The Moon and the Sun

She burst into Yves’ room, hoping his bed would be empty, hoping he had gone, hoping Odelette had awakened him. But he lay snoring softly in his dark room.

“Yves, dear brother, wake up, please, I’m so sorry—”

“What?” he mumbled. “What is it, what’s wrong?” He sat up, his curly dark hair sticking out at all angles. “Is it seven already?”

“It’s at least half past eight, I’m so sorry, I went to feed the sea monster, I forgot the time.”

Anger would have been easier to bear than his stricken expression, his silence.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again.

“It was important,” Yves said.

Marie-Josèphe hung her head. Her error made her feel like an errant child, not a grown woman, and she had no excuse, no defense.

“I know,” she whispered.

The silence weighed upon her.

“Where is Odelette?”

“I sent her to attend Mademoiselle in my place,” Marie-Josèphe said. “She had no way to know you should be awakened! This is all my fault, my responsibility.”

Yves put his arm around her shoulder.

“Never mind,” he said, his voice falsely cheerful. “I’d much rather sleep, than rise at dawn to watch an old man get out of bed and use his open chair.”

Marie-Josèphe tried to laugh, but bit her lip instead to hold back her tears.

“No one will even notice that I wasn’t there,” Yves said heartily. “Did the sea monster feed?”

“It ate a few fish,” Marie-Josèphe said miserably.

“That’s wonderful!” Yves exclaimed. “And much more important to the King’s approval. I knew you’d succeed.”

“You are so good to me,” Marie-Josèphe said. “To suffer my error without anger—to make it sound like an achievement!”

“Never think another thing about it,” he said. “Now, leave me to dress, in proper modesty.”

She kissed his cheek. As she passed through the dressing chamber that joined their bedrooms, he called out, “Sister, can you find bread and chocolate? I’m famished.”

5

Marie-Josèphe trudged back down the hill to the Fountain of Apollo and the sea monster. Beyond everything else, her error had caused her to miss going to Mass with His Majesty and his court in the chateau’s small chapel. She whispered a prayer, and promised God that she would go to evening Mass, even though no one else would attend.

She returned to the Fountain of Apollo and entered the tent. The sea monster’s song drew her, but she hesitated. Determined to put aside her worry and embarrassment, so as not to communicate her distress to the creature, she spent some minutes arranging Yves’ instruments for the dissection. The specimen lay beneath a layer of melting ice; water dripped down the legs of the dissection table to form a puddle speckled with bits of sawdust.

Marie-Josèphe settled a sheet of paper on her drawing box so she would be ready when Yves began his work. Thinking again about the fluttering leaves, she scribbled an equation of the calculus in Herr Leibniz’ notation. A moment told her that the solution was insufficient, and that the problem was worth pursuing.

The sea monster whispered, and softly cried. Marie-Josèphe rubbed out the equation so no one could read it. Once more in possession of her equanimity, she entered the sea monster’s cage. The creature peered at her from beneath the sculpture. Its long dark hair, with its odd light green tangle, swirled around its shoulders.

“Come to me, sea monster.” She scooped a fish from the jar—the poor things gasped at the surface; they would all soon expire—took it from the net, and dipped the slippery twitching animal into the pool.

The sea monster dove toward her, its sad song rising eerily. Marie-Josèphe agitated the water with the fish.

The sea monster lunged forward, snatched the fish—claws scraped lightly against Marie-Josèphe’s hand—and stuffed it into her mouth as she dove back and away. Droplets splashed Marie-Josèphe’s face and beaded on her riding habit. She flicked them off before they could stain the velvet. Encouraged if not satisfied, she caught another fish.

The sea monster grew bolder. Soon it dared to take its food delicately from Marie-Josèphe’s hand. The touch of its swimming webs was like silk. Instead of fleeing, it floated within her reach as it ate. Marie-Josèphe moved her hand closer, closer, hoping to accustom the creature to her touch.

Noise and motion startled them both. The tent sides fluttered as a rider galloped by and pulled up in a scatter of gravel. The sea monster snarled and spat, reared in a backward dive, and sped to its sanctuary beneath Apollo. Marie-Josèphe sighed with frustration.

Chartres flung aside the tent curtains, clanged open the cage door, and tramped over the rim of the fountain. The high heels of his shiny gold-buckled shoes struck the platform sharply. Marie-Josèphe curtsied to the duke. Chartres grinned and bowed over her hand.

“Good morning, Mlle de la Croix.”

Flustered and flattered, embarrassed by her water-wrinkled fingers, by the fish scales—and the fishy odor—on her hand, she extricated herself from his grasp, and curtsied.

“Good morning, sir.”