LISE AND LINETTE LIVED IN Three Bridges Quarter, a section of the city where the river flowed beneath the eponymous three bridges, and tiny houses, all painted white, rose three stories high. The color was traditional in the quarter. Once, twenty years before, the mistress of a famous composer had attempted to paint her home a pale shade of blue, but this had been met with such ardent opposition that she had to refrain.
Each house in the quarter was a century old and had a garden at the front of it, with an iron fence bordering it and a path that led three steps up to the door. For the homes on the easternmost side of the quarter, the back door of the house led five steps down to a canal. Once upon a time barges had sailed there, following the current, though most of the traffic had now been diverted and went down the Erzene.
Lise and Linette’s house was humdrum; the only detail setting it apart was the profusion of crocheted items inside. Lise had a passion for it, and she had made tablecloths and many doilies. There were doilies under cups and glasses, doilies on the sofa, doilies on the bookshelves. If Lise could have wrapped their cat in crocheted dresses, she might have done it.
Lise and Linette welcomed Luc Lémy into their crochet museum, wondering at the sight of him. He was outfitted in a plaid jacket, a jaunty cap angled on his head, as befitted a man engaged in a sport.
“Which is this one? Is this the Lémy who was married last fall?” Lise asked, taking out her spectacles. “Let me see you, young man.”
“No, Great-aunt, this is Luc,” Nina replied.
“Bah, if they bothered to look different, I might tell them apart.”
“What?” Linette yelled.
Nina could not help but giggle. Luc, however, was the picture of courtesy. He greatly flattered both women and he was as charming as he had been at Oldhouse, which meant it took them nearly an hour to leave since her great-aunts kept chattering with the young man.
Once outside, Nina surveyed the promised motorcar. She’d seen a couple from afar, but they were rarities and carriages dominated Loisail. Etiquette said a lady could ride with a man in these contraptions, the same as a man could escort a woman home in a carriage after a ball, but driving one was another story. The devices were the toys of city boys who, like Luc, might drive them around the block to impress their friends with the apparatus.
The motorcar was a two-seater, finely constructed and painted a glossy black. Luc held the door open for her, and she admired the upholstery. It suited Luc well, she thought, being as new and ostentatious as he was.
The streets nearby were empty and Luc was able to maneuver the motorcar with ease, humming to himself as they went around. At length they stopped by an area of greenery bordered by more of the white houses that characterized the quarter. It was not a park proper, merely a plot of land where the locals had once cultivated vegetables in an impromptu communal garden, now abandoned and growing wild with weeds. Someone would build more tiny houses there one day, but for now it was forgotten.
Luc helped her out and they strolled through the grass until they reached a stone bench, solitary and weathered, that stood in the center of the plot. Nina sat down, surveying the plants and the yellow flowers that grew all around them. She could hear insects buzzing, everything around them teeming with life.
“How do you like the motorcar, then?” he asked, sitting by her side.
“I like it, though you should let me take a turn at it. I’ve seen how you drive and can imitate you.”
“No, that’s impossible.”
“It’s not. I’m sure I could drive it without even using my hands,” she said, and as if to prove it, she cut a flower that grew by the bench using her talent and lifted it in the air, offering it to Luc.
He held the flower, examining the petals. “I think you would kill me with fright if I let you drive the motorcar with the powers of your mind.”
“I can open a lock without touching it,” she said. “That takes more effort than spinning a wheel.”
“I’m sure—still it is not my motorcar, I’ve only borrowed it from my brother. And why were you lock-picking, anyway?”
“It helped me pass the time.”
She did not specify that it had helped her pass the time during the winter months when she had needed to think of things that did not concern Hector Auvray, but Luc must have divined it because he eyed her with caution.
“Can I ask you what happened with you and Hector last summer?”
She had received in the past five days five boxes, each one containing a delicate beetle. A calling card came with every box, Hector’s name printed on it. When she had been handed the first two boxes, she had not opened them, but at the third, driven by her natural curiosity, she’d finally unveiled their contents and remained mutely staring at the creatures.
Nina did not know what they meant and did not attempt to interpret them. The specimens now rested in their boxes, stuffed in the back of a desk.
She wondered if Hector had sent Luc for this reason, or if the arrival of the beetles had nothing to do with him. Was he spying on her?
“We were not a favorable match,” she said, and her voice was beautifully calm and collected. If this was an attempt to gauge her state of mind, Hector would obtain nothing.
“I am sorry,” Luc said.
“It was a child’s fancy, anyway.” Nina raised a hand and pressed it against her chest. She lowered her lashes so that he might not take the measure of her gaze.
