Letters from the Sky

Chapter 1-2

Jeanne’s eyes opened, slowly. The light was gone, the sound was back, and she was alone. The pedestrian sounds of old house and creaky floorboards and the click and scrape of crickets filtered in through the open window. A dream, then, as she had thought. But not the dream she had been hoping for. Ah. Alone. Then perhaps today…

She tripped over to the cool window, leaning out and breathing in the night-cold, her scalp tingling, small fingers curled on the sill. The pink glow of morning slipped over the sloped roofs of dark wood houses. Red sky in the morning. And the air smelled burnt and beautiful.

A day for wind.

Before Maman could click up the stairs and call for her wakefulness, Jeanne scurried back over to her tipping desk and ripped a page from a school notebook. She wrote:

I haven’t seen you in a week but I still hope you’ll come back for me. I’m sorry, I know you say to trust you but I guess I’m still too young or scared. I feel strange sometimes and I don’t know why.

She folded it in half, carefully, and stuck it under her pillow.

“Jeanne?” Maman called quietly, carefully opening the door to the small attic room. “Time to wake—oh, you’re up.” Her voice rose to its normal pitch. “Come here, then, and let me braid your hair.”

Jeanne moved to sit at the edge of her bed on the quilt Gramaman had pieced for her only last spring, for her thirteenth birthday. Maman strode to the desk, retrieved a brush, and sat behind Jeanne, combing through her dark curls with measured strokes. Vaguely, Jeanne was aware it could have been comforting.

Maman took her time pulling the girl’s hair into two thin braids, tying them with elastic. She never turned on the bedside lamp, and Jeanne allowed herself to drift slightly, nodding off, before being woken by a sharp tap on the head.

“Go get dressed, then come down to breakfast.”

“Gramaman made sweet rolls last night?” Jeanne asked, hopeful.

“You know we have no sugar left,” Maman answered reprovingly.

Jeanne bit her lip. “But I smelled—never mind.”

“There’s oatmeal,” Maman said, as if in consolation. She disappeared down the narrow steps to the rest of the house.

Heart jumping, Jeanne inhaled the scent of yeast and cinnamon and smiled. She pulled out a neat flannel skirt, a blouse, and her loafers and socks, and stripped off her nightgown in a coy manner, as if someone were watching her.

The radio was on as she skittered heavily down the stairs. Papa was tuning it, frowning over the dials as a grainy voice filtered in.

“…Lombard was bombed early this morning, following a mass drop of propaganda pamphlets…”

Jeanne sat quietly at the table, her feet still unable to touch the linoleum, and began to spoon honey into her oatmeal bowl, vaguely thankful for the hives in the field just outside the little township. She felt strangely heavy and sleepy, though she knew she shouldn’t. It was an odd sensation.

“…Drops have been scattered across the entire country, targeting large cities and rural areas with little discretion…”

“Oh, turn the cursed thing off, Jacques. I just got Suzette to fall asleep.” Gramaman shuffled into the kitchen, tying on the apron she wore like some sort of uniform.

“There’s no other way to get news, Momma. The papers are local—city bills don’t come for almost a week,” Papa argued.

“Well, it’s nothing a little girl needs to hear in the morning, now is it, Jeanne?” Gramaman asked with a smile, pressing a kiss to Jeanne’s forehead.

Jeanne swallowed a lump of oatmeal and flashed a small smile back at her. It was as she had thought—the smell of cinnamon yeast did not cling to this person; it never did, even when Gramaman was baking. She wasn’t the source.

Jeanne ladled more honey into her cereal. Papa turned up the radio, but it was drowned out by static, and the news wasn’t of much importance, anyway. From the other room, Suzette sent up a baby-wail for food or attention or a million other necessities, and Maman made a disapproving noise. Gramaman just shook her head, elbowed Maman away from the sink, and took over washing the oatmeal pot. “Go to her. Apparently Gramaman isn’t enough to stop her crying.”

