Birdie in Paris, page 10
Her gaze traveled around the circle to her mom and Ben’s uncle, sitting side by side, her mom’s hands folded over her purse and Uncle Noah’s arm draped across the back of her chair. They would never know, never believe, that the glass opened a window in time, but they were here, helping, even if it meant her father’s wish would never be granted. Even Alexey, in his own way, was on her side, here when he could have been somewhere else, anywhere else, determined to see this through.
“You called this a jewel when we first spoke, but it is in fact a piece of glass known as aventurine. It’s one of three that were pried from a medieval chess board,” Monsieur Bernard continued in French as Alexey translated. “The three pieces of aventurine were sent to Bruges long ago. They’d been missing for centuries, until a single piece was discovered in a binding box in Venice. With this, two of the three are now found.”
“What about the chess pieces?” Mrs. Blessing asked. “My husband was searching for them before he died, but many were missing.”
“Yes. I’m not surprised his search was unsuccessful. The pieces were scattered across Europe to ensure no one man ever accumulated all of the power they possessed. The two bishops were sent here, to Sainte-Chapelle, and safeguarded in a reliquary for centuries, but they too went missing during the Revolution. It’s said they were melted down, the jewels sold off.”
Monsieur Bernard grazed the top of the aventurine with arthritis-bent fingers, then moved to lift it from the box. The air stilled, as if the ancient chapel held its breath.
“I’m… I’m not sure you should do that,” Birdie stuttered, rising from her seat.
Her mom looked up at her with disappointment and sadness. “Birdie, please stop.”
“Be calm, child,” Monsieur Bernard said as he lifted the glass from the velvet. “The magic is long gone.”
Sergei eased her back into her seat and clasped her hand in his.
Monsieur Bernard held the glass up to the fading light, a soft smile brightening his wise face. “Merci. Merci beau…”
An ear-piercing alarm sliced through his words, so loud that Birdie’s knees trembled as she covered her ears and bent low. Monsieur Bernard swore as the air shimmered around them. “Le feu.”
“Someone pulled the fire alarm.” Alexey rose to his feet and handed the historian his cane. “We must evacuate…”
But as quickly as the alarm had blared, it silenced, and the light became more golden as their chairs fell away. Alexey rescued Monsieur Bernard from crashing to the ground, but not before the binding box and glass slipped from the old man’s grasp and skittered across the tiles.
Mrs. Blessing and Uncle Noah exchanged a confused glance as they picked themselves up off the floor.
And then everything happened at once.
Chapter fourteen
Birdie felt a hand on her arm and turned to see Ben, panic etched on his angular face. He towed her back into an alcove.
“What are you doing?” She brushed his hand away.
“Get out your pashy-thing.”
“What?”
“Your big black scarf. Get it out. Now, Birdie.”
She rooted in her daypack and pulled out the pashmina. “Here.”
He grabbed it from her hands, unfurled it, and draped it over her head. “Where’s the other one?” Hysteria touched his voice.
She pushed the fabric back from her eyes. “Hey!”
Sergei slipped into the alcove, binding box and glass in hand.
Ben cupped Birdie’s shoulders and twisted her to face the sanctuary, which sparkled like a jewelry box as the evening light illuminated the ancient stained glass. They’d been joined by a handful of robed figures who wandered through the vaulted space, heads bent in prayer.
“You see those guys? Do you?” He shook her shoulders. “They’re monks. You cannot be here in that dress. And neither can your mom. Where’s the other scarf?” He shoved his hand into her pack and yanked out the second pashmina, scattering her sketchbook, drawing pencils, and several coins across the floor in the process. He tossed the pashmina to Mrs. Blessing, who stood frozen as Uncle Noah reached forward and caught it.
Ben sunk back against the wall as Birdie scrambled to pick everything up. “We’re in trouble,” he said. “We need to get the hell out of this church and find somewhere to hide. Now. This place isn’t safe.”
“Nowhere in Paris is safe,” Sergei shot back angrily as he handed Birdie the binding box and helped her gather her things. “Not now.”
