Chapter 8 #2
They went inside and were completely taken aback to find a little boy, maybe five years old, with brown, moppish hair and rosy cheeks, at their kitchen table, eating the baguette with Bonne Maman jam from Madame Klein’s basket.
He wore a Paris Saint-Germain soccer club sweatshirt that was so big it fit like a dress.
His short legs swung back and forth from the fulcrum of his knobby knees.
“Who’s this?” said Sabine.
“No idea. He wasn’t here the last time I looked. I must’ve left the front door open.”
The boy shoved the whole hunk of baguette into his mouth. A dollop of jam fell onto his sweatshirt, and he licked it off.
“Bit Goldilocks and the Three Bears if you ask me,” said Sabine. “Bonjour. Je m’appelle Sabine.”
“Et je m’appelle Marlow.”
“Bonjour!” said the boy.
“Et tu t’appelles …” prompted Sabine.
“Yakiv.”
“D’où viens-tu, Yakiv?” asked Marlow. Where did he come from?
Yakiv hopped off the chair and headed out the door, beckoning them to follow.
He stomped through the deserted village. Sometimes he marched, cobblestone to cobblestone, commanding Sabine to do the same. Sometimes he took a detour to jump up a house’s steps and back onto the street. Sabine and Marlow followed, playing the game.
“Now it’s the Pied Piper,” said Sabine. “We’re in a land of fairy tales, I think.” And given the kiss she’d just had, that felt true. The beginning of a little book started to form in her mind.
Yakiv, the Pied Piper of Mirabelle
Yakiv knows the town like the back of his hand, and wants you to know it, too.
He’ll take you on a path, not necessarily a straight one.
Where is he taking us, I wonder?
Let’s follow to find out.
Yakiv passed a large house, sprawling and rundown.
An old woman—grey hair pulled tightly back, worn floral apron tied around her generous waist—watered a window box of flowers.
Yakiv waved at her, and she waved back, her old, wrinkly arm jiggling.
Then she gave Marlow and Sabine a long look. Suspicious, even.
“C’est Madame Belleville,” said Yakiv, turning a corner.
“Tell me more about your time with Aubin,” Marlow said as they followed.
“Nothing to tell, really,” said Sabine. She was not going to talk about the kiss.
Obviously. One thing about living in a one-bedroom apartment with your mother was, not much was private.
“Except my irritation meter with him went from the red zone to neutral by the time he dropped me off. He’s not that bad actually. ”
“Good to hear,” said Marlow, “since—and brace yourself—I think my only solution to this shitshow is to stay the summer and try to flip Maison Perdue by September. Which would mean Aubin might be the only person to hang out with if you stay, too.”
Sabine stopped in her tracks. Yakiv responded by jumping on the spot.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Which alien landed in this village and abducted my mother and replaced her with a clone that looks exactly like her but does weird things like decide to take two months off?”
“Eight weeks, let’s not exaggerate. And I’m not taking them off. I’ll work remotely.”
Holy crap. Sabine might be here. This summer. With Aubin. That could mean more kissing. It made her flush to think about it. On the other hand, the whole reason they’d kissed was because she was leaving on Sunday.
“Here’s my thinking: we go back to Guillaume’s tonight so I can send an email to Oscar and human resources and pitch my plan. Then we’ll set up Maison Perdue to stay there.”
“Really? Is the house, you know, livable?”
“Who knows,” said Marlow, watching Yakiv inspect a bug.
“We should try. You could stay here as long as you want … You could also, if you wanted to take pity on your mother, decide your future. Then, if you had to go back to Toronto to pack for any one of the universities out of town that really, really want you, you could do that. Or, you could stay in Toronto if you decide to go to U of T. Which also, by the way, really, really wants you. And you’ll note the desperation in my voice—I could use a choice either way so my head doesn’t explode.
Bottom line: there’s no way out of this for me other than staying the summer, because financial ruin is not an option. Thoughts?”
Sabine looked around at the town—seemingly deserted except for them, the stern old lady, Yakiv, and the bug.
The only thought roaming around her muddled head was that, in this moment, it would have been convenient to have another parent on the scene because her mother’s eye was firmly off the parenting ball.
“It’s great,” said Sabine, lying. Or maybe simply giving the answer her mother needed to hear.
“Thank God. I’m just trying to come out of this thing alive. Oh and—newsflash—Luc lives right across from us. I could’ve stuck a plank between his bedroom window and mine and walked across, that’s how close he is.”
Yakiv turned up a street almost at the top of the village where the backs of the houses butted up against the castle ruins. Imagine that—sharing a wall with a castle.
“And what about staying the summer with me versus going home on Sunday?”
“Not sure,” said Sabine. “I’ll let you know as soon as I am.”
“Not really an acceptable answer. I mean—”
But Yakiv had arrived at a tiny house like Marlow’s, not dilapidated and sad—quite the opposite, with a bienvenue mat at the door, a bouquet of dried lavender hanging from its knocker, a garden box on a ledge growing herbs, a window giving onto a living room littered with toys—flung open the door, and barged in.
A divine smell emanated from inside: something delicious was cooking here.
A young black lab, tail wagging, jumped all over him, barking and licking his face—then scrambled to Sabine and Marlow to do the same.
“Babka, non!” a woman scolded from the other room.
Yakiv strode into the kitchen. The dog raced between him, the kitchen, and them, in and out of their legs, colliding with corners and doorways, leaping up to lick their faces, sliding around on the tile floor. Marlow and Sabine followed Yakiv.
Sausage sizzled on the stove. Pots bubbled away. The smell of baking bread enveloped Marlow like a blanket. A woman, maybe early thirties, in jeans, T-shirt, and bare feet, long black hair in a single braid, was trying to control the enthusiastic puppy. It was having none of it.
“Maman, regarde!” said Yakiv, pointing to Marlow and Sabine.
“Bonjour!” the woman said in heavily accented French. And then, to Yakiv, “T’as trouvé des nouvelles voisines?” Yakiv had indeed found new neighbors.
In broken French, Marlow explained how they’d found him snacking in their kitchen.