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Authors: Isabelle Merlin

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction/Fairy Tales & Folklore Adaptations

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BOOK: Bright Angel
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‘Where's Freddy?' she said, after a pause.

‘Down at the ruins. Exploring. Taking pictures and stuff.'

‘Claire told me your aunt is an expert on Herod,' said Marc eagerly, obviously glad for the change of subject. ‘I will much like to talk to her about him. He has a small role in my book, you know.'

‘She will be glad to hear that,' I said lightly. Claire gave me a watery sideways smile, remembering, no doubt, what Freddy had said. The bad moment had passed, and things had settled down. But I still felt a little shaky, about my own reaction as much as Claire's.

Conjuring mysteries

Mum rang after dinner that night. We put the call on speaker-phone so we could all hear her. She had some good news: the police had been in touch with Irina Makarios and they'd traced the writer of the threatening letter. It had turned out to be a hoax, just as they'd thought. It was written by some random embittered loser who had a grudge against all women since his marriage had broken up. He had no connection whatsoever to the family or friends of Thomas Radic. Well now he'd see the inside of a jail, serve him bloody well right. And Helen's family could stop worrying about it. Helen herself had not been told, of course.

Mum also dropped a bombshell. She and Dad had been talking about the future and that they'd decided to pack in their job in the Territory and come back to the city to live. ‘That way,' she said, ‘we can all be together again.'

I wasn't sure what I thought of that. I did miss them, but on the other hand I had quite a lot of freedom living with Claire. She did keep an eye on me but it was a big-sister sort of thing, not a mum thing. She had her own life, her own friends. And it would be weird to get used to having parents around full-time again. I said, carefully, ‘That's great, Mum,' and Claire echoed me, though I wondered whether she was going to hang around once they came back to the house (which they owned, after all – to save us having to pay rent). After all, she was an adult. She'd hardly want to go back to living with Mum and Dad. Oh well, we'd have to wait and see. Things were going to change in my life, anyway. And I had no choice in the matter. Even if I'd wanted it. Which I wasn't sure about. It was just confusing, right?

I slept restlessly that night, full of weird dreams, the sort that make you anxious but you can't remember why when you wake up, which was far too early, like six o'clock. I lay there for a few minutes trying to force myself to go back to sleep. But it was hopeless, so I got up, drew the curtains and looked out. The day already looked like it would be fine and sunny. I went to the bathroom, had a shower, got dressed, and went quietly downstairs. No-one was up. I made myself a cup of coffee and had some toast with butter and jam. I thought about going back to the computer to see if I'd had any mail overnight but then couldn't be bothered. Instead, I went out into the garden.

It was beautiful there, with the dew still on the grass and on these very fine spider webs that looked like diamanté-spangled silk strung between the plants. The bench under the tree was a bit wet so I didn't sit down, but wandered among the flowers for a bit.

The garden was bounded by a low wall at one end, and from there you could see into the street below. Looking down, I realised that one of the houses you could glimpse from here was the one where I'd seen Gabriel the day before. From this angle, though, you couldn't see into the windows. I knew it was that one because the roof tiles looked bright and new beside those of the other houses. Nothing stirred there. The household must still be asleep, like the rest of the place. Like I would be, if I had any sense.

As I looked idly over, I suddenly thought I caught a movement down beside the house. I looked harder. That side of the house was still in shadow and covered in some sort of creeper too so it was hard to make anything out properly. Had there really been someone sneaking along that wall? Or was that just my imagination, conjuring mysteries? I waited, but saw nothing more. In the end, I decided I had imagined it. I went back to the house and found Freddy up and bustling around the kitchen.

‘You're up early,' she said.

‘Yeah. Couldn't get back to sleep. I've had breakfast, by the way.'

‘Wow. You're organised. Any plans? Going back to the film shoot today? I think Claire is.'

I shook my head. For a start, I might run into Daniel and I didn't want to. Plus I'd decided that I found filmmaking boring. I mean, the regular sort. Not the things I did. Just the messing around with actors and crew and stuff, and all the milling and hanging around that went on. I liked making my clips cos it was me in control. ‘I thought I might go for a walk around the ruins, maybe further even.'

