Hannah didn’t linger; she entered a room, looked around, and then started for the exit on the other side. I tried to take a few pictures, but it was hard to keep up with her pace.
Finally, we stopped at the entrance to a grand expanse of a hallway.
“The Hall of Mirrors,” Pilar said, reading from her map.
The room was as long as a football field, lined with gigantic mirrors, soaring arched windows, and classical statues. Hanging from the ceiling must have been forty crystal chandeliers. Thinking of the work that would have gone into creating such a place made me feel still and silent.
It was a work of art, a masterpiece that you could actually walk right into. And once upon a time, people had lived here, walked through it as they discussed their dogs, or what they were having for dinner, or who’d looked fat in her ball gown the previous night.
I felt a tightening in my chest, a sharp spike of intense sadness — almost like nostalgia, except it was for a life I’d never lived.
“So,” Hannah said, suddenly turning on us, “I didn’t want to say anything before now, but I talked to my dad this morning, and everything’s settled.”
Settled?
I glanced at Pilar, to see if she was in on it — whatever
it
was. But she seemed lost, too.
Hannah wore the beginning of an incredibly self-satisfied smile. “Next Saturday” — she paused for what felt like five minutes — “we’re coming to a party here.”
A party?
Here?
“Whose party?” Pilar asked.
“It’s being given by the embassy,” Hannah said. “And Dad’s friend got us on the list. Just the three of us.”
“No way,” Pilar said. Then she gave a little hop and then a bunch of hops that ended with her arms around Hannah’s shoulders in a tight hug. “No way,
no way
, are you serious?”
Hannah backed out of the embrace. “No, I’m joking. Of course I’m serious. It’s Saturday night, and it’s a costume ball, and we’re going to have a limo come and pick us up at the hotel — I mean, whatever French people consider a limo.”
Pilar stared at her, open-mouthed.
Hannah turned to me. “Well, Colette?
You
usually have something to say for yourself.”
“It’s … it’s going to be amazing.” I was still in shock. My voice sounded like someone had let the air out of it. “I can’t believe it.”
Hannah, gratified by my reaction, deigned to give me a warm smile.
“And only for my besties,” she said. “Remember that. Because you guys are special.”
Hidden in her compliment was a buried threat. Specialness, in Hannah’s eyes, was something that could be taken away as easily as it had been granted.
One thing was for certain — I was going to spend the week on my best behavior.
We continued through the Hall of Mirrors. Knowing we would be coming back to Versailles for a gala event made every gleaming surface glow that much brighter. My skin prickled with excitement.
At one point, I found myself alone in a quiet stretch of the room, apart from Hannah, Pilar, and the tourist groups. I stopped and looked into the mirror, wondering how many countless people had stared into it over the centuries. I let my eyes focus on its clouded surface rather than my own face, and was overcome for a moment by a dizzy, disoriented feeling.
A flash of movement behind my reflection brought me back to the present, and I caught a glimpse of a woman in full period costume among the crowd. Her pale-pink dress was almost ridiculous in its proportions — wide from the front and narrow from the sides. It was impeccably adorned with ruffles and bows and gathers and lace. Her hair was piled high on her head, small tendrils hanging down, with a jaunty little V-shaped hat placed in such a way that three massive white feathers arced over her right shoulder.
“Wow,” I whispered, turning to get a better look at her.
But when I scanned the room, she was gone.
Then a massive wave of tourists approached like a wall of water. I could imagine the poor woman trapped in the center of the group, mobbed by people eager to add
Picture with costume character
to their list of French accomplishments, as if this were Disney World.
Pilar called my name from the exit doorway, and I hurried to catch up.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman as we continued through the rest of the main palace. And even though I knew Hannah would tell me to forget about her, I kept checking behind us to see if she’d reappeared.
I was desperate to see her up close. Not just because of her clothes, which I would love to get a closer look at …
But because of what I was almost positive I’d seen around her neck …
A medallion, just like mine.
The lush green grounds were as impressive as the palace itself. They stretched on as far as the eye could see. A wide gravel path ran down the center, bordered by trees whose branches were groomed into impossibly straight vertical lines. The view was broken up by spraying fountains and enormous ponds reflecting the sky.
Hannah, Pilar, and I stopped for lunch at a little open-air restaurant next to the reflecting pool. I ordered a ham-and-brie baguette, creamy cheese and salty ham sandwiched between two pieces of bread so crusty they scraped the roof of my mouth. As we ate, we saw the rest of our group pass by us and start down the side road that led to the Grand and Petit Trianons — the king and queen’s private residences.
“I’m gonna hit the ladies’ room,” Hannah said.
Pilar stood up, too. And then they waited for me, as if we were chained together.
“I actually need to ask Madame Mitchell something,” I said. “I’m going to try to catch them, okay? Then I’ll double back.”
“They must be halfway there by now,” Hannah said. “Just wait for us at the Grand Trianon.”
“Okay,” I said, although that wasn’t even where I wanted to go. “But what if I don’t find you?”
“I’m going to pee my pants,” Pilar said. “I think I drank too much coffee.”
