by Amanda Dykes
The thought shot straight through me, and a fiery surge followed. My old foe, the Flame, come to my aid this time. Catapulting me into those currents, the bottom dropping out of my lungs when the bottom dropped out of the river, right there in the middle. The water grew deep and strong, slowing Mira enough that I could catch up.
“Mira, please!”
She turned, her long hair floating upon the waters in dark ribbons.
“You have done it, Matthew,” she said, looking me full in the face. “You have delivered me to Paris. I can go the rest of the way—I have done harder things. And you, you will go back. Away from—”
Her words were cut short. I watched in numb horror as she disappeared, swallowed away in an instant from my sight. The river current had her, its icy fingers gripping my Mira.
Gone. Her absence socked me hard, the suddenness sickening.
It took a single second to realize what was happening. It took another to shout her name with more force than I knew was in me, and for that voice to be engulfed in the roar of the river. And it took an eternity before I saw it—a hand emerging. Just a snatch of a moment, downriver.
It was impossibly fast. I dove in, unseeing of the boulders and branches that moments before seemed absolute barriers between us. White foam blinded me. A churning roar deafened me.
“Mira!” I shouted again and faintly heard the others shouting, too.
God in heaven, help her. I prayed the prayer I hadn’t prayed since I was a boy. Over and over and over as the currents slammed me into a rock, speared me with some shard of a fallen tree, stirred in me desperation.
I took hold of the same boulder that sliced my arm. All went silent as I clung to it and turned, scanned painstakingly, not missing a single inch of that river.
Too much time had passed.
Or was time even alive here?
Was she?
I gulped. Whispered the prayer aloud, letting the river carry it away to heaven or to oblivion. “God in heaven.” My breath came ragged. My words sputtered. “Help her.”
I would not close my eyes. And I dared to believe—to beg—that the God I prayed to would not close His, either.
And then . . . there she was. Bursting to the ruthless surface. I don’t know how I reached her. I have no recollection of diving beneath frigid water and swimming to her. I only know that she was in my arms, then, some primal force driving me as I pulled her toward the bank that seemed impossibly green. The air was colder than the water, and I knew only to keep her warm—and pulled her to myself as we stood with the river flowing on and on around us as if we were just an afterthought. Nuisances in its frantic force.
I cradled her and strained, with the ears I’d once used to name horses from afar, with the ears Captain Truett was so eager to get back to the front to hear shells and incoming bombs. I strained, instead, to hear her breathe.
But I could not hear a single breath.
I could not see if she breathed. If she lived.
“God in heaven, help her,” I whispered for a third and final time.
I had no thought in that moment but to plead for her life. Later, I would look back and be able to wonder things like—how much time had passed? How cold was it? How could anybody survive a battering such as the river had given her, bruises already showing on her face and arms?
But in that moment I looked only at her—at the way her scrap of apron, that piece of balloon that had delivered her father into the safety of the woods so long ago, untangled from its river-hewn twists and swirled about her ashen face there in the water. The faint outline of an indefatigable matchbox still in the skirt pocket. Bringer of light to impossible places.
All went silent around me as I heard, in my mind, her voice. The lullaby that found me before I’d ever laid eyes on her. “It was the only thing I had to give,” she’d told me. “To bring a small bit of life to a lifeless place.” It dug into me now, rooted in my chest, and began to climb, as if each note were a handhold, up through my burning throat and out of my mouth.
I . . . sang. To Mireilles, the Angel of Argonne. It was downright ugly, this song in my voice, when it should have been hers. It was choked and raw, drug from the trenches to this moment. Wordless, only haggard humming. A desperate prayer that was far beyond words.
But perhaps it did not matter how haggard and worn a lifeline is to the person drowning. Perhaps, in her kindness, she heard only the heart behind it. The heart that split right in two, holding her so still in my arms.
And perhaps by some miracle, those horrific notes, that desperate prayer, played some part in what happened next. I do not know. But her eyes fluttered open ever so briefly.
Her chest rose ever so slightly.
