Page 72 of The Rules of Magic

“I only meant, I feel that I’m family to you,” Madame Durant said, trying to soothe Jet’s ruffled feathers.

“Thank you,” Franny said. “Please understand we have lost an actual member of our family.”

“Of course. I would never intrude. I have your best interests at heart.”

Franny found that difficult to believe but she was distracted by the presentation of their supper, which included hors d’oeuvres of oysters and cheeses. The restaurant owner had a little dachshund that lounged on one of the velvet couches.

It was only then Franny realized that William wasn’t among them. She imagined he was still at the cemetery, unwilling to leave his beloved. How horrid they had forgotten him in his hour of need.

“I’ll be right back,” Franny told Jet as she dashed out, hoping she would find her way back to the burial site. The hour was late and night was falling. She felt panic rising in the back of her throat as she darted along the streets in the evening light, finally finding the pedestrian gate of the cemetery at Porte du Respos and hurrying inside.

There was ice on the paths and her breath came out in cold puffs and the white dress was much too sheer and flimsy for the chill of the day. Gravediggers were flinging clods of earth over the open grave. Franny stopped. Her heart felt too heavy for her chest.

There was the shadow of a tall man.

“William!” she called, but if it was he, he did not respond.

Franny held one hand over her eyes as the sun went down, and the orange light made it difficult to see. The leaves on the trees were rustling and swirls of earth rose up from the ground.

“Is it you?” Franny cried.

She couldn’t tell if she saw one man’s shadow or two. And then she knew. She felt her brother near, just as she had when they played hide-and-seek in the basement and their mother could never find them. She followed the path, but the orange light was blinding, and she bumped into a woman bringing flowers to a grave and had to apologize. She didn’t realize that she was crying until she spoke to the other mourner. Her apology was accepted with a shrug, and then she was alone. She stopped and watched as the light grew darker and the shadows longer, and then, when it was clear she would not find her way, she returned the way she’d come.

She went back to the restaurant, arriving as Haylin was getting out of a taxi. He’d flown from Frankfurt, where he’d been stationed, and now he embraced Franny on the sidewalk. He kissed her and could not stop. It was Paris so no one looked at them twice.

“I should have been here sooner,” he said.

“You’re here now.” Franny seemed more in shock than grief-stricken.

She barely spoke that evening. As the dinner was ending, with aperitifs and small cakes, Franny went to Agnes and asked if she could call on her the next day. “I want to thank you and perhaps get to know you better, as my mother did. I was rude before, and I apologize.”

“I’m so sorry,” Agnes demurred. “I’m closing up my apartment. I really won’t have time. I’m going out to my country house.”

“So that’s it? Vincent is gone and we don’t speak about it?”

Agnes shrugged. “How can we understand life? It’s impossible. To the world, Vincent is dead and buried. Let’s leave it that way, my dear.”

“And we don’t speak of William either? I’m not even sure where he is. What do I do when his father calls me and asks where he is?”

“William is where he wants to be. How many among us can lay claim to that?”

Franny rushed back to the hotel and Jet’s room.

“William lied to us,” she told her sister. “He let us go through that charade of a funeral. All the while, that Madame Durant had placed a disappearing spell on Vincent so we wouldn’t know the truth. He’s alive, Jetty.”

“If William lied, he did it for Vincent. You knew we were going to lose him. I suppose this was the best way.”

“To make us think he had died?” Even for a few hours it had been horrible.

“He has died. For us. And we must keep it that way if we want him to be safe.”

At the hotel, Jet was happy to leave Franny and Haylin to each other. She preferred to be alone to grieve. The loss of her brother affected her deeply. She went to her room and when she took off the hat she’d been wearing all day, she found that her hair had gone white all at once. It had happened at the funeral. Her best feature, her long black hair, gone. She gazed into a mirror above the bureau and spied the woman she had seen in their aunt’s black mirror. She wondered what Levi would have thought if he was with her. Perhaps he would have lain down beside her and told her she was still beautiful, even if it wasn’t true. He would have read to her from a book of poems, then perhaps planned where they would go for a drink, someplace somber, but warm, where they could sit close together. But now, without him, she had stepped into her future, and, like it or not, this was who she’d turned out to be. He was a boy, and she was now a woman who had lost nearly everyone she’d ever loved. She thought of what she’d told April once. This was what happened when you were alive. She called the desk and asked for some coffee, since she already knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Paris was too noisy, the room was too cold, the injury of losing Vincent too fresh. She did not mind being alone. She sat beside the window and wrote a postcard to Rafael. She always wrote him postcards, even when they were both in New York City, and then when they got together they would read the postcards in bed. She wished he were here with her now. Just as a friend, of course. The friend she wanted to be with more than any other.

It had begun to rain, a thin green drizzle that made the sidewalks shine.

Paris is sad, she wrote, but beautiful enough to make you not care about sadness.

Franny fell asleep beside Haylin, exhausted. When she woke he was sitting on the edge of the bed watching the rain falling. They were supposed to stay away from each other, but their pact didn’t need to apply yesterday, nor today. The sky outside was thick with rain clouds. Paris was so gray in November. Wood doves were gathering on the small balcony. Franny held out her hands to them and they pecked at the glass. She wished they never had to leave this room, but they did. Haylin had told her he was being transferred to the field. He would be leaving in less than eight hours for Vietnam. They spent those eight hours in bed, telling each other they didn’t love each other; they did so for luck and to do their best to ensure they would one day see each other again.