M. Rose - The Secret Language of Stones

“We need you, there’s nothing else we can think of,” Alexi said.

“The empress is distraught. Grieving,” Serge said.

“And I’d be going with you. To protect you. You’ll be safe.” Grigori gave me a proud, almost smug smile.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you all, but I can’t. I’m not a soothsayer.”

Anna looked from Grigori to Monsieur. “I agree with Opaline. It is too dangerous to leave Paris, to cross the channel, to go to England with a war raging around us.”

Not one of them responded to her.

“Yes, it is dangerous, but the Dowager is a grieving mother who doesn’t know if she is also a grieving grandmother. She has five missing grandchildren and can’t find out what’s happened to a single one of them,” Monsieur repeated.

“Do you actually expect me to travel across the channel during the war to meet with the mother of the tsar and the grandmother of his children and tell her the fate of her family? How could I bear the responsibility? What if I was wrong? I don’t predict death. I don’t read the future. These women come to me, and I tap into some tunnel of last thoughts for them.”

“She is desperate, she’s lost her only remaining son,” Monsieur said. Then he turned to Anna. “Tell Opaline how it feels to lose a son.”

Furious for Anna’s sake, I interrupted. “I know how she feels. I’ve looked into the faces of so many mothers in mourning. Don’t exploit your wife’s grief to pressure me.”

I’d never talked back to Monsieur before, and he looked stunned. But I wouldn’t let him do this to her. I didn’t need a reminder of Anna’s anguish. I dreamed of her and other mothers like her. They haunted me even more than the voices of the men who’d died… for the men moved on to a place of peace after passing on their messages. All except for Jean Luc. Not moving on, he couldn’t let go. There was something he needed to do or to tell someone and hadn’t yet figured it out. But this was not the time to think about him. Not with Monsieur and his companions and his son trying to coerce me into taking this trip.

“There must be some other way to find out. Aren’t there spies in Russia? Bolsheviks who would take a bribe for the information?”

A shadow passed over Grigori’s face. I couldn’t tell if it was because I’d referenced the Bolsheviks-this family hated them with an all-consuming passion-or if, despite the risk, he’d envisioned the trip as a way for us to spend more time together. A way for him to prove he could stand up to danger and protect me.

“Every other avenue has been exhausted. We tried bribes, but there is no news we can rely on. They say anything for money. One day that they are alive and hidden somewhere. The next that they were executed,” Alexi said.

“Opaline,” Monsieur said as he put down his spoon and leaned toward me, “will you at least consider it?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, no.”

“There is nothing we can offer you truly worth the effort and danger,” Monsieur continued. “But-”

I started to protest.

“Hear me out. You are a fine jeweler with a keen eye and a wonderful imagination. To be young and so talented. I envy your future. Once the war is over you will be able to soar, and the pieces you will make will take Paris by storm. I know this. I can see it in your work. I taught you like I taught my own sons. You are almost ready to go out on your own. If you take on this journey, if you help us, then when you are ready, in a year or two, whenever it is, I will set you up in a shop of your own and stock it with all the gold and silver and gemstones you need to open your doors.”

The offer took me by surprise. I could hardly imagine how much money it would take to accomplish what he’d suggested. I knew the Orloffs were well-off, as was my family, but this offer required a small fortune. Was Tatania Tichtelew helping finance the effort? I’d seen her in the shop earlier that day.

“No, I just can’t.”

“But Opaline-” Monsieur began, but Grigori interrupted.

“This is too much. You asked her, she said no. And why shouldn’t she? It’s not her country, it’s not her empress, it’s not her problem. You are exploiting her. Opaline”-he turned to me-“there’s no reason for you to do this. Or even to sit and listen to any more of it.”

Grigori’s compassion touched me. The room was swimming. Too many eyes watched me. The rain had become a storm, and outside the howling wind distracted me. My mind was crowded with what everyone had said. It was ridiculous to even entertain the idea in exchange for a shop. If I wanted one, my parents might become my patrons. Or maybe one of the other wealthy women who came to La Fantaisie Russe would want to be able to brag to her friends that she’d financed a jewelry store. My great-grandmother was another avenue. She knew immensely wealthy men whom she sent to our store to buy baubles for their wives and mistresses. Perhaps one of them would want to finance a shop. Besides, I was years away from going out on my own. Or was I ready? Had I in less than four years learned what Monsieur Orloff could teach? Was working with him actually stifling me? Didn’t I have ideas for pieces, journals filled with drawings, that he’d dismissed? But how mercenary-to be bribed into taking this trip!

I turned to Anna. “You agree with my decision, don’t you?”

“You have a great gift to listen to those who have passed and bring solace to those who are still here, but you should never feel obligated to use it in any way uncomfortable to you.”

“But you think I should go?”

“It’s not what I think. It’s what I’ve beheld. No matter what I say to you, you will go. This journey is meant to be. It is something you do because of who you are.”

“Who I am? A Frenchwoman with no ties to Russia?”

“Because you are a Daughter of La Lune.”

Listening to her echo my mother’s words angered me. I didn’t want Anna to tell me what lay ahead.

“Will you do this for us?” Monsieur asked.

“I’m not ready to… I need time to think about it.”

I hadn’t said no this time, and Monsieur Orloff beamed. The widest smile he’d ever bestowed on me. Anna’s eyes filled with tears. Serge and Alexi appeared relieved. Only Grigori was upset, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he looked as if his worst nightmare had come true.

In the end, it was my memory of Timur that influenced my decision. I owed the Orloffs for not giving their son what he had deserved, what he’d wanted, before he died.

There was not a lot of time to prepare for the trip. We would be leaving in three days to travel by car to Le Havre, where Grigori and I would ferry across the channel to Portsmouth and then be driven to the rendezvous in a town whose name I’d not yet been told.

Anna suggested she help me practice trying to read the locks of hair without turning them into talismans in case I cracked the crystals or broke the solder machine. I wouldn’t have backups, only what I brought with me.

“I’ve tried, I can’t. I need the crystal and the engravings and elements to work together to open the portal.”

“Maybe simply because you don’t know how,” she said.

“That’s certainly possible,” I answered.

“Have you been studying the grimoire Sandrine gave you? Has it shed any light on the notes you took about the triptych painting?”

Since agreeing to this mission, I’d been actively studying, trying to find something in the book about soothsaying-about telling the present or future without the use of stones-but hadn’t been able to discover anything.

“Why don’t I try to help,” she said and suggested I retrieve my book of spells and bring it to her secret reading room.