‘That sounds like a good idea. It's a nice day for it.' She rummaged around in a drawer. ‘I've got a pamphlet somewhere here, it's in English, with a map and some basic info. If you like, you could go to St-Just de Valcabrere after the ruins – you remember that place we stopped at the other day, where we saw St-Bertrand from a distance?'

Sure. I remembered. It had been really pretty there. I would take my camera, take lots of pictures. It wasn't that I didn't remember the bad feeling I'd had there. It was that I'd brushed it aside as stupid. Premonitions don't exist. People don't really know when bad things are going to happen. We'd had no idea that day at Wedding Heaven. Not a clue. Not a twinge. Not one silly bit of warning. Nothing mystical at all. It had just happened. That's how things worked in the real world.

She found the pamphlet and showed me the map. ‘See. There it is. It's only about five kilometres away. I'd go with you but I've got to get all my notes from yesterday written up. You don't mind, do you?'

‘Course not. You have to work.'

‘For my sins,' she smiled, and poured out two cups of coffee. We sat down with the pamphlet and she told me a bit about what the old city had been like, and how it had worked, and what the people who lived around here had been like. ‘There was a big tribe called the Convenae here,' she said, ‘that's why it was called Converanum, after them. And Lugdunum after the Gaulish god of light, Lugh – I don't know if people worshipped Lugh here but the place we call Lyon now, that was the original Lugdunum, maybe the founders of this city came from there. And then they stuck on the name of the local tribe, probably to get in their good books. The Romans were like that. They tried hard to win the tribes over by flattery and gifts if they could. They only went to war against them if they had to. I guess there must still have been wild tribesmen in the area, lurking around in the mountains, but the city was well-defended. Plus a lot of intermarrying went on between the Romans and the locals, so the Convenae must have been pretty much onside. It was the most important town in the whole region in its time, a kind of border town too, so filled with all sorts of people.'

‘Like Herod.'

‘Yeah. Him and others.'

‘It must have been weird for him, stuck out here so far from his homeland. Did he even speak Roman?'

Freddy smiled. ‘Latin, you mean. I think, like most upper-class Jews, he must have spoken at least a bit – he'd had to deal with Romans back in Galilee anyway. But yeah, I guess it must have been lonely for him here. And for his wife and stepdaughter.'

‘Did they stay here? I mean, like, for good?'

‘Nobody's sure. They never went back to Galilee so it's quite possible they stayed and eventually died here.'

‘Maybe Salome married some local guy. Had a family. Maybe there's people related to her here.'

‘Maybe. Who knows?'

‘She never tried to get anyone else bumped off, did she? Like she did with John the Baptist, I mean?'

Freddy laughed. ‘There is no record of it. She wasn't a mad axe murderer type but a very proud and vengeful girl. You know why she wanted the Baptist dead? Well, her mother Herodias was first married to Herod's brother. When he died Herod decided to marry the widow. That was a big no-no in those days, but Herod was a king so he could do what he liked. But John said very rude things about Herodias and Salome hated him for that. She couldn't bear him insulting her mother and wanted to avenge the family honour by killing John.'

‘Jeez,' I said, ‘pretty full-on.'

‘Sure was, honey. Ah, there you are, Claire.' My sister had walked in, yawning and complaining about being woken up by an engine starting up in the car park under her window.

A little later, I took a bottle of water, an apple, my camera and the pamphlet, and stuck them all in a little backpack Freddy lent me. I said goodbye to them both – Claire was surprised I didn't want to go back to the film shoot, but relieved too I think – and promised to be back for lunch at one o'clock.

The day had really started now, shutters had been flung open, people bustling about. A couple of people nodded at me as I went past, and I said
Bonjour
to them in my best accent. I avoided going past the house where I'd seen Gabriel, in case I ran into Daniel or one of their minders, and headed down the hill towards the ruins.

I wandered around them for a fair while. Not actually inside them, because they were roped off, out of bounds, but walking round and round, stickybeaking from the low wall that surrounded the relics, and trying to read the inscriptions, which I only half understood. But the pamphlet was useful to help me work things out. Here was a temple, there the markets, there the forum or main square, where everyone came to get news and meet up with friends. Over here houses. Here a military camp. There a theatre. The public baths. And so on.