Maman smiled in a half-grateful, mostly-frazzled sort of way and left the room, heading for the living area where the bassinet sat. Jeanne scraped her bowl, clipped over to Gramaman, and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m off to school now.”

“Cotillion today?” the old woman asked with a smile.

“No, that’s not until next week.”

“Aren’t you excited?”

Jeanne frowned. “No…?” She knew that was the wrong answer but…was she excited? She had barely thought of it, too focused on the day-to-day weather and the prayer for dry, windy days.

“I waited for Cotillion with such excitement when I was your age,” Gramaman said with a conspiratorial wink. “You get to learn all the new dances and all the etiquette.” She dropped her voice. “And, of course, you get to stand very close to all the boys.”

“I heard that, Momma,” Papa said distractedly from his perch in front of the radio. “I don’t want my daughter ‘standing very close’ to anyone yet. You hear me, Jeanne?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Good girl. Now, off to school.”

Gramaman patted her arm. “You can stand close to whoever you want to, dear. Don’t listen to your papa. If your mama hadn’t been completely hanging off of him at the senior dance, they wouldn’t be together today. He’s just far too shy, that one.”

Jeanne nodded obediently and ran up the stairs without answering.

At her desk, she gathered her books into a pile—it was only the slim maths primer, a notebook, and her pencil, which she stuck in her pocket. It barely fit, as stuffed as both her pockets were—with bits of string and a piece of tinfoil, a note Paris had passed to her in class, the chocolate wrapper she had emptied last week that still retained its scent. Clutching her things to her chest, she nipped down the steps and out the door into the blue-grey morning.

It was cold outside, and she wished she had brought a jacket, but truthfully, the cold didn’t bother her so much—not enough to go back in and wrap herself in extra layers. Instead, she walked down the cobblestone street toward the end of the block. She could see Paris and Jedrick there already, Paris tapping an impatient foot, her arm slung through one of Jedrick’s. The dark-haired beauty looked tired and irritated and about ready to snap at someone. Jedrick just looked harried.

Jeanne smiled quietly to herself, raising a small salute of a wave towards them. Paris scowled back, beckoning her closer. The boy at her side leaned in, asking her a question at a volume that excluded Jeanne from the conversation, and Paris pointed at her, mouthing an obvious complaint combined with Jeanne’s name. Jeanne followed the daily argument in her head, knowing it by heart.

She’s finally here, Paris would be saying, and her fist shook with the pronouncement.

Thanks, but you could have just said that in the first place, would be the annoyed reply as Jedrick squinted into the dawn mist. Instead of pointing inanely.

Sorry, forgot. And Paris would appear mollified just long enough for Jeanne to approach them.

“Morning, Jennie,” Jedrick said calmly.

Jeanne smiled back softly. “Good morning yourself. Waiting long?”

Jedrick just shrugged. “Don’t think so—”

“Yes!” interrupted Paris. “Can you really not eat breakfast faster?”

“Sorry.”

“Paris, it’s not even seven yet,” groaned Jedrick.

“How do you know?” the girl demanded. “You can’t see the clock tower.”

“Yes, but I can hear it.”

As if on cue, the clock tower began to intone the morning greeting to the vichy with the seven bells of the hour.

“See, we still have almost half an hour to get there,” Jedrick pointed out.

Paris just pouted. “Excuse me for wanting us to be on time and ready to face class properly!” Jedrick and Jeanne rolled milky and ashy eyes, respectively.

“Come on, Jeddy, I’ll guide you.” Jeanne offered her arm to the boy, who took it gratefully.

“Good. Paris always runs me into ditches and things,” he complained, and they began to walk away.

Paris barely noticed, too busy pouting. When she did, her two friends were already halfway down the block. “Wait up!” she called, running after them. “You guys are no fun.”

Jeanne and Jedrick dissolved into giggles. It wasn’t particularly funny, but it was early in the morning, Jeanne had eaten almost a half a bowl of honey, and Jedrick was always a mystery—and Paris began to laugh too, because she hated being left out of a joke. They continued on to school.