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Hello, my name is Lestat, Lestat de Lioncourt, and I am seven years old, but soon I’ll be eight.
I wanted to tell you a story about my day. I don’t know how to write it, so I will just speak it to you and hope the air remembers.
Today, I went back to Catechism Class for the first time since the priest took us to The Witches’ Place and told us the story of what happened there in the olden days.
I hated the story. The priest told us they had burned people there for being witches. The ground was all black and nothing was growing. In my mind, I saw people on fire and big, blazing flames coming out of them.
The people were screaming and then I was screaming and crying and I couldn’t stop. My nurse couldn’t quiet me so my mother, Gabrielle was sent for. She told me there were no real witches and that the people were burned because of superstition.
For weeks my dreams were all fire. Screaming faces, turning black.
I didn’t want to go back to Catechism Class. But my father said I had to. He said he would beat me if I made a fuss.
My mother told me that you don’t have to believe every word the priest says because he is just a person too. She said it would be good to go back to class because I could still learn things there.
She said the priest would never take us back to The Witches’ Place.
I didn’t know how to tell her that it wasn’t because of The Witches’ Place or the lessons I didn’t want to go back. I was worried what the other boys would think of me now.
It was hot today, and after Mass we went to the little chapel beside the church. I sat down on the hard pew. It was cold in here. I liked the warm, so I shuffled along to the part the sun shone on. I liked the heat of it on my head, my hands.
The sun shines on the good, the priest had once said. If the sun shone on me, could I be good?
My feet didn’t touch the floor when I sat on the pew, and I swung my legs backwards and forwards a bit. It made me feel a bit safer, having something to do.
I smelled the incense and heard the whispering of sermons in my mind.
I thought the other boys would laugh at me because of how I’d cried and screamed at The Witches’ Place. And it was like that. The boys who are supposed to be my friends pretended I wasn’t even there. They went to a corner and started giggling. I didn’t look at them, but I could hear them talking. I knew they were speaking about me.
Everybody was ignoring me. I’m used to people being friendly, because I’m the son of the Marquis. Their mothers and fathers tell them to make friends with me. Not because they like me. Because they want something.
But we have no money. So I don’t know what it is they want.
I know none of them really like me. If they did, they wouldn’t laugh at me. But I can’t tell who likes me and who is just pretending. I like all of them, so why can’t they like me back? Is something wrong with me?
I looked at the priest, the crucifix. The crucifix was very pretty. I wondered why it was pretty when vanity is a sin.
But I didn’t really believe in God. I did know burning people alive was a sin, though. And I didn’t understand why the priest didn’t believe that. I saw the blackened ground. That had happened. The priest told us so.
There was a broken bit of plaster on the wall behind the altar and it looked like a bird. I wished I was a bird and could fly away from here.
I saw Adrien near the front of the chapel, sitting in a row with lots of boys. He always used to pull my hair and laugh, like it meant we were friends. Now, he was turned in his seat, looking right at me with his hand over his mouth, whispering in Éduoard’s ear.
Nurse sat behind me, like always. She moved because I moved into the sun. Her shoes squeaked as she followed me, and she muttered a small ‘Sorry’ in my ear. I had told her when we were at home to be quiet here, as it was more embarrassing for me the more attention she drew. But now that she had spoken it was even worse. My ears burned.
It was so shameful that she had to be here, when all the other boys were on their own. Everyone must think I was a silly little baby. I wasn’t.
The people burning in fire came into my head when the priest walked in, and I felt like I wanted to run away. I tried to concentrate on the bird in the plaster.
Normally, I asked a lot of questions and I liked being the one to answer when the priest asked questions too. I want to be a good boy. I want to learn my prayers. I want to understand everything, then I can really be good.
But today I felt afraid. Embarrassed. I was worried I might cry again. I was worried what the priest might say. I was worried what the boys might say.
Had I cried that much? Just for one day. Maybe two.
There was a boy sitting at the end of my row. Just about, anyway. He was perched at the very edge of the pew, squashed into the side as if there wasn’t room for him, even though there was nobody else on the row except for me.
The boy had curly dark hair and a serious face. I recognised his face, but only a bit. I knew he usually sat in the same place every week, right at the side of the chapel. I had never heard him speak, not to anyone. But he never looked lonely.
He sat so still, like he was made of glass and moving might smash him into pieces. Every time he thought I wasn’t looking, his big brown eyes looked my way, peering carefully through long lashes. He looked like one of the angels in paintings. If he hadn’t kept glancing at me like that, I would have thought I’d imagined him, or that he was a model of an angel that had been left behind.
