Heart of Stone

Heart of Stone

By Anya Monroe

Copyright @2015 by Anya Monroe

All rights reserved

This edition published by arrangement with

The Lovely Messy

ASIN
:
B00U4C1ZNA

ISBN-13:
978-1508755791

ISBN-10:
1508755795

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For my father, Anthony Jules,

the stones we carry may be our diamonds in the rough.

Start digging for treasure. I believe in you.

1.

Sophie

Valleé de Montagne, Gemmes

It was curious that Henri put up with her at all, but there was a certain
je nais se quoi
about being friends with the village rebel. Who could blame him? Sophie knew he would do anything for her. Exactly the sort of
partenaire dans le crimes
she needed, without him she wouldn’t have survived this Hedge-forsaken village for seventeen years.

Sophie stood in a dirty alley with the
pain au chocolate
warm in her hands. Henri snuck her the croissant from the back door of the
bakery. He had to work for another fifteen minutes, but she knew Henri hated to make her wait in agony, for everyone knew the price he’d have to pay when her mood turned extra-sour.

Best friends are good for some things; decadent
pâtisseries
like this croissant being the highest on the list as far as Sophie was concerned. After all, she had a very sweet tooth. That was, unfortunately, the only sweet thing about her.

“Henri, hurry. The wagons have arrived and I don’t want to miss our chance to find Emel. We have no idea how long they’ll stay,” moaned Sophie as he pulled the bakery door shut behind him, heading back to work.

“Let me sweep and then I’ll be done. Have patience, Jou-Jou.” Henri shut the door with a bang, leaving Sophie in the alley, alone.

She rolled her eyes, knowing Henri had to finish work or the head baker would be livid. Besides, his family needed the money and Sophie knew all about that. Obviously. She took a bite of the stolen pastry, not having had any gems to pay for the delicate treat herself.

She stuffed it in her mouth, between her perfectly round, red lips. Lips that looked painted on her face. Lips that had kissed many boys in this very alley. And in empty barns. And empty bedrooms. However, none of those boys mattered to her.

Well, besides one, and not
like that
. Henri would never be
like that
for Sophie. Their singular kiss happened on a ridiculous dare while the girls Sophie hated surrounded them, egged on by the boys Sophie had already kissed. This had happened just one week ago, at a party she begrudgingly attended. They kissed after being coerced to participate in a juvenile game called “
sept minutes dans le Hedge
.
”
. It involved a closet and a timer and her and Henri. To make matters worse, she wasn’t a social-type person. Or a dare-type person, or really, even a kissing-your-best-friend-type person.

She kept to herself. And Henri. Who was her oldest friend, and only confidante. Even though she proved herself mostly ill-tempered and impatient, Sophie knew he wouldn’t deny she was the only girl he wanted.

Sophie licked her fingers, savoring the milky chocolate the croissant left behind. Pursing her lips, she leaned against the brick building billowing the scent of baking bread from the chimney overhead, and crossed her arms. Standing with an irritated look across her face was one of her favorite past times. That, and rolling her eyes, oh, and pretending she didn’t hear you when clearly she did.

Charm was not her middle name.

Bijou
was, but Sophie was no jewel. She was much too stony to be considered anyone’s
bijou
.

“Jou-Jou, let’s be off!” Henri walked through the back door, a bit of flour swept across his cheek.

Sophie smirked, ignoring the white dust. “It took you long enough. I almost left for the caravans myself,” she said, knowing full well she would have never gone alone.

The two of them had hoped the
Bohèmes
would return this year. They stumbled upon them, quite by accident, twelve months ago. Their long row of wooden wagons were far from their village, past the woods, against the mountains. Sophie and Henri had walked past the borders of the village, hoping to find discarded gems in the overgrowth of the forest. If they found enough gems, they’d convince a village drunk to buy them a bottle of champagne.

