Ysabel

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  Melanie looked suddenly awkward, uncertain, more like herself. “What is it?”

  He started to laugh, couldn’t help himself. “Melanie, jeez, you are at least three inches taller. Look at yourself !”

  “What? That can’t be . . . and I can’t look at myself !”

  “Then trust me. Come back, stand close.”

  She did. It was as he’d said. At least three inches. She came up to his nose now, and no way she’d been even close to that before.

  “Holy-moly, Ned! I grew?”

  “Sure looks like it.” No one else he’d ever known said “holy-moly.”

  “Can that happen?”

  He was thinking about his aunt. Her hair turning white all at once. What his mother had refused to believe, for twenty-five years.

  “I guess it can,” was all he said. “We don’t know a whole lot about any of this.”

  “I grew?” she said again, in wonder.

  “You’re going to be dangerous,” he said.

  She flashed a smile that evoked someone else who was gone. “You have no idea, Ned Marriner.”

  Someone returned, someone went away forever. He hesitated. “Melanie, were you aware of anything, when you were . . . ?”

  The smile faded. She looked through the opening to the south, plateau and plain, river, more mountains, the sea.

  “Just at the beginning,” she said quietly. “And even then it was difficult. When . . . when I started changing, I could feel it happening, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t stop walking. I could see out through her eyes at first, and hear things, but it got hard. Like pushing a weight up, a big boulder, with my head, my shoulders, trying to look out from beneath? And then it started to be too heavy. And after a while I couldn’t.”

  She was still gazing out.

  “So you don’t know what happened here? Just now?”

  “You’ll tell me?”

  “What I know. But . . . did you make her change things, have them look for her? And pick this place?”

  She had started to cry again. She nodded. “I did do that. I could do . . . I knew from inside her what was supposed to happen, and that I was gone if one of them killed the other and claimed her. So I pushed the only idea I had, which was trying to get her to come here instead, and hope someone would remember it.” She looked at him. “You, actually, Ned. I didn’t think anyone else could.”

  “You understood what might happen, if they all came here?”

  “I knew what she knew.” She wiped at her cheeks. “Ned, I was her, and still me, a little. Then it got too hard and I could only wait, underneath.”

  “You knew I was there? At Entremont?”

  A flash of the old Melanie in her eyes. “Well, that’s a dumb question. What was I doing there in the first place?”

  He felt stupid. He’d called her. “Right. Sorry.”

  Her expression changed. “Don’t ever say sorry to me, Ned. Not after this.”

  He tried to make it a joke. “That’s a risky thing to tell a guy.”

  She shook her head. “Not this time, it isn’t.”

  His turn to look away, out over so much darkening beauty. “We should get down. This isn’t a normal place.”

  “Neither are we,” said Melanie. “Normal. Are we?”

  He hesitated. “I think we mostly are,” he said. “We will be. Can you walk, like that?”

  She looked at her bare feet. “Not down a mountain, Ned. And it’ll be dark.”

  He thought. “There’s a chapel I saw. Just below the peak. Not far. We may not be able to get inside, but there’s a courtyard, some shelter. I can call down from there.”

  “Auto-dial Greg?”

  It was Melanie again. Taller, but this was her. He smiled. Happiness was possible, it was almost here. “Very funny,” he said. Another thought. “Greg was pretty amazing, you know.”

  “You’ll have to tell me. You’re right, though, we should go. I’m cold. Ysabel was . . . pretty tough, I guess.”

  Ysabel had been many things, he thought.

  He took off the leather jacket and gave it to her.

  “Where’d you get this?” she said, slipping her arms into the sleeves. It was big on her; she looked like an urchin in it.

  “I’ll tell you that, too. We go?”

  They left through the eastern opening, the way Ned had come in. Melanie winced a couple of times, barefoot on stones.

  Ned stopped just outside and looked back, standing where he’d skidded to a stop, sliding down. He could see the rock he’d grabbed. It was dark inside the cave now towards the back, the light didn’t reach that far. There was nothing, really, that you could see.