I took some pictures then sat down on the wall for a bit, staring out over the ruins and thinking over what Freddy had said. It was weird, imagining what it might have been like, especially for people like Herod and his family, who had been sent here from so far away. They must have felt really out of place, powerless, and stuck at the back end of beyond. Did they make friends? What did they do with their time, especially the women, who wouldn't have had as much freedom? It must have been so strange. Separated from all they knew, so far from any news of back home, they must almost have felt like they'd died. They'd had everything and then it had all been taken away. Maybe they felt like they'd been cursed. Did Salome ever think it might have been because of what she did, getting John the Baptist murdered in that horrible way?

Eventually I tired of it. I looked at the map. St-Just was about five kilometres from where I was. It wouldn't take me that long. I swigged a bit of water and set off. It was getting warmer but it wasn't hot, there was a little breeze and I wasn't hurrying. A few cars passed me along the way, and once I passed another walker heading towards St-Bertrand, but that was it. I turned into the little lane leading to St-Just within an hour. Unlike the other day, there were no cars parked in the spot near the meadow at the back of the church. It must be too early for tourists. The cows were still grazing in the meadow, though, just like they had been the other day. The leader was right up near the fence. She didn't seem at all bothered when I started taking pictures of her, just gazed at me with big liquid eyes. After a time, she even let me touch her nose. It was cold and wet.

I turned in the other direction, towards the picnic area, from where you could see St-Bertrand. I took lots of photos of that too. I looked out over that beautiful sunny landscape and no bad feeling came to me at all.

I walked up towards the church. It looked deserted, though I could see a bicycle leaning up against the entrance wall. But there was no-one to be seen.

Over the entrance gate was a kind of stone plaque, inscribed in a language I supposed was Latin. I remembered Freddy saying they'd used bits and pieces from the ruined Roman city to build this church. Maybe this was one of them.

There was a booth by the gate that sold postcards and tickets to go into the church, but it was closed. I walked past it into the sunny little graveyard that spread at the foot of the church. I wandered around a bit, looking at the names of the people buried there – there were a lot of the same names there, like
de Batz
and
de Grandidier
– and then tried the church door, but it was locked. So I went round the back, into a lovely green grassy patch, covered in daisies and little blue flowers whose names I didn't know. It was scattered here and there with what looked like low, weathered stone benches. And sitting on one, with his head in his hands, was Daniel.

Angelus

He must have caught something – a noise, a flicker of movement, a change in the air – because he looked up, suddenly, and saw me. I had no chance to escape. Not with dignity, anyway. I could have just turned tail and fled but that would have been too dumb for words. I wasn't scared of him, for God's sake. I just didn't like him.

Our eyes met, for what seemed like ages but was probably only half a second or something. I couldn't just ignore him. So I said, nervously, ‘Er, hello.'

‘Hello,' he said, getting up but not making a move towards me.

I swallowed. ‘I – I thought y – you were at the shoot.'

‘I'm not needed today.'

‘Oh. Right. Sorry I – I startled you. I didn't know anyone...'

‘It is all right,' he interrupted softly. ‘I was just thinking.'

‘Oh.' I was racking my brains as to what to say next, or to think of a way of disappearing gracefully, when he astounded me by saying, ‘I'm sorry, mademoiselle.'

I goggled at him. ‘What?'

‘I – I was very rude to you the other day. In the cathedral.'

‘Oh, that. It's okay.' I pretended a casualness I didn't feel at all. My heart was hammering, my palms felt prickly.

‘It is not okay,' he said, shaking his head. ‘I am sorry. I really did not mean–' He swallowed. ‘That is untrue. I did mean it. But I regretted it after.' He came a few steps closer. ‘I am truly sorry for what I said to you, mademoiselle. Please forgive me.'

‘That's all right. Really,' I added, quickly, trying to hide my agitation. ‘Please don't worry about it any more.' I paused. ‘And – and – please don't call me mademoiselle. My name is Sylvie. Sylvie Mandon.'