She sputtered, and what followed was a tangled blur of embracing and speaking and trying to keep from crushing her as I pulled her close, until at last she stood, collapsed into me. Releasing everything she had held in. All of it, resurrected from the depths of this river, its currents pushing her full force into me. Depositing her, body and soul, into my arms until they did what they were created to do. They held the Angel of Argonne. My Mira.
When she pulled back to search my face, I prayed she could read the message pleading to be heard from every speck of my being. I feared my gaze would swallow her up, so deeply did I need her to understand. With the roar of the river around us, I pulled her close so that she could hear. Pressed my mouth to her ear to be heard.
“Never make me leave,” I said. “Please, Mira.” And then, with all the force of that river and more, all the rugged, battered foam of being drug over the boulders into this very place . . . “I love you.”
She did not stiffen at my touch. She did not pull away.
“I—I love you,” I repeated, the words gathering strength from the raw scrape of my voice, the words gentling around the feel of her next to me. “Won’t you let me, Mira. Let me love you. Always.”
She was holding me, she was holding the babe within her, a hand cradling her middle. She turned to the sky as if it held her answer.
“Be my wife, Mira,” I said. It was reckless, maybe cruel—for we were in the middle of a war. I knew—we all did, though none spoke it into words—that my life would likely not extend beyond the next month.
But I could not fathom not being Mira’s. Her not being mine. We’d crossed a world and found one another in the middle of the forest, all of our pieces and stories locking into each other, fastening us together.
I had no more words to say. Only the pulsing silent plea between us, only my fingers threading through hers.
“Yes.” I saw the word but did not hear it above the river.
I dipped my head forward, eyes wide, a silent question. Unable to believe. Ready to be carried away myself on these currents if it was true. Yes?
She nodded. “Yes, Matthew Petticrew.”
36
George
“George!”
By heavens, Broodman lived! And shouted for me, following his harrowing tangle with the river, good man! It was clear from where we stood that he’d rescued the Angel, who now stood in his arms on the bank of the river.
Not that any of us were surprised by the sight of them together. It had been only a matter of time. And had taken only a near-death experience with a raging river to finally get them there. There he was, the fulfillment of all his gaping hole-in-his-soul dreams in his arms, and he shouted for me. Me! The fellow gave a care for my well-being? Would wonders never cease?
“Not to worry,” I shouted, giving a wave. “We made it across and all’s well!”
A sharp jab to my side, and Henry, who really was quite literally a wet rag now from his journey across the Marne, jerked his head their way, leading on.
“Ow,” I said, sucking in a breath.
“You ford a river on foot and nearly crack your skull on the way, and that’s what you say ‘ow’ to?” He rolled his eyes.
We reached Matthew and the Angel.
“We’re fine,” I r
eassured him, out of breath and teeth beginning to chatter. A silence hung as they all studied me, as if stupefied.
Right. Right. It wasn’t about me. I was beginning to see it might take a good deal of time for me to remember that quite naturally. But I was determined to reform my admittedly George-centered ways.
“That is to say—” I cleared my throat—“everyone alright? All present and accounted for? Bones, toenails, various limbs and noses? Shall I offer a prayer?” I pulled out my pocket prayer book and opened its sopping pages. Surely there was something in here for the consolation of souls recently subjected to harrowing experiences. I flipped to the table of contents. What would that be under . . . ?
Henry removed his jacket and, awkward though he was, poor chap, placed it upon the Angel’s shoulders. He had gotten wet from the waist down, the mongrel, and had the only dry garment between us all to offer her.
She nodded gratefully, offering him a smile. He ducked his head in response and set to work gathering wood, building a fire.
What was happening to me? Ever since my conversation with the sheep, it seemed I—why, I was seeing things I never had before. These kindnesses among strangers and friends alike, and I wished to be a part of it. Very much a part of it.
George’s fire snapped into action, its warmth and popping sparks a welcome presence in the October air. I carefully turned the wet pages of my prayer book. What could I say?