“Not in the future, either,” Ben snarled. “Thanks to you.”
“I am not behind those posts.”
“Sure you aren’t.”
Sergei exploded forward, pinning Ben against the stone wall. “I… did… not… do it. Do you understand? I would never do that to her.”
Ben barely nodded.
Sergei held him there a second longer as Ben bared his teeth, looking as if he wanted to start an all-out brawl.
Birdie straightened to stop them, but it was Uncle Noah who spoke first. “Knock it off,” he growled. “And tell us what the hell is going on. What just happened?”
Sergei dropped his arm and Ben ducked away to stand next to his uncle.
Birdie shot Ben a questioning look, and he averted his gaze to the floor.
She wished again she hadn’t agreed to that stupid tarot reading. She never would have if she’d known it would affect him this way.
Alexey spotted them and guided Monsieur Bernard over to the alcove. The old man stared hard at the binding box in Birdie’s hand as he whispered something in French.
“Oui, monsieur.” Sergei stepped back to stand beside her. “He’s confirming this is the past.”
“Yes. It’s the past,” she said. “You were wrong. The magic is not extinct.”
On the other side of the alcove, her mom leaned into Uncle Noah, who was staring into the sanctuary as if he were struggling to square what he was seeing with reality. Alexey followed his gaze, his expression stark.
Monsieur Bernard gestured to the glass in Sergei’s hand. “Secure it.”
Sergei moved to drop the aventurine back into the binding box but hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” Birdie asked.
“A move.”
As the gold swirled, searching for a shape, she used her pashmina to scoop the aventurine from his hand. The others crowded closer, watching with startled fascination as she slid the hot glass toward the velvet lining of the binding box, which stood open on her other palm. The swirling sped up and, as the glass landed on the soft fabric, a new shape formed.
“Le Loup,” the historian whispered in awe.
Birdie glanced up at him. “A wolf. What does it mean?”
Monsieur Bernard turned to Alexey and spoke quickly in French. Before he even finished, Sergei had closed the binding box and was shuffling Birdie toward the stairs, attempting to use his own body to block her from view.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“He believes they keep supplies downstairs.”
“What kind of supplies?”
He shushed her and dipped into the shadows as a tall monk darted past the bottom of the steps, then they fell into step behind the old historian and Alexey as they rushed by. They crossed the lower chapel as Monsieur Bernard opened a wooden cabinet where a collection of woolen robes was stored.
“Quickly,” Alexey ordered. “Cover up. Everyone. And then we depart. We must leave Sainte-Chapelle.”
“It is medieval Paris, Papa. You know this? Where will we go?”
Alexey didn’t respond as he handed Sergei a heavy brown robe.
Birdie cast a worried glance at her mom, who had yet to utter a sound. “We have to get back to the present,” Birdie said. “If we can’t, then our only choice is to follow the clue on the glass.”
Monsieur Bernard shook his head. “I fear it is not so easy, child. Not if we are to go to the Place of the Wolf.”
“You know what that is?” she asked.
The old historian frowned. “Oui, but if I’m correct, we will need help to go there.”
“Who on earth would help us?” Birdie took a robe from Alexey. “We don’t know anyone here.”
“We must befriend a cleric.”
Birdie raised her brows.
“There are clerics who can lead us to the Place of the Wolf,” Monsieur Bernard explained. “But we must go now, to Notre-Dame de Paris, before full darkness falls upon us.”
As the others donned their robes, Birdie wrapped the binding box in her pashmina and shoved it inside her daypack, which she then secured across the front of her chest. She bid a silent farewell to her open-toed wedges as she shrugged the itchy robe over her pretty new dress. She knew she should have worn her sneakers. The wedges would never survive this.
She glanced at her mom, whose own cute sandals had kitten heels. She saw Birdie looking at her feet and gave her a bewildered look.
Birdie stepped beside her as Uncle Noah rearranged her purse across her chest and pulled a robe over her shoulders. She took her mom’s hand in hers. “How are you?”
