially Chaz Moser and El Gagnon. Thank you to my students for amazing me every day. And thank you, dear reader: I offer you a rose.
The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel Page 20
