“The only one I can think of with a star is Dominic, but it’s usually on his forehead. There’s no water associated with him.”
Caitlyn looked again at the
Fiat Lux
window, which in its own way depicted a star over water. “What’s the Latin for star and sea, or water?”
“
Stella, astrum
, or
sidus
for star.
Vesper
for evening star.
Mare maris
for sea.
Aqua
for water.”
“
Stella aqua. Aqua stella. Astrum mare maris
,” Caitlyn mumbled, trying out the combinations, searching for she didn’t know what. “
Mare maris stella. Stella mare maris
.”
Raphael grabbed her arm. “Stop. Say that again!”
“
Stella mare maris
.”
“
Stella Maris!
”
“Huh?”
“ ‘Star of the sea.’ It’s another name for Mary!”
Caitlyn had a sudden vision of the photo of the marble statue of Mary, being repaired by workmen. “The chapel!”
Raphael leaped down from the table, reached up, and, with his grin flashing in the candlelight, wrapped an arm around Caitlyn’s hips, lifting her off the tabletop as if she were made of feathers. She held on to his shoulders and laughed as he let her slide down the length of his body, her robe and nightgown riding up to her thighs, until at last her toes barely touched the floor. He held her there against him.
“You’re a genius,” he said, smiling down at her. She grinned back as he stared at her. Suddenly, she felt a shift in his mood, and she heard him clank the candlestick onto the table. His other arm came around her, pulling her against him. And then he lowered his mouth and kissed her.
His lips skimmed the surface of hers once, twice, and then on the third pass caught her lower lip between his. Her knees lost strength, and she clung to him as the kiss deepened, the movements of his lips coaxing an answer from hers. She felt like she was floating, awash in sensation.
He backed her up against the table and lowered her to it. He laid his torso atop hers, his feet still on the ground and one arm taking the worst of his weight. The other dug into her hair and cupped her head, holding her captive while he kissed her passionately. She could feel his physical strength everywhere his body touched hers.
His hand moved down her neck, and then slipped inside the top of her nightgown to caress the skin at the base of her neck.
Caitlyn gasped, alarmed at the direction he was moving. “Raphael, wait!”
His lips left hers and trailed down her throat, pausing to kiss the space where her neck met her shoulder.
He started to pull down the top of her nightgown, but she grasped his head, her hands sinking into the soft silk of his hair. “Raphael,” she pleaded, aching for more even as she said it. “Stop.”
His mouth lifted from her neck, and he looked at her. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not ready … it’s just a lot all at once.”
He bowed his head, his forehead resting on her chest. Caitlyn smoothed the hair on his head.
Raphael suddenly slid his arms under her back and embraced her, nuzzling a kiss into her neck. Then he was off her, pulling her upright. “I’ve known women who were married at age fourteen,” he said lightly.
“Is that a proposal?” she asked, with an equally deliberate lightness.
“Would you take a poor artist with no land and no fortune?”
“
Fortune rota volvitur
. You don’t know what tomorrow holds. It may hold the wealth of the Templars.”
“If it does, I just might ask you—”
But she didn’t get to hear what he said next, as his words were cut off by the shriek of sirens, and she found herself falling away from him and through a vast abyss of darkness.
CHAPTER
Twenty-two
Caitlyn opened her eyes to the European
BWOO-woo, BWOO-woo
siren sound and the concerned face of a female paramedic. She was lying down, strapped in place on a gurney that rocked with the movements of the ambulance, flashing lights from outside the vehicle reflecting on the cheek of the paramedic.
“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
Caitlyn asked blearily. What’s happening?
“You hit your head,” the woman said in French. “You may have a concussion.”
“Am I going to be all right?” Caitlyn continued in fluent French.
“Of course! But you will need stitches, and an X-ray.”
“Oh,” she said, and faded to black.
Caitlyn woke the second time—or was it the third time?—in a clean, uncomfortable hospital bed, in a private room similar to ones she’d seen in the States, only somehow sparser, with a vague hint of Ikea. Madame Snowe was talking to a short, dark-haired female doctor in the doorway. Seeing her awake, the doctor came over and shined a light in her eyes as she asked her questions in French.
Caitlyn scowled at her. “I’m sorry,” she said in English, “but my French is terrible. Do you speak English?”
The doctor exchanged a look with Madame Snowe, then said in English, “Yes. I asked you if you knew what day it was.”
Caitlyn bit her lip and thought for a moment. “If it’s morning, I’m going to guess that it’s Saturday. Which means I’m missing my riding lesson.”
The doctor smiled and patted her on the knee. “You’re going to be fine.” She took Madame Snowe out into the hallway.
Caitlyn felt a dull throb on the side of her head and reached up to touch it. The spiky threads of stitches met her fingertips. She shuddered and quickly dropped her hand.
Madame Snowe returned to the room and sat down in the chair beside the bed. “
Alors!
You have given us all quite a scare. It is good that Naomi found you so quickly.”
“Naomi did?”
“
Oui
. She saw your things in the Grand Salon, and when you didn’t appear she went looking for you.”
“I didn’t mean to leave the album out,” Caitlyn apologized.
Madame waved the concern away.“More important is discovering what happened. Did you slip and fall? Do you remember?”
Caitlyn closed her eyes, casting her mind back. She heard the S
hh, shh, shh
of silk skirts. Her eyes flew open. “I saw the Woman in Black.”
Madame Snowe’s lips parted in surprise.
“Vraiment?”
Truly?
