The following Thursday, a week before Christmas Eve, a rehearsal was scheduled at the village church. The entire Collins family packed themselves into several carriages.
Relatives had recently arrived from out of town. Millicent Collins, a simple-minded eighteen, behaved with the blushing naivete of a girl half her age. Recently orphaned, she was the heiress to an estate in New York of sizable acreage. Joshua hoped that Jeremiah would marry his cousin Millicent and thus keep her inherited property all in the family. The difference in their ages—and the fact that Jeremiah did not feel romantically attracted to Millicent—did not seem to matter when Joshua thought of his accounting books.
Daniel Collins her younger brother was already a dashing and mature gentleman at eleven. He saw his rightful place in the men's carriage with Jeremiah and Barnabas rather than ride with his cousin Sarah who was near his own age.
"I'm taking lessons in fencing," Daniel bragged to the older gentlemen, as he climbed into the carriage. "I go into New York City twice a week to attend the academy by special invitation. My instructor says I'm very talented. Are you skilled with the short sword, cousin? Would you care for some friendly sparring during my visit?"
Jeremiah answered for both of them, "Perhaps another time, Daniel. This is not the right season to be brandishing weapons even in fun."
Fat-rumped black horses brought the caravan of carriages down the hill. Angelique being a servant rode with Ben Stokes, John Riggs, Phyllis Wick, and several others in an open wagon pulled by an ox. The air was biting cold. Angelique's furious eyes fixed on the rear window of Josette's warm and cozy carriage the whole way. Frost stung her heated cheeks.
Saint Sebastian's Episcopal Church of Collinsport was a boxy rectangular building. Its bricks were dark red, and the shingles on its steep roof were black. The steps leading up to the front door had a railing of wrought-iron spikes. It had narrow stained glass windows, a square-sided tower and a steeple with a tarnished brass bell. Every day, the bell rang three times: at dawn, at noon, and at sunset. Its mournful clang could be heard on clear days as far as the Collins mansion on the hill.
The structure reminded Angelique of the little village church in Martinique but with a touch more elegance. For the first time in a long time, she was homesick for the sunny beaches and the warm grasses that were green all year round. The landscape here was all a faded palette of blue, and gray, and dirty white. She could not remember her hands being warm.
She entered church behind the family, even behind the other servants. Cautiously, she strolled up the center aisle between rows and rows of mahogany pews. She searched for hidden spirits but saw none in the arched ceiling, the ribs of pine painted yellow in aspiring to be Heaven's golden gates. Tall wooden poles supported racks of blue candles. The altar was chiseled out of bone-colored marble imported from a place called Tuscany, as Barnabas explained to Josette with his arm around her waist.
Above the altar was a massive cross and on it mounted the life-sized figure of Jesus Christ nailed by his hands and his feet, a slim cloth draped across his hips, and his head crowned with thorns. Barnabas pointed out the gigantic crucifix with admiration for its craftsmanship. He launched into a monologue about the artist's biography and how the Collins family had sponsored the gift to the church. "It's an exquisite work of art, don't you think so, Josette?"
Josette turned her head, as if to admire the cross, but instead wound up staring sideways at Jeremiah.
"Reverend Jennings," said Joshua Collins to the man who emerged from a small door at the side of the altar.
Angelique would have called him a priest for his long black cassock that buttoned from chin to toes and for the narrow white collar around his neck. Yet he was called a reverend, not a priest, and the Collinses were Episcopalian not Catholic. She had learned by now that the Americans had a different word for everything. A rose by any other name, she thought Barnabas might say.
"Hello, welcome everyone," said the reverend, a rather young fellow with boyish features. Sloppy locks of corn blonde hair, parted in the middle, hung down either side of his face. "Barnabas, I haven't had the opportunity yet to say congratulations."
"Thank you, reverend." Barnabas shook his hand, too. "This is Josette."
She dipped her knees in a curtsey. "It is my pleasure."
"Delighted to meet you. I'm sure you'll make Barnabas very happy." As the reverend looked at her, Josette turned aside with a bashful blush. Jeremiah likewise shifted on his feet and pretended to be very interested in an oil painting of Saint Francis holding a sparrow on his finger.
Joshua Collins prompted, "Well, then, shall we get started with the rehearsal?"
