Chapter Twenty-Four
“ Dame , Mel, how many bay leaves do you need for your ragout?” Yvon paced his kitchen floor like a hungry tiger who spoke French. “The sauce will be all wrong. And turn up the heat, yes? Your brew needs to boil if the alcohol is to evaporate. Merde , you have the nerve to complain about the orange in my dijonaise?” He flapped his hand in the general direction of the space-age hob and my concoction bubbling on top.
Carefully, I placed my ladle beside the pot. Counted to three. Sucked in a deep breath.
And yelled. “For freak’s sake, this isn’t a cookery lesson. What I’m doing here might kill you.”
“Smells lethal enough.” He sank onto a bar stool and buried his head in his arms. “Sorry, my love, I know, I know. You’re doing this for me.”
Louis, who had been asleep on the serving counter, sat and twitched his whiskers.
“Sorry, cat.” I picked up the ladle and stirred.
Yvon looked up. His face was pale and covered in stubble. Bruises lined the flesh under his eyes. “He shouldn’t be here. I don’t want cat hairs in what might be my last dinner—”
“No, he shouldn’t, but he keeps me calm. I need calming. And if you say one more thing about condemned men and last dinners, I’ll pour this stuff down the drain.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“Like my mother always says. ‘It’s never too late until it is.’”
“I would have loved to meet your mother. She sounds a lot more reasonable than mine.”
I ground my teeth hard enough to lose some enamel. “You will get an opportunity to say hello to her. In this world, not another.”
“That would be nice.”
When I dropped the ladle onto the hob, ragout splattered on the surface. “Yvon, give it a rest. If that’s how you feel, why the rush? This is so totally wrong.”
Louis jumped off his perch and streaked under the serving trolley at the other end of the kitchen.
I forced myself to talk slowly. “I only spoke to Arbadonaro. There must be others in the know. We need more information before we even dream of fiddling around with the blasted curse.”
Yvon banged his fist onto the serving counter. “ Mais non . And how many times did we discuss this last night?”
“Not often enough, it seems.”
“Then I will tell you one final time out of the goodness of my heart. My friends and I researched quite a bit of this merde, and Madame Arbadonaro’s suggestions make eminent sense. I’ve heard of her. She’s the expert on Gitan lore. Without the spoon, however, there was no point in approaching her.”
“Madame Arbadonaro isn’t our problem. She’s told us everything she could, and it’s exactly the reason I’m convinced we can’t do this. We should leave, show some patience, and find more facts.”
This time, he banged the serving counter twice. “How much longer do you suggest we wait? A month? A year? Your lifetime? You’re procrastinating, evading the inevitable. And while you’re doing that, you’re in danger. How often did we discuss that? Have you already forgotten what happened at the bunkers?”
My bruises ached. No, I hadn’t. “Anything is better than killing you by accident. I don’t...I don’t want to lose you.”
His face softened. “Forgive me, my love. I nearly changed my mind, but when I learned Paulette’s been to Paris... You know what this means, no? She is talking to the lab rats. Yes, we can run. But they’ll find us. What if they steal the spoon? Or kill you? I won’t allow it. Not now. Not ever.”
I stirred my veal stew, simmering on the hob. It was an old recipe of my family, pure comfort food. To do what Yvon wanted me to do, I needed every single feel-good vibe I could find. If only Raoul were around. He would laugh at us and find the solution.
“You can flee without me.” No matter how often I said these words, they still made my heart ache. They had to be said. Alone, Yvon might stand a chance. “I’ll follow when you are settled.”
“No.” He banged the table again. Reddish blotches stained his pale cheeks.
I slapped a measured expression on my face and stirred some more.
“No,” he said more calmly. “Once, I did exactly this and Maria died for me. It won’t happen again, period. Don’t forget your Gitan heritage. It makes all the difference. I’ve got faith in you. Have faith in yourself.”
“I do, but when it comes to cursing, I’m a complete rookie. I get only one bash at this crap, remember?”
“Yes. My memory isn’t addled. When will your ragout be ready?”
It was, had been for quite a while.
I kept stirring. Lowered the heat.
“Are you sure the alcohol has boiled off?”
“Yvon, stop it.”