This particular evening, however, they stumbled upon the
Bohèmes
and met Emel. It was forbidden to speak with these wandering people, but that is exactly why Sophie and Henri wanted to go.
Bohèmes
were considered outcasts with rough words and rougher skin, weathered from too much sun and not enough legitimate work. They forwent the law of paying dues to the king, and instead wound their ways through the mountains forging their own life as they went.

However, the
Bohèmes
were smart. By avoiding the king’s mines they weren’t dying, left and right, with the
Coffre au Trésor
. Half the miners in the country were dying with hacking lungs filled with shards of gemstones and bejeweled dust, aptly named: Treasure Chest. Sophie had seen her mother voluntary nurse enough miners over the past year to know it was only getting worse. Still, if you mined, you earned pay, and every citizen of Gemmes was desperate for work. No one ever seemed to have enough.

Sophie picked up her long black skirt; the muslin petticoat underneath was in her way for but a moment. She crossed her arms, the very way her mother had scolded her as she left their cottage this afternoon.

“You are of age now, Sophie, you must act respectable. You need to get a job, and no one will hire a girl with a permanent frown.” Sophie shirked her off, leaving her mother to throw her hands in the air, furious as Sophie left for the night.

“I can’t believe our luck! If you hadn’t eavesdropped this morning at the butchers, we would never know they’d arrived,” Henri said, smiling widely, looping his thumbs through his suspenders, clicked together his heels, causing Sophie to grimace.

“Must you act so much like a juvenile? Truly, you will never get a wife if you act like a child.”

“How would you rather I act?”

“Oh, I don’t know Henri. Perhaps wipe the smile off your face and try to pretend not to care that the sun shines bright and that we have our own little secret adventure?”

“So act like you?” Henri kicked a stone down the pebbled alleyway. The black cap he wore blocked the sun from his eyes, and kept his mess of brown locks from covering his face.

“Yes, I suppose so. I am the epitome of one to imitate.” Sophie laughed, at herself mostly. Deep down she knew no one aimed to replicate her. She wasn’t that sort of a girl.

Girls often imitated wore ruffles instead of Sophie’s black dresses, smiles instead of scowls, and hearts on their sleeve as opposed to the place Sophie kept hers. Safely tucked away. Sophie imagined these girls lived near the Royal Palace in the capitol city of Éclat.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sick of this place anyways. I’m ready to move on with our lives, make our own plans. Stop pretending we like the people we’ve lived with our entire lives.”

“People have a lot more to offer, you know, if you’d give them a chance.”

“What? This ramshackle, impoverished village we live in supposedly has some brilliant folk hidden away, some undiscovered gems?” Sophie scoffed at Henri’s idea.

She had lived her entire life here and besides Henri, no one, not a single soul, had any sort of personality. She would know. Her personality was so magnetic.

“Maybe not diamonds in the rough, per se, but this village is our home, Jou-Jou. It’s what we know. What we love. Is that so bad?”

“It’s suffocating.”

This was the same conversation that had cropped up between these life-long friends over the past few months. Henri had his apprenticeship at the bakery, but with school now over, he’d begin working full time. He was content at the way his life had shaped up.

              “Besides,” Sophie continued, “I’m thinking of getting a job in the mines.” She looked at Henri, hoping to see a dropped-jaw at her suggestion.

“You want to work for the king, in the mountainside, using a pick ax for the rest of your short life, before you die with an ugly cough from the
Coffre au Trésor
?” Henri questioned her. “Sounds brilliant.”

“You didn’t even mention the fact that I’m a girl.” Sophie smiled confidently at Henri, proud that her friend held such feminist views.

“Well, that isn’t a concern, Jou-Jou. You always do the thing you set your mind to. Just because no other women work in the mines, doesn’t mean you couldn’t. I just wonder why. Why would you want to?” 

“It offers a job contract, solid work for a few years. Somewhere I could never travel to otherwise, and afterwards I’d have enough money to go to Éclat, see the world. A chance to at least see what my hard work pays for. Most of the boys from school are headed to the mountains soon, anyway.”