His eyes didn’t laugh when he looked at me. They watched me. Not like he was afraid I’d move, but like he thought something inside me might break. No one had ever looked at me like that before. Not even my nurse when I’ve been crying, not even Mama. It made me feel funny. Like it wasn’t my body he saw at all, but my heart.
“Why did God create us?” Father Clement’s voice boomed across the stone floor.
I sat up very straight. I was almost bouncing. My heart was thudding. I knew the answer. Normally, I would say it right away. But today, I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I didn’t want more whispering.
I did want to prove I was more than the pampered Marquis’ son with a nurse and a weak stomach though. If only they knew how I wasn’t pampered at all. Would they all want to be me if they saw my father’s belt? Would their parents want to be his friend if they heard the things he said late at night in our castle?
While I sat wondering whether to put my hand up, jiggling in my seat because the answer was trying to come out of my mouth without me telling it to, another boy spoke.
The quiet boy.
“To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him, and to gain eternal life.” He said it perfectly. Like he was saying poetry. Or a secret.
I was so surprised to hear his voice, to hear that he could speak.
The priest nodded. Someone coughed.
I looked at the quiet boy without turning my head. His hands fluttered up to his mouth as if his body was surprised by his words too. And I felt something strange inside me. Like I wanted to say thank you and to go home at the same time.
Father Clement asked more questions. I felt like I was going to burst, not answering any of them. And I had so many questions I wanted to ask. But I was too afraid to speak.
So I stopped listening. Then I would not want to answer and I would not want to ask anything.
I was watching the boy with the curly hair. Had he always been here, or had God sent an angel down to sit on this row with me today, so I would not be alone?
Suddenly, the boy turned to look right at me, with a worried look on his face. I did nothing. I was too surprised. Then he smiled, and shook his head as if he had smiled because he forgot who he was for a moment.
He went bright red and looked away. First, he looked down at the floor, then he looked up, and I followed his gaze. He was looking right at the bird in the plaster. I didn’t need to wonder if he saw it too. I knew he did.
I remembered where the boy normally sat, at the side. It would have the perfect view of the bird and I realised that’s why the boy always sat there - to see something no one else noticed.
I wondered if he gave it a name. I wondered when he had first seen it.
I wanted to ask him about the bird in the plaster, but I didn’t even know his name.
Then he laughed quietly. It was so unexpected. A soft little sound like he’d surprised himself. His eyes widened, startled, and he glanced around in panic like he’d just broken a rule.
Now it was me who smiled. I wanted to laugh too. But I didn’t laugh. Not because it wasn’t funny, but because I didn’t want him to think I was laughing at him.
I turned away so that when he looked again, I wouldn’t be watching. So he could feel safe, like I hadn’t noticed him at all.
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Dear diary, this is Nicolas.
I hope nobody ever finds you. I know my father would put you in the fire if he found you. I wonder what my mother would do. I do not think she would burn you, but she might. If she didn’t, you would make her very sad. And that would be worse than you being burned.
I have written to you for a month now, and I know that my hiding place, beneath the loose floorboard under my bed is safe. If it wasn’t safe, you would have been discovered already. And I would have been in big trouble.
I have decided now that your name will be Lestat. Because that is who I am going to write to you about. If I were to tell this to him, I would have to do a big bow and call him “Monsieur de Lioncourt,” not Lestat. Because his parents are the Marquis and the Marquise!
But if I call you by his name, I think it is all right to write his real name, Lestat. Is that very naughty of me? Would God think it was a sin? I am afraid he would think that, but I am going to do it anyway.
Dear Lestat, this is Nicolas.
It has been twenty-eight days since I last saw you, since the priest took us to The Witches’ Place and you screamed and cried. And every Sunday in Catechism Class since then, I look for you and hope you might be there.
Today, I walk into the draughty chapel. The incense smells stronger than usual, and the air moves around me like ghosts in my hair. I think I know you are here before I see you. You are sitting in a pew on your own, and my heart does a dance in my chest. I feel the hairs on my arms all stand up, and my fingers tingle.
None of the boys talk to me. I don’t care. I don’t want to talk to them. They laugh and shout things. They think I’m too quiet and too strange. They don’t know that I am not quiet on the inside. I have an answer to every word they say. I just keep my words inside my body, inside my head.
Even though they don’t talk to me, I have heard them whisper about you and make fun of you. When they do it, I want to scream. I want to kick them or push them and make them cry and see if they still think crying is funny then.