  Melanie was looking at him, wearing Phelan’s jacket. “You’ve changed too, you know,” she said.

  “Three inches taller?”

  “No, you have, Ned.”

  He nodded. “Come on, it’s just up here, then to the left.”

  When they topped the ridge and looked west towards the cross and chapel, standing utterly alone on the mountain, the sun was ahead of them, very low, lighting clouds. The sunset was glorious, a gift.

  They lived in an age, Ned Marriner thought, when it was possible to think that way.

  HIS PACK was where he’d left it against the stone wall. He pulled on his sweatshirt; it was bitingly cold now in the evening wind. The chapel was locked, so was the other long, low room off the courtyard, with a padlock. The courtyard itself offered some protection from the swirling gusts.

  “I’ll give you my socks,” he said, “or you’re going to freeze.”

  Melanie nodded. “Never thought I’d be happy about that kind of offer.” She’d zipped the jacket all the way up to her nose, but that wouldn’t help enough if she was barefoot here.

  “You have a pocket knife?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She held out a hand. He dug into his pack and handed her his Swiss Army blade, then sat on a stone bench against the building and began pulling off his running shoes to give her the socks.

  “They aren’t the height of fashion,” he began, when he had them off and the shoes back on, “but they’ll—”

  He stopped. She was standing at the entrance to the flat-roofed building beside the chapel and the door was open.

  “How’d you do that?” he said, walking over.

  “I have skills you don’t yet know about, Ned Marriner.”

  That note in her voice. It was there again. He might have changed, but he sure wasn’t the only one.

  “My dad picked a lock couple of days ago like that.”

  A grin. “I taught him how.”

  “What?”

  She looked really happy. “He saw me do it once, when we were shooting in Peru, and got jealous. He made me show him how.”

  “You,” he said, “are a criminal mastermind. Here’s the socks.”

  She took them, and went inside. He got his pack and followed. There was no electricity up here, and the long, narrow room was dark. Ned threw open the shutters to the courtyard while Melanie put on his socks. He saw a fireplace, with wood stacked beside it. The place had probably been a dormitory or dining room for the chapel once. Now it looked like an overnight place for hikers.

  “Think they’ll arrest us if we start a fire?”

  “I could handle that,” Melanie said. “If they bring shoes.”

  That reminded him.

  He flipped open his phone and dialed his father. One ring.

  “Ned?”

  He felt himself smiling, despite exhaustion. A surge of emotion before he spoke. Fighting it, he said, “Yeah, it’s me. Dad, I got her.”

  “What?”

  “Got her back. We’re both fine.”

  “Oh, dear God,” he heard his father say. And then he became aware that his dad was crying. He heard him relay the words. Then, “Ned, Ned . . . here’s your mother.”

  “Honey?” he heard. “You’re really okay?”

  “I’m great, Mom, we bot
h are. It’s going to be a really long story.”

  “Can you get down?”

  “Not now, Mom. It’s almost dark, and Melanie has no shoes. I think you guys have to come get us in the morning, with stuff for her.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In this building beside the chapel. We got in. There’s a fireplace, it’s fine. We’re cool overnight. Can you meet us here first thing?”

  “Of course we can. Ned, put Melanie on, your father wants to talk to her.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  He was still smiling as he handed her the phone.

  “Boss?”

  There was a silence. Melanie brushed at her eyes.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said quietly. “Thanks, all of you. I’m all right, I really am. You’ll see. I do need some things, if you can put Dr. Marriner on?” She walked towards a window. Ned went outside again into the courtyard. He crossed to the low southern wall, past the well.

  He looked out on the darkened land. Lights were coming on below, in houses, farms, country restaurants. He saw headlights on the roads. He saw what had to be the highway, east-west. The Riviera resorts were only an hour from here. Bars and cafés and yachts along the coast of the sea, glittering with light.

