Grim Lovelies, Page 2

  Outside? Into the Pretty World, where the Pretties strolled hand in hand with the sun on their faces amid cars and mailboxes and traffic signals, walking down the tree-lined block and then the block after that and the one after that?

  Outside?

  “Do you mean it?” Anouk gasped.

  “Oh yes. But first, you’ll need a good pair of shoes.”

  Chapter 2

  Mada Vittora’s closet was the stuff of dreams.

  Anouk knew every inch of it; she had laundered every  dress, starched every collar, dusted each pair of shoes. Thousands of them. Golden heels, red leather pumps, satin slippers with little blue bows.

  “You’ll want a sturdy pair,” Mada Vittora said. “Flats. I could swear I had some Chanel loafers in here . . .”

  The witch was currently waist-deep in the closet, rooting around like a pig hunting for truffles, her disembodied voice floating back to Anouk, who sat on the bed with her hands clutched in her lap, fingers squeezed together, the pinch of pain assuring her this wasn’t a dream. She tucked in her chin in an attempt to hide her smile. “I’ve never worn shoes before.”

  “Nonsense,” Mada Vittora said from the closet. “Just last week you tried on the Bergdorf heels, remember?”

  “I mean real ones. Not just for dress-up.” She wiggled her bare toes.

  The witch extracted herself from the forest of fur coats. “Here. These will do.” Her hair was mussed, her cheeks flushed, and Anouk was struck by how beautiful she was even when rumpled.

  She held up a pair of stiff oxfords.

  Anouk reached for them, but Mada Vittora shook her head girlishly. “Let me. They have tricky laces.” She lowered herself to her knees and started to unlace the shoes. Anouk stared at the perfect part in the top of Mada Vittora’s hair. It was always the other way around: Anouk on her knees, hemming her mistress’s skirt or picking lint off her socks, while Mada Vittora towered over her, godlike. It felt topsy-turvy to have their roles reversed, like a bottle of tonic dropped upside down.

  “There now,” Mada Vittora said. “Snug, but they’ll do.”

  Anouk bit down on the inside of her cheek. There was a particular tenderness in the way Mada Vittora tied the shoes, teaching Anouk how to lace them with some funny phrase about a rabbit and a hole. The strings of Anouk’s heart pulled tighter with each tug on the laces.

  Was this what it felt like to have a mother?

  Mada Vittora’s smile stretched over bone-white teeth. “Are you ready?”

  Anouk, afraid to speak, nodded.

  Mada Vittora took her hand.

  Not even Viggo and Hunter Black, standing in the hallway and snickering to themselves, could dampen her spirits. Nor the fact that the shoes pinched the sides of her feet. Or that she and Mada Vittora were headed the wrong way, not down the stairs to the ground floor but up toward the attic. Luc’s rooms? Wasn’t this the opposite direction of the front door? The shoes clunked awkwardly. As the two of them climbed the stairs, tendrils of drafty air came from beyond Luc’s door, carrying scents of thyme, speeding her heart all over.

  Mada Vittora walked straight to a ladder that led to a trapdoor to the roof.

  “Up you go. Hurry, now, or they’ll get away.” She held out a burlap sack.

  “Wh . . . what will?”

  “The birds, my sweet. The birds.”

  Anouk stared through the open trapdoor in the ceiling, bewildered. It was a clear night; a few stars shone overhead. Fresh air howled down, fluttering the ribbon in her hair. Behind her, the sound of Viggo’s snickering grew. Something slowly curdled in her stomach as she realized what was going on. No, no.

  Anouk spun on Viggo. “A joke.” The dry word scraped on her throat. “You aren’t letting me go outside at all.”

  He smirked, tossing a conspiratorial look to Hunter Black, though Hunter Black’s face remained as wooden as always.

  Anouk choked back the feeling of hot shame. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t.

  Her hands tightened into fists.

  “Oh, my sweet girl, no!” Mada Vittora’s silky hands were on her shoulders, turning her around to face her. “A joke? Ah! How foolish of me. You thought I meant outside into the city. Oh, you silly creature.” Her soft hands stroked Anouk’s tawny hair. “You know that your work is here, in the house. I only meant that there are some crows outside, on the roof . . . Corpus crows, very rare . . . they pass through only once a year . . . breast meat a delicacy for tomorrow’s dinner . . . Luc used to catch them, of course, but with him gone . . . oh, you poor, innocent thing. I’ve upset you.”