But I just sit at the side and do nothing.
Your nurse is behind you, like always and I feel bad for you, because I can see in your face and in how you wriggle about that you are embarrassed. But I envy you too. I wish I had someone with me who could hold me and carry me away and protect me. I wish I could cry if I felt like crying, and scream when I feel like screaming. But maybe it is good that I don’t. Maybe I would be screaming all of the time.
Normally, I sit right at the side of the church for Catechism Class, about half way back. There is a bird in the plaster on the wall behind the altar. I call her Florence and I imagine she is The Dove of Peace. When the boys laugh at you, I imagine Florence swooping down and pecking out their eyes. It makes me laugh to think of it. Most of the time, Florence is a peaceful dove though.
When we sing hymns or chant the catechism, Florence flies around the church. Sometimes she sits on my shoulder and we talk to each other. But I only talk in my mind.
Florence talks in my mind too. And sometimes she sings tunes that go along with the hymns instead of the hymns themselves, and I want to sing with Florence’s melody instead of singing with everyone else.
I know you will feel lonely and scared today, and that makes me sad and worried for you.
I think I know that Adrien, your best friend, will not talk to you, because I have heard him these last weeks. But you never know what other people will do. They are mysteries. I know he thinks he is clever and better than other people because he has made you his friend.
I hope he never talks to you again, Lestat. Because he is mean. He has been saying he is better than you and braver than you because you cried.
But I know the bravest thing of all is that you cried. Because burning those people was wrong. It was murder. I don’t care what the boys say or what the priest says or even what my mother or father say.
I know you were right. Even if no one else does.
I know, because I watch you, that you don’t imagine anyone could be mean. Even though people are mean to you all the time. When they are nasty to you, you just ignore it or pretend they meant to be nice. I hate that for you.
I tell Florence that we should build a wall for you so the horrible people stay away from you. But Florence doesn’t know how to build that kind of wall and neither do I.
I take a breath as big as I can, as if I am going to dive down into the river, then breathe it out slowly, like my mother has told me to do when I feel scared.
I always sit in my same place in chapel. But I have decided today I am going to sit on the same row as you, so you are not alone. I sit down at the very end, as if I didn’t quite choose to be here. I squash myself against the hard wood at the side. I try to push myself into it until it hurts, so that I’ll feel the wood instead of feeling my beating heart, instead of feeling afraid.
I try to keep myself very still. If I don’t move, maybe the boys who laugh at me will not notice me.
And maybe you won’t notice me.
I want to be there so you do not feel so alone. But I am not sure if I want you to see me.
I’m very nervous. It feels as though Florence is inside my body, flapping inside my tummy, trying to get out.
I want to shout, “Be still, Florence!” And the thought of what would happen if I said it out loud makes me want to laugh. But my insides don’t tell my face that.
I steal glances at you from the corner of my eye. I wonder what you are thinking. I wonder what you are feeling. I wonder what it is like to be a Lord.
I wonder what it is like to be able to cry on the outside when things are sad and scream on the outside when things are wrong.
I wish I could be you. I wish I could make today better for you. I wonder if there is a way to make today better for you?
I worry you’ll catch me looking, so I move only my eyes, hoping you won’t see.
The sun is shining through the stained glass window, making your golden hair glow with different colours, as though you are made of light itself. As though you are magical. It is shining right down on you, as if God chooses you and anoints you with his Grace. I think He does choose you.
Florence flies in circles above your head. She is telling me you are special. Florence, I already know.
I have thought about the day at The Witches’ Place every day since we were there. The priest told us that they burned people alive for being witches. When you screamed, it sounded as though you were burning alive too. I wanted to send Florence over to fly into your mind to make everything better. She would know just the right thing to say.
Your nurse tried to stop your crying. She held you. But she didn’t help. She didn’t understand that you saw the witches burning inside your head, so holding you and hugging you and telling you to be quiet was not enough. You needed something to make the burning stop. Or to make it make sense. But it doesn’t make sense. It is wrong.
I understood. Because I saw the witches burning too. I saw myself burning in the flames as well. And every night since then, I have dreamed of the fire.
I don’t see any witches there now. The fire I see burns me. Sometimes I see your face though. You are watching me, screaming and crying like you were that day. I want to send Florence over, to fly into your mind to make everything all right.
Your mother, the Marquise, was angry at Father Clement. She said it was cruel that he had told us about the witches. She told you that it was all lies and superstitions, that witches weren’t real.
