Élodie AuClair's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Élodie AuClair counted her money on the kitchen table while the roofer worked above her head. She had inherited the manor from her grandmother, who taught her every room by name before she could read. Now the roof leaked, and she meant to bring the whole house back to life. She spread out her coins and notes. She counted them twice. The second count did not go any higher than the first. The hammering stopped. Boots came down the ladder. Gaspard Martin, the roofer, stepped into the doorway, dark hair full of dust. He had shown up uninvited the first bad morning and fixed the leak without being asked. She still owed him for that. "The east side is worse than I thought," he said. "The flashing's gone. Half the tiles under it are cracked." "How much?" He told her a number. It was more than everything on the table. Élodie looked at her small pile of coins. She thought of the split pear tree, the roses gone wild, the peacock silk in the east parlor. All of it needed money she did not have. "I can pay you through today," she said. "After that, I can't." Gaspard did not answer right away. He looked at the money, then at her. She waited for him to gather his tools and leave, the way any sensible man would. "Then I stop today," he said. The words landed hard. She nodded and did not argue. She had learned not to beg. Gaspard walked to the window. Through it stood a second manor across the field, three stories of beige stone with light blue shutters. Wisteria climbed its walls. Its roof was clean and whole. A wealthier family lived there. "They asked me to reroof their east wing," he said. "Good money. Weeks of it." Élodie's stomach dropped. Of course he would take it. "You should go." He turned from the window. "I told them no this morning." She stared at him. "Why?" He was quiet a moment. "Their roof doesn't need me. Yours does." He pulled a worn envelope from his tool belt and set it on the table beside her coins. "Materials I already bought. On credit, my name. Pay me when the house pays you." "The house doesn't pay me anything." "The pear tree," he said. "The garden. Sell what grows. Rooms let out. It can." He said it plainly, like a fact he had already checked. Élodie touched the envelope. He was staking his own credit on a house half in ruin, and on her. "I don't even know why you'd do this," she said. Gaspard picked up his hammer. He did not look at her. "Neither do I," he said, and climbed back up the ladder. Élodie sat with the envelope in her hands. The roof would get fixed. But now she owed a debt she could only repay by making the dead garden earn its keep. She went to find her grandmother's ledger.