“Yester night.”
She kept her tone casual. “That’s a surprise.”
“He’s not alone.” His voice held a measure of warning like when he was preparing her for bad news. “He’s with a woman.”
Lowering her eyes, she wiped breadcrumbs from the table into her hand. “I thought he was in New York.”
“Ay. That’s where he came from.”
“Why would he come back after all these years?” she asked, swallowing fear and irrational hurt at the news of his female companion.
“Who knows? Maybe he’s finally ready to face his demons or maybe he brought the woman to make her mistress of his home.”
“Mistress of his home?” She chuckled. “You still speak as if he’s royalty.”
She disapproved of social casts, something Erwan hadn’t completely let go. A lot of the villagers were royalists, still honoring their ancestral barons and earls.
“Our predecessors may have chopped off the head of the king, but the lad’s got a duke’s blood flowing in his veins, and nothing can change that.”
She dared to glance at her grandfather. “Do you think he’ll move back into his house?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “A woman can heal a man in ways doctors and therapists sometimes can’t. But don’t forget, there’s still his castle.”
Yes, of course. Joss was heir to the castle that stood in near ruins in the forest of Brocéliande. When his mother married his father, a high-ranking officer with a poor income, the family didn’t have the means to sustain the expansive land and enormous stronghold. Instead they moved into the big house near the sea. After Joss’s grandfather’s death, the castle was left to waste away in that enchanted forest. Could it be that Joss had found the means to restore it back to its former glory? Or did he find the means to heal his heart? She was suddenly envious of the woman who had such magic at her disposal.
“Have you seen him?” she asked, busying herself with rinsing the teapot.
“Nay.”
After the de Arradon family tragedy, no one expected Joss to return. Goosebumps ran over her arms.
Snow cried at the door.
“I’m late for work,” she said, drying her hands. “There’s Pintade Chouchenn in the oven for lunch.”
She kissed Erwan on the cheek, threw her flip-flops into her backpack, and pulled on a denim jacket and her rubber boots. Their veranda steps gave access to the beach. At low tide, the boats were stranded, but at high tide they could take the fishing boat or dinghy straight out to sea.
After giving Snow a quick hug, she tossed her bag into the motorized dinghy and steered the boat across the Gulf in the direction of the mainland. At low tide, she had to pedal her bike across the bridge that connected the Presque Isle to the village, but across the water was quicker, and navigating the dinghy had a calming effect.
At Larmor-Baden, she tied the dinghy to the jetty, changed into her flip-flops, stored her rubber boots in the boat, and made her way through the small harbor and past the luxury tourist hotels to the town square. For some time, she stood studying the black frame that used to be the mayor’s house, which was still steaming in the fresh morning and smelling of melted plastic and wet wood.
A few passersby stopped to ponder the mystery of the pyromania that was sweeping through their quiet village. A small crowd of elderly people was gathered at the tables in front of the bakery with espresso and croissants, talking in hushed Breton as they watched the firemen go through the debris.
Turning away from the destruction, Clelia followed the tar road toward the bus stop. The seven-thirty bus would take her to the stables in Carnac where she worked. Helping out in the tourist office that offered horseback rides couldn’t really be called a job, but it was all that was available in a village with nine hundred inhabitants.
On the bend of the long stretch of road between the square and the bus stop, she paused to lift her eyes to the abandoned house. For all of her life she’d walked this road, first to school and then to work, but she hadn’t looked at the haunted house for the past nine years. Not because of the horrific nightmare that had played out behind the shuttered, sad windows, but because of him. Because of Joss.
As long as she could remember, she’d been in love with Joss de Arradon. Secretly. Joss was four years her senior and the most beautiful being she’d ever seen. He had bronze skin with hair so black it shone blue in the sun and eyes so gray they glowed in his head. Those eyes had captured her with their pain and intensity. All through school, she’d watched him from afar, the boy who was so strong and defenseless at the same time. While she admired him from a distance, he was barely aware of her existence. After all, she was an expert at hiding. Life had taught her it was safer to remain invisible.
Joss had only spoken to her once. It had been on a summer’s day after school. She’d sneaked to the forest behind the schoolyard because she’d known she’d find him there. She’d stand behind a tree and study the movement of his hand as he smoked a forbidden cigarette. She’d memorize the manner in which he pulled his fingers through his rebelliously long hair, and the way he laughed loudly into his gang of friends even when his eyes cried or blazed.
That day however, he wasn’t with his friends. He was with a girl. Her name was Thiphaine and she was the most popular girl in school. She was blond, slim, and beautiful with blue eyes and red painted fingernails. Clelia watched from her hiding place as Joss backed Thiphaine up until her body pressed against the trunk of a tree. It was an athuja occidentalis, but the townsfolk called it a witch tree because of the tangled roots that resembled crippled limbs