Mrs. Blessing blinked.
“Mom? Everything will be fine. I promise.”
She looked at Birdie, her eyes clear. “I didn’t believe you.” She took a shaky breath. “I didn’t believe…” She glanced around. “I’m still not sure I do…”
“It’s fine, Mom. Really.” Birdie pulled her close and felt her trembling. “How could you have believed? I forgive you.”
“We’re in the past?” her mom asked. “We’re really in the past?”
Birdie nodded ruefully.
“When?”
“Usually we end up somewhere between 1497 and 1501.”
“We’re still in Paris?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been back in time before?”
Monsieur Bernard sliced his hand across his neck to silence them.
“We must go.” Alexey waved them toward the doors. “There will be time to talk later.” He glanced at Sergei. “And there is much to discuss.”
They fell in line behind Monsieur Bernard, who set an excruciatingly slow pace through the lower chapel, followed by Alexey and Sergei, Birdie and her mom, then Uncle Noah and Ben. The old historian was the only one whose head remained uncovered, his flat cap removed to expose the ring of white hair and bald crown he’d kept hidden underneath.
When they finally stepped outside into the evening air, a large, open courtyard had replaced the parking lots and ticket lines. A few monks milled about, and Birdie noticed that those whose hoods were pushed back wore the same hairstyle as Monsieur Bernard, no matter their age.
She kept her head bowed, her face tucked deep inside the broad hood, and held her mom close as they inched across the courtyard. Every instinct told her to run, but she knew that would do nothing but draw attention.
Mrs. Blessing tightened her grip on her arm, and Birdie wondered if it was because she sensed Birdie’s desire to run or because she wanted to flee herself. Either way, her closeness was comforting, even as she wished again that Alexey had never found the binding box, that none of this had happened. Her mom had been through too much already. And now this.
Monsieur Bernard maintained his slow, steady pace until they passed through a gate under a stone arch, abandoning the silence of Sainte-Chapelle for a raucous, crowded lane. Birdie felt her mother start, and she dared to glance up at the medieval chaos they’d stepped into.
Half-timbered buildings with bulging upper floors leaned into the narrow lane, as street merchants shouted in a strange cadence to every passerby, offering fruits and vegetables in vibrant hues, ripe and fragrant at the height of summer.
Birdie stared in awe at the colorful scene. Sergei had been right. Paris was nearly unrecognizable as the city she and Ben had spent the day exploring. Gone were the wide boulevards stretching in all directions, the block after block of harmonious limestone buildings, replaced by a hodgepodge of houses and shacks, the tallest of which reached only to a third floor, offset by an occasional wall or turret.
The narrow lanes were little more than passageways, wet with mud and horse droppings, the frenetic crush of cars and bicycles and buses still centuries away. Her mother remained clamped to her side as their sandals squished in the muck, her eyes wide beneath her hood. The twin towers of the hulking Notre Dame Cathedral rose tall behind it all, a towering symbol of the glory of God above the squalor.
As they headed toward it, a large procession approached from the river, which was no longer tamed within its neat embankments, but wide and wild. The medieval Parisians clogged the narrow, curving lanes, all moving in the same direction.
“We must join them,” Monsieur Bernard called over his shoulder. “Follow the children.”
Chapter fifteen
The smallest Parisians led the way, their flowing white robes angelic in the evening light, their little hands cupping tiny wax candles whose flames fought the breeze that spiraled up from the Seine. Behind them were the religious men, hundreds of chanting clerics and monks who lumbered toward the enormous cathedral, in no hurry to rush the swelling procession.
Birdie and the others slipped in among the chanting monks and clerics, before the break where the bourgeoisie had fallen in line. Gigantic bells rang out from Notre Dame’s imposing towers, their clear, deep tone blanketing the warm city, beckoning the spectators who’d lined the wild river banks along the Île de la Cité to watch them pass.