"Yes, indeed." Reverend Jennings stretched out his arms to begin directing the family in their roles. "Mister Collins, you and your wife will be seated here on the groom's side. You, sir, I assume are the bride's father? Would you escort her to the rear of the church and prepare to walk her down the aisle?"
Andre duPres took Josette by the hand. Her head bowed in modesty—or perhaps shame—as she strolled with him into the brown shadows beneath the choir loft.
"I assume I am to be here?" Countess duPres glided into the pew on the opposite side of the aisle from the groom's family. Angelique dutifully tended to the trailing train of the grand lady's skirts, tucking the layers of satin and ruffles into the walled-up bench.
"Yes, that's fine. Now, the best man is..."
Sarah piped up proudly, "I'm a flower girl. I'm going to have a basket full of rose petals, but I don't have it today."
Her young cousin Daniel Collins boasted, "I'm the ring bearer. That's a far more important job than littering the floor with flower petals." At eleven years old, he wore a tailcoat, a satin waistcoat, and white breeches. A bleached cravat bloomed under his chin. In every way he was a miniature version of the fully grown gentlemen, and he had the prideful pose to match.
"You're a mean boy!" Sarah cried. "I don't like you. I like David better."
"Who's David? Do you have suitors already?"
Joshua Collins rose out of his pew, a bit slowly and stiffly; the gout was troubling his leg today. "Sarah, come and sit down."
Phyllis Wick pinched the little girl's ear and fairly dragged her off to the side. The governess hissed a stern whisper, "No more lies about that imaginary friend David, or you know what I'll do."
Sarah plunked herself into a pew, crossed her arms, and sulked.
Cousin Millicent shyly stepped forward. Although she was a lady of means equal to Josette in wealth and privilege, she conducted herself as timidly as a servant. Blonde and fair-skinned, she had delicate features of a porcelain figurine. Always she wore gloves for fear of touching something that would make her sick. Even now, she clutched a handkerchief to her nose and spoke through the thick wad of linen.
"I've prepared a song." Millicent paused to sneeze. "I'm going to sing the Ave Maria. Shall I perform it now, as part of the rehearsal?"
Barnabas replied, "You should save your voice for the wedding."
"If you say so, cousin." Sneezing again, she settled down in the pew behind Joshua and Naomi.
Reverend Jennings cleared his throat. By now, he had ascended to the lower step of the altar. He held a small prayer book in his hands. "Now, the best man will stand here. I assume that's you, Jeremiah?"
"I suppose so," he mumbled.
Barnabas laughed softly. "If that's an attempt at levity, you're failing miserably."
"I'm sorry." Jeremiah turned to gaze at his nephew with heartfelt sincerity. His large brown eyes moistened and crinkled at the corners.
"For what?" Barnabas sobered quickly. He put a hand on his uncle's shoulder. "What's the matter? You seem distressed about something."
"This isn't the time or place."
"I insist," Barnabas said. "Tell me."
Angelique's hopes surged that here, in the house of God, the guilt would overwhelm Jeremiah and he would be moved to confess. She glanced to the rear of the church. Josette visibly gripped her father's arm.
"Well, I've been trying to find a good time... But the thing is, well... That is... I don't think I'll be able to make it to the wedding."
Barnabas cried out, "What? Why?"
"I have to go away," Jeremiah stammered. "I have to leave town... leave Maine... leave the country... on urgent business."
"What business?" Joshua Collins asked from the pew. "It's the first I'm hearing about it."
Natalie duPres slowly turned her head left and right, her eyes passing from Jeremiah at the altar to Josette beneath the choir loft. Angelique saw nothing of surprise in the countess's expression; if anything, she seemed to be biting her lip to hold back blurting out what she knew. Of course, she reasoned, Josette's aunt knew everything. An aristocrat who had no doubt caused a few scandals in her younger days flirting with aristocrats in the gardens of Fontainebleau, the countess had discovered and then expertly concealed their love affair.
"It's a, uh, private venture," Jeremiah mumbled.
Barnabas commanded him, "Delay your trip until after the wedding."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can, and you will." Barnabas gripped him by both shoulders and seemed about to shake him. "You're my best man! You're supposed to stand at my side when I marry the love of my life, and stand here you shall. If you choose to make a business venture a priority then I will never forgive you."
Jeremiah's forehead squeezed down, pinching his eyes into narrow slits. It seemed he was genuinely about to cry. "All right, Barnabas, I'll stay for your sake. Please believe me, no matter what I do that may appear contrary, you mean the world to me."