“You’re a chaplain,” Petticrew said. Had he taken leave of his senses and forgotten so simple a thing?
“Yes,” I said, drawing out the word slowly.
“Chaplains can . . . perform ceremonies.”
If ever a moment called for the furrowing of brows, it was this one. I furrowed. Taking in the pair, drenched as river rats. Matthew guided Mira closer to the flames.
I looked between the two of them.
They looked at each other, then back at me. I furrowed. And in that chiseling of forehead lines, I began to sense they were communicating in cautious, wordless petition for me to understand. They held up their wet hands, which were woven together, that I might calculate the rest on my own.
“I see what you’re getting at,” I said, raising those furrowed brows into a look of shared understanding. I spoke with solemnity, with an air of gravitas, as such an occasion called for. “You wish for a ceremony.”
Relief flooded. Petticrew faltered, looking to the Angel to confirm. She bit her lip, and did I detect the beginnings of a hopeful smile upon her face? She nodded.
“If you would,” Petticrew said.
“Here and now?” I eyed the river. The two of them and their wet forms, side by side. It all began to make sense. It seemed a tad—well, spontaneous. Rather sudden, in point of fact, but who was I to deny such a holy rite?
“Here and now,” Mira said.
“Very well.” A shiver of purpose ran down my arms as I peeled the wet pages of my prayer book to the appropriate page. This one was easy to find. Henry watched on from beneath a tree to my left, wide-eyed and reverent, notebook tucked solemnly away and hands clasped in front of him. All of Paris looked on in the far distance beyond. Paris! Witnessing this momentous occasion!
This was a weighty thing. Me, a part of something true and good. I uttered a silent prayer of disbelieving thanks—and uttermost cry for help.
I began to read. My stomach twisted, and not for anything to do with rarebit. I, George Piccadilly the Third, was about to tread upon holy ground.
“Well-beloved,” I began reading. Putting feeling in my voice, with all sincerity. “You have come hither desiring to receive holy baptism. We shall pray—”
A shifting, as Matthew and Mira looked uneasily at one another.
Grasses crunched behind me. A tapping on my shoulder, and Henry spoke very quietly, as if to preserve my pride. “I don’t think that’s quite right,” he said, voice very low and lifting his spectacles as if I should somehow take his meaning.
“Well of course it’s not ‘quite right,’” I said at full volume, full of conviction. “But who among us is perfect? Who among us, I ask, will cast the first stone if they desire to be baptized after being submerged? Even I know it goes the other way ’round. They might’ve gotten it mixed up, and I might not know much, but I’d dare to suggest that the grand Monarch of the Universe who created that river and fashioned their souls won’t mind one bit if they—”
“George.” It was the Angel. Mira. Mireilles. She stepped forward and laid her hand on my arm. The effect was the same as her song on me—inexplicable calm. “We wish . . . to wed.”
I gaped. “Wed.” I turned the word over in my voice like the curiosity it was. Glinting and mythical. “Now?” I looked sideways at Petticrew, attempting to ascertain his level of sanity.
“Ah,” I said, pointing. “I see. It’s a joke. You’re—you’re joshing me. You’ve hit your head, I saw it happen. It’s a funny joke.” I smiled a congratulatory smile. It was well-deserved, this man of great gravity having achieved something humorous. The joke was on me, I understood, but what had I just been telling myself? Not everything was about me. Hang my pride; they could have their joke, and well did they deserve it after their harrowing waltz with the River Marne.
“I can die having lived a complete life, now that the stone-faced Matthew Petticrew has told a joke. We saw it here first, gentlemen! Did you get it down for the newsmen?” This, directed at Henry. “Earth-shattering stuff, this!”
Mira spoke again. “It is no joke,” she said. “Please, George.” She smiled, giving a small shiver. “If you would.”
“This instant,” Petticrew said. The fellow looked positively—well, I don’t know what—but the beginnings of a smile started to turn his mouth upward. No small miracle for him, and I thought his whole body might buoy up and float away with it. He looked at Mira as to engrave every last detail of her in this moment onto his very bones. “Please.”
