Twenty four hours after losing her grandparents Estella was back in their home, in fresh clothes, watching Jacques rummage around their kitchen. She should help him. Tell him where everything was but she couldn’t find it in herself to speak. She felt numb.
Neither of them wanted to break the silence. Estella was hardly present enough to be aware of it and Jacques wanted to leave her and him to their thoughts. They were both overwhelmed enough without disturbing her.
Instead he focused on the methodical making of risotto. First you must cook the rise in butter until the edges of the rice are translucent, then you add a bit of wine. Once that is boiled out you add chicken stock, a little at a time until the rice is nice and al dente. Finally you cut the heat and add shredded cheese like parmesan to cool the dish down. You have to carefully balance the addition of liquid and its boiling off, stirring constantly through five cups of chicken stock. If you were slow and cautious you could stretch out the cooking time to forty minutes.
Jacques took fifty.
If he was honest, he wanted to take his time with the risotto. Jacques wasn’t prepared for the scents of the house. It smelled like Marguerite and Timoteo. Their scents embedded into the house’s very structure.
A vampire always took for granted that they will meet their friends again. He would never meet them again. Most of his friends were not vampires, he should have been prepared for this. He should have held onto their friendship more.
His friends had been quiet, reserved for a few decades. Not since they welcomed their boy into the world, christened him ‘Jack’, had he heard from them. After that, Marguerite and Timoteo fell into a quiet family life—or Jacques assumed. God knows, they deserved a quiet life after surviving the wars. They all did.
Theodora and Matthieu poked at him to reach out to his friends, to invite them and his namesake to France. “Relationships are like gardens, Jacques, they don’t tend to themselves.” His family often chided him. Most vampires will go decades at least between seeing or speaking to their friends or acquaintances. His family rarely ascribed to such nonchalance but then again, they could hardly be considered the average vampire coven.
Jacques’s shoulders loosened at the thought of his friends back home at Saint-Tourre.
Marguerite and Timoteo didn’t leave Estella to him thinking he’d take care of the girl on his own. They would expect him to take her to Matthieu and Theodora—and indeed, they were quickly making a room up for her at this moment. The documents were clear, Marguerite and Timoteo were the legal guardians of Estella and he, Jacques, was the next in line should they die. Her parents, if there were any, had no grounds for her and none have come forward.
She was his responsibility. And with him, she will gain Theodora and Matthieu too.
Feeling slightly better about the path forward, Jacques set a grand bowl of risotto next to Estella’s glass of water.
—-
In an effort to not stare at the grieving girl as she ate, Jacques looked around the kitchen in silence. The cabinets were a sweet baby blue, an attractive color with the pale countertop and light yellow walls. It was a color palette Theodora and Matthieu would like. A hutch stood against the wall besides the stairway holding a small collection of books and tin storage containers.
His eyes flicked back to his new charge. What is someone supposed to do with a child they did not know but were suddenly responsible for? He didn’t know Estella. He didn’t know she even existed until the state government called him yesterday.
After Estella finished her risotto she fled upstairs without a word. Jacques did not try to stop her.
He called Matthieu and Theodora. “She is in shock. She is in pain. Let her feel her pain. Let her process. Right now your job is to be a reliable presence in her life and to see to the burial of your friends.”
“How do I reassure her about my presence? I am a stranger to her and she to me.”
“Did she say that to you?”
Jacques paused, “No…she did not say that exactly. In fact she hardly reacted to me at all.” He thought about that exchange for a beat, didn’t they tell you my name? “Actually, she might believe that we’ve spoken since she was born. I asked her if she knew who I was and she called me her grandparents’ oldest friend.”
“C’est possible.” Matthieu acknowledged.
Theodora cut in, “Donc what she knows and what she doesn’t is hardly pressing, Jacques. Make sure she’s fed, watered, and bathed. Be present. That is your job. We have a bathroom to update.”
“Okay okay, I see your point tata. Au revoir.”
“Au revoir, mon amie. Oh, and try to find out what colors she is partial too. Salut.”