  Her hands drifted to the sagging ribbon around Anouk’s ponytail. She gently retied it into a tight bow.

  Innocent?

  Anouk had heard it before. The sweet one. The innocent one. Beau teased her mercilessly for it, and so did the other beasties when she saw them. They thought that because their tasks took them out into the city—​Cricket even lived in an apartment on her own—​they were more worldly than she. And they were, that was the worst part. Anouk had never seen the things they spoke of—​the Eiffel Tower and the patisseries and the bookstore with the sleeping cat—​had never been to a bistro, had never been caught in a sudden rainstorm, never taken a shortcut through a graveyard. But innocent? No. They didn’t know the thoughts that sometimes wandered into her head late at night. Thoughts of stealing shoes, of sneaking out, of running away and never coming back.

  She grabbed the burlap sack and climbed the ladder.

  “Anouk,” Mada Vittora said. “Wait!”

  Anouk paused, hopeful.

  “Try to catch at least three,” the witch said.

  With a burst of anger, Anouk slammed the trapdoor behind her. Birds! That was all the Mada wanted.

  Her face was hot. Her blood was coursing palpably. Viggo’s laughter still clapped against her ears as she paced on the roof. The shoes pinched her feet, clomp-clomp-clomping on the tiles. The wind chilled her as she stood on the roof, seven stories high. The lights of the city below were like a sea of stars, and . . . and she stopped.

  The city.

  Paris.

  She was—​at least in one sense—​outside.

  Suddenly it hit her: the lights and the wide-open night sky and the squeals of brakes and the rumble of tires and the chatter of voices. She dropped to a crouch. Steadied herself. Fingertips curled under the tiles as though she might float up to the stars if she didn’t hold herself down. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could still hear the cacophony of Paris, pure and raw, not filtered through double-paned windows.

  She drew in a breath. Another. The night rushed down her throat with each gasp. How did this chaos, this vast and crazy world, not drive everyone mad?

  Start small, she thought.

  She opened an eye.

  She looked only at the roof tiles, the errant weeds that bravely grew through the cracks. She lifted her gaze to the edge of Mada Vittora’s townhouse, fenced in by iron cresting.

  A roosting crow swiveled its head toward her.

  Slowly, shakily, she put down the burlap sack and then stood with her arms outstretched for balance, feet unpracticed in the stiff oxford shoes. She cast an uneasy look at the dome of night. The stars shimmered like broken bits of mirror. She’d seen them from inside, but only through the boxy frame of a window. She spun, trying to count them, ten, twenty, two hundred . . . and found herself at the edge of the roof, clutching the wrought-iron cresting with white knuckles, the crow perched beside her. She leaned out farther, transfixed. At the near end of the Rue des Amants, two cars had bumped into each other. The drivers were in the street, throwing their hands up in the air.

  She smiled.

  And then laughed aloud. This was Paris. Out there were thousands—​millions—​of girls and boys and parents and old people asleep in their beds, or smoking at upper windows, or deep in conversation at corner cafés.

  “So pretty,” Anouk whispered.

  The crow took off in a flutter of w
ings. Someone was opening the trapdoor. She spun around to see Beau’s sandy head pop up between the roof tiles.

  “Beau!”

  “What in the devil is going through your head, cabbage? Get back from the edge before you fall off.”

  She dared a glance down to the street below.

  He climbed out and kicked the trapdoor closed with his shoe. He had a decanter of scotch in one hand and two glasses in the other. He barely glanced at the city lights as he crossed the roof; he was used to being outside. He handed her a glass. “Viggo told me what happened. It was cruel of them, letting you think you could leave the house.” He held up the decanter. “I thought this might help.”

  “That’s the Mada’s 1972 Balvenie. She’ll skin you.”

  He herded her away from the edge of the roof, and then poured her a glass. He seemed unconcerned about the possibility of being skinned. “I swapped it out for some Glen Moray from the liquor shop. They won’t notice the difference—​they’re already deep in their cups. Here.”