  He imagined a ship sailing here from Greece a really long time ago, passing dark, forbidding forests and mountain ranges that hid whatever was inland from view, leaving it shrouded and mysterious. He imagined them finding a harbour west of here, those strangers from far away, then their first encounter with a tribe, wondering if what they’d come all this way to find was death far from home, or something else.

  He imagined those native warriors with their druids and rituals and forest gods, and goddesses of still pools, pictured them coming through the woods to see these strangers, wondering what they were, what they had brought here with them.

  His heart was full, sorrow and joy taking all it could hold, right to the brim. He looked at the lights below, with the sun gone now. He saw the moon to his left, towards where the resorts would be, playgrounds of the world he knew.

  He knew another world now. Had touched it. Would walk in both, in a way, for the rest of his life. He thought of the boar.

  Hands flat on the low stone wall in the wind, he thought of Ysabel as the night drifted down.

  “Come on,” he heard from behind him. “I found matches, we’ve got a fire. Did you bring anything someone could call food?”

  He turned back to Melanie, to the world.

  “Veracook packed me some stuff.”

  “God bless her,” Melanie said in the doorway.

  He walked over, followed her in. The fire was going nicely. She’d lit candles, too.

  “There are blankets in those cupboards,” she said. “Lots of them.”

  “Good. We’ll be okay.”

  Melanie grinned at him. “Sailor,” she said, “you might even be better than okay.”

  That, predictably, got his heart beating faster. He cleared his throat, as an image, inescapable, inserted itself in his awareness.

  “Melanie, my mother’s there. She’ll be coming up tomorrow and looking me in the eye.”

  “Good point. And I work for your dad, don’t I? I might have trouble facing them if we . . .”

  “You?” he said. “You might have trouble? You know my mother! You think I can get away with pretending we played Twenty Questions? Animal, vegetable, mineral?”

  She laughed softly. “Only if we play Twenty Questions.”

  “Not why I joined the navy.”

  Melanie’s expression altered. She looked at him a moment. “You know, you really have changed.”

  “Well, so have you.”

  “I guess.” She smiled at him. She looked older, he thought, but didn’t say. She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. Her eyes seemed darker, so did her voice, somehow.

  “Ned, I have a pretty good idea what you did today. I remember what this place was like for you, when we drove here. And . . . this won’t be the only night of our lives.”

  He cleared his throat again. “That’s a pretty hot thing to say.”

  “Uh-huh. I know. Your birthday’s in July?”

  He nodded. It was hard to speak, again. Women could do this to you.

  “I’ll have to try hard to remember that,” Melanie said. “Now, let’s see what Vera put in there for you.”

  She went over to his pack. He stood where he was. He could remember the feel of her lips in the cave, and there was that scent he hadn’t ever been aware of before.

  “Um, the fifteenth,” he said suddenly. “July fifteenth.”

  She was rummaging.

  “Baguette, pâté, cheese, apples. Vera’s a treasure,” she said. Then looked at him over her shoulder, a smile. “I have the date in my PDA. Meanwhile, come by the fire, let’s eat, and . . .” Her voice deepened again. “I’m thinking of something animal.”

  “Oh, God!” he said.

  She laughed aloud.

  Outside, the night deepened and gathered. Boars, which fed at sunrise and at dusk, came cautiously out of woods below. Owls lifted from trees to hunt. Moonlight found ancient towns and the ruins of towers, triumphal arches and sacred pools, graveyards and vineyards and lavender bushes. One by one stars emerged in the dark blue dusk, in a sky that had not yet fallen.

  IN THE BRIGHTNESS of morning they were waiting outside by the wall. They saw the others coming up along the switchbacks of the northern ridge. They’d have had to start before sunrise, Ned thought, in darkness, to be here by now.

  It was harder to feel sorrow in the morning, he thought, seeing his father lift his hat in one hand and wave it. Melanie stood up and waved back with both hands over her head.

  You can allow yourself joy, he thought. And even pride. He didn’t feel ill any more. He hadn’t since he’d entered the cave, since finding Ysabel.

