Paper Confines

x. Patriarch Unbidden

PAPER CONFINES.
10. / Patriarch Unbidden

✶

The pitch was wrong. Just the ghost of Colette's finger told her so. There were alpine winds in the blow of dust as she swept the piano clean, rooftop peaks of a winter manor glittering in sun-dappled snow.

The Chapdelaines had visited late that year, nearing the end of May, and the question of whether or not they should have gone on holiday at all was still hanging overhead like an anvil on a loose rope.

The war left most things uncertain, and Colette's rein on her life at Beauxbatons had been slipping for months. Threats loomed. Haunting, hushed words under bed-covers, brushing hands, stolen glances in the Bellefeuille dormitory, secrets that dotted up her spine and around her neck.

Faustine hadn't spoken to her in weeks.

So they'd be in Megève for eight days, return for the end-of-year exams, and Colette would cling to the normalcy of the trip knowing she might have none left by the time they came back.

"T'es trop vieux pour ça," she'd said to her brother one night in the cabin, her finger caught in knots at his feet.

Luc's blond curls bounced over his eyes. "Et tu es trop vielle pour skier avec moi."

Colette's face had scrunched up in a pout, but she tied the bunny loops on his shoes and Luc took her arm in his, and then they were on the slopes: a labyrinth of white-capped trees leading them downhill; a race, a riddle of twists and upheavals, an inimitable dance. If Colette closed her eyes, there was only the numb in her fingers and the burst of wind, and sometimes it made her feel as if she were the brunt of a shooting star. Nothing could contain her. She was unearthly. She was unbound. But Luc would call her back in, the gravitational pull she orbited, and she was human again. She opened her eyes. The flickering near-dusk was shrouded in snow clouds, the ground crystalline and dappled in moonlight, and the game was on.

Luc had taken the lead. Childish and grinning, a boy with a smile that was missing teeth. He liked to use magic to get his way. Colette resorted to no such cheats. She was always better in the sky than the snow, but this was a case of good sportsmanship, and that applied to broomsticks and skis alike. She would teach her brother to win with dignity, but she would not hold back.

"Allons-y, Col!" he'd shouted, eruptive magic sending bursts of snow in her eyes.

"Oh, tu es si mort, Jean-Luc!" Colette cried back. It was always bad when she started calling him that.

The wind whistled through the tuft of hair loose from her headscarf, arms caught with the chill of her thin coat. Wartime fabrics were scarce and there were hardly any tailors in Megève willing to line up skiwear for a travelling family, but her mother managed what she could. The exhilaration of the sport was often warmth enough, and Colette knew there was woolton pie and a crackling fire waiting for her at the manor.

Her eyes narrowed over the off-piste route.

Luc was a blur in her peripheral, an obstacle in an amateur's course. She surged forward on her skis, leaning with precise weight to her left and right, moving with years of practice. Colette triumphed every slump in the mountainside before she arrived at it, knowing exactly which to swerve aside and which to use for momentum. Luc had none of her litheness. His goal was winning the easy way, not the smart way.

Colette cheered as the slope came to an end. Enchanted lanterns danced with the shadows of wings fluttering by. She liked to think the birds had come to watch, but winter fairies were just as likely on nights like this.