A fleeting smile lit up his features. ‘Sylvie. I am Daniel. Daniel Aubrac.' He held out his hand. I took it. We shook, briefly, and in that moment I knew the course of our lives had changed utterly. All of a sudden I knew instinctively, without a doubt, that everything I'd thought I'd felt about him had been wrong, quite wrong, in every way.

And he felt the same. I saw his expression change, and the Adam's apple bob in his throat as he said, ‘I – I should like to explain properly to you, Sylvie. Gabriel, my little brother, I worry about him. He–' He stopped, then went on more strongly – ‘He is so innocent. Trusting. He does not understand the world. He thinks it is full of good things.'

‘Of guardian angels,' I said softly.

He shot me a quick, anguished look. ‘Yes. Our mother – she told him that always – always the angels would watch over us, and he believes it. Even after–' he broke off.

‘Even after she died?' I said quietly. ‘Mireille told me yesterday,' I added, as his eyes widened. Oh God. I wanted then so much to reach out and touch him, to draw him close to me. And I wanted to back away from him, run like hell and never come back. I didn't know what I truly wanted. I felt sick with the confusion.

He said, ‘I – I see.' A pause, then he went on. ‘Maman, she believed in the protection of angels too. She trusted. She believed in a good God. A good world. But she died in pain and suffering and far too young. She died – and left us.'

There was such desolation in his voice that it made me want to weep. I said, trying to form my words properly over the huge lump in my throat, ‘I'm sorry – I'm so sorry, Daniel.'

We looked at each other. I felt as though my knees would buckle. My limbs were turning to jelly.

He said, very gently, ‘Thank you. You are very kind.'

No, I'm not, I wanted to shout. I'm stupid and blind and insensitive and intolerant and I've been thinking all these dumb things about you, misjudged you completely – but of course I said none of that. Instead, I stammered, ‘You sound French but you live in England and you speak English and–' I broke off, aware of how stupid it sounded, how clumsy, churning out inappropriate words because I felt embarrassed and confused and euphoric and miserable all at once.

He said, still in that very gentle voice, ‘I
am
French. Born here, living here always till – my father, he died, long since – he was from Toulouse. My mother, she was born in Senegal. It's a country in West Africa,' he added. ‘She came to France with her parents and her brother when she was just a little girl.' He looked away. ‘I learn English at school. But since a year, I must speak it every day. My uncle, my mother's brother, he insists. He went to England when he was young. There was a fight with my grandparents, I think, though he does not say. Now he will only use English.'

‘Oh,' I said lamely.

Suddenly, he smiled. It lit up his whole face. ‘I am sorry again, Sylvie. You did not want so many words. You are just being polite. And I tell you all my life!'

‘No, no, it's great, really interesting, I'm not being polite,' I gabbled. ‘I'm not that sort, and me, well, I'm Australian but with some French blood too, well my dad has anyway, he's Cajun, from Louisiana, and my mum, she's like fifth generation Aussie and my sister, she's older than me but I know how you feel about your brother, cos Claire and me, we're so close and she worries about me too and she gets really uptight when I–' I broke off, feeling myself going scarlet, white and back to scarlet. God, what on earth had I been raving on for like that? He'd think I was insane, or a complete idiot.

‘Sylvie, oh Sylvie,' he said, and then took another step towards me. And suddenly, astonishingly, but at the same time the most natural thing in the world, I was in his arms and we were kissing. All rational thought fled and only feeling remained, the most amazing mad awesome surprise and delight and wild confusion and fear all mingled together at once.

I'd had the odd unexpected kiss from guys at parties as well as boyfriends of course but this was different, way different. I can't tell you how I knew but I did, totally and utterly. He was so warm and smelled so good of cologne and sunshine and his lips were soft, his hands firm, a smile in his eyes. I've never been so happy in my life, I didn't know what it felt like to be happy till that moment, I told myself wildly.

I can't tell you how long we stood there, enfolded in each other's arms but I know that when we did pull apart, I was trembling like a leaf and thought I would have fallen over if Daniel hadn't helped me to sit down on one of those weathered stone benches, which he then proceeded to tell me were not benches at all but sarcophagi, basically stone coffins. When I gave a little squeal and tried to jump up he pulled me down, saying laughingly that I wasn't to worry because there wasn't anyone under there, not any more, they'd all gone to dust.

