Part 2: The Letters
Part 3: The War
Chapter 12: Luc
Chapter 13: Luc
Chapter 14: Luc
Chapter 15: Clare
Chapter 16: Luc
Chapter 17: Clare
Chapter 18: Luc
Chapter 19: Clare
Chapter 20: Luc
Chapter 21: Clare
Part 4: The Studio
Chapter 22: Clare
Chapter 23: Luc
Chapter 24: Clare
Chapter 25: Clare
Chapter 26: Luc
Part 5: The Mask
Chapter 27: Clare
Chapter 28: Luc
Chapter 29: Clare
Chapter 30: Luc
Chapter 31: Clare
Chapter 32: Luc
Chapter 33: Clare
Chapter 34: Luc
Chapter 35: Clare
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Dedication
By Jessica Brockmole
About the Author
The colors in France were all wrong.
I was used to the grays of Scotland. The granite blocks of Fairbridge, the leaden sky, the misty rain, the straight stone walls bisecting fields. Even the steel of Father’s eyes.
Scotland wasn’t all gray, of course. In summer, the hills of Perthshire were muted green, in the spring flecked with the yellow-brown of gorse, and in the autumn, brown. But washed over all of it, gray. It was the color I knew best.
Lately, though, I saw more black than anything. It was draped on our front doorknob, it edged my handkerchiefs, it hung in my wardrobe in a modest row of new dresses. Six weeks of mourning black. Six weeks of sympathetic looks, of waxy pale lilies, of whispered conversations about what was to be done with me. But then Madame Crépet swept into the house, smelling of violets in a dress the color of honeycomb, and set about straightening things. The household was too happy to leave me in her hands. They didn’t know what to do with me anyway. As soon as Madame had my new black dresses packed up, we left for France.
Right away, France was too bright. From the blue-green of the Channel lapping the edges of Calais, past orange-roofed houses and yellow rapeseed fields, all the way to a château rising up white in a jewel green lawn. An automobile brought us down a slash of a burnt sienna drive, past golden-blossomed lindens and sprinkles of violets. Madame Crépet leaned over to me and said, “Welcome to Mille Mots, Clare.”
