Extract from Spirit of Lost Angels ... special price. Limited Time. Only 99c/p at the following retailers:Amazon
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Even before any of us spoke, I think Maman sensed
something was very wrong.
She said
nothing though, as Monsieur Bruyère told her of the accident. Her face a milk-white
mask, her green eyes wide and staring somewhere beyond, her fingers groped
about her neck for her angel pendant. She rubbed the old bone between her thumb
and forefinger.
 |
| Ancien Règime |
‘Death
came instantly, Madame Charpentier,’ Monsieur Bruyère said. ‘Emile did not
suffer.’
Still
Maman did not flinch; the only movement was the angel pendant rising and
falling with her shallow breaths. My mother’s tears came only when Grégoire
told her the noble didn’t even stop; he hadn’t descended from his decorated
carriage to check on the commoner he’d run down.
 |
| Women marching to Versailles |
My tears
came too, burning my cheeks, and I wept long and hard for my father; for the
fascinating stories he conjured up to entertain me––tales of werewolves, of
flying snakes with boils for eyes, and of green men who looked frightening but
were harmless. I sobbed for his stories from the far-off coast––of mermen who
broke fishermen’s nets and of horned men who stole young girls, because there
were no horned women. I cried for the touch of his tender hand, which seasons
of carpentry and knife-grinding had roughened and calloused.
