“Why didn’t you tell me about you and her?”
“Back then it wasn’t so easy to be open about loving another woman. But Bellanger knew. He dangled it over my head that he could always tell the press about our relationship. It could’ve made it much harder to fight his custody claims, if he decided he wanted you or Isabelle. I just learned to keep quiet. I didn’t want to expose Trish like that.”
“But you could’ve told me,” I said. “He was dead, as far as we knew.”
“You were just a kid, and it was hard on you, and I—I felt so guilty for abandoning her. I could barely let myself think about it. Then years pass, and it’s easier to just let things lie, and suddenly you’re turning into a young woman who’s starry-eyed over Joseph. Just like watching a younger version of myself brought to life. When I pushed back, I came across as bitter. I’d done so much to have a daughter of my own, and here I was, with a child who loved her fake father more than me.”
I began to protest, then realized how flimsy and insulting it would sound. Any time my mother had even brushed against a disapproval of Bellanger—even her silence, the absence of praise—I’d been a little more willing to see her as resentful, sour, unable to appreciate his glowing greatness.
I fumbled in the dark for her hands and traced the hinge of her fingers.
“Even your name,” my mother went on. “He asked me to name you after him, and how could I say no? He’d helped us. So you were Josephine. His namesake. I’d wanted to give you the name Trish and I loved the most.”
“Isabelle,” I said softly. At some point, I’d have to tell my mother about Patricia’s death, but not now. Not while she was this vulnerable. “But in the end, he never wanted any of us except Fiona,” I said.
“His want is a dangerous thing,” my mother said.
“I thought you were the one who killed him. I thought you burned the whole place down.” That image of my mother that had haunted me for weeks: her eyes shining as we ran, that wild joy.
“I wanted to,” my mother said. “I could see a future where all nine of you belonged to him. Destroying the whole damn place seemed like the best way, but I couldn’t do it in the end. It was a relief when the fire happened anyway. We could start over. Anywhere at all. I thought I was protecting you by never revisiting the past, but my silence only protected Joseph. Josephine, I failed you.”
I shook my head, throat thickening with tears. “No,” I managed. “No, I—”
From outside, a sudden, muffled shout. My mother flinched. I stayed very still, listening, holding up one finger—another shout, a rise of voices. Then one word resolved from the fray, shouted again and again. Fire. My heart jumped: They’d already done it. Isabelle had lived up to her promise.
My mother spoke in a strained whisper. “Are they coming for us?”
“There’s a fire,” I said crisply. “We have to go now.”
“Oh god, Fiona—” My mother shrank back deeper into the cramped room, moving automatically, as if her body had memorized every inch. “We can’t upset her, Josie—”
“No, no, it’s all right,” I soothed. “It wasn’t Fiona, it was us. It’s part of our plan. We’re getting you out of here, okay?” Grabbing the votive candle, I started toward the door. I was eager to take a full breath again. The air in here was like a cloth clamped over my face.
“It’s too dangerous,” my mother said, and the fear in her voice broke my heart. “Have you seen what Fiona can do? I never forgot what she was like as a child. I used to dream about it.” I paused, breath catching in my chest. “I thought whatever it was—whatever was different about Fiona—went with her. When you were growing up, I watched you for hints of it—I almost wanted—”
Slowly, I turned. My mother had been just like me. She’d been waiting quietly for some spark of magic to manifest in my blood. The two of us yearning for the same thing without ever speaking a word about it, carrying out our lives of homework, leftovers, card games.
I made a swift decision. “I’ve seen what she can do. But you haven’t seen what I can do.”
It took a moment for her to understand my meaning. My mother stared at me, searching my face, something opening up behind her eyes. Relief. Wonder. Fear. “Does Joseph know?”
I shook my head. “We have a plan. You’ll have to trust me.”