Luc nodded and lifted her free hand, pressing a kiss against it. “I am in luck, then, since I can cast my net and see if I may catch the prettiest girl in the city.”
She raised her eyes, frowning. Her hand rested firm and slender between his, yet she did not understand. “Are you jesting? I like your jokes, but this one would not be in good taste,” she said.
“It’s no joke. How could I joke about this? I don’t think there’s anyone fairer than you.”
Perhaps she’d grown wiser or maybe it was the heat of the day that irritated her, but she was not enraptured by his words as he might have expected.
“Hush,” she said, rising quickly to her feet. “I am sure you meet many beautiful girls.”
Her heart, which had been placid, resting on dark velvet like the insects she collected, now began to beat wildly, though not for the young man next to her. Her thoughts, traitorous, flew toward another man, one who had never spoken words of flattery or love to her. And she was angered, thinking that he had not done it and now another would.
“What?” he asked, looking baffled.
“Exactly that. I’m naive, but not so naive that I cannot tell when a phrase has been said a thousand times before to others. Whatever game this is, I will not grow flustered and melt in your arms,” she told him.
It seemed to her that indeed it must be a game, a ridiculous prank that had been set in motion by them all, and she went toward the motorcar.
“Wait, wait,” he said, rushing to her side. “I do not know what you are going on about. I was trying to be charming, but I mean no harm. Come, now, don’t be angry at me.”
She crossed her arms upon her chest, staring down at the grass. Her ears were roaring as if she were standing by the seashore.
“Nina, are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m sick of people lying to me,” she blurted. “People keep lying to me, and if what you want is to toy with me for an hour or two, please pick someone else. I thought you might be a friend.”
“I am a friend. Please. I say silly things sometimes, but I don’t think it was that bad. I’ll tell you that you are the ugliest lady in Loisail from now on. Happy?” he asked, and his voice was cheery.
She looked at him. He was all sunny disposition and blue eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be cross with you.”
“No, you are right, I am a bit of a lout at times. Maybe Hector told you a few stories, but I can be gallant,” he said.
At the mention of Hector’s name, she swallowed and shook her head. The sun had hidden its face, shrouded suddenly in clouds.
“I don’t think it was a child’s fancy, was it?” Luc asked gravely.
“I mistook politeness for affection,” she said. “I saw things that were not there, and do not wish to deceive myself again.”
He grabbed both her hands this time and he graciously bent his head over them, placing another kiss on the back of them and giving her an earnest look. “There’s something here, Miss Beaulieu.”
Flustered after all, she dipped her chin. A butterfly flitted by and perched itself on Luc Lémy’s head, white upon his dark cap. The sight made her smile.
“Don’t move, there’s a butterfly on your head.”
“Oh dear,” he said, and he did move. The butterfly flew away.
“It was a cabbage butterfly,” she told him. “It’s one of the first butterflies that emerge in the spring. They fly around during spring and summer, even into the fall until the hard freeze.”
“Ah, bugs,” Luc said, taking off the cap and running a hand through his hair. “No, can’t say I like them.”
“It’s not a bug, Mr. Lémy. It’s a butterfly.”
“It has tiny legs and crawls around,” he said, making motions with his fingers in imitation of a crawling insect.
“It does not.”
“I said you should call me Luc.”
Nina bit her lower lip before nodding. “I said you should call me Nina.”
“Come. Let us drive around a bit more,” he told her, and it was as if he could will clouds to be gone, the sun to shine again.
They walked back to the motorcar arm in arm, and when the time came to bid him good-bye, he said he’d return the next week with a carriage this time and they might go to Koster’s for tea.
When she went inside, she saw a box resting atop a doily on a table by the entrance. Another package had arrived with the crisp white card and the name HECTOR AUVRAY emblazoned on its front. The fury that had assaulted her earlier returned and she rushed up to her room, jamming the box in the desk and locking it. She flung the key away and it slid under the bed.
She sat on the floor, in front of the bed, and stared at the desk, eyebrows furrowed. After a while she sighed and turned the lock with a twist of her wrist, using her talent, not even bothering to search for the key. The drawer slid open and she reached inside.
Nina opened the box that had arrived that day and gazed at the beetle inside. It was beautiful.
Had he recalled what she’d told him once, that she’d rather have beetles than a new necklace? Why should it matter? Each box came only with the damnable card and nothing else. It was like trying to read auguries in the dregs of coffee.
She had meant what she’d told Luc, that she could not afford to see things that were not there anymore. And here, with Hector, there lay nothing.
Nina watched the light fall upon the beetle; its blue body was iridescent, changing color depending on the angle.