"I know." Barnabas clapped him a few times on the shoulder and, reluctantly, let him go.
Reverend Jennings said, "Now, may we continue? First, the music will cue the flower girl. Yes, that's you. Then comes the ring bearer, Mister Daniel Collins. And finally, the bride."
Angelique's mouth hung open in amazement as she watched the procession continue. Could nothing be done to stop this farce? Andre duPres with his tubby waddling gait, a serious expression as he brought his only daughter—his only legitimate daughter—to the altar. He stood tall before the crucified figure of Jesus Christ himself and pretended to have no sin. Josette hung onto him, her feet dragging with the weight of her own guilt, but she let herself be brought along. Her hand trembled as Andre lifted her wrist and placed her delicate brown fingers into Barnabas's hand. The onyx ring glistened darkly as the groom took hold of her.
Reverend Jennings said, "I'll recite a passage of scripture. You'll say your vows, then you may kiss..."
Josette clapped her hand over her own mouth as she spun away. "Not yet!"
"It's only rehearsal." Barnabas gently took hold of her elbow to pry her hand off her face. "I won't kiss you now."
Jeremiah took out a kerchief to dab at the sweat beads on his forehead. The church was cool, though, despite the many large candles that flickered. Angelique understood why he was sweating. Incredible, why doesn't Jeremiah confess? Or why doesn't he run away with her? Why are these Collins men so stupid and unpredictable? Why do they deny their passions that burn in their hearts?
A flash of sunlight pierced a bead of stained glass. Angelique called out to the brilliance, with the voice of her mind, Come to me... Stop this madness... Come and burn... That slender pole of light from the stained glass window fixed upon a spot on the carpet. It started a small curl of smoke that spread into a circle of orange and yellow sparkles. Flames grew into feathers. Fire quickly sprouted from the carpet to the curtains. Gaining strength the fire lapped at the wooden support posts and the paneling on the walls.
"Fire!" cried Aunt Abigail.
Flames licked the base of a life-sized statue of Saint Sebastian—a nude man bound to a tree and shot full of arrows, dying but not dead yet. The statue was carved out of flesh colored wood, sanded and polished smooth, and painted in lifelike color. His hair had a cinnamon tinge. His eyes were blue. The blood was bright red that streamed out of his multiple arrow piercings.
Sarah screamed a shrill note as she froze in place, staring at the bright flames spreading up to the choir loft. Young Daniel grabbed her hand and said, "Don't be scared. Come on."
Joshua and his brother coolly herded the group down the aisle. Jeremiah managed either by chance or by design to get close to Josette. He put his arm around her shoulders and said to her, while appearing to say to the rest, "It's going to be all right."
Barnabas asked the reverend, "Is anyone backstage?"
"What... 'backstage,' did you say?"
Waving his hand at the door beside the altar, Barnabas cried out, "There! That dressing room, whatever you call it. Are you alone?"
"Yes, it's Thursday. I'm the only one here."
Ben Stokes called to Riggs and the other servants as they hurried out the main door. "Let's find shovels. We'll scoop up snow to fight the fire."
Outside in the church yard, Angelique huddled in the cold shadows with the rest of the women and the two children. Young Daniel objected, "I can help!" but was ordered by Joshua Collins to stay out of the way. They stood by and watched the gentlemen and their servants, all equal in the efforts. Their silhouettes were obscured in the billows of smoke and the bright flame. Every man cooperated with buckets and snow shovels, rushing in and out of the burning church. Angelique's eyes widened in the pleasure of watching it burn—the spirits of fire and shadow dancing out of her control.
It took the better part of an hour before the men had extinguished the last of the flames. By then, the sun had started to set. The western sky absorbed the fiery hues that had just been smothered in shovel-loads of snow. The church's stained glass windows were dark and some had cracked. Smoke puffed out of the door.
"Witchcraft," said Abigail Collins so sternly that she had Cousin Millicent and even the countess nodding in agreement. "Who else but Satan would wish to destroy a church?"
"Yes," agreed Ben Stokes in a low voice, hoarse and rasping from the smoke. He stared straight at Angelique as he repeated, "Who else?"
She glared a warning at him. Not one word about me, Ben. You will not be able to utter so much as a hint of what I have done, or what I plan to do. Your tongue will choke you before you can point me out as a witch.