I don’t think it is ever cruel to tell the truth. But I know the truth is often cruel.
I asked my mother about the witches that night. She said the witches were evil. That they had been in league with the devil, that they'd blighted the crops, and in the guise of wolves killed the sheep and the children. She said they deserved to die and that it was God’s will.
If it was God’s will that the witches should burn, is that why He sends me these dreams of fire? Should I burn as well? My father is always telling me I am a sinner.
I don’t know why it matters whether the witches were real or not. Burning someone alive is always wrong. Your mother called the priest ignorant and I think he must be, because this is just a fact.
The priest begins our catechism lesson.
“Why did God create us?” he says.
I look over at you. You always love to answer the priest’s questions. You usually get them right. But sometimes you answer with a question of your own instead. Often, Father Clement cannot answer your questions, and I love it when that happens. I want to do a little dance and stick my tongue out at him, and I can imagine you doing just the same. I have to look at Florence, and she tells me to not be silly and to listen to the prayers.
You have sat up very tall in the pew, and you are wriggling like you can’t keep the answer inside your body. But you don’t put your hand up.
Usually, I do not answer the priest’s questions. Normally, I speak to no one while I am here. When you keep quiet, people forget you, and then they mock you less.
But today, I don’t want Adrien to answer and feel like he is the best. He has been saying he is better than you. He is wrong, and anyone is wrong when they think they are better than anyone else.
I feel as though if I say the answer it will be almost as though you said it. Just like how when you screamed and cried at The Witches’ Place, I felt almost like I had screamed and cried. It felt like you did that for me. Now I want to do something for you.
I raise my hand, nervously. Not because I don’t know the answer. I knew the catechism before I ever came to class. My mother taught it to me before I could read or write. I am scared because I am afraid for everyone to hear my voice, or that I might speak the answer wrong and all my words might tumble into each other when I open my mouth.
Father Clement picks me to answer, probably because I never put my hand up.
I say “To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him, and to gain eternal life.”
He nods. I feel a surge of pride rush through me. Pride is a sin. I feel bad. So I look at Florence on the wall and in my mind, I ask her to fly over to me. She turns her head and looks over at me as though I did a bad thing. She knows I am a sinner too.
One of the boys does a cough. They are probably making fun of me now. But they can laugh at me, because there is only one boy here who I care what he thinks.
I look over at you to see if I made you feel better. I am wondering so many things that I forget about making my look a secret. I turn my head and look straight at you!
And you are looking at me! Only sideways, just turning your eyes. As our eyes meet, my face burns red and I look at my shoes, then at the floor, then back to Florence.
I don’t know what you think. I don’t know what you feel.
Did I do the right thing?
I think, for a moment, that I might cry. I have no nurse here to hold me, or to call my mother to help me stop if I begin. So instead, I bite the insides of my mouth. Both cheeks, hard.
The easiest way to stop from crying is to bite your hand, hard. But you can’t do that in chapel, when other people can see you. You can only do it at home, or when you run away. Biting your cheeks works all right when you want to make sure nobody else knows.
I want Florence to brush her soft feathers against my cheek and let me know everything will be all right. But instead, Florence is flapping her wings inside me again, but this time she is in my chest, like I am a cage she is trying to escape. Her wings beat hard and fast against my bones.
The priest is asking us "What is sin?” now.
Claude answers, "Sin is any wilful thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the law of God.” The priest nods and smiles. Why is he smiling about sin?
I think this is a rude question to ask the first day you are back, because sin is burning people alive. I am worried you’ll be upset. I turn my head to see if you are all right, and you are turned, directly facing me already, staring at me as though I am not a human boy at all, but something else.
I don’t understand what your look means. But I understand that you weren’t listening to the priest. And I am glad. I smile before I remember that you don’t know who I am, and would never want to be friends with someone like me.
If wilful thought is sin, then everything is sin. Wanting. Wishing. Is dreaming sin too? Using your own mind at all. If wilful thought is sin, why do we even have minds? We may as well be beetles.
I look at Florence on the wall and talk to her in my mind. ‘If we were beetles, would you fly around and eat us all, Florence?’ I ask her. She finds this funny and flies around the chapel, swooping down and flying back up as if she is scooping up delicious beetles for dinner. I do a little laugh - so that other people can hear me, instead of keeping it on the inside, by mistake.
A jolt of shock runs through me. It is naughty to laugh in chapel. I didn’t mean to.
I make myself quiet again.
