Chapter 77
"Madame Amelie, may we still ride the donkeys?" Lisette asked as she and Alex finished cleaning the dishes and put their drying towels away.
Amelie tapped her fingers against her hip as she stood in the doorway between the parlor and kitchen. "Have you been on your best behavior?"
Both children nodded in unison.
"Have you both done an equal amount of chores as your mother requested?"
Alex whispered something to his sister, and after a moment of consulting and counting on their fingers, they agreed that chores had been done.
Amelie thought a moment. "There seems to be something missing." She flashed a smile in my direction. "Your father's permission."
Immediately Alex and Lisette turned to me, silently pleading with their eyes as they stood with their arms around each other appearing as innocent as possible.
"They aren't dressed properly, I'm afraid," Julia said.
Immediately Lisette looked crestfallen while Alex glanced back at the clean dishes and appeared quite annoyed. Out of all the chores he helped Meg with around the house, his least favorite was drying dishes.
"I have old clothes upstairs they can borrow. An old dress from both of my girls and some trousers and a shirt left from one of my nephews. They might be a little big, but they're perfect for riding," Amelie offered.
Julia inhaled. "Well, as long as your father-"
"They have my permission," I said before Julia finished.
Lisette squealed in delight and jumped up and down. She made her way around the room, hugging Amelie and Julia first before she flung her arms around me.
"Thank you, Papa!" She grinned ear-to-ear and sprinted up the stairs with Amelie following behind her.
Lisette's excitement could not be contained, and once she and Alex changed into borrowed play clothes, I watched the two of them skip out of the house and down the path to the barn.
"Mother! Papa! Are you coming?" Lisette asked over her shoulder.
"I'll stay here with Marie and Madame Batiste," Julia said as she took a seat between the two and folded her hands in her lap.
It came as no surprise that Julia preferred the company of Marie and Madame Batiste over the barnyard. I whistled for Bessie, who bounded out of the house and toward the barn, stopping briefly to roll in the dirt before she galloped as fast as her stout legs allowed. For good measure, she threw back her head and bayed, which was answered by both donkeys braying.
When I reached the barn, Lisette and Alex stood wide eyed and nodding as Amelie finished issuing instructions for their ride and asked if they had questions.
"Are there saddles?" Alex asked.
"No, but I think you'll find you're quite comfortable riding bareback as my children, nieces and nephews, and even your father and I once did."
Alex appeared astonished. "Father, is that true? Did you ride Moon without a saddle?"
I nodded. "When I was not much older than you." Truthfully, a saddle had not crossed my mind when I had Moon.
"You're a natural!" Lisette said. "Oh, Madame Amelie, I have a question as well. How fast do they run?"
"Lisette, my dear, you are looking at the two slowest moving donkeys in all of Europe. They only run if food is involved."
Alex appeared relieved while Lisette patted Dria's neck and told the beast she still loved her, despite her inability to sprint through the orchard.
"Now, let's get you both riding," Amelie said as she handed me both sets of reins and grabbed a stool from the corner of the barn. Lisette hopped effortlessly onto Dria and rubbed her hands through the donkey's dusty coat. Alex jumped with such enthusiasm that he nearly vaulted over Eclipse, who flicked her ears back and flared her nostrils in a way that reminded me of Moon showing her displeasure.
"They will walk between the plum and peach orchards, around that garden where they will try to steal blueberries, and back to the barn," Amelie told them as she handed Alex his reins and I did the same for Lisette. "The entire ride should take about thirty minutes."
"They won't get lost, will they?" Lisette asked.
"Of course not. They have given hundreds of rides over the years. Once you return, you will reward them with apples and give Dria a desperately needed brushing."
Lisette beamed as though she had never heard anything more delightful in her life. "How do we get them to start?" she asked, looking quizzically at the stationary animal she sat upon.
Amelie gave a shrill whistle and Eclipse leisurely moved forward with Alex rocking back and forth. He held the reins in one hand and clutched her black mane with the other, giggling as the animal paused to eat grass.
"Pull her head up," Amelie said. "Otherwise you'll be sitting there until sunset. And do your best to keep them out of the blueberries."
Within minutes, they were making their very slow way toward the peach trees, both donkeys walking side by side while Alex and Lisette laughed and praised their mounts.
"I suspect Lisette will ask for a pet donkey on her tenth birthday," I said to Amelie as we watched them from the open barn doors.
"Perhaps she would settle for visiting again in the future. Your family is always welcome here."
"Lisette may never wish to leave considering you have donkeys to ride and goblins to hunt."
Amelie smiled. "Not nearly as exciting as Paris," she said with a sigh. "Tell me, was it as beautiful as you thought it would be when you arrived?"
I had arrived in the back of tarp-covered wagon with an iron collar around my bruised, aching neck and a chain attached to the side of the wagon fit for tethering a bear. Paris had been no different than any other large city the gypsies traveled to; it smelled of rotting food and burning coal, the crowds were large and gaped unabashedly, and Garouche paraded around like a greasy-haired, pot-bellied king in his cheap robes.
