Guy Kay - Ysabel

A couple of them were moving pretty well, and Ned fell into stride with them. He wasn’t sure they were pleased that a younger kid was staying with them. They probably thought he was American, too, which would make it worse, he guessed, so he grunted a few things in French about the weather and trying to keep up his training while over here, and that seemed to help some. They didn’t try to sprint away—or jump him and beat him up, for that matter.

Most of the students peeled off across the field when the teacher’s whistle blew, but one of them did two extra laps with Ned and waved a goodbye when he ran after the others.

It felt good to have even that simple gesture of connection.

What he had to think of as normal life was still going on. He had essays to write, mileage to log, he would email more jokes and jpegs home. Maybe he’d find these guys here again, or different ones. Maybe he’d skateboard—he could see ramps south of the track. Later maybe he’d download some new songs from iTunes. In fact, he should do that today: he had a monthly download allowance from his mother, not used up yet, and this was the last day of April.

You could treat the fact as dark and mystical, full moon and spirit stuff, or just remind yourself that you had four songs owing to you, in the life you actually lived.

He was stretching and walking to cool off, drinking water from his bottle, when his phone rang.

He checked the number on the readout and flipped it open.

“Hello, babe,” said Kate Wenger. “Watcha doing?”

Ned blinked. Babe?

“And whom might this be, please?” he said. “Nicole? Mary Sue? Marie-Chantal?”

She laughed. “Screw Marie-Chantal,” she said. “Not literally, though. She’s got two zits on her chin today, anyhow. Gross. How are you?”

Her voice sounded different. Sassier, older.

“I’m cool. Just finished a run on this track east of the city. With some army types. Bit weird.”

“I know that track. By the municipal pool? The guys are from the école militaire. Seen them, too. Yummy.”

“What’s with you today?”

“Nothing. I’m in a good mood, that’s all.”

“Yeah, ’cause your evil roommate has pimples.”

“Maybe. And maybe because we’ve got an outing later. If you have nothing more important doing, mec, buy us some cheese and apples and a baguette, we’ll have a late picnic up there.”

“Um, Kate. I’ve been thinking about—”

“Gotta run, babe. Late for class. Ciao!”

She hung up.

Babe, again? Ned felt confused. If they’d gotten to this stage in two coffees, he’d sure missed it. Larry would call him an idiot and tell him to go for it: a girl who seemed to like him, a long way from home and prying eyes…vive la France! Wasn’t this the real life he’d just been thinking about? Download songs, email a picture, see how far Kate Wenger would let him go after school?

He shook his head again. Trouble was, he kept picturing a sculpture in a cloister with a rose leaning against it, and an owl rising through the open roof of a tower at night. Maybe you did have to hang on to normal life, but some images could make it hard.

He was sweating, needed a shower. He went back to the intersection, then to the right up the road. He stopped at the bakery and bought a pain au chocolat and ate it as he walked. Better than the power bars, by a lot. He took the wide curve left and then their own path. When he reached the open field again he looked, but the boar hadn’t returned.

Small, handmade signs at branching points along the road pointed towards the different houses on the way up. He saw theirs at the top. Someone—had to be Melanie—had stuck cute little Canadian flags to the small blue markers for Villa Sans Souci.

For the first time, kind of late, Ned thought about what that name meant. No Worries. Yeah, right. And hakuna matata to you, too.

HE WENT BACK out later in the afternoon, before the others returned. Left a note on the table telling his dad he was meeting Kate. They had his cell number, anyhow. The wind was still blowing but not as much as in the morning. It was steady and hard, though, unsettling.

Veraclean had said the mistral would always blow for three or six or nine days, but Veracook said that was just an old tale and they’d argued about it, insulting each other. It was kind of funny, actually.

Ned wondered how the shoot at the abbey had gone. If Bernard of Wherever was spinning in his grave yet.

It was a bit of a hike: half an hour to the ring road and then around it north towards Cézanne’s studio. He thought of taking a bus, but he felt hyper and figured the walk would help. He passed the grocery store and the bakery again but he didn’t buy a baguette or the apples and cheese. They were not going up to picnic, there was no point.

He found the studio easily enough. It was signposted on a busy street, not much charm or quiet around it. It would have been a lot different in Cézanne’s day, he figured. This place would probably have been outside Aix, in the countryside.

Leaning against the stone wall in the wind, he watched the traffic whip by and tried to imagine this house overlooking fields, olive trees, maybe a vineyard. He’d seen another sign on the way here: Entremont was along this same road farther north. Kate had said that.

He’d taken a few minutes to google the name. It was pretty much as Oliver Lee had told them. A tough tribe of Celts and Ligurians (whoever they were) called the Salyans had built their stronghold up there. The Romans had taken catapults up in 124 B.C., smashed it to bits, killed bunches of Salyans, took the rest as slaves.

Then they’d built Aquae Sextiae, which became Aix-en-Provence, eventually. And now a cluttered cathedral covered their forum. So the Roman city was gone, too, he thought. There were Celtic ruins, Roman ruins, maybe even Greek ones somewhere around. And ruined medieval abbeys like the one his father was photographing today: they were all covered over, or tourist spots, or just old and forgotten. Most people couldn’t care less. Couldn’t even tell the difference between any of them, probably. What’s a thousand years, between friends?

Ned, standing by the roadside, car horns blaring at intervals, mopeds whining past, tried to decide if it should matter, anyhow.

If Coldplay, or Eminem, or the Boston Red Sox, or Guild Wars online were the big things in your life, and you didn’t give a thought to ancient Celts or Bernard the Spinner in his grave, was that so bad? Everyone lived in their own time, didn’t they? Didn’t they have to?

Well, really. If you left out the types like the nameless guy in a grey leather jacket who had apparently made a carving eight hundred years ago and was here now to put a rose beside it.

Did you have to believe him, anyhow?

Yeah, Ned thought glumly: with enough added to the story, you did, even if you preferred not to. Same with what he’d seen with his aunt.

He wondered where Aunt Kim was right now. He thought of phoning her, but that made him think of his mother, and their whole story—a different kind of past—and he left the phone in his pocket. His mom would be calling tonight. He knew one topic he wouldn’t raise with her.

“Yo, miss me lots?”

He turned, in time for Kate, stopping in front of him, to rise up on tiptoe and kiss him on each cheek.

Well, they did do that here in France. But still.

“Ah, hi,” he said, looking at her. “Yo. You’ve, um, got lipstick on.”

“So do you now.” She wiped at his cheeks.

“You didn’t before,” he said.

“Wow. An observant male-type person. Must make an entry in my blog.”

“You have a blog?”

“No.”

He laughed. But he was still unsettled. She looked good. Her hair was brushed out today, not tied back. She wore chunky silver earrings, and—he belatedly realized—she had some kind of perfume on. He decided not to comment on that.