“If this is the last thing I ever eat, I would like this dish to be prepared properly, if you don’t mind. I have certain standards to maintain.”
On another day, I might have laughed. Yvon was right, though. This had to end here and now. I couldn’t take any more. “Your dinner is ready.”
“Don’t you want to try it first?” The pallor had returned to his face.
I rinsed the tasting spoon and tried. A satisfying umami richness filled my mouth, chased by a hint of wine and mustard. The meat was a trifle overdone, but in a stew, who cared? “It’s fine.”
“Good, then would you please curse it for me?”
“Yvon—”
“Do it for me, my love.”
With emptiness howling inside, I stirred the stew with the golden spoon. Clockwise, as Arbadonaro’s granddaughter had suggested in her email. Seven times, as she also had instructed.
I spoke the words that filled the kitchen with their presence the moment they left my mouth. Words that grew and swelled until they quivered with life. Words that watched me as I stirred. “By the power of the spoon, I revoke the Gitane’s curse. Once you have eaten from this stew, you shall be mortal and shall live out your days like the rest of us. Only this spoon that will make you mortal can make you immortal again.”
I filled his plate and carried it across to the table.
Something screeched inside my head, trying to stop me.
I ignored the inner turmoil. Placed the steaming stew in front of him. Handed him a steel ragout spoon, one of his own, then stepped back while the echo of the curse hung heavy in the air, an unseen presence.
He ladled his ragout. Then he hesitated and stared at the hob, a faraway look in his eyes.
“I will always love you,” he said. His eyes were impossibly blue.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, all my words sucked into the curse.
Yvon dipped his spoon into the brew and swallowed. Chewed. Dipped and slurped. “It’s hot.”
As yet, he was still with me. Nothing had happened. No sparkles, no ghostly music, no nothing.
Having finished his plate, he pushed it away and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “Edible. But you overcooked the meat.”
The words of the curse vanished. From one moment to the next, simply gone. The kitchen was empty apart from Yvon, myself, and Louis, his cute fur face peeping from under the serving trolley.
I swallowed. “Never mind the meat. It didn’t work. Or do you notice anything?” My voice sounded funny. Higher than usual. Breathless.
Did the words hurt me instead, the person who spoke them? Numbness spread into my limbs. My fingertips tickled. “Yvon...”
He straightened in his seat. Pressed his hands to his cheeks. “Not sure. I feel odd.”
Oh, yes, he was right. His aura wasn’t there anymore, vanished from one moment to the next. Once more, I found it impossible to phrase a single word. Nausea spread from my stomach.
Yvon flung the napkin onto the table. “Excuse me.” He staggered to the door and ripped it open.
I stood rooted to the spot, wanting to reach for him, wanting him to stay. Instead, I let him go.
Feet thudded upstairs. A door banged shut.
Silence.
I was alone with the ghosts of my memories. Our silly row, sparked by the dijonaise. Yvon in his restaurant, cooking for me. Both of us, in Itxassou. Our first night together. The walk on the beach. The visit to his birthplace. The crypt.
Snapshots of a love gone by.
Time passed. Suns got sucked into black holes.
When Louis emerged from under the trolley and headed for me, his teddy bear face puzzled, movement returned to my frozen limbs.
It was over. But I needed to see for myself.
Like a marionette, its strings pulled by invisible hands, I climbed upstairs. Laid my hand on the handle of the bedroom door.
My busy mind had quieted—calm and peaceful like the house. No horrible images tortured my inner eye. There was no grief, no pain. I formed part of the silence.
Minutes flowed by, one after the other, until I gave the handle a swift push and sent the door panel whispering across the carpet.
Sea air filled the room, fresh and tangy. As if on cue, the song of the ocean registered. A breeze caressed my burning face as the curtain flapped and billowed into the room. The balcony door yawed wide open, while the bathroom door was shut.
I stepped inside and faced the bed.
The pillows plumped, the duvet pulled straight, everything remained exactly the way Yvon had left it after we rose this morning.
In the bathroom, then.
The door wasn’t locked. Heaven only knows what I would have done had it been locked. Now, there was a pressure in my head, a shrill ringing in my ears.
I pushed open the bathroom door.