"Not at first," I said. Telling a grand lie would have been easier, but Amelie had known me at a time before the last of my innocence had been stripped away, and I had no desire to tell the only friend from my childhood that I had arrived safely in Paris. I had every intention of sparing the details, but I wanted her to know why I had not written to her as promised so many years ago.
Amelie looked at me and frowned. "Oh. That's very disappointing."
"I didn't make it to Paris as originally planned," I said as I kept my vision trained on the peach trees. "I lost my way."
From the corner of my eye I saw the alarm in her gaze. "I...I had no idea. I thought…"
"I know," I said before she finished. "It was the reason I did not write to you as I promised. I unfortunately lost most of my belongings and had no way of contacting you."
Out of fear of Garouche discovering the stolen jewelry had been returned to the Batiste family, I had burned Amelie's address in a moment of sheer panic once I sneaked back into the camp between shows. I spent weeks convincing myself that it had been for the best as Garouche had taken his anger and frustrations out on me with such severity that I spent two weeks confined within a tent that housed his daughter's bichons when they were not performing. Garouche had thought it best the crowds not see a bloodied, deformed boy barely able to sit upright. He was concerned there would be far more sympathy than I deserved, and so I was kept from the public eye. The beating I had received had been worth it as I was glad he could not harm Amelie or her mother and sister or return to their farm.
"But you eventually made it," Amelie said brightly.
"Eventually."
"How long did it take?"
I met Amelie's gaze at last, and seeing the concern in her light eyes reminded me of the moment I had first seen Madeline through the cage bars. I had thought for certain that she was Amelie Batiste, and despite the physical pain and humiliation, I had stared back at her, wanting so desperately to return to a night when I had last known kindness.
"It took me ten months to reach Paris."
Amelie's eyes widened and her lips parted in horror. "God have mercy," she said under her breath. "Your cousin and brother must have been so worried about you."
I inhaled sharply. "I didn't have their address either. I had nothing when I reached the city."
There was much left unsaid, but everything I had told Amelie was the truth. I had truly reached Paris with nothing at all; not a single franc to my name or the desire to be a deformed monster on display.
"How did you survive?" Amelie asked. She momentarily stared at the mask and my heart stuttered as I feared that she had started to mentally gather pieces of a puzzle I didn't want put together.
"I thought I saw you in a crowd," I said.
Amelie blinked. "Me?" she questioned, placing her hand over her heart.
I nodded. "The woman I thought was you became my family."
Amelie thought a moment. "Madeline, correct?"
I furrowed my brow. "Yes, but how did you know?"
"Alex's letters. He said Madeline is his real grandmere but not quite you're real mother. I believe his exact words were that she is your real enough mother."
"That certainly sounds like a description from Alex."
"I'm assuming that if you thought she was me that Madeline is absolutely wonderful," Amelie teased. "And very youthful. Unless I truly look old enough now to be your mother."
I grunted. "She is absolutely wonderful and only a few years older than I am."
Amelie sighed in relief. "Praise God on both accounts."
Silence filled the barn for a long moment. We both turned our attention to the pathway where Alex and Lisette were making their way back to the barn with Bessie following behind them. One more turn around the path and they would be on the last stretch of their ride.
"I don't know if I would have survived much longer without thinking Madeline was you," I said quietly. "Those ten months...they were filled with far more difficulties than I care to recall. You were truly the last person besides my uncle who..."
I didn't know how to finish my thought. Amelie had been the last person who had not treated me with outright contempt. She had been the last person to look me in the eye and offer a genuine smile. She had been the only person in nearly a year's time who had treated me like a human being instead of a loathed creature. Amelie Batiste had been the last good memory in an otherwise miserable childhood.
We had shared a bountiful meal, laughed, and danced together on a cool autumn evening. She had greeted me like a normal boy despite my awkward tendencies and inability to meet her eye when we first spoke. Our friendship had come easily-and throughout my life, nothing save for music had come with ease to me.
"You were the first and the last person who forced me to dance and consume far too much pie."
Amelie threw back her head and laughed. "The dancing yes, the pie was my mother's doing, although I recall your eyes were as big as the plates."
"And my stomach equally large."
Amelie stepped closer and looked me over. "You have no idea how relieved I was to hear from you again when you sent back the jewelry," she said. "When a reasonable amount of time passed and you didn't reply to my letters, I feared the worst. Truly. Marie kept saying you were preoccupied with your new life in the city and that I was being immature. After a year of not hearing from you again, I simply assumed you had forgotten us and put the belongings Marie found in a trunk in the attic."
"I'm grateful they were not thrown out or used for kindling."
"I was hopeful you'd return one day," Amelie answered. "And to hear from you at last after all these years lightened my heart."
"You are very kind to say such things."
