Yves thinks back to his father’s pear orchard. Workers would fit bottles over budding branches in early spring, so that the fruit would grow to full size while captured inside the glass, aspoires prisonnières, imprisoned pears. Once the pear matured, the bottle would be filled with brandy, calledeau de vie, water of life. And at long last it would be set on a high shelf and brought out on special occasions, leaving everyone to wonder how the miracle had occurred, how the pear came to be within the bottle.
For the rest of his life, the sound of wind chimes would remind Yves of the glinting glass bottles hanging from those tree branches, clinkingtogether in the famous winds that swept over the fields and orchards of Provence.
His Josephine is like a bud in a bottle, a prisoner of the glass, awaiting hereau de vie.
“What is she looking for?”
His thoughts, voiced by another. Marc-Antoine, their beloved son, joins Yves at the library window and gazes through the leaded glass at Josephine, as perplexed as his father.
Yves places his hand on his son’s newly muscular shoulder, missing the sharp feeling of delicate little-boy wing bones under his palm. Marc-Antoine’s dark hair and eyes favor his mother’s secretive features, and unlike Yves, Marc-Antoine has always been large for his age, overtaking Yves in height two years ago, when he was but twelve years old.Our boy is becoming a young man,Yves thinks as fear pierces his heart. All too soon, Marc-Antoine will leave him alone here in this once-grand château, with only Josephine—a pale imitation of the woman he had married—as company.
“What is it she is looking for, riding that ridiculous merry-go-round at night?” Marc-Antoine asks the question for the hundredth time.
Yves does not answer.
There is no answer, just the darkness of the night and the eerie song of the carousel.
CHAPTER FIVE
PRESENT DAY
OAKLAND
Cady
Cady was two drinks in when she bashed her toe, hard, on a leg of the couch. Whirling around in a fit of anger and frustration, she kicked Gus.
Harder than she’d intended.
The carved rabbit fell over onto its side, slamming against the granite edge of an end table. Several already loosened joints gave up, and chunks of carved wood scattered on the floor like so many Tinker Toys: the ears, two slats from one side, the front legs.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry....”
Shame engulfed her. This was the sort of thing she would have done as a child. Cady had pursued counseling, attended mindfulness classes, and read dozens of self-help books to learn to stifle her violent impulses. She took a moment to close her eyes, take a breath for the count of four, hold it for seven, and release it for eight, as Maxine had taught her to do.
And then she grabbed her camera. She perceived more clearly when she peered through the lens. It allowed her to concentrate, to sink into herself and tune out the external world.
Like peering through a pair of corrective glasses, looking through the camera lens allowed her toseein a way she couldn’t with the bare eye.
Now Cady realized: There was something hidden in the cavity of the rabbit’s belly.
A bundle wrapped in pink fabric.
Crouching down, she tried to pull it out, but it was stuck tight. She would have to dislodge another of the laminated wood slats to get it out. After a moment’s hesitation, Cady decided that poor, broken Gus was in for some heavy repair work in any case, so she carefully pried the torso apart.
The rosy silk material was incredibly soft to the touch and reflected the overhead lights with a slight sheen. Her heart hammering in anticipation, Cady pushed aside the fabric.
Inside was a carved wooden box.
A breathtaking box. A work of art. Made of pale ash wood, it had been carved with acanthus leaves, flowers, and swirls; it was lacquered, polished, and sealed with a brass lock.
Who would hide a box within a carousel rabbit? And why? If she broke the lock, would she be destroying a piece of history? Or... could there be something inside that was worth real money? Something that might finance a trip to Paris, or even allow her to move and reestablish herself, as she’d hoped selling Gus would do?
Could this be the little piece of magic Olivia insisted Cady would find someday?
No,she reminded herself.Things like that don’t happen to me.
To hell with history. Cady grabbed a spackling knife, shoved it into the seam of the lock, and tapped the end of it with a hammer. She had to pry the box in several locations before the lock finally snapped.
