The Story Sisters

So you are always sheltered. That was the next one, a gold tree with a shower of jade in its branches. “It’s a hawthorn tree,” her mother had said, and when Mimi asked, “What’s a hawthorn?” they walked over to Nightingale Lane. Mimi looked at the big tree on the lawn of the house where the Story sisters used to live and she understood why her mother said she had liked to sit in its branches. She would have loved to have climbed it herself, only it belonged to another family now and she had her own yard in Gogi’s house on the other side of town, which was sunny ever since the willow trees had been cut down.

This year’s charm had come early from Paris in their ama’s suitcase. It was a big occasion to finally have their ama visit and they had spent days fixing up their apartment, making sure there were flowers in her room. They swept away the dust bunnies under the couch and made certain the hall closet wasn’t in a shambles with hats and gloves and ice skates and purses falling out when you opened the door. They wanted everything to be perfect. Natalia appreciated it all. She brought along French candies in the shape of violets, silk scarves, cheese for Pete, and the birthday gift from Claire. Mimi hopped around in a circle, clomping in her cowgirl boots, until it was handed over. This one was perhaps the most charming and unusual: So you never go hungry. A little tomato plant, with one ruby, one citrine, one brown diamond, and one tiny emerald. Elv laughed when it was unwrapped.

“Are there really truly brown tomatoes?” Mimi asked.

“Cherokee chocolates,” her mother told her. “I’ll see if I can plant some this year.”

Now that she would be turning eight and was responsible, Mimi’s grandpa was getting her a gold bracelet so she could attach all the charms and wear them, but only on special occasions. She had learned her lesson about showing off. This year she had made a plan for her birthday. She had already told Miss Featherstone all about it.

Dear Gigi, she wrote. I know exactly what I’d like this year.

She knew she shouldn’t count on it, because sometimes things didn’t turn out the way you expected in this world, or at least that’s what her mother always told her. Still, Mimi had a feeling this would turn out just fine. She asked her gigi for what she most wanted for her birthday, and in return she had sent her something special, not her own artwork, but something better—a painting her mother had framed and let her keep in her room, one she had done when she was much younger. It was black and watery and her mother had said it was the river in Paris at night, and that it was called the Seine, and that her sister lived so very close by to it that she probably walked along the banks at night, looking for stones, watching the inky sky fall down like ashes.

CLAIRE HAD BEEN surprised to receive that first crayoned picture that had arrived folded in two, addressed in Pete’s blocky handwriting. The next was of their house on Nightingale Lane. Their bedroom looked like a tower in a castle. On impulse, she went to the workshop and made the little gold horse charm and sent it off. She thought that would be the end of it, a single exchange, but Mimi kept sending pictures, and when she learned how to write there was no stopping her. Printed missives arrived on blue lined paper, chock-full of misspellings. She wrote about her adventures, giving each one a title. The Day I Started Kindergarten. The Day We Bought a Swing Set. The Day a Sparrow Fell Out of Its Nest and We Had to Take It to Wild Care, Which Rescues Birds. Once Pete had slipped in a photo of the child and her doll sitting under a willow tree. Claire thought that was unfair. He’d written Mimi and Miss Featherstone on the back of the photo, which made Claire smile despite herself. She kept the photo, and sometimes she took it out and gazed at it, the child with long black hair and a serious expression in her eyes, the willow tree, the doll in a white dress, the yard in North Point Harbor.

She began to make other charms, ones for grown-ups, and these had gained her a large following. People were crazy for her one-of-a-kind amulets. There were those who swore they could help to find the lost, heal the sick, help the wearer tell the difference between a liar and an honest man. If you held one in your hand, it would point you toward your future—a decision to be made, a move to a new town, the love of your life. The charms had become a trend—for some, an obsession—and many Parisians owned at least one, while yearning for more. They were swapped at parties and clubs, like expensive and glorious trading cards. The few that had been stolen were said to have found their way back to their rightful owners, returned by post, or simply turned up at the original owner’s door, wrapped in brown paper and string.

Many of Claire’s charms began with objects found in Monsieur Abetan’s antiquities shop, which also sold cigarettes and magazines at the counter. It was just around the corner. Claire and Monsieur Abetan often had tea in the afternoons, after she left Monsieur Cohen’s workshop. Sometimes she brought macaroons and dates or a paper bag filled with sugared almonds. She told the deuxième Monsieur Cohen all about Monsieur Abetan’s collection of relics, hidden beside the drawers of junk, just as she described Monsieur Cohen’s fabulous gemstone creations to Monsieur Abetan. In this way the two men became friends without ever meeting. They liked to hear about each other’s opinions through Claire, and they often vehemently disagreed, especially when it came to politics. Both, however, were students of human nature; that was what made for a great teacher.

Monsieur Abetan informed Claire that the bells she had just chosen had once been used as love charms for women in Persia.