"I never would have thought you would return to Tormage a famous composer with a wife, two children and a dog no less."
"I am astonished as well."
Amelie issued a stern look in my direction. "That is not what I meant at all," she said, swatting playfully at me. "Foolish as it was, I thought if you returned, then perhaps…"
"I beg your pardon?"
Her hands balled into fists and she looked away. "I thought perhaps by some miracle my father would return as well." She frowned before turning away from me. "Foolish, I know."
"For months I hoped that my uncle would still come for me, and I buried him with my own two hands," I admitted. "I kept thinking he would return or that I was dreaming and his death had not happened."
"But they didn't return," Amelie said sadly. She looked at me again and wiped unshed tears from her eyes.
I shook my head. "No, they didn't."
"When did it stop hurting for you?" Amelie held her head high, but her bottom lip still quivered.
"It hasn't," I answered. "I doubt it ever will."
Amelie nodded in agreement.
"What was your father's name?"
"Jean-Pierre Gaspard Marcus d'Angelo Batiste," Amelie proudly answered. "Named for his father, his uncle and his grandfather. I imagine when my grandmother called my father by his full name, she ran out of breath."
Her words made me smile. "What was he like?"
She flashed a familiar grin back at me, the jovial smile of a girl who had been ingrained in my memory for nearly thirty years.
"He was wonderful," Amelie replied. "You would have appreciated his sense of humor."
Alex and Lisette appeared on the final curve of their ride. They were both laughing and urging Dria and Eclipse on, but the beasts of burden fully intended to take their time.
"Tell me about him," I said to Amelie.
"Jean-Pierre Gaspard Marcus d'Angelo Batiste lived in Tormage his entire life," she said. "He grew the best apples, pears, peaches, and plums in the entire country, and we bottled the most delicious ciders and produced the best pie fruits. That is no exaggeration."
I smiled appreciatively, recalling how Madeline had once told me that all of her favorite bakeries, cafes, and shops were the best in all of Paris. On all accounts, she had been correct.
"What made your orchard superior?"
Amelie grabbed an apple from a bucket hanging near the stall with a crescent moon above the door. She tossed it into the air before handing it to me.
"Every year, my father sent us out to pick the first bushel of apples to make the cider. Eventually Jean-Marcus and Marie no longer wished to participate, so it was just the two of us. He would hold the ladder steady for me and suggest which fruit to take from the trees. Then he would pat the trees and thank them for a bountiful harvest.
"We spent the whole afternoon laughing and enjoying the last of the season. At sunset we would press the first batch of cider and he let me take the first sip. It was always the perfect amount of sweet and tart, and my father would say because we showed our gratitude to our orchard and the trees loved our laughter."
Amelie turned and took another apple from the bucket. "The year my father was killed, our mother took all three of us out to pick the first bushel together, but the cider didn't taste the same. I swore the trees knew what our family was missing."
"I apologize for not realizing then that you were in mourning."
Amelie shrugged. "I didn't want anyone else to know."
I furrowed my brow and turned to face her.
"Everyone I knew looked at me apologetically and treated me like a fragile doll that would crack if they mentioned my father. I grew tired of being their sympathetic spectacle. A stranger who saw nothing more than a swan princess was all I wanted, at least for a night. I have such fond memories of that masquerade party. It was truly the first time in the three months after my father was killed that I felt like a normal girl."
"The party was one of the few times I didn't feel like an oddity," I said softly.
Again Amelie glanced at my mask. I waited for her to take a step back or immediately look away and chance the subject, but instead she simply looked up at me and smiled. "A musical prodigy is a more suitable description. Not an oddity."
Lisette squealed in delight, drawing my attention away from Amelie and ahead at my son and daughter who were laughing as they clung to their mounts, who were walking considerably faster now that they were in sight of the barn.
"Run, Dria!" Lisette urged. "We can win! Faster, you beautiful, filthy beast!"
Alex leaned to the right, his legs straight out and a wide grin on his face. "Father! Do you see me?" he shouted. "I am riding a donkey just like you did when you were a boy."
"I do, and you are quite skilled." I said. "But you had better hold on tighter, Alexandre." I turned to Amelie. "They are not as slow as you said."
Amelie held up her apple. "The best apples in all of France," she said. "And a word of advice, if you don't give Eclipse her reward the moment she returns to the barn, she will head butt you and take it."
I widened my stance and held out the apple, bracing myself for the large animal lumbering toward me at a speed that made Alex belly laugh and Lisette shriek with delight.
To my surprise, Eclipse came to an abrupt stop and gently plucked the treat from my hand with her warm, velvety lips.
"She is actually very-"
With a hard thump, Eclipse rammed her head into my side and sniffed at my coat pocket before she lost interest and made her way to the bucket hanging off the stall door. She munched on the contents of the bucket until Dria pushed her aside.
"Ah, yes, she does that too," Amelie chuckled.