Reassurance. How do you reassure a child? And one you barely know at that? Jacques thought about his clients and what he does to make them more comfortable at his office. Perhaps a warm drink? Tea, maybe? Where would they keep their tea? He didn’t see any earlier but he didn’t open every container to inspect its contents.
He began his search of the kitchen anew, ruffling through the cabinets again. Opening every container to inspect and sniff its contents.
A nice herbal tea, preferably chamomile, would be a nice gesture for Estella.
Nothing in the cabinets.
He turned to the hutch. He fingered the books on it, curious about the early modern printed magic books. Regular humans got their hands on the few written magic treatises during the age of persecution and printed them to assist witch and demon hunters. Most modern witches didn’t read so far back and certainly didn’t need herbal references; instead their knowledge was often handed down from parent to child in an oral tradition that has existed since time out of mind.
But Marguerite and Timoteo didn’t have family to pass knowledge down to them. They had to source the knowledge elsewhere. Jacques’s chest felt heavy, the couple was so young when they came to him.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
If they wanted to learn, why didn’t they take up his offer to come to Saint-Tourre to study? They had the biggest magic library in Europe—maybe that was the problem. Perhaps they couldn’t bear the memories of the place. He certainly couldn’t blame them for that. Mass graves, decaying bodies, destroyed buildings, flicked across his mind like a broken film reel.
No, he certainly couldn’t blame them.
He went back to sniffing. On the sixth tin he hit luck—chamomile.
Ten minutes later he stood in front of Estella’s door with a hot cup of tea balanced on a plate with some cream and sugar. In his other hand he held a kitchen chair. He carefully set the chair down off-center to her door and set the plate on top of it. Before knocking, he ran downstairs for some crackers, peanut butter, and a glass of water. Observing his care package, Jacques nodded to himself hoping that he’s supplied enough to get Estella through the night.
He knocked on the door, waiting just long enough to hear her move towards the door before retreating quickly back down the stairs.
A soft “thank you” floated down the steps, followed by the rattling of his makeshift tea set and snacks, then the shutting of the door.
—--
Eventually the noise from upstairs subsided and Jacques felt confident that he could move about without disturbing Estella. The living room was full of books and not only literature. There were history books, grammar books, religious treatises, math texts on algebra and geometry, instructional astronomy, and herbology and botany books stuffed around plants. The corners of the room were padded with literature: French, Italian, English, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Arabic. The books never seemed to stop. Paperbacks and hardbacks lined the walls, decorated doorways, and filled out the furniture in the room. Were they that avid of readers or was something more going on here? Jacques suspected more based on the folders of notes written in a child’s scrawl. Were Marguerite and Timoteo homeschooling Estella? Did she not go to school with other children? The subjects were similar to what Timoteo would have learned in the Italian schoolroom and he knew they were educating her about magic because of the books in the kitchen.
Why would they hide her? And hiding her they were. Jacques might not know as much about magic as Theodora and Matthieu but he could identify it and their home was wrapped in it. He fingered the record player in the corner, how far did the obscuring magic go? Did it extend to the boundaries of the property? He stepped out onto the back porch, eyeing the edge where the garden met the forest. If he investigated the property line, would he find magic similar to what protects the bounds of Saint-Tourre? Could someone not invited only find the house with great difficulty or was it completely shut off from unwanted guests like their home in France?
And then Estella. Why not tell him he was her godfather? Her guardian in case something happened? Surely it would have been better to inform him about that. Marguerite and Timoteo decided to age like humans when they had Jack, who they planned to raise as only human. Why change their minds? And where was their son? Why was he not with his child? And her mother? If something happened, and his elderly friends were left to raise their grandchild, did they truly think their youth would hold off until Estella came of age? He shook his head. Was it witch’s hubris or was something more going on here? He had nothing but questions and the dead often refused to answer to the living.
Leaving the back door open, he collapsed into a wire porch chair rather than exploring the property. He wouldn’t leave Estella alone.
His new charge.
Tomorrow he will have to arrange a funeral to bury his friends. How does one do that in America?
He rested his face in his hands. He would die for a glass of wine but apparently Marguerite and Timoteo didn’t entertain vampires if their lack of vampire friendly options said anything.
