Page 19 of The Wandering Season

How I managed to sleep that night, I wasn’t entirely sure, but I did rest soundly. It wasn’t until the sun made a half-hearted attempt to crest over the horizon that I woke and the memory of Imogène and her torment flooded back to me. They rippled over me like licking flames of fresh grief, and I had to sit up to force air into my lungs.

I ached for her. The agony of losing her love. The fear and dread she must have borne in her heart at the prospect of bringing their baby into the world alone. How excruciating it would have been to feel that her only option was to give her child to others to raise as their own. My heart thumped a melody of anguish, my stomach churned, my throat burned with bile at the tragedy and injustice of it all. And as well-meaning as Imogène’s parents were, they were steamrolling her into giving up the last vestige of her love for Lucien. Their baby.

And I could empathize with that. Avery and Stephanie had, despite my mother’s attempts to give me a measure of agency, steamrolled me into coming on this very trip, and while I was grateful, I’d have preferred if the decision had been mine. The same went for the pressure to open my own restaurant. And I got the sense that Niall felt like he’d been put in the same position when it came to Blackthorn.

I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to regulate my breath, agonizing that I could do no more for Imogène than I could for Aoife. I was grieving for women who had long since been dead, but they were only slightly less real to me than Niall or Avery. There was no logic in any of it, but I couldn’t ignore their pain any more than I could my own.

Remembering the bargain I’d made the night before, and knowing the pastries would be at their peak in the first hour after opening, I threw on some clothes, left a note for Niall, who would be happy I’d made good on my promise, and grabbed the market basket by the door that had been left for visitors’ use.

My phone informed me there was a patisserie-boulangerie of questionable quality a few streets away, and one with much higher reviews less than a fifteen-minute walk away on the outer perimeter of the village. I was glad for a walk to soothe my nerves and clear away my cobwebs before I had to try and be a pleasant travel companion to Niall. The directions on my phone’s mapping software were straightforward, so I was able to pocket my phone and take in the village as it gently rose to greet the day.

A woman with a starched apron, severe bun, and flawless makeup was sweeping the patio of the café that was equipped with outdoor heaters to welcome guests on all but the coldest of days. A few homes were beginning to show signs of movement, but most remained dark, the occupants choosing to enjoy another hour or two of sleep on a gloomy winter’s morning.

I was not the first customer at the bakery when I arrived shortly after it opened at seven thirty, nor had I expected to be. I’d assumed that the truly dedicated locals would be waiting as the shop opened to get their bread and pastries when they were fresh from the oven. Two gray-haired women and a stooped older gentleman who eyed me with surprise were waiting in line. They could easily deduce I was a tourist, as it was a village of only five hundred people.

I’d broken the norms of my kind by not keeping tourist hours. They expected travelers to drag themselves in at ten fifteen, hoping for the last scraps of coffee and carbohydrates. I gave the other patrons a polite nod, trying to avoid the stereotype of the overly friendly American, and they seemed to forgive me for the slight breach of tourist etiquette.

I was grateful they couldn’t see my thoughts as the images from the night before ran through my brain. To them I was like any other customer, scanning the glass case with the beautifully arranged pastries, preparing to make my order when it was my turn at the counter, but I replayed the scene with Imogène and her parents in a continuous loop, spliced in with the visions I’d had of Aoife a few days ago, comparing their plights.

Both women had lost the men they loved, either to war or circumstance.

Even if the plan they concocted was cruel, Imogène’s parents had meant well.

Aoife’s parents were happy to use her as a social and political pawn at the cost of her well-being.

Lucien had sacrificed his life rather than dishonor himself by paying someone to take his conscription orders.

Tadgh had sacrificed the woman he loved to protect his family from starvation in the Famine, and his family stayed rooted to the castle ever since.

Aoife had refused to yield to duty and sought her refuge in America.

But what of Imogène? Would she obey her parents and go to the convent? Would she bring herself to give her child away and start her life anew, as though Lucien and the baby had never existed?

I wanted to know. It felt like the cliffhanger at the end of a season of a well-crafted TV show, and I was craving resolution that wouldn’t come for months.

But in this case, I couldn’t be sure it would come at all. I couldn’t control these visions, these echoes. I certainly wouldn’t have welcomed them if I’d been given a voice in it.