He kept an arm around me while he rattled on like that for a moment or two and I snuggled into it and wondered about the strangeness and wonderfulness of the world and how you really should never ever, ever judge people on your first meeting with them. Then he fell silent and we said nothing while all around us the little meadow hummed with awakening cicadas and bees buzzing around the flowers. The air was so perfumed, the sky so blue, the old stone so warm from the sun that it felt as though we were in a special piece of heaven.

After a time, I said to him, ‘I had no idea.'

He did not ask me what I meant. He knew. He said, ‘I did, though. When my brother – when Gabriel spoke, like he does, of seeing your bright angel, suddenly, something burst on me. Something that scared me. No, I didn't see an angel but it was like a dazzle – something new, unexpected, a feeling about you. But I pushed it away. I was rude, obnoxious. Yes, I was. Do not argue.' He kissed me gently on the forehead. ‘Yesterday, in the woods, I was so aware of you, in every pore, every nerve, but I couldn't, I didn't know how to speak to you after what happened. How discourteous I'd been.'

‘Is that what what you were thinking about?' I said, smiling. ‘When I came round the corner just now? You looked worried about something.'

A shadow briefly crossed his face, then was gone. ‘What? Oh. Mmm. I decided I should leave, I thought that's what I wanted. What I should do.'

‘And now?' I said, teasingly.

‘Now – well, what do you think?'

‘Do you need to ask me?'

‘No, I do not think I do,' he said, and reached down to kiss me again.

Presently, we came apart again. Daniel smiled at me. ‘Sylvie, I must go home soon. I promised I would take Gabriel out for lunch.' I looked at my watch, and jumped up. My God, it was five to twelve! Time had vanished as though by magic. When I'm writing, sometimes it feels like that. Mum says I'm away with the fairies. I'd never had it happen with a boy before. And well, writing's fun – but this – this was like, just so, so much better.

‘I'll have to get going too,' I said. ‘I promised my aunt I would be back for lunch. And it takes nearly an hour to walk back. ‘

‘I have a bike,' said Daniel. ‘You can ride on the back if you like.'

Riding like that was uncomfortable. I'd done it before. You had to keep your legs up and it gave you a cramp. But who cares? I'd be close up against him, my arms wrapped around his waist. I nodded, happily.

‘But before we go, I want to show you something,' said Daniel. ‘My favourite thing here.' We walked hand in hand to the back wall of the church and he pointed down in one corner. I peered closer. It was the weirdest thing: a stone face jutting out from the wall. It didn't look religious – I mean, not like a saint or an angel or anything like that – but rather like a strange kind of stone face mask, with ringlets of stone hair on either side and loops of stone ribbon or something like that on top of the head, and empty eye sockets and a grinning, empty mouth. Apart from this one face, the rest of the wall was blank.

‘That's just so random and weird,' I said. ‘Why did they carve it there?'

‘It wasn't carved there. It was taken from somewhere else. It is from the theatre in the old Roman city.'

‘But why did they put it there? What does it have to do with a church?'

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps they thought it kept away evil spirits. I don't know. But is it not extraordinary?'

‘Yes,' I said, staring at the stone mask, into the empty eyes and mouth where the darkness of ages hung heavy and still. A little shiver rippled down my spine. I was about to say I didn't think I liked it very much, for all its extraordinariness, when all at once, carried clearly across the bright, still air, came the sound of a bell ringing. Not the tinkle, tinkle of a cowbell, but the sweet, deep tones of a church bell.

‘Listen!' said Daniel as we walked quickly round the side of the church, out of the gate and over to the picnic area. ‘It's Bertrande, the big bell in the cathedral, ringing the Angelus.'

I knew what that was, though I'd never heard it before. Dad said it used to be rung every day in his home town, back in Louisiana. It's a special peal of bells rung at noon and sometimes at six pm too and it's supposed to be like the voice of the angels, reminding you to give thanks to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. It was a very sweet sound, and it went on for quite a while, carrying clearly over the valley, while Daniel and I stood together, our ears full of the beautiful music that rang out over us like a blessing.

BOOK: Bright Angel
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