Men doubled over from the smoke. They coughed and wiped their faces with cotton kerchiefs or silk cravats; rich and poor; master and servant; soot-faced all the same. Josette rushed up to Barnabas and Jeremiah, standing side by side. She cried out to either or both of them, "Are you all right?"
"Yes." Barnabas embraced her first as Jeremiah looked on sadly. "But whatever shall we do? The building is saved, but the interior is utterly ruined."
Angelique bit down to hide her smile of triumph. The wedding will be postponed into the new year! But her joyous moment was short-lived.
Joshua Collins, leaning on his walking cane, announced, "We shall host the wedding at our home. Reverend, is that all right with you?"
"Of course, sir. I'd be honored." The reverend gagged on smoke and bent over coughing. Angelique wished that she had thought ahead to slip him a potion like the one she had tricked Ben Stokes into drinking. If I eliminate the priest, she thought, but quickly changed her strategy. But no, these resourceful Collinses will only send for another from a nearby town, or from Boston or New York. They seem determined to make this ridiculous wedding go forward! I must increase my pressure on Josette; my last hopes are on her!
#
Despite all her efforts, the wedding day arrived in the following week. Reverend Jennings on his brown horse trotted through a light sprinkling of snow. Joshua Collins made him welcome with a pot full of hot coffee. Guests assembled in the downstairs parlor. Naomi in her satin gown and jewels sat like a queen. Abigail in a simple beige frock clutched a King James bible to her chest. Cousin Millicent played an Ave Marie on the harpsichord. Her pipey voice sang the whole thing through in Latin, twice. Sarah sitting on the loveseat by the window raked her fingers through the basket full of rose petals.
Young Daniel attached himself to Lieutenant Nathan Forbes in full dress Navy uniform. The boy asked eagerly if he had ever battled pirates at sea, or if Nathan had ever killed a man with the saber he wore. The lieutenant replied to each question briefly while staring sideways at Millicent's blonde curls. Angelique sensed a darker soul of greed and ambition in the soldier's pretty blue eyes. But as long as he did not interfere with her own designs, Nathan's stalking of the naïve heiress was not her concern.
Barnabas fidgeted on his feet. "Where is she? Why is she taking so long?"
At his side, Jeremiah only stared at the floor. He wore his best velvet tailcoat of sienna brown with a black collar and cuffs embroidered in lily leaves. His dark green satin waistcoat had a smooth sheen like a calm deep ocean. His crisp white cravat was like an orchid blooming on a summer's day. Only Angelique understood the misery in Jeremiah's heart, the reason he had not yet taken a glass of sherry to hand and had not raised a toast to Barnabas and Josette's happiness. But his misery was not enough to halt this farce. Barnabas in his very best tailored suit, and wearing the jeweled medallion of the family crest, was fully expecting to go through with this.
"There's a storm on the way," the reverend said gently. "I'd like to be on the road before dark."
"Of course you would," Barnabas replied in an apologetic tone. "I'm sure she'll be down any moment."
Angelique offered, "I'll go and see what's delaying her!" Hoisting her skirts, she trotted upstairs to Josette's room.
As she approached the bedroom door, she hoped to find Josette in a tantrum refusing to marry him. She lingered unnoticed at the door frame to peer inside.
White satin skirts in tiered layers spread out from Josette's slender hips in a tapered cone that puddled out in a pale shadow behind her. White lace hung like orchid petals at her wrists. Satin piping stiffened the seams of her bodice. Whalebones hardened a cream-on-ivory brocade panel into a flat inverted triangle. The veil was a luxurious curtain of Spanish lace that carried the musty scent of cedar chips and generations past although it had been aired for weeks out of its trunk.
Natalie duPres stood between Josette and the dressing table mirror. By chance, she blocked the young bride's view of the enchanted glass. The grand lady pinched and picked at the gown's frills. All the while, as she nattered on—in French—a constant monologue of advice. "...day you've waited for, and hoped for, and all the foolishness will be put aside now."
"I'm not sure I can," Josette said.
"You can and you must. These aren't the days of the Parisian court when it was accepted for a woman to be married in name to one man and find her pleasures with another. You are in the New World now. These Americans will not tolerate such bourgeois behavior."
As Angelique entered the room, she made sure to click her heels on the floor so that it seemed she had just now arrived. "Oh mademoiselle, you are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen! Look at yourself in the mirror and think of how Barnabas will rejoice to see you."