Hannah looked exasperated. “Colette, we’ll either see you there or we won’t. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Pilar needs to potty.”
I nodded and started down the path, trying to look like I was rushing to find our teacher.
But as soon as Hannah and Peely were out of sight, I slowed down and felt a small, triumphant glow.
Because I wasn’t trying to catch up with anybody. I was just trying to get away from my friends. Managing to do so with Hannah’s express permission was like a bonus.
I couldn’t explain why, but I wanted to be alone.
And now I had the whole afternoon to myself.
I followed the long, tree-lined path toward Le Petit Trianon. The building was beautiful, but it was small and boxy and almost plain. I mean, certainly not small relative to where
I
now lived, but to people like Hannah and Pilar, this place might not be completely awe-inspiring.
Inside, I got the same impression. Compared to the all-out opulence of the main palace, it felt cozy and intimate. There was still plenty of grandeur — plaster carvings on the walls, floors of checkerboard marble tile, and a chandelier hanging above the grand staircase — but also a vibe of privacy and closeness. You could see how a person would feel more at home here, like she had her own little space.
There were hardly any tourists, so I had time to linger, stopping in each doorway to look around before wandering into the next room. The air was still, but there was an underlying energy. It felt quiet … but not empty.
Kings and queens walked here
, I thought, looking over what had once been a billiards room. As I turned to move on, I caught a flash out of the corner of my eye — a shape moving outside the window.
I peered through the glass but saw nothing except a flock of sheep grazing on a distant pasture and a pair of old ladies wandering down a winding dirt path.
But I could have sworn I’d seen a pale-pink dress.
As I stepped back from the window, I noticed that it had an elaborate metal handle with a lock.
And carved on the lock was the same spiky flower that was cut out of the key in my medallion. Checking the other windows revealed that each one had the same fancy lock, and on each lock was the same flower carving.
I felt my throat tighten almost imperceptibly.
I headed upstairs, following a path through a series of little rooms — dining rooms, game rooms, music rooms — and stopping at the queen’s bedroom.
Every piece of fabric — the curtains on the windows, the bedspread, the drapes around the bed, and even the chairs — featured a white background with tiny sprays of little blue flowers, each petal ending in a delicately spiked fork.
It wasn’t
exactly
the same as the design on the medallion — it was missing the key. But the flower being featured so prominently definitely raised my curiosity. Had the Iselin family —
my
family — had some real connection to the royals?
A door to my left led to a small, square room with walls of light blue, decorated with white carvings like the frosting on a cake. There didn’t seem to be any windows, but on each wall was a large gold-rimmed mirror.
I stepped into the room and saw myself reflected a million times. I spun in a slow circle, taking in the smell of polished wood and that hard-to-pin-down scent that just meant “old.” As I completed my turn and glanced at my reflection, I froze.
The face in the mirror wasn’t my own.
The eyes were set a little wider, there was a widow’s peak in the center of the forehead, and the lips were fuller. I was so captivated by the odd sight that I hardly had time to realize that it wasn’t just the face that was different —
none
of what was reflected was me, unless I’d somehow changed into a floor-length black dress.
I stumbled backward, and for a moment the mirrored room was like a funhouse. I lost my bearings and couldn’t tell one wall from another.
Just as my mind began to reel, footsteps came tramping up behind me — a guided tour making its way through the building.
“Here we have Le Cabinet des Glaces….” The guide’s voice was flat and bored, and it jerked me back to reality. I was more than happy to move aside so the people on the tour could shuffle in and look around. “This room was specially designed so that the windows could be covered, as you see, by floor-to-ceiling panels that could be raised or lowered.”
“What would be the purpose of that?” I asked.
The woman frowned at my butting in on her precious tour without permission.
“Privacy,” she said. “And to have better light at night.”
“For secret dalliances,” said one of the old ladies in the group, and her friends giggled.
Ew. Old ladies and secret dalliances were definitely two topics I didn’t need mixing together in my brain.
I turned to go when one of the tourists lifted her camera and snapped a photo of me.
“Look, it’s the girl from the picture!” she said, showing the image to her friend. The friend said, “Oh!”
What picture? What were they talking about? I felt a knot of unease in my belly, but before I could get up the nerve to ask the woman why she’d randomly snapped a photo of me, the group moved on.
Wait till Mom heard that the strangest people I’d met in Paris were a tour bus full of old American ladies.
I passed back through the flower bedroom and went downstairs. Outside, I came upon a crisscrossing network of footpaths. A map on the wall showed that they led to something called Le Hameau.
A five-minute walk left me standing at the edge of a tiny fairy-tale village. There were houses and mills and a tiny duck pond, pink-flowered shrubs, and footbridges with rough wood handrails. It was basically the last thing you’d expect to find on the grounds of Versailles — the polar opposite of the palace itself.
I walked toward the biggest building. Its windows were blocked with wire mesh, and the door looked like it hadn’t been opened for years. Peeking through the dirty glass, I could barely make out a black and white tile floor.
Behind the house was a garden, with fat heads of cabbage growing in neat rows. The garden was freshly tended, almost like someone was living there. There was also a round turret attached to the house, with a barred metal gate blocking off its entrance.