  She sniffed the liquid and recoiled. Then she shrugged and took a deep sip. Fire erupted in her mouth.

  Beau grinned as she doubled over to cough. He poured himself a glass. “Lovely view up here.”

  She wiped her mouth.

  Beau gazed out over the city. “Mada Vittora’s almost succeeded in undermining all the other witches in France. There are only two left who have any real power, the Crémieux Witch and the Rébeval Witch, and they’re both far south, along the coast. The Lavender Witch is strong, but she’s been banished to Montélimar, cast out of the Haute for insubordination—​though there’s a rumor that Mada Vittora set her up. I’ll bet you the rest of that scotch that’s why the Royals are coming for tomorrow’s party. The Mada is going to try to convince them to grant her exclusive claim over the city.” He waved his glass toward the street. “All those Pretties down there, hers for the swindling. They buy their flower bouquets, sip their coffee and their wine, wear their golden jewelry, and have no idea the Diamond Witch’s magic has touched each piece. That they’re pawns of the Haute.” He laughed darkly. “The Royals’ greatest achievement is convincing Pretties they want things that the Royals want themselves.”

  Below, a fashionable couple were tipsily making their way along the sidewalk. A diamond bracelet glittered on the woman’s wrist, a gold watch on the man’s, or so it seemed; in fact, they were just common stones and base metals, enchanted to appear desirable. Other witches controlled other industries—​fine wines, luxury cars, even the exotic-animal trade—​but Mada Vittora oversaw the jewel division of Paris, the most lucrative. Diamonds hadn’t been worth a second glance before some ancient Haute queen centuries ago had taken a fleeting liking to their sparkle. But they were hard to extract, and the Royals too superior for manual labor, so she’d had Goblins whisper in the Pretties’ ears that they wanted jewels, and thus the modern mining industry began. Not for iron, not for copper (those came as fortunate but accidental discoveries later, and the Royals were more than happy to siphon off the benefits), but to suit one queen’s whim. The same with art, architecture, airplanes. The Royals whispered in Pretties’ ears, and then they took for themselves the best of what the Pretties produced. All the Pretties in the world worked for the Haute in one way or another. They just didn’t know it. And to justify such a system? The Royals called themselves the silent monarchy, gods to a world of children who couldn’t be trusted to keep their own politics and technology and economies in balance without the secret hands of benevolent rulers.

  The couple disappeared around the corner. Anouk leaned as far as she dared over the cresting, but even from this height, she couldn’t see the fountain at the end of Rue des Amants. She sighed.

  “It’s ironic,” Beau said. “Pretties walk by every day in search of fake magic from that wishing fountain and have no idea there’s real magic under this roof.” He glanced down at Anouk. “Sit with me? Easy there. Careful.”

  They cautiously settled on the edge of the roof, legs through the wrought-iron cresting. She rested her head on Beau’s shoulder.

  A nice night, but Luc should have been there. It was always the three of them together, the members of the house staff: Beau, Luc, Anouk. “I miss him,” she said.

  Beau cleared his throat as though he too felt Luc’s absence. “I think . . .” He stopped, then started again. “I think . . . never mind.”

  Anouk’s left hand clutched her glass. Her other hand went to her shoes, and she toyed with the laces, the pretty bow. “You think Mada Vittora has something to do with his disappearance, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “We’re bound to her as long as she has our pelts locked in that closet. Luc couldn’t have run off any more than you or I could. We aren’t like the Pretties out there. We can’t come and go as we please. She made us and she owns us.”

  It was true. Cricket had once tried to run away with a Pretty surfer boy from Portugal, and as soon as Mada Vittora had learned of it, she’d gone to the library with the pelts and a tonic of rose-infused blood, and the next day, mystifyingly, Cricket was back in Paris and fuming.

  Anouk took a shaky sip of scotch. “You don’t think she . . . would have killed Luc?”

  “Killed? No.” He paused. “She couldn’t. The magic would backfire on her.”

  “You mean the vitae echo.”