Because the questions these visions raised in me were ones I wasn’t equipped to face. I’d lost Jonathan, and it hurt. But the secondhand whispers of the agony these long-dead women felt for their lost loves were orders of magnitude more than the grief I’d felt when Jonathan made his exit. Grief that was already waning faster than I’d expected, considering the duration of our relationship.

I forced myself from the reverie when the last patron ahead of me had been served. At once I was famished, so I loaded the market basket, not just with the previously agreed upon coffee, pain au chocolat, and brioche, but also a wider selection of croissants, profiteroles, and golden-hued buns. I added a robust pain de campagne, a denser, heartier version of a baguette, for good measure, hoping the cottage had some jam and butter on hand. It was more than the typical French person might have for breakfast, but I thought we might be grateful for any surplus later in the day. I tried to focus on clearing my head on the way back, but my thoughts wandered despite myself.

At the cottage I carefully set one of the paper coffee cups on the sidewalk as I fiddled with the key and let myself back in, grateful not to scald myself with the steaming brew in the process. I heard the sounds of Niall stirring in the bedroom as I busied myself by artfully arranging the pastries on a small platter I found in one of the cupboards, and poured the coffee in the little ceramic bowls the French seemed to favor at breakfast.

Niall emerged from his room, the sleep still in his eyes and his thick hair tousled. He wore his flannel pajama pants and a white T-shirt, and warmth infused me at the intimacy of seeing him disheveled. He wrapped an arm around me in greeting, and I accepted the embrace without giving in to the temptation of melting into it entirely.

His eyes widened at the display of pastries. “Hungry, are we?”

“I got carried away, but you know, when in France . . .”

“Eat all the French pastries. Not a bad idea.”

He pulled out his chair and transferred a few pastries and a length of baguette to his plate. I took a healthy swig of my coffee before following suit.

“You couldn’t sleep.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Fine until dawn, but then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Hence the bakery raid.”

“And you sought the cure for insomnia in carbohydrates.”

He gestured to the platter.

I shrugged. “I find they’re usually as good an answer as any. And I supported the local economy in the process. Win-win.”

He set down his half-eaten pain au chocolat and stared at me intently. “What’s bothering you, Miss Stratton?”

I leaned back in my chair, my brioche and chausson aux pommes—apple turnover—untouched. I exhaled slowly, trying to let my agitation and confusion out with my oxygen before I spoke. “I had another vision. I’m pretty sure I’m losing it.”

“Aoife again? It’s a bit far from home for her to wander, I’d think.”

“No. Someone new . . . Her name is Imogène.”

I related what I’d seen to him, every detail as fresh as if I’d just witnessed it minutes ago.

He leaned back in his chair as he absorbed the words. “You don’t feel poorly in any way, do you?”

“No, fine, really. Aside from the sudden bout of visitations from the great beyond . . .”

“I think you’ve been through quite a lot, and this may be your mind showing you things you need to see. Or it may be that these old places have taken a liking to you and shown you some of their secrets. But I don’t think it’s cause for concern yet.”

“I wish I could understand it. I wish I could make sense of why it’s happening . . . I’m a natural skeptic. I’m not the sort to listen to ghost stories. I don’t read horoscopes except for laughs. If someone told me they were seeing these things, I’d be the first to research the best psychiatric care within fifty miles and give them my recommendations.”

Niall chuckled. “Maybe that’s the reason these visions came to you. Perhaps you need to lose a smidgeon of that skepticism.”

I returned a smile. “It’s served me well up till now.”

“I think what you need is something more quantifiable to satisfy that logical, rational brain of yours.”

“What did you have in mind?”

I asked, finally able to tear into the edge of my brioche.

“To start I think we should find our favorite local bookseller this afternoon and ask her for some reading on the history of this fair village.”

“This afternoon?”

I glanced down at my watch. It was only a quarter past eight in the morning.

“We have plans this morning, which will be revealed in due course.”

He arched a brow comically high, which elicited a laugh from me.

“I’m game.”

“One of the things I like about you. So after our morning excursion, you can lose yourself in history books to your heart’s content.”

I glanced back up to the bedroom where I’d slept. “I hope she can dig up something.”

“Well, when the history books don’t turn up anything, we take the logical next step . . . ghost stories.”