“I heard the sound of rustling skirts, and then the Woman in Black was in the mirror, looking out at me.”
“What did she look like?” Madame Snowe asked breathlessly, leaning forward.
Caitlyn shook her head. “She started to lift her veil, but I fainted. And I must have hit my head on the sink or the floor.” She reached again for the stitches on her head.
“Ne touche pas
.
”
Don’t touch.
Caitlyn dropped her hand again.
“Do you remember anything else?”
Caitlyn’s guard went up. “Not until the ambulance.”
Madame Snowe sat back with a soft grunt of disappointment. “You were speaking fluent French in the ambulance the first few times you woke, although with a strangely … archaic accent.”
“Really?” Caitlyn asked in surprise.
“It is strange that you can speak it when half conscious, but forget it in the classroom,
non
?”
“Very strange. And very inconvenient,” she grumbled.
“So. The doctor says that you will be fine, that there is no swelling in your brain and your skull is intact.” Madame opened her purse and took out her cell phone. “Your parents, however, will need to be reassured. They know what happened, and I promised that you would call them as soon as you woke.” She dialed the number, handed the phone to Caitlyn, and stepped out into the hallway to give her some privacy.
There were several moments of hissing silence as the call was connected, and then the
brrrr brrrr
of the phone ringing. After three rings the phone was picked up.
“Hello?” It was Joy’s voice, and Caitlyn sucked in a breath. She never realized how good it would feel to hear her voice.
“Mom?” Caitlyn said, and her voice cracked. Something about being sick in the hospital, five thousand miles from her family, was throwing her back into a childlike state. She suddenly wanted to be hugged and told that everything was going to be okay.
“Caitlyn! Oh honey, we’ve been so worried about you! Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Caitlyn rubbed her runny nose on the back of her hand and tried to keep from crying. “I slipped and fell in the bathroom, is all. Whacked my head.”
“Do they have good doctors over there? Are they taking good care of you?”
“They seem to know what they’re doing. I’m fine, just …”
“Scared?”
Caitlyn swallowed a sob, then hiccuped. “Not really.” She was starting to feel embarrassed by her tears. “I’m fine, and Madame Snowe is right here with me.”
“Sometimes you just need a hug.”
Caitlyn sniffled. “I guess.”
“I wish I could give it to you, honey.”
Caitlyn wanted to feel comforted—yearned to feel comforted—but somehow wasn’t. Instead, Joy’s babying prickled at Caitlyn like an itchy wool sweater.
“Your father wants to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
There were whispers, and the phone being fumbled between hands, and then Caitlyn’s father came on the line. “We hear you conked your noggin pretty good.”
“Yeah, and I’ve got the stitches to prove it.”
“But you’re doing okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Good.”
An uncomfortable silence descended. Caitlyn waited to hear something more tender from her father, but as the seconds passed, she realized it wasn’t going to happen. She could feel his unease through the phone line, as if he knew he was supposed to say something more but didn’t know what.
Caitlyn felt a familiar hurt inside, but this time, unexpectedly, compassion came with it. Her dad couldn’t help being the way he was, any more than she could help being herself. He couldn’t help not understanding her, and being, she now recognized, a little afraid of her.
She showed him mercy and asked, “So how are the boys doing? Are they winning their games?”
She could feel his relief. He talked happily about her brothers’ sporting events for several minutes while Caitlyn stared at the wall, making “uh-huh” noises, and then Joy came back on the line. “Are you sure you’re doing all right, honey? If you need me to, I’ll come be there with you. I’ll get on a plane tomorrow if that’s what you need.”
“No, don’t do that. I’m okay. I just needed to hear your voice, I guess.” She remembered the conversation she’d had with Raphael, about the unconditional love of a mother, and for the first time she gave Joy some of the credit she was due. Joy didn’t understand her, but no matter what she did, Joy continued loving her. That was more of a gift than Caitlyn had ever offered her in return. She didn’t know if she
could
fully offer it, but for Joy’s sake she could pretend. “I miss you, Mom. And I love you.”
There was a suspicious sniffling sound at the other end, and then Joy said, “I love you, too, honey. You know I do. Always have, always will.”
“I know. Me, too.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but she knew it was the right thing to say. Sometimes, it wasn’t
her
feelings that mattered.
The call ended, and Caitlyn leaned back against her pillows; a moment later she reached back and pulled a pillow out and hugged it to her chest.
It offered cold comfort and smelled of bleach. She tossed it aside.
She couldn’t be a child anymore, hoping for parents to kiss her forehead and make everything better, and raging when they could not. They had given her what they could, but her place was no longer with them. She had moved on.
It was now up to her to turn Fortune’s wheel and make her own destiny.
CHAPTER
Twenty-three
MARCH 11
“Caitlyn! You’re back!” Naomi cried, poking her head into Caitlyn’s dorm room.
“Yes, thank God,” Caitlyn said. She’d spent thirty-six hours in the hospital under observation, coming back to the school only this Sunday morning. “They wouldn’t even let me go to the bathroom without a nurse there to hold my hand.”
Naomi came in and sat on the end of her bed. “I’m so sorry. I had to call for help, though. There was so much blood.”
“No, I’m glad you did. I would have lain there until morning if you hadn’t.” Caitlyn lifted a hank of her hair and turned her head so Naomi could see the wound. “Five stitches.”
“Brilliant!” Naomi said with gruesome delight. “I wish I’d taken a picture of the bathroom. It looked like a pig had been slaughtered, and there you were lying in the middle of it. What happened? Do you remember?”