Then I feel sad. Is it sin to hate your life? To imagine a better one. Because I do that all the time. Even in chapel.
I look back at you, and you are looking at Florence! Do you know her already too? I feel excited that you might…
Suddenly, the priest says “Monsieur de Lioncourt, what is the answer to the question we have just discussed?”
Everybody turns to stare at you, me included. I know you weren’t listening.
“It seems your thoughts are wandering, Lestat. Would you care to share them with the class?” Father Clement continues.
I see your cheeks go red, your shoulders lift towards your ears, and I can tell you are about to cry. I know that would be the worst thing for you today. I can’t let it happen.
I heard Father Clement’s question. It was, “How do we glorify God?” I wish I was sitting closer to you now, so I could whisper the question in your ear.
I don’t even mean to do it. I never speak in class, let alone when nobody asked me to, but as if I am whispering the answer to you, I whisper what I think Father Clement would like to hear most: “To glorify God, we must love Him with all our heart, mind, and soul, and serve Him by following His commandments and spreading His word, through our prayers and our deeds.”
As soon as I finish speaking I feel like I made a mistake. I don’t know what will happen, but I know speaking out of turn is against everything we are taught in Catechism Class. I look where the sun comes in through the window. I think God might strike me down right now.
Father Clement looks at me like his eyes are fire, as though I just ripped the pages from the Bible and ate them. “What has gotten into you with your wilfulness today, child. You speak when spoken to, as God-fearing children ought to.”
I’m not used to Father Clement being disappointed in me, and the shock of being thought naughty makes tears spring in my eyes before I have time to stop them. I press myself into the back of the pew and try to bite the tears down, bite my cheeks again.
The priest turns back to you and says, “Monsieur de Lioncourt, how do we show our faith through obedience?”
Have I ruined everything? Father Clement hates me and now he is going to be even more mean to you too?
I don’t understand what I just did or what it means. I feel Florence scratch her claws down my back. She thinks I did a bad thing.
You speak in a loud voice, with the confidence of God Himself. “We show our faith through obedience by following what is right. For example, by helping other people.” you say.
And I understand what you mean.
Again, you have seen me.
I turn, in surprise and we look at each other. I want to cry even more, but now it is in a good way. I smile at you and my smile is happiness and sadness and something very big that is neither of those things.
You smile back at me and it is as if Florence is lifting me up in the air and singing a note so high it makes my heart shake, like it is about to explode out of my chest.
When the lesson is finished, all of the other boys charge outside as if they had been tied to the pews with ropes that have just been cut.
I am too scared to look over at you again, in case you look at me. So I go outside, walking by the wall, keeping in the shadows.
I stand under the chestnut tree. It’s my favourite.
The leaves make the light fall in tiny little pools that dance about in the shadows. I watch the patterns shift as the leaves of the tree move in the hot summer breeze, like it is a dream. Did God create this beauty? Did He make it just for me?
Florence sings a beautiful song. Her music dances like the light and shadow dance. I want to join in and sing too. I want all the birds in the sky to sing with us. I think that God might hear us then. I wonder what He would think. I wonder if then He might anoint Florence and I too?
I look up and you are there, looking right at me.
How long have you been there? Have you been watching me? Or have you just arrived and God made me look up right now so that I would see you?
I think about The Witches’ Place. I know you understand how wrong the killing was. I know you feel how wrong it is that every soul there was killed, no matter who they were, no matter what they had done. I know that you felt this in such a big way, you screamed with those souls and you cried for them.
I know, when I dream of myself burning, when my father tells me I am sinful and will burn in Hell, I know that you would cry for me too.
I remember The Witches’ Place. As hard as I can, I think: I saw what happened. I remember.
Can you hear my thoughts? I am thinking them Big. Florence, help me tell him…
I want to say a lot more to you than this. But my words are all inside myself. I hope you might somehow hear my voice inside yourself, the same way Florence speaks to me.
Florence is fluttering in my throat now. Her wings beat so fast I can’t breathe.
I want to ask you to be my friend, but I can’t because Florence is in my throat.
I want to tell you I understand why you screamed and cried at The Witches’ Place. I want to sin against my mother and father and tell you I understand justice and I understand that burning people alive is never justice. And I know you understand it too.
And you are right.
I want to tell you that you are the bravest boy of all of us.
But Florence flaps on and on, faster and faster, wings at my throat. Her wings are a hum of sound.
So I just give you a little nod, like a word I don’t know how to finish, and I hope you might understand some of the things inside me.