  He nodded. “Besides, if she was going to kill one of us, it would be Cricket or me. We’re the ones she can’t stand. Luc’s always been loyal; he was her first.” His face darkened. “But beasties don’t just disappear.”

  Anouk gazed into the syrupy remains in her glass, feeling queasy.

  Luc was much more than a gardener to them. He was the closest thing they had to a leader in their misfit household; he was the scholar, the storyteller, the big brother who always knew what to do. The one to resolve the various disagreements that sprang up between them and clean up their messes. Every week, it seemed he was sewing up Hunter Black’s latest wounds or sneaking Cricket out the back door before Viggo saw her and got that famished haunt to his eyes. Luc was the light they sought out when things grew dark, there to wipe away tears or tend to scrapes, to sit on the edge of the bed and tell them stories of magical places and beautiful people.

  Beau wrapped an arm around Anouk’s waist. “Listen, cabbage, I don’t think Luc is dead. Mada Vittora has her reasons for everything. Maybe she’s sent him off on a mission she wants to keep secret.” He lowered his voice. “But just the same, if you think you can do it without risking getting caught, spy on the house. Find clues about Luc. Keep an eye out for anything odd while you’re cleaning. Residue from one of her tricks. A note she might have scrawled and thrown away.”

  She looked at him in surprise. Spy on their mistress? She downed the remains of her scotch and reached for the half-full bottle to pour herself some more.

  He glanced at the glass shaking in her hand. “Give me that before you drink too much and fall off the roof.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re my brother, Beau, not my nanny.”

  Beau winced as he scratched at the corner of his jaw. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

  “Nanny?”

  “Brother.” His hand fell. “It isn’t true, not even remotely. We aren’t related. Not through blood, not through adoption. We’re just . . . just two people who live and work together.”

  “But that’s what you’re like to me. You and Luc and even Hunter Black. And Cricket’s like a sister. We’re family, the five of us.” She’d always liked that word, family.

  He drew in a long breath through his nose, not answering.

  “You’d rather I called you coworker? Housemate?” She knocked her shoulder teasingly against him and then snatched the bottle out of his hands and held it up in accusation. “Stealer of expensive scotch?”

  Now it was his turn to give her a hard look. He leaned over and slowly took the bottle out of her hand. “You could just call me Beau.”

&nbs
p; His voice had dropped. The scotch was doing dizzy, heady things to her. Up here, on the roof, it felt almost magically private, as though outside of Mada Vittora’s walls they could say anything, be anything. His lips were whisper-close, his breath earthy and sweet from the drink.

  He cupped her face in his palm. “Anouk.” His thumb brushed over the apple of her cheek, smelling faintly of his driving gloves.

  “Yes?” she whispered.

  And then he suddenly grinned. “You’ve soot on your face.” He swiped his thumb over her cheek again; it came away with a black stain.

  She wiped at her face. “Again with the dust!”

  “Maybe we’ve had it wrong this whole time,” he said in mock seriousness. “Maybe Mada Vittora made the rest of us from dogs and cats and birds but you from a dust bunny.”

  She smeared a sooty finger down his nose. “She probably made you from a monkey.”

  He threw an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

  She closed her eyes. Her head spun from the scotch. Luc was gone, and if she was being honest, she knew her mistress probably was responsible. Mada Vittora, who just moments ago had tied her shoes like a mother would for a daughter.

  “What now?” she whispered.

  If he’d been there, Luc would have known what to do. Luc always knew what to do. Without him, she felt lost.

  Beau pulled back. “Now?” He held up the burlap sack. “Now we catch some crows for a dinner party.”

  Her face broke into a smile.

  Chapter 3

  That night, Anouk curled up in her small bed in the turret bedroom. Pasted to her walls were playbills and magazine covers, things Beau had found in the Pretty World and brought back to her. On her dresser was her collection of more found Pretty objects: a single baby shoe, a scratched-off lottery ticket, a man’s chestnut-colored toupee. Simple things that were magical in their utter lack of magic. What could be more impractical than a shoe for a newborn incapable of steps? The improbable hopes of million-to-one odds? The charming lie of a full head of hair? The playbill above her bed showed a picture of a prince and a princess, and most nights she’d sigh contentedly as she dreamed of their dashing adventures.