Nothing. How could it be empty? I whirled around, faced the bed again.
This time, I spotted the flower lying half-hidden under my pillow. Its petals were already wilting.
He had departed, leaving me alone with a dying rose.
Outside, the sun was setting. Again. The ocean roared on and would continue forever even if no human was alive on Earth to take notice.
?Where I should have raged against an ignorant fate, I had no tears left, no anger to power my screams. The inner abyss darkened and swallowed my memories, my dreams, everything good in this world. I would carry on as planned, do my duty, fulfill my promises to Yvon. But no more.
My gaze fell on the digital numbers on the alarm clock next to his side of the bed. Another hour and someone would come to whisk me away, following his arrangements in the event he...didn’t make it. I had no clue where we would go, and I couldn’t care less.
However, I would take the dogs; I promised. One of his friends would fetch them later from wherever we would be at the time and find them a new home. They deserved it. No way could I care for them. They would remind me of their master every single day.
As would Louis the adorable mop. Yvon’s first ever present to me I could never abandon.
His last gifts, I didn’t want. The money, the investments, the houses in foreign countries, they meant nothing.
Only Raoul’s skeleton mattered. I would bury him in the crypt, then I would be done.
A sentence rang in my mind, for as long as you both shall live . It sounded like a curse.
From the balcony outside the window drifted a strangled groan. “Mel.”
My heartbeat staggered, stopped, and started again.
Yvon was alive. What state would he be in?
I dashed toward the light. Ripped aside the curtain. Slammed through the half-open door.
There he lay, an over-sized fetus, fists on his belly, his face contorted, sweat covering his forehead. Food poisoning? No way, it didn’t work fast enough. It would to be something else.
Then I saw it.
Liver spots covered the back of his hands. His lively dark hair gone salt and pepper.
He hadn’t crumbled to dust. Oh no, that would have been too kind. Instead, he was bleeding years and would suffer all the way to the end.
With another groan, he sat up. “Mel, I need your help.” The words hissed through clenched teeth.
I squatted next to him and held his feverish hand. He was here, still with me. “A doctor—”
“No, listen. No doctor can help me now. I need to go home. To Castelmore. It’s where it all began. Please...”
In my mind, blackness surged, and loneliness howled. On the surface, however, the old Mel took control, efficient to the end. Somehow, we managed the spiral staircase leading to the front of the house. Somehow, I installed him in the passenger’s seat of the minivan.
“The dogs,” he said, panting. “We’ll need protection.”
I fetched the dogs. I also stuffed Louis into his cat carrier and placed him in under the back bench.
Why? Somehow, it seemed like the right thing to do. Like it seemed the right thing to place the box with Raoul’s skeleton in the rear where the weapons were hidden. Soon, he and Yvon would be together.
I bit my cheek. Deliberately. I craved the pain. It kept me going.
All doors locked, I slipped into the driver’s seat of the van and checked on Yvon. Waxy pale, his salt and pepper hair drenched with sweat, he had fallen unconscious.
A tiny spark of hope flickered in my chest. He didn’t seem much older, though a few more wrinkles showed in his dear face. Perhaps the aging would slow enough for me to get him there. Perhaps he was slowing it. It might even stop.
He’s dying and you know it. I pressed his hand. “I’ll bring you home.”
Feeble fingers pressed back, then the hand slackened in his lap.
Like the E-Porsche, the minivan had a tracker; the rescue team would find us. Should Paulette or the Sansculottes show up, I would deal with them...
Paulette.
I’ll deal with you here and now.
Quietly, so I wouldn’t disturb Yvon, I slipped from the van and chased back into his kitchen. A feverish rummage through the drawers yielded what I was searching for: notepad and pen. I scribbled my message and placed the note next to the fateful ragout, now congealing on the hob.
As if to remind me of its existence, a ray of sunlight glinted on the spoon, so I picked the horrid thing up and stuck it into my brew. Leaving the front door open, I dashed outside.
Back in the van, I pushed aside all worries about Paulette and let Castelmore rise in my mind, a ninety-minute drive from the coast, less if I ignored the speed limits.
When we roared away, the sunset over the ocean painted an ethereal brightness onto the van’s rear mirror.