Nevers by Sara Cassidy

Author:Sara Cassidy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459821651
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2019-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Niçois’s story about being whipped by his father had reminded Odette that nettle tea is good for treating fever. Félix swore by it. He would gather it from the edges of the graveyard whenever she or Anneline was sick and boil the leaves until they were as slimy as seaweed.

As she heads down to the street to see if she can find some of the plant, Niçois leans out of his window. “Odette! Good news. My mother wants your help. She has work for you already. Today!”

“But what do I do?”

“Don’t worry—Mother will tell you. For now she asked me to give you this.” Niçois throws a grayish ball out the window. Odette catches it in her apron. It is a ball of wax, rippled where Niçois held it. Odette presses her fingers into the channels that his fingers made.

“Take the wax to the priest and get it consecrated,” Niçois says. “It will be needed later on for the birth.”

To get to the cathedral, Odette decides to cut through the alley that is always thick with M. Gustave’s chickens. But when she turns into the little street, her heart freezes: the man with the yellow hair, trim mustache and twitchy face is talking to M. Gustave. A chicken clucks at the yellow-haired man’s feet, but he kicks it out of the way. He wears leather shoes with buckles. The shoes are clearly from Paris, though the buckles are tarnished from age and misuse. Odette slips behind a pile of broken chairs. She watches, heart pounding, as the yellow-haired man drops something into M. Gustave’s hand. Odette hears the music of coins.

M. Gustave puts his other hand on his belly and bows deeply, drawing back his right leg so that the toe of his sabot scrapes across the cobblestones. “At your service,” Odette hears him say. The yellow-haired man hurries away. Odette ducks farther behind the chairs until he has passed her—so closely that she notices the rags tucked into the backs of his too-large shoes to make them fit.

Outside the cathedral the priest is gazing up at the sculptures that crown the great door. Most have no heads. The noses are broken off others. Many are also missing fingers or entire hands. “You can still recognize Saint John without his head,” the priest says with a sigh. “He carries a book. And Saint Peter holds a key. Those revolutionaries had no shame. They beheaded the saints the same as they beheaded the rich. Scoundrels. But I understand what they wanted. I have been to bishops’ parties where wine flows and everyone prattles on about how well they know Cardinal so-and-so. While beggars sleep in gutters!”

Odette holds out the lump of wax.

“Ah,” says the priest. “Another baby on its way?”

Odette nods.

The priest waves his hand over the ball. “God, Lord, king of ages,” he intones. “All-powerful and All-mighty, you who made everything. We beseech you to make powerless, to banish and drive out, every diabolical power and machination, and keep all evil from the keyhole.

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