You don’t nod back. Maybe you don't see. Maybe I don’t exist to you at all.
I want to bite my hand again. I think I would let you send Florence to peck out my eyes if it meant you would speak to me.
I wonder if you even know my name, Lestat.
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“Monsieur de Lioncourt, what is the answer to the question we have just discussed?” Father Clement’s question sliced into my mind like a sword.
I had no idea what the question had been. I had been imagining the quiet boy and I sitting on a fluffy cloud, high in the sky and wondering what I would ask him.
Everybody was looking at me, as if they had been waiting the whole time for me to talk and to have a reason to stare.
“It seems your thoughts are wandering, Lestat. Would you care to share them with the class?” Father Clement continued.
I imagined the quiet boy hearing me tell what I’d just been thinking and I turned red. Worse, I felt tears start to prick at my eyes. I could not cry today.
Suddenly, a whisper came at my side. “To glorify God, we must love Him with all our heart, mind, and soul, and serve Him by following His commandments and spreading His word, through our prayers and our deeds.” The quiet boy had answered for me. He said it as though he meant it, but he was breathing fast, like he wasn’t answering a question, but was in a fight.
I felt like he held a shield in front of me, like in paintings of battles.
Father Clement turned his gaze on the boy with a sharp look. “What has gotten into you with your wilfulness today, child. You speak when spoken to, as God-fearing children ought to.”
The priest looked back at me. “Monsieur de Lioncourt, how do we show our faith through obedience?” he said.
This time I heard him, but I felt angry that Father Clement had said mean words to the quiet boy. He had only been trying to help me. I felt like the hot sun flew inside of me.
“We show our faith through obedience by following what is right,” I said, “For example, by helping other people.” I spoke in a big voice and I looked over at the quiet boy as I said the bit about helping other people. He was watching me and I saw tears in his eyes. He was trying not to cry.
But he smiled. And this time there was no secret to our glance.
Father Clement raised his eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything.
He didn’t say anything because my answer was right.
When the lesson ended, the pews scraped and creaked and the sound ground through my bones. All the boys ran out into the sunlight like they were rats escaping a cage.
Usually, that would have been me as well, running alongside them. But today I didn’t run.
I made my way to the door, pretending I was thinking about something very important. Nurse was still collecting her shawl and her rosary beads. I didn’t want to wait with her in front of everyone, so I was trying very hard to walk slowly enough that I was behind all of the boys, but quickly enough that I was in front of Nurse.
It was very sunny outside. The blue went on forever and the sun hurt my eyes.
I stood under the stone archway of the gate, kicking at a mound of soil with my shoe to give me something to do. The soil was very dry. I hoped it would rain so beautiful things could grow.
Then I noticed the quiet boy again, the one who’d answered the questions. He was standing just across the courtyard, underneath the old chestnut tree. He was looking down, his eyes moving around. I knew he was following the dance of light and shadow made by the leaves and the sun.
The other boys were shouting and chasing each other around the well, but they seemed far away, as if part of another world.
And as I watched the boy, my heart did a funny dance inside me.
He looked up at me, and for a moment, we just stared. I felt a panic in my body. It was as if he had heard my heart leap. I thought he might say something.
But he didn’t. He only did a tiny nod, like a secret that said: I saw what happened. I remember.
I didn’t nod back. I don’t know why. My throat was tight and I felt silly again, like I was going to cry after all.
Then my nurse called for me.
When I looked back, the boy was gone.
It was as if he had been a ghost.
I don’t know what it meant, the way he looked at me. Did it mean something?
After supper that night I asked my mother, “Do you know who the boy at Catechism Class is? The one with the brown curly hair? The quiet one, who watched sunlight and shadow dance under the chestnut tree?”
My mother stopped her reading, leaned back and looked at me. Usually, she never stopped her reading.
Did I ask it in a strange way?
I repeated my question. "Who is he, Mama? The one with the brown curly hair…”
“What did you say after that?” she said.
“The quiet one, who watched sunlight and shadow dance under the chestnut tree?” I replied.
My mother set her book aside and did a strange smile as she said, “That’s Nicolas de Lenfent, the draper’s son.”
That night, I dreamed of the burning witches again.
But instead of waking up screaming and crying, a huge bird flew above the flames and put them out with the flap of her wings. The witches were still alive. The bird had saved them.
Far in the distance, I saw Nicolas. The bird flew to him, flew right into his mouth.
The bird stayed there, its wings at his throat.