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“He’s gone,” another coughs. “Fire on the lock instead.”
The one guard who possesses the key is missing. Maybe he left when Mathilde did. Maybe he’s just fallen asleep for the night. But when the door of the nursery finally explodes and fire races along the hall, I know I can no longer wait to find out.
I drop to the floor.
Think, I beg of myself, think.
I hear them firing on the lock, and then screams as the fire catches them. Despite Iris’s spark, I still can’t time travel, not with that shrieking overhead. There’s only one solution left: to go up through the entrance in the pantry to the second floor. If there’s anything up there at all.
I crawl along the floor to the kitchen, desperately trying to focus on that one goal. The smoke fills my brain and my lungs; my head grows light.
Where was I going again? To Henri?
Pantry, whispers some urgent voice.
I finally reach the door. It’s locked.
I lie down and close my eyes. Sarah, Henri asks, are you alright?
He’s lying beside me, in our bed. I press my hands to my face, wishing I could explain, though it would make no sense to him. The door is locked, my head screams, and I don’t know how to get out.
But suddenly I know what he’d tell me, if I could reach him. He’d ask me where the keys are. And I have all of Iris’s keys in my pocket.
My eyes open. The room is black with smoke but I feel for the smallest of the keys and then my hands slide up the door until I find the lock. After three tries, just as I feel the heat of the fire approaching and I’m about to give up, it slides in and the handle turns. I crawl inside and reach for the ladder.
Henri speaks to me, saying something urgent. I force my hands to grip the wooden rungs, one and then the next, one and then the next. The fire is inside the kitchen now, and licks at the ladder beneath me. The food on the shelves bursts into flame, sending fiery ash flying into my hair and face, singeing my dress. I throw myself onto the second floor just as the hem catches fire and roll to put it out. Flames are already climbing through the opening as I jump to my feet and look frantically for a way to escape.
There is nowhere to go. No door. No one to beg for help.
But there’s a window.
I take a deep breath. I don’t know if this is going to work. But I have no more options and my aunt’s spark is singing inside me, making me feel as if I could fly if I put my mind to it.
I run at the window, hard as I can, but in my mind I’m already thinking of Henri, of home. I picture the orchard, his lavish promises to buy me Versailles. I go to the night we planned for our honeymoon, and I think of waking beside him in the morning, all his miles of smooth skin, his contented murmur of pleasure at finding me there. The glass shatters and I’m in the air, plummeting toward the sidewalk. I can feel my body going light, but not fast enough.
And then I hit the ground.
13
SARAH
Heaven is a noisy place.
There is constant chatter. There are beeping machines and shouting and always the sound of people talking over my head, their voices urgent and unhappy. Anorexic, they say. Attempted suicide.
I’m feverish, sweaty and then shivering. I can’t reply, can’t even open my eyes. I know I need to fight to return to Henri, but I’m too empty. I’m below water, and there’s not enough energy inside me to climb to the surface. I fight it a little less each day. And then, at last, it stops. I’m empty, silent, my body slowly sinking toward the bottom of the ocean. And it’s a relief to land there at last.
* * *
My time under water seems to last forever. I wonder if this is the afterlife. I’ve lived through worse, but it’s all just empty.
And then suddenly there is motion again, and light. I hear sounds, feel cool air on my skin, the pressure of a hand on mine. My eyes open, and I find myself in a sunlit yellow room that seems familiar. The woman sitting next to my bed seems familiar as well. My brain, still below the surface of the water a bit, tries to recall how I know her.
Cecelia. It comes at last. The woman who saved me the last time I was in 1989. How am I still in Paris with her? Did I dream it all…leaving here, going to Henri?
My mouth opens. My lips are dry, my tongue heavy. “What happened to me?” I ask. “Why am I here?”
Her hand wraps around mine. “You jumped out of a window,” she says. She looks over her shoulder before leaning closer to whisper. “In 1918. Do you remember it?”