  They’d all come up, he saw, counting. Even Greg and Uncle Dave, who probably shouldn’t be doing two-hour climbs. His mother and his aunt were walking beside each other. Red hair and white like a fairy tale. It wasn’t, though; this was his family, and he had a different kind of tale for them. He swallowed hard, seeing the two of them like that, bright against the green of the trees and the blue lakes in the distance below.

  They came zigzagging with the trail. He remembered, late yesterday, being pursued, cutting across these last switchbacks, up the rock face to get here.

  They didn’t have to do that. He stood up beside Melanie and waited for the others to reach them along the last inclination. Just before they did, she looked at him and smiled.

  It was more like four inches, he decided.

  He grinned back. “Wonder if you could slam-dunk now?”

  “Feels like,” she said.

  Then she started running, in his socks and the white skirt and blue shirt Ysabel had worn. Ned saw his father open his arms and hug her close as if she were a lost child returned.

  Greg and Steve stopped beside them, waiting their turn. His mother and uncle and aunt kept coming towards Ned. He saw Kate Wenger hanging back, suddenly shy.

  “Yo, Mom,” he said. “You bring croissants?”

  His mother, who was not much of a hugger, didn’t answer, she just enfolded him and didn’t let go.

  “Whoa!” Ned said.

  “No, whoa,” she murmured, gripping tightly. “No way.”

  Eventually she stepped back, looking at him.

  His aunt was smiling. “Yo, Nephew,” she said. “Want us to tell you how scared we were?”

  “I can guess.”

  “No, you can’t,” said Meghan Marriner, shaking her head. “You can’t come close.”

  He looked at her. “I have a few things to tell you guys,” he said. “About us. Our family.”

  The sisters glanced at each other.

  “Which of them was the father?” Kim asked.

  Ned’s jaw dropped. “Jeez!” he said.

  “We were talking most of the night,” his mother sa
id. “Fitted a few guesses together. Like a jigsaw.”

  “A jigsaw,” he repeated, stupidly.

  Uncle Dave laughed at his expression. “Ned,” he said, “believe me, it was scary listening to them. We can start being afraid around now.”

  Ned didn’t feel afraid. It didn’t look like his uncle did, either. His mother and aunt were looking at him, waiting.

  He cleared his throat. “She didn’t tell,” he said quietly. “They asked.”

  Meghan said, “But we were right?”

  Ned nodded, looked over at his uncle. “Aha. They weren’t sure. We’re still okay.”

  “Barely,” said Dave Martyniuk. “This is just a beginning.”

  They looked back at the others.

  Edward Marriner led them up. Greg and Steve were grinning like kids. Melanie had her oversized tote now, and her cellphone and straw hat. Meghan went over and kissed her on both cheeks.

  Ned looked at his dad. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hello, son.” His father smiled.

  “Take a good look around. Morning light. I don’t think you can go wrong up here. A lot of options. You’ll want to go look south, too, other side of this courtyard here. You shoot from Cézanne’s mountain, not up to it?”

  His father nodded. “Had that thought, climbing up.”

  “I had that thought a week ago!” said Melanie.

  “Oh, of course you did,” said Greg.

  Steve snorted, and walked away, towards where Kate was still hanging back. He was dialing his phone. Ned wondered who was left at the villa to call.

  A moment later the sounds of “The Wedding March” were heard in the high, clear spaces at the summit of Sainte-Victoire.

  “Dammit!” said Melanie, reddening. She stabbed for the answer button on her phone. “I took that ringtone off !”

  Steve had turned back to them. He was laughing. So was Greg. So, actually, was Ned. Did you have to be mature all the time?

  Steve sketched an oriental bow to Melanie. “Little Bird, learn lesson of life. That which is changed can be changed back in fullness of time.” He bowed again, hands pressed together.

  “You are in so much trouble, the two of you,” she said.

  “I am really, really happy to hear you say that,” said Greg. He looked at her, and frowned. “Hey, did you, like, grow or something?”