CHAPTER 18 The Night the Lights Went Out

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The storm arrived at five that evening, and it did not knock.

It came out of the northwest like a wall, a gray-white avalanche that swallowed the hills, the lane, and the line of birch trees one by one. The wind rose to a howl. The windows rattled in their old frames. Snow drove sideways against the glass with a sound like thrown sand. By six, it was a blizzard. By seven, the telephone line was dead. And at a quarter past eight, with a soft, dramatic, almost gentle click, every light in Hollin Hall went out.

“Well,” said Odalys, from the darkness of her chair. “That's done it.”

There was a moment of shocked quiet. Then Rafe's voice, cheerful and unrepentant, rose from somewhere near the sideboard. “I've always wanted to say this. Everyone stay calm. I have candles.”

“You have candles,” said Winifred.

“I have forty-one candles, and a lighter, and a deep sense of vindication.”

The household gathered in the great drawing room, the only one with a fireplace large enough to warm everyone. Mrs. Pruitt appeared with an armful of blankets and a stew kept hot on the range. Tobias lit candles with a trembling hand. The twins, for the first time in living memory, put down their phones, which had no signal, and began to play cards. Vittorio and Anders, stranded by the drifts, sat on opposite ends of the long sofa like two ill-matched bookends. Cordelia, wrapped in a shawl by the window, played a quiet game of chess with the deaf great-uncle, who was winning.

And at the edge of the firelight, in two armchairs that had somehow ended up side by side, sat Julian and Elodie.

They had not spoken since morning. The contract's revised terms lay between them like a stripe of snow: business partners, tired, civil. He had been scrupulously polite. He had refilled her tea twice without comment. He had not looked at her more than three times in an hour, and she had counted.

“You're shivering,” said Julian, without turning his head.

“I'm fine.”

“Take my blanket.”

“I said I'm fine.”

“Elodie.” His voice was low. “The thing is, you aren't, and I'd rather you weren't cold. This has nothing to do with the contract.” A pause. “Please.”

She hesitated. Then, with the stiff reluctance of a woman accepting a flag of truce, she let him settle the heavy wool across her knees. His fingers did not touch hers. He was very careful about that.

At nine, a window blew in upstairs with a crack like a gunshot. Julian was on his feet at once, a candle in his fist, and Elodie, who had not meant to follow, was behind him on the stairs before she had decided anything. The east corridor was black and roaring, the curtains standing straight out, snow whirling across the boards. They put their shoulders against the casement together and heaved, and the sash slammed home, and then they were standing very close in the sudden hush, breathing hard, the candle jumping between them.

“Thank you,” said Julian.

“It was a window.”

“It was a window,” he agreed gravely, and the corner of his mouth moved, and neither of them mentioned the contract on the way back down.

The storm howled. The fire popped. And down the long room Odalys, huddled in her shawl, lifted her cane and tapped it once on the boards.

“Since we are all captive,” she said, “and since I am the oldest person here and am therefore entitled to be tyrannical, I propose a game. Each person tells the room the thing they are most grateful for this year. One thing. No jokes.”

There was a groan from the cousins. But Odalys's eyes were hard as pearls, and one by one they gave in.

Tobias was grateful for his wife, who had gone to bed with a cold. The twins said grudgingly that they were grateful for the dog. Winifred, with surprising sweetness, said she was grateful that her son had stopped growing. Rafe said he was grateful for forty-one candles. The deaf great-uncle, who had apparently heard every word, said, “Soup,” and was given a round of applause.

Cordelia said, in a small clear voice, “For second chances. Not my own. Other people's.”

Vittorio did not speak for a long moment. The fire painted his face in gold and shadow. “My daughter,” he said finally. “That she is stronger than I deserved.”

Elodie looked at her hands.

“And you, Julian?” said Odalys.

It was quiet. Even the wind seemed to lean in. Julian sat with his hands clasped between his knees, looking into the fire, and when he spoke, his voice was so steady that it took her a moment to hear what lay beneath it.

“I am grateful for being found out.”

Nobody moved.

“I spent nine years being careful,” he said. “Very careful. I learned how to be so careful that nobody could reach me, and I called it strength. And this month someone walked into my life and reached me anyway, by accident, with flour on her hands. I deceived her. I will regret it for as long as I live. But I am grateful, in a way I can't say properly, to have been seen. Even if it costs me.”

He did not look at Elodie. He kept his eyes on the flames. But his voice shook, just slightly, on the last word.

Elodie felt something in her chest give way.

It was not forgiveness. She was clear on that. Forgiveness was a long road with many hills, and she was only at the foot of it. But it was a crack in the wall, a thin bright line of light, and through it came a feeling so tender that she had to look away.

“Elodie?” said Odalys gently. “You're the last.”

She drew a breath. “I'm grateful for the dark.”

There was a puzzled murmur.

“Because,” she said, “in the dark, there's nothing to perform.” She smiled, wobbly. “I haven't had a day in a month where I wasn't performing something. And here, with the lights out, I'm just a person on a sofa, and everyone is quiet, and nobody expects me to be anything. It's the nicest evening I've had in years.”

Odalys's eyes rested on her, very bright. Then on her grandson. Then, slowly, on the dark window, where the blizzard battered the glass.

“Good,” she said softly. “Then let us have a great many more of them.”

Much later, after the cards and the stew, after the household had burrowed into blankets and drifted to sleep in a heap of cousins and dogs, Elodie lay awake on the floor by the fire. It was past two. The wind had dropped. In the firelight she could see Julian in his armchair, head tipped back, his face softened by sleep, one hand open on the arm of the chair, palm up, as if he were holding something out.

She looked at that open hand for a long time.

Then she turned over, closed her eyes, and told herself firmly that she was not going to cry again before morning.

On the hearth rug, Admiral lifted his head at some sound too faint for anyone else to hear, listened, and laid it down again, slowly, like a very old man closing a book.