He’d said please.
I pulled in a breath. “Right-ho,” I said. The words very George Piccadilly, but the tone very somber. “Wed, you shall be.”
The prayer book felt like a forever thing, then. Knowing that these words I spoke would be laid down as stepping-stones joining two separate paths into one. They were not my words, nor was theirs my life—and yet the simple act of speaking, lending my voice to the words . . . it was a humbling honor. I felt very small in it. And—why, it felt so very right, to feel so very small. Odd, that. That in the midst of such a humble and lofty thing, I was fuller than I’d ever been. And grateful, by golly.
I began to read. My stomach twisted. Once again, I, George Piccadilly the Third, was about to step onto holy ground.
“Well-beloved,” I began solemnly reading. “We are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together . . .”
37
Mira
Paris. So often had we spoken the word in these last days that it had seemed to become an assured part of my future. So very—usual. Less a fable from Grand-père’s tales and more a part of the true world. It rose before me now, stone upon stone, stretching wide and high. And now . . . it would be the place I first journeyed with my husband.
It was a breathless thing, a secret held between only him and me and the river and our two friends. It felt too beautiful to be real. It was not, perhaps, what I had dreamed of my wedding day being when I was younger. With only wind for a veil, the rush of water for a hymn, a fire in place of a reception, giving the very best wedding gift: a drier, warmer version of ourselves. A ceremony with a bit of a stumbling beginning but with all the strength of the ages.
Like us. We two, who had crossed worlds to find each other in the solitary depths of the Argonne Forest. I looked at him now. He looked at me. Taking my hand, we stepped into a world very strange and enormous: the city.
I closed my eyes and saw it as Grand-père had. A place clothed in stone, from street to building. I wondered if my story would become a part of those kept here,
seamed into the mortar.
“Ah, Paris,” Grand-père used to say. “La Ville Lumière . . .” His voice held a fondness as he spoke of its streets, of the strength of such a city, of the River Seine flowing through it like a messenger of life. “The stones, they tell stories.”
“Happy stories, Grand-père?”
He grew somber. “Every kind of story, Mira.”
It had seemed immovable when he spoke of it. It was strange—the feeling that I knew this place but had never seen it. In his stories I had not heard the chatter of the people, some hushed, some hollering. The creak of trains and the play of music, the way churches spilled souls into the street, holding close the prayers they left behind them. Prayers of mothers, sisters, soldiers, doctors, street sweepers, all of them together.
I wrinkled my nose, trying to place something.
“What is it?” Matthew asked.
“Something is missing,” I said. “Grand-père—he spoke of church bells. Always, the church bells.”
Henry dropped his gaze.
“You know of them?”
“You may not like to know this,” he said. “But they’ve gone silent, for the war. They only ring now when a warning is needed.”
The silent bells seemed to cry to me as I fixed my eyes on the form of the great Notre Dame on the skyline. My foot caught something, and Matthew gripped my elbow, keeping me from falling. Too late, I saw what I had stumbled upon: the beautiful stones of these cobbled streets, wrinkled into a pile, surrounding a dark crater before us.
My hand flew to my heart. This was not what I had meant when I wondered if my story would become one of those kept by the city.
“Paris will swallow me whole,” I said, trying to laugh.
Matthew smiled, but I saw the concern deepen around his eyes. He was a kind man, this man of few words. This man who was my husband.
My husband. How strange to think it so. How good.
We walked on for a time that disappeared into the city. As if we had stepped into the pages of Mr. Hugo’s Les Misérables. I had borrowed the book from Madame Aline some years ago, and it came back to me now, this city of frozen time, of fierce hope, of war after war after war. Only instead of street barricades with Marius standing his ground, a tower like a great triangle of metal lace rose on the horizon, its long neck reaching into the sky. It was laden with cannons and gunfire, as if it could see far beyond the walls of this city, see all the way to the men who would march toward it, fly their zeppelins over it, and drop unthinkable destruction within.
