"Prologue: Requiem"
TIMELINE: Paris 31st of January 1923. Private west wing at Le Mirage.8:20 p.m.
The room was full of people waiting in silence. They had come to say goodbye. I glanced around the room, and I sat on one side of the bed, where Mamma laid. I sat on the bed, where my mamma laid and glanced around at the solemn faces staring down at her. But I knew - I felt Mamma- watching us all. Smiling, as I liked to see her.
I grabbed her hand, so cold…so deathly cold. My chest tightened...
"Mum?", I said in a whisper, "Mummy….?"
Marshall,my half brother, took her pulse and nodded sadly. It had ended, at last. I barely heard my other half sister Matilda crying, and though I had no nerve to look at her sister Val, I could feel her tears falling in her eyes as if they were mine. They were not strictly my blood family. But my parents had taught me to love them as if they were… and they were, indeed their children too.
I did not cry.
I had promised her.
I did not cry when Papa died either. I can remember that day, the pain still as strong.
I wasn´t in Paris when it happened, and I still blame myself I was in Vienna giving a piano recital myself. Just two months ago. He had gone to bed one night and never woke up. Mamma had stayed silent, piercing the doctor with her blue glassy eyes, for endless instants, until she muttered…
'Did he suffer?'
'No Madame,' was the man´s answer. 'He was taken to Heaven by a heart attack while he was sleeping', the doctor concluded.
Le Mirage, our whole family, we grieved over him for a week. Papa had a great funeral in La Madeleine Church, concerts were held in his memory at the Garnier Opera House, and the marble statue of the Italian composer soon joined the many privileged others which can still be admired in the Salon de la Lune.
Our Mere, on the contrary, mourned her lifetime companion in a different way. She mourned him in silence.
'I can –not- live without your Pere, Cherie', she said when I arrived home and was finally able to hug her tight.
I did not realize she was speaking from the heart. That day, Mamma´s light began to fade.
I glanced at her deathly pale face. Now the light was gone for good. I held back tears, refusing to give into my grief. Reluctantly I stood, leaving Mama's side, opened her bedroom door and step on the main hall. There, downstairs, there were dozens of students, waiting. I could hear their anxious chatter. They were waiting for news about their mentor. Marshall nodded in silence. Perhaps they were waiting for me.
I took a deep breath, gathering my composure.
"It is my sad duty to inform you", I started, "that Madame Ivy Depreaux, spiritual leader of this school, has entered immortality at eight twenty five this evening…"
An uncomfortable silence filled the hall for an endless second. One of the students opened his music box- gift applicants were given once they were accepted in Le Mirage-. Sweet melodic music settled over the room, Mamma´s song. My heart twisted. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Someone down in the hall started singing simple lyrics for a simple but meaningful song: the School Waltz.
"Let´s dance, My feet aren´t falling out of rhythm, But I know I´m waltzing with you
you can take two little footsteps,
I´ll go anywhere that you step to,
Cause I´m waltzing with you.
I don´t know what I´m doing with them
As magic as it seems to me, Here comes the encore, I´m leading you
We´re on the floor with two left feet,
Let´s keep on dancing until our hearts keep the beat.
Flow again around the dance floor,
One step right, and then left,
Now that I´m waltzing with you
The School Waltz brought us all tears and memories alike. We were a family of artists, and so storytelling was one of our favourite pastimes. Stories ofold times, Le Mirage was still a new open school and Mamma was in charge…and we all listened with rapt attention. But one winter night, our parents gathered us around the fireplace for a very especial tale the story of a girl with a ballet dreams and a composer with music in his heart were young and free to be loved and give their love in return.
My parents´true love story.
Never again would I hear the stories told to me in my youth. My parents were both gone, and they would never come back. But still, those stories were locked up there in the attic, inside several trunks were papers had turned into ethereal memoirs, were names, places and facts were waiting to be brought to life again.
Days later, my Mother´s last will and testament was read. None of us were surprised, she had been kind and sweet with all her children to keep the family together. But I was given something especial. An envelope, with a small key inside, sealed with a shield which froze the blood in my veins,
The coat of arms of Lettisieur Barony. Mamma wanted their story to be made public.
I was stepping up to the attic, longing to keep those stories, and somehow my parents, close to my heart. I had to look for a red velvet trunk.
My tears began to flow as I glanced at the collection of papers, a life in a box. The paper was old and faded. My hands shook as I read Mamma's words.
My Petit Fleur Eloise,
Once I thought you would accomplish great things, for you were born flesh from my flesh and blood from my blood. My child, you made us immortal…you are The Keeper of Secrets, the Spirit of Le Mirage.
This was my dearest possession; it now it is yours, Cherie. And never forget who you are: you are Antonia Eloise Batistelli Depreaux. Tell the world the story of your parents, Eve and Antonius, when Paris was the City of Love, when The Garnier Opera House was a brand new temple for The Arts…
I will be there, in your heart.
Mamma.
That day, the stories we had shared about our family, about my parents´ love story, took a form on their own in my head, to be brought to life in the form of a book.
It was time everyone knew the truth. The truth about my parent's past.
END OF CHAPTER ONE (more soon)