He groaned, this time tufting his hair in his hands. Did Estella know about vampires? If she did, what did she know? She was learning about magic but how much of the world had they told her about? If she did know, did she recognize him for what he was?
He leaned back into the chair, letting out a slow sigh. “Mon Dieu, what am I supposed to do?” he asked the air.
As if in answer, a gentle breeze blew across the porch towards the open door.
Jacques propped his feet on the empty chair across from him, his legs too long for the space and bending at the knee.
The slide of his heel across the seat was accompanied by the sound of sliding paper. Qu'est-ce que c'est? What is this? A thick cream envelope with his name scratched across the front was pinned beneath his shoe.
Jacques glared at the trick of magic at his feet. Apparently his friends did think to leave him something beyond their grandchild. What had they been up to?
He leaned forward and picked up the letter from the chair where he knew it wasn’t there before.
Inside he found the same messy handwriting. Marguerite. She never did learn to write well.
“Dear Jacques, mon amie, there are too many regrets I have in this life. I, we, have not been good friends to you. We abandoned you when we had our boy, Jack. Maybe if we had not left all we had behind he would not have turned into a stranger before our eyes. But enough! Enough about our lost boy. We can only help those who are with us and I must ask that you do not hold my sins against my granddaughter, sweet Estella. If you are reading this, we are no longer with you.
Oh how I wish we were in France at home with papa! The wolf finds a reason to take the child…Our Este is caught in the middle of other people's choices. If only maman lived to see this. Surely she would not have done this.
I should not reveal more. Ask her to show you what the Stranger gave her.. She will know. Then take her to Saint-Tourre. Take her to Matthieu. Take her to Theodora. Tell them I am sorry. Tell her I am sorry. Tell her I love her. Over and over and over. Tell her I love her. I love you. I love them. I am sorry I could not be stronger. She is yours now.
O Lord, watch over our paths with guiding love; that among the snares which lie hidden in the path wherein we walk, we may press onwards so that we may come to be where Thou wouldest have us.”
He threw Marguerite’s opaque letter onto the table. He never held it against Marguerite and Timoteo for cutting him out. He let them go too. They chose a different path. It happens often in immortals’ lives: witches or humans come and go as the tides of their lives take them away into different waters. But Marguerite and Timoteo! They made him Estella godfather. That role held no small meaning to him, nor would it to his friends. And they didn’t tell him. The state government had to call him! And she leaves a letter that leaves questions neither can answer.
Jacques took a deep, calming breath. No sense in arguing with the dead. Instead, he took stock of what he knows.
First, there was something about the family of Marguerite. If only maman lived to see this. Whatever it was, the problem seems to stem back from her mother.
Second, whatever it was about Estella, it warranted keeping her hidden, even from friends, potentially family, and people who could help her.
Third…Third, Marguerite specifically requested him to take her to Matthieu and Theodora at Saint-Tourre. Jacques rubbed his forehead. The gift of immortality did not bring with it the curse of perfect recall but he was fairly certain he had never discussed his family members with Marguerite and Timoteo. His elders had enough of a name for themselves without him unnecessarily including them in conversations. His family held a very important position in their world. It is possible that his friends knew of them and were now seeking their help, which would mean that whatever was happening with Estella was severe.
Jacques reached out and picked up the letter again, rubbing the edges smooth. He wished Marguerite had been more explicit but he understood her recalcitrant attitude. Witches didn’t always trust committing words to paper, suspicious of incidentally invoking magic or worse beyond their control. Strange though, he thought, that concern was more prevalent in older witches. Most witches born after the Age of Reason were less suspicious about committing words to paper and Marguerite and Timoteo were born well into the nineteenth century.
The final point, and it is not disconnected from the former, is that Marguerite suggested that she knew Matthieu and Theodora: Tell them I am sorry…I love them. I am sorry I could not be stronger. After two hundred years, there are very few people his elder family members know that he does not. If the connection, why hide it?
A tearing sound drew his attention down to the letter in his hands, where a small rip now marred the corner of the paper. Carefully he folded the document back up and slid it into its envelope.
All questions. No answers.