CHAPTER
21
More curios of yet-to-be-memory await you on the Grande Île in Strasbourg, France. On this leg of our journey, we won’t visit a single edifice depicting the Titan Atlas. Henceforth, that name is to be put behind you. When I first called you Little Atlas, I did so because you held the globe near to your heart—not because I wished you to shoulder it. The endearment was never intended to fetter you with false responsibility, and I’m determined to free you of that burden now with a new name. From this day on, I shall call you my Little Stargazer.
Lift your face to the heavens, granddaughter mine! Recall the joyous wonder of dwelling and dreaming beneath a canopy of stars, embracing the peace found in total dependence on Him who spoke their radiance into being. That is my wish for you. That is my prayer.
Your devoted,
Grand
Dreaming beneath the roof of the Canopy of Stars Hotel was a notion Clara could fathom, but total dependence on another—even the Maker of the heavens—was a thought her mind struggled to comprehend.
Nestled in a window seat, Clara admired the view of Strasbourg from their recently acquired quarters on the second floor. Just outside, a sign swayed in the breeze from a scrolled-iron hook. The circular advertisement for the hotel was painted the dark blue of an evening sky and embedded with shards of yellow glass. Brilliant rays from the afternoon sun streamed through the glass, which harnessed the light and arranged it on the cobbles below in a shining new constellation. A diminutive canopy of stars that twinkled during the day.
Leave it to Grand to remember the obscure hotel mentioned in one of her travel guides.
Clara withdrew the leather journal and silver pen from her pocket. Paging through the journal to where Grand’s notes were sheltered, she traced a finger over the words he’d penned with loving prayer. She wanted to embrace the peace Grand said she might find, but releasing her long-held illusion of being in control was not so easily done.
Nor was changing one’s name. For names came with an identity. A certain way of being and living, thinking and acting. A new name, then, required that one cease responding when the old name was beckoned and turn instead toward the sound of a different call.
With one bandaged hand, she grasped the compass on her chatelaine, tracing a thumb over the fissures that skewed the glass. With the other, she held the silver fountain pen, feeling the weight of its ornate reservoir filled with ink. What would the transition from Little Atlas to Little Stargazer entail, and how would it rewrite her story?
Lift your face to the heavens, granddaughter mine!
Clara opened the window, granting entry to the gentlebreezes of spring, and took a deep breath infused with the herbaceous scent of geraniums.I shall try, Grand. Bymight and main, I shall try.Setting aside the compass, she attached the pen’s lid to her chatelaine. Then she turned to the front of the journal and pressed the nib to the first blank page.
Something arced over her shoulder, clacked against the open window, and ricocheted onto her skirt. Clara startled. She capped her pen and picked up the intrusive object, a small gray stone.Where did you come—Something struck the back of her skull.Ouch!Flinching, she dropped the pebble beside a second. Mouth agape, she turned to Mum, who sat on their bed, brushing Fred’s fur while the ermine groomed the wriggling fox kits.
Clara placed a hand to her assaulted crown. “I think we’re under attack. Should I inform the proprietor or—say, isn’t that my hairbrush?”
Mum continued brushing without lifting her gaze. “Seventy-four. No. Yes.”
“He ought to know, and Fred has his own hairbrush.”
“Seventy-nine. It’s no concern of his. Fred misplaced his hairbrush on the train.”
“Why isn’t it his concern? And for the love of all, can’t Fred simply make do?”
“Eighty-five. Because the romantic pebbles are addressed to you. Freddy’s fur mats if he goes without his daily one hundred strokes.”
A third pebble crashed into Clara’s nape and incited an unseemly yelp. She dove off the window seat, scattering pebbles and writing implements across the planks, and took cover against the wall. “Pray tell, Mother, how is being pelted with rocks in any way romantic?”
“Ninety-nine, one hundred.” Mum placed the brush on the pale blue coverlet and met Clara’s gaze with a smirk. “Look out the window, ducky.”
Snatching a pillow to shield her face, Clara rose with caution to peek outside—just as a hobgoblin on the street below readied to hurtle another projectile.
“There you are, Miss Stanton.” Mr. Arthur dropped a pebble and dusted off his hands, looking up at her second-floor perch. “Heaven be thanked! My arm was getting dashed tired. Mailing through the Pebble Post might spare a penny, but it extracts payment from a man’s patience and taxes his brawn. Might I inquire, fair maiden in yonder tower, what the dickens took you so long?”
A flicker of a smile sparked on his lips, dim and wavering, as if the breeze might extinguish it at any second. But it burned. For the first time since the incident on the train snuffed it cold last night, it reflected a glint of jest in his eyes.
For the first time, Clara couldn’t deny that she’d missed it. She’d missed crossing swords with Mr. Arthur as that lopsided grin of his goaded her to smile back. Lowering her down-feather shield, Clara challenged his smile to a duel with the arching of an impervious brow. “I was detained by a mischievous hobgoblin throwing pebbles.”
Mr. Arthur gasped with mock horror. “Were you, now?”
“Indeed. Apparently, the creature is ignorant of the invention of doors and the human practice of knocking upon them.”
“Tragic, that. Hobgoblins can be quite ill-informed creatures.” Hiding both hands in his overcoat, Mr. Arthur tilted his head. “I’d thought to escort you and Mrs. S. to luncheon. Shall I have to scale the tower’s thorny vine to retrieve the pair of you?”
