The Watchtower

very charming man … when he was a man at least.”
    “You knew him before?” I asked, wondering how old Madame La Pieuvre really was. And what she really was. Something about the way her hands moved restlessly across the surface of her desk was unnerving, and the sweater draped over her shoulders bunched oddly as she shrugged off my question.
    “ Bien sûr . I met him on his first trip to Paris when he was pursuing your ancestress Marguerite. He fancied himself desperately in love, although at the time I wondered which he was more in love with—Marguerite or the idea of immortality. I tried to tell him then how very dull eternity could be, but of course he wouldn’t listen. I suppose you won’t listen either if I tell you to give up your quest to find Will and the road to the Summer Country.”
    “ Can you tell me how to find the Summer Country?” I asked instead of answering her question. Or maybe that was my answer.
    “I can put you in touch with those who can,” she said with a sad smile. “Have a seat and I’ll take a look through my files for the best contacts.”
    She brushed the tips of her long, tapered fingers across the brass-plated cabinet drawers like a blind person reading braille. The gesture was somehow so private and sensual that I looked away, examining the alcove more closely. The coffered ceiling was painted in blue and gold, the wall painted pale turquoise, giving the light a faint subaqueous quality. In addition to the sea creatures behind glass, shells and pieces of coral were strewn across the surface of Madame La Pieuvre’s desk. We might have been sitting at the bottom of the sea. Even the way the librarian languidly plucked at the file cabinet suggested a swimmer stroking through water. Mesmerized, I watched as she plucked one card, then another, then another …
    I blinked. She was holding three cards in three separate hands. A fourth hand idly tucked a stray hair back into her chignon. She looked up and noticed me staring.
    “I thought since you’re practically family you wouldn’t mind. I can work so much more quickly like this.”
    “No, not at all. I didn’t mean to stare.”
    She trilled a long musical laugh. “I’m a hybrid. In the old days the sea fairies intermarried with the sea creatures. My mother was a princess of Ys and my father was an octopus,” she told me as if explaining that she was half Irish and half Italian. “The younger generation is ashamed of the offspring of these unions—the mermaids, selkies, undines, and other hybrids such as myself—but we serve a purpose. We’re not too proud to mingle with what they call the lesser fey—the lumignon and the tree spirits … ah, like this one.”
    She held up a card in one of her hands. It was covered in a series of stray pencil marks that looked like a child’s scribbles. I moved closer and saw that the marks were moving, spreading across the page like tree branches.
    “Sylvianne, queen of the tree spirits. She sent a traveler to the Summer Country a few years ago. She might be able to help you. The trick will be convincing her to do it. I will introduce you, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
    “Does she live far away?” I asked, wanting also to ask why I was being sent to a tree fairy when I’d been told to seek out a sea fairy, but then that seemed rude, as if I were criticizing Madame La Pieuvre for her race’s failings.
    “Oh, no, only a few blocks away, in the Luxembourg Gardens. In fact, why don’t you come to my apartment this evening? It’s right outside the garden and I could walk you over.”
    She wrote down her address—1 avenue de l’Observatoire—on a card while simultaneously reshelving two books and rearranging her hair.
    “It’s hardly a place for a young woman to walk alone after hours. We’ve had some … incidents lately.… I’m afraid your vampire friend is not the only dangerous being to stalk the streets and parks of Paris after dark.”

8
    A Cloaked Figure
    Several hours later, just before midnight, Will found himself sitting at the same curbside table at Baker & Thread’s where he’d spent the midday hours. As if it were his new home. Wandering late-night streets after a long daytime sleep, as despairing and morbid as dreamless sleep can be, he’d gone there almost out of a sense of routine, a sense that if this was where his mourning over Marguerite had begun, it might as well continue there.
    He reflected back on his long sleep, as a rehearsal