She was grateful for the concealment of the woolen robe as the religious men engulfed them, but it was hot and rough against her bare shoulders and smelled vaguely of wood smoke and sweat. She longed to shed it and return to their own time. The sheer number of monks and clerics made her uneasy, and she wondered if Monsieur Bernard had been right to suggest they seek their aide. She angled her chin toward the ground, petrified one of them would peek beneath her hood and find not a medieval man of the cloth, but a modern girl.
She stayed close to the others as they flowed with the procession through the cathedral’s massive doors. Once inside, the chanting quickly fell away, replaced by glorious singing that floated to them from somewhere high above the cross-shaped nave, as if a thousand perfect voices had joined to bathe the space in song.
Mrs. Blessing slipped her hand into Birdie’s as they shuffled deeper into the soaring sanctuary, where the music amplified, growing ever more heavenly. The children’s flames lit the way and soon the cathedral was aglow in candlelight and awash in the rays of the setting sun that danced through the stained glass windows.
Birdie closed her eyes and bowed her head as the monks squeezed them into the heart of the lofty, sacred space. She felt the singing in her bones as the beautiful voices rose… rose… rose… before ceasing on a perfect note, its reverberation suspended in the sky before slowly, slowly sinking into the stone.
Far ahead, at the altar, a priest in embroidered robes began a Latin mass, his murmured prayers carrying through the screen that separated him from the assembly. When at last he concluded, a deep silence fell and deepened, until it was cut through once again by the tolling of the bells.
Birdie glanced around as joyous chatter rippled through the congregation, and saw Alexey and Monsieur Bernard signal they would stay behind. The two men moved away through the crowd to seek out a cleric as Birdie and the others filed from the cathedral. They were propelled down the lanes with a wave of the faithful, stopping only when Uncle Noah gathered them close at the corner of a half-timbered building to wait.
Night had arrived and, with it, the first stars had winked on as the moon rose.
“That was incredible,” Mrs. Blessing whispered to Uncle Noah as the bourgeoisie filed past, dressed not in the robes of the religious men, but in layers of colorful fabrics. She stared at them in awe.
It dawned on Birdie that her mom might be enjoying this, studying the clothing, trying to observe and learn as much as she could now that the initial shock of being thrust into a different era had begun to fade. It was the first time she’d sounded anything like herself since they’d arrived in the past, and Birdie sent a thank you to the stars.
“Do you see, Birdie? They’ve sewn their dresses into styles that mimic the nobility. Amazing.” Mrs. Blessing watched until the last couple passed, then turned to Uncle Noah. “We’ll need to find somewhere to sleep.” She kept her voice low. “Somewhere safe.”
“I doubt there’ll be any sleep tonight.” He scanned the narrow lane. “Not for all of us. We have no money, nothing to barter. We may be able to let the kids get some sleep and keep watch in shifts.”
Birdie bit the inside of her lip as she listened to Uncle Noah. She hadn’t considered the consequences if they didn’t shimmer back tonight. She’d assumed Alexey and Monsieur Bernard would be successful, they’d deal with what they needed to at the Place of the Wolf, and then go back to their own time.
“I can take a shift,” Ben said. Uncle Noah nodded his appreciation and glanced at Sergei.
“Of course,” Sergei said.
Ben curled his lip and Uncle Noah shot him a questioning look.
“Birdie and I can take a shift too,” Mrs. Blessing said. “We’ll also need to figure out food—”
“Mom? I’m hoping we won’t be here that long. We’ve always been able to return fairly quickly. We just have to figure out what’s lost. Once we do that, we can go back. If we can get to the Place of the Wolf tonight, we might be able to get back right away.”
“So let’s hope Alexey and Monsieur Bernard locate someone who can take us there, but we need to be prepared in case they don’t.”
“I will wait by the cathedral doors to be sure they can find us,” Sergei said. “It will save time.”
“Good idea,” Uncle Noah said. “Thanks.” He rubbed Mrs. Blessing’s back as they watched Sergei walk away, the four of them crowded close beneath the eaves. “The good news is, Alexey has a way of making things happen. If anyone can persuade a cleric to help us, it’s him.”