Josette glanced to the gilded mirror. The enchantment shined its whisper, You will not want to be the bride of Barnabas Collins. You will not ever want to be his bride. You will recoil from his touch.
A frown soured her face. Her large brown eyes moistened and flickered in the candlelight. "Barnabas will... rejoice to see me?"
The countess put an arm around her niece and firmly guided her toward the door. "Enough of dragging your feet. No doubt they've sent Angelique up to see what's keeping you so late! It's time, now, my dear to go downstairs and get married to the man you love."
"The man I love," Josette repeated dully as if in a dream.
Angelique stood blocking the doorway even as the bride and her spinster maid of honor approached. She felt herself standing in a nightmare, unable to move her legs.
"Wait, please, mademoiselle." Angelique reached into the pocket of her skirt for her very last, desperate spell. She carried a small square of blue cloth, the size of a kerchief, that she had sliced out of Jeremiah's bed sheets. By watching the two lovers through the eyes of the flames, she knew they had not yet fully consummated their affair but they had come very close. Secretly meeting in each others' bedrooms in the middle of the night, or outside in the frosty garden beneath the statue of Diana the Huntress, they had wasted hours in gulping tongues and groping each others' bodies. Jeremiah had reached down her bodice and up her skirts, but only with his hands. When they returned to their own beds, alone, Josette wept for shame into her pillow, and Jeremiah thrashed about in the agony of frustrated desire. You can't live without Josette as your wife, Angelique had chanted to the cloth earlier that afternoon as she had stitched its hem with a needle pricked in her own blood. You were married once before, Jeremiah Collins, and lost your beloved Laura in a fire. You dread going on as a widower for the rest of your life. You want a bride. You want a wife. You want a lover. You want Josette.
"What is it, Angelique?" Josette asked.
"I have made you a gift." She brought out the blue cloth twisted and styled into a rosette. "Would you do me the honor of wearing this on your gown?"
Josette frowned at the crude flower of cloth. "It doesn't match."
"Oh please, mademoiselle! I have nothing else of worth to give you. You have so many lovely and expensive gifts that I could never hope to equal. Please understand that this is from my heart. I feel that we are like sisters, you and I, in spirit if not in reality."
Natalie duPres was moved to tears and dabbed at her eyes with a kerchief. Perhaps she also knew the secret of Angelique's parentage, if her brother Andre in a drunken stupor had confessed his guilt; the word sister seemed to pierce into the countess's heart. "Josette, don't be so cruel. Allow her to give you this one small token."
"Very well." Josette continued to frown as Angelique pinned the blue florette onto the waistline of her white wedding gown.
"Thank you, Angelique," said the countess. "That was very thoughtful of you."
"I am always thinking of mademoiselle's happiness."
Josette drew back, her legs tangled and trampling on the gown's long sweeping skirt. She put one hand to her belly and the other to her forehead. "Oh, Aunt Natalie!"
"What is it?" The countess grasped the young woman by the shoulders and helped guide her into the puffy upholstered loveseat.
"I feel faint. I need air. Please, open the window!"
"It's freezing outside," the countess objected.
"Unlock it!" Josette shrieked. "Open it!"
"All right, just a little crack."
Josette with eyes closed and mouth open panted heavily like a woman running uphill. Her cheeks flushed bright rose.
Angelique stepped into the corridor. From downstairs, she heard the men's booming voices rising to something of argument. Barnabas called out, "Where are you going?" but she could not make out the words of Jeremiah's awkward, mumbling reply. She bit down on her urge to laugh out loud; finally, it was working.
"Leave me alone, please," Josette said.
"Why?"
"I want a few minutes to... to pray. Please, Aunt Natalie! Go downstairs and wait for me."
Her face puckered in confusion but the grand countess obeyed the young woman's wishes. In a sweep of salmon-colored silk, she departed the room and joined Angelique in the corridor. Angelique herself closed the door to give Josette her privacy. To pray, she thought with a giggle bubbling at the back of her throat.
Downstairs they went to join the wedding party now thrown into disarray and confusion. Jeremiah had departed with no explanation. Barnabas paced back and forth at the fireplace like a caged fox. Abigail was muttering to Reverend Jennings about witchcraft and he seemed to be ignoring her. Naomi Collins loitered near the crystal decanters of port and sherry.