“But I’ll be here, at the bakery.”

“So? I know that. I’d still come and visit. The miners get the weekends off.”

“
If you survive
. It’s dangerous work, Sophie. What does your mother say?”

“I haven’t mentioned it.”

“How long have you held back, not told me your plans?” Henri stopped her. They were at the edge of village, before they dodged town and headed toward the forest.

Crowds surrounded them and it was easy for Sophie to be distracted by crying babies held by tired mothers, the smell of bread drifting in the air, and the loud hum of a fiddler playing music on a street corner. Their village bustled this fine summer’s evening. She looked everywhere but in front of her, not wanting to answer.

Henri didn’t pause, he didn’t see anyone else. He only had eyes for her.

“Look, Henri. You know I’ve burned bridges at every turn here in the village. No one will hire me after the debacle with the cobbler.”

It’s true. The shoe smith and Sophie had a huge row after she decided it was pointless to resole the old shoes, declaring them garbage. The last straw comprised of her throwing all the shoes in the fire. Luckily for her, the leather didn’t burn before the cobbler had fished the boots from the flames. However, it cost her a job, and gave her a reputation. The cobbler wasn’t privy to the escapade she’d had with his son in the workshop. In this case, what he didn’t know didn’t hurt him.

“I always thought maybe we could … you know … you and me….”

“What, Henri? We could what?”

“Nothing, Sophie. I wish sometimes you would try a bit to make things less … difficult.”

“You don’t have to stick with me, if that’s what you mean. If there’s some girl who has your fancy, don’t hang here on my account.” She said it, but didn’t mean it. It’s not that she
liked
Henri, not like that, but he was hers. Or at least, always had been. Still, she knew it isn’t fair to claim him when she had no interest, or intention, of a future here.

Here or with him.

“That’s what you think, Sophie? That there’s some other girl? Any other girl?” Henri shook his head and it was clear she’d upset him.

She didn’t mean to. Honest. But Sophie would rather die in the mines than stay here in this simple, predestined life. Obviously she couldn’t very well go and tell Henri all that. This was the life he had chosen.

“Look, Henri, let’s go to the wagons and find ourselves some decent trouble, like we always manage to do. We can steal some champagne from your mother’s cellar and toast the end of school and the beginning of our lives.”

She grabbed his hand, knowing his sweet spot. Her. Maybe it was cruel to lace her fingers through his when she knew it meant something different to him than it did her, but she couldn’t help it. He was her first and only friend, and Sophie didn’t have to let go quite yet.

He smiled with those ridiculously hopeful brown eyes and she rolled hers back at him, shaking her head, grateful for this night.

“And look, Jou-Jou.” Henri fished in his pocket and revealed a handful of red jasper. “Tips. From lady customers. Because of my adorable personality.” He tipped his head back and laughed, always the sunny complement to her dark look at life. 

“Seriously? Did you spin them some story about how the baguettes were made ‘specially for them?”

“Of course. I even said I put in a pinch of sugar because they were so damned sweet.”

She laughed, too, and in their ease, Henri pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it, effortlessly. Like this was a gesture they always made, as though they were comfortable with one another in ways she knew they weren’t.

“Henri, it can’t be like that,” she said harsher than she meant. “Look, I just … you are my friend. That needs to be enough.”

“Of course, Jou-Jou. Whatever you want.” Henri pulled away, and although he smirked at her and raised his eyes in nonchalance, she knew him.

She knew his indifference was utterly feigned. That a smirk without his toothy white grin meant she’d hurt him. Sophie had seen the look many times. It was never the other way around.

“Henri, do you really think mining the mountains is dangerous?” she asked. As much as Sophie wanted to be self-assured, she wasn’t entirely. She had never stepped outside of this valley. It was all she’d ever known. All she’d ever been allowed, but things were different now. She was technically grown, nearly eighteen years old, and her education complete. Her mother would expect her to move soon, fend for herself. Now was her chance to start living.