“It was like that, too, for me at times. I almost burned a guesthouse in Zhude—I knocked over a lantern. I did not mean it. They threw me out in the middle of a snowstorm.”
“You were angry?” she asked. “When I’m angry … it’s hard to keep a grip on it. I fear it will overcome me at times.”
“I was,” he said. This bit of their talent they had not discussed, both too afraid to voice the limits of their control. “But, the talent, you use it, it doesn’t use you.”
“That boy. I shoved him off a horse.”
“Yes, you mentioned it.”
“He was almost trampled. But I did mean it, I did,” she said, her voice faint.
“We all make mistakes.”
She looked at him, her eyes catching the light in the gloom of the large room. “Why were you angry, when the fire happened?” she asked.
“I’d had my heart broken.”
It shocked him because it was an honest and deep answer. He had hardly ever told people about his troubles; he guarded them. His secrets were not for Nina.
He turned his head. If they continued in this vein, if she looked at him longer, he might tell her about the times he wished to die in his bed, the moment when he’d contemplated the never-ending sea. Hector excused himself.
The next day they sat outside, on the grass in front of the house. Étienne lay on his back, hands behind his head. Valérie sat under a white parasol, shielding herself from the sun’s rays, although it was not a sunny day. A few of Nina’s cousins and assorted relatives were nearby, chatting with each other.
He had stayed out of Valérie’s way, but could not help frequently looking in her direction, magnetized.
“We should play a game,” Luc declared. “Have some fun.”
“What game would you like to play, Mr. Lémy?” Nina asked.
“Tag!” a younger cousin yelled.
Others agreed eagerly and Luc thought it a splendid idea. Even Étienne was roused to his feet by his brother.
Nina stood up, brushing bits of grass from her skirts, and looked down at Hector. “Are you joining us?” she asked.
“Not this time,” he said.
She smiled at him before running off with the others, their shrieks and giggles soon sounding distant. Only Valérie and Hector were left behind.
He turned toward her. Valérie wore an embroidered, white silk dress with a smocked waistline and her ever-present pearls, her blond hair carefully coifed and pinned in place. She had a book with her, but was not reading it. Several times he had seen her grab it, open it to a page, then close it and place it at her side again as if she’d thought better of it.
Valérie’s eyes were fixed on the sky, and when she spoke, her voice sounded relaxed, even languid. “You should have gone with her,” Valérie said.
“Valérie, I—”
“Good day,” she declared with a chilling finality.
Without looking at him, her eyes still on the sky, Valérie stood up, then walked back into the house.
Hector watched her disappear inside Oldhouse and instead of following her, as he badly wanted to, he took a side path and walked away from the house, his head down.
Valérie had never been gentle. But her passion, tucked under her perfect exterior, had echoed the passion within him. They were both creatures of tempestuous seas and stormy nights. But how it hurt sometimes!
He walked for a while, attempting to fill his head with the songs of birds instead of memories of this woman, and failing. Hector tried to satisfy himself thinking that Gaétan had not inflamed her heart. No, he could not picture the pleasant Mr. Beaulieu inspiring anything but the most insipid feelings. Neither the rolling anger nor the yearning of their days past, nor the tumultuous reconciliations when—after a day of scowls—Valérie suddenly turned toward Hector and declared breathlessly that, alas, she loved him. They always came apart suddenly and suddenly rejoined, as if nothing had ever been amiss, caught once again in their joy.
But now, now this meeting did not take place, the gap between them only growing by the day, and he stood at the edge of a chasm. It could not end like this.
The clouds had multiplied and he sensed the impending arrival of rain. Hector retraced his steps and returned to Oldhouse, walking past the strange, ancient tower that loomed behind the main building, as raindrops began to splash more forcefully upon the land. He felt old and tattered and wanted simply to lie down and lie still.
“Hector, here,” a voice said.
He raised his head and saw Nina standing at the entrance of the tower, wrapped in its shadow.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “I thought no one goes in there.”
She’d said so herself the day she took them on a tour of the grounds, though he ought to have known the rules did not apply to her.
“We are playing hide-and-seek. I’m hiding,” she replied.
“I think you’ll win. I did not see you standing there at all.”
“Good,” she replied. Even if he could not look at her properly—she stood in shadows—he could tell she was smiling. “You probably haven’t seen the room in the tower. Come up. It’s a gorgeous view.”
It was raining harder, the summer drizzle threatening to become true rain.
“I’ll break my neck. This does not look solid.”
“It has stood for a few centuries, it can stand one more day for us. You’ll get soaked if you stay there,” Nina said, and disappeared inside.
He looked up at the tower, which was square in shape and rose five stories above the ground. One could almost hear the stones groaning with exhaustion. Atop its entrance was carved the image of a lamb and a word that had been smudged with time, perhaps her family’s name? This must be a tower house, an independent structure and not a part of a manor in times past, though the ones he’d seen before were usually by the sea.
He wished to remain outside, with his melancholy.
Instead, Hector followed Nina up a spiral staircase.
“What is up there?” he asked, curious despite himself.
“You’ll see.”
“I can’t see, that is the problem.”
“Don’t be afraid now, I’ll catch you if you fall,” she joked.
He was right to be cautious about entering the tower. The steps were narrow, it was dark, and there was no proper banister, but soon they reached the top floor.
The tower had been uninhabited for a great deal of time and the chamber they walked into did not have a stitch of cloth or furniture left. But there was a tall window—its shutters long crumbled into dust—on the east wall. The builders of the tower had carved stone seats to contemplate the scenery with ease. This was the prize.
“See,” Nina said, rushing to the window and looking out.
The land spread beneath them, green and alive. Hector could see the river they had visited, its waters gleaming, and farther away, tall mountains. The ground was a chaos, sloping up here then down there; it was not neatly flat as in the north, and the air smelled of wet earth. Flocks of sheep grazed not far from the tower. Water and wood, this was her world, while he was forged in the city, on the road. He breathed in slowly, feeling better.
“Those are all ours. That’s our flock,” she told him, pointing down.