Lieutenant Nathan Forbes had abandoned his conversation with young Daniel. Now the Navy officer slouched an elbow over the harpsichord to smile and flirt with Millicent. The naïve maiden blushed awkwardly at whatever he might be saying.
Joshua Collins ordered Ben Stokes, "Go and ask Jeremiah to get himself back here immediately!"
"Yes sir." Ben Stokes cast a suspicious glance upstairs, in Angelique's direction, but soon was forced to turn away and swallow the lump swelling up at the back of his throat. Shoulders slumped, head hung low, he lumbered off toward the rear of the house.
Andre duPres met his sister at the base of the stairs. "Well? Where is she? What's taking so long?"
"She's almost ready," the countess announced.
"'Almost'? What does that mean?"
"She is dressed in her wedding gown." The countess sauntered through the columned archway and into the parlor. Everyone's attention turned to her. "She has asked for a few minutes to pray."
Barnabas gripped the mantle as he stared down into the blazing fire. Angelique trembled to restrain her urge to rush across the room and throw herself into his arms. He craved a woman's devotion, and here she was ready to give it to him. If only he would turn around!
She gazed into the flames. Everyone else in the room talked among themselves, yammering and quietly arguing. Their mixed cacophony of voices covered Angelique murmuring to the flames, "Eyes of fire, show me what is unseen."
In the orange-brown gaps between the rising flames, Angelique saw the ghostly dolls play out a puppet show for her eyes alone. Jeremiah had saddled a large gray horse from the stables. He walked the animal, tugging it by the bridle, following the wagon path that encircled the house. In his other hand he carried with him a long wooden ladder. He halted beneath the upstairs window.
Josette leaned over the window sill like a fairy tale princess locked in a tower. Jeremiah placed the ladder against the house. He held the rungs steady, bracing the ladder with his own strong legs planted in the chilled black dirt. Josette in a swirl of white skirts climbed out, and inch by inch, her dainty feet brought her down the ladder and falling happily into his arms. Jeremiah kissed her deeply, hurriedly, and had to stop kissing in order to boost her onto the horse. She sat sideways, her long white gown streaming over the horse's left shoulder. She still wore her veil. As Jeremiah mounted up and wrapped his arms around her, he crushed the lace like a moth's cocoon.
He galloped through the snow. He and Josette ducked the low hanging branches. The broad hooves kicked back scoops of white powder. They galloped faster and faster, on an eastward course, bound for the town of Collinsport, bound for the shore of the sea.
Andre duPres stomped upstairs. He knocked on the bedroom door. "Josette? It's almost nine o'clock. Josette, the minister is getting very impatient. Josette?"
Angelique put a hand over her own mouth, pretending concern along with the rest of them, but it was all she could do to hold down her grinning glee. She stifled a wild cackle of ecstasy. Jeremiah had surrendered to his desires, at last. Before this night would end, Josette would be the wife of Jeremiah Collins and she would share his wedding bed. Barnabas would grieve at the betrayal and sulk among his books, and Angelique would gently approach to comfort him.
After a pause, the father of the bride rushed downstairs to announce with a shout, "She's gone!"
#
Angelique passed the long cold night, alone in her cold bed, waiting for him to come to her. He never did. She slept and hoped to dream of him, but her mind wandered to other places. Other times. She dreamed of the ancient ones who dwelled in this place before the white men came: the proud men with black hair as long as horse tails, and women with faces wrinkled by wisdom. They hunted the moose on frozen ponds and gave secret names to the seasons of the moon. They told stories of the world as an island floating on the back of a giant sea turtle. As she walked through their midst as a dream spirit, they also saw her. You do not belong here, they said. You walk a crooked path. Your feet are backwards. You breathe of the ill winds. We watch you, and laugh. We turn away from you, and weep.
She awoke alone, drenched in sweat and shivering at the chill of the air. How she missed the warmth of Martinique and the welcoming loa of the jungle. Everything in this land was chilly and forbidding—even the spirits. Enough moonlight shined through the window that she could read the little clock on the mantle: half past four.
She rose out of bed and wrapped herself in her blankets. She stood shivering by the window. Men's voices called out to the twilight before dawn, Josette where are you? Their torches darted like fireflies among the ancient trees.
"Why don't you give up?" Angelique's breath made a lace of fog on the window glass. "You won't find her in the forest, you must realize that by now. Come home, my darling. Surrender to your despair and out of the dark abyss of your pain, I will rescue you."
#