Chapter 1: The Sketch
Sophie stopped at the cafe window, pulling her faded blue cardigan tighter around her body and fastening a few of the brass buttons. It was soft and cute, but not quite warm enough against the crisp air of fall in Paris. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why the cafe made her feel nostalgic. She grew up in America, not France, and San Diego didn’t have little French cafes with pain au chocolat and cafe au lait. Maybe it evoked the few Saturday mornings she had gotten up early enough to go with her dad to the bakery in downtown San Diego when she was twelve, and convinced him to buy the fresh croissants that smelled deliciously of butter. Of course, now that she had tried elvin treats like mallowmelt and butterblasts, croissants seemed to pale in comparison. But still, she was drawn back to the little cafe she had come upon the last time she had visited Paris looking for Keefe.
Keefe. The name alone brought up so many conflicted feelings, although the prominent ones today were grief and sadness. Sophie missed Keefe so much that some days she thought her heart was actually breaking. She tried not to dwell on the feelings, avoiding the inevitable downward spiral they would bring on. The last thing she needed was to succumb to a crying fit in the middle of a crowded forbidden city where she was surrounded by strangers. It had been four years since Keefe left for the forbidden cities, leaving a note telling her he would never see her again, and asking her to forget about him. Just thinking about what his mother did to him forced her grief and sadness away only to be replaced by indignation.
Sophie sighed, brushing her fingers through her shoulder-length blond locks, and trying to push the thoughts of Keefe far to the back of her head. She couldn’t completely stop thinking about him. She was here, after all, as part of her ongoing search to find him and, hopefully, maybe, convince him to come back to the lost cities. It was safe now. Or, safer, she hoped. She still had no idea what Keefe’s new abilities were like now that he had lived with them for several years. She wasn’t sure she even knew what his new abilities were. But she did know that he left because he believed HE wasn’t safe to be around. And while his new abilities may have been scary at first, the main problem had been Keefe’s mother’s plans to use him in her rebellious plot. Now that she was dead, Sophie hoped Keefe would feel less worried about the harm his abilities might do in the elvin world.
Sophie’s stomach rumbled, and she was reminded of the reason she had chosen to teleport into this part of Paris. She scanned the cafe through the window before entering, noting that it was fairly quiet compared to her first visit. Only a few tables were occupied, and the two young women working behind the counter were chatting animatedly in French about a cute customer who must have come in that morning. Sophie smiled at the two women as she approached the counter, noting that they were probably about 19 or 20, the same age as her. She asked them politely for a croissant and a coffee, her polyglot ability enabling her to make the request smoothly in perfect French. The two women shared a fleeting look with each other. Was it confusion? Then one of the women responded by walking over to the pastry case and reaching in with a set of tongs for the croissant, glancing up at a messy bulletin board hanging on the wall nearby as she did so. It held an eclectic collection of employee notices, a few hand written notes between staff, and there, in one of the top corners was a roughly drawn sketch of a very familiar scene -- Calla’s panakes tree on the hill in the pastures of Havenfield, with a figure of a girl, Sophie, sitting underneath.
Sophie gasped, as she recognized Keefe’s artwork immediately. It was a rough sketch, the lines not as clean as his finished works. But she recognized the falling petals of the swaying panakes tree and the hilly pastures with the cliff and ocean in the distance. It was her home. And she was there as well. The way Keefe had drawn her, she looked beautiful. But she also looked like her. Her eyes were closed and her expression peaceful as she dozed, her lips were slightly parted and her head fell slightly back to lean against the tree trunk. Was this a memory? She didn’t remember this moment, but of course she wouldn’t if she had been asleep. She looked so much younger, still a bit childish if she were being honest. It was hard to think of herself as having been THAT young when she had become a key figure in a war. Her anger began to rear up again as she thought about all the pressure and expectations and risk she had been expected to take on because she was the Moonlark. And yet here was proof that she had been just a kid. She took a deep breath and focused back on the way Keefe had drawn her. Her heartbreak threatened to overtake her and she felt tears well up in her eyes as she looked at the sketch of herself through Keefe’s eyes. Had he made the sketch right here in this cafe in Paris? She felt her heart rate speed up as she realized, after years of searching, that she had found her first clue to Keefe’s whereabouts in the forbidden cities.
“It’s a beautiful sketch, isn’t it?” said the cafe worker as she handed Sophie her croissant on a plate. She seemed to be studying Sophie as she handed over the pastry. Sophie met her gaze, and took in her appearance. She had wispy, chin length, chestnut brown hair and greyish blue eyes, with a slate blue silk kerchief tied around her neck. “Even more beautiful is the man who made the sketch,” she continued. With the hint of a smile she gestured toward the sketch on the bulletin board, “Do you know him, the artist?”
“What makes you ask that?” Sophie replied, wishing it hadn’t come out sounding quite so snappy. She took a slow, deep breath, willing herself to keep it together.
The woman shrugged, glancing at her coworker who giggled as she chimed in, “You look like the mystery girl! We’ve been discussing theories about who it could be for weeks.” The second cafe worker had dirty blond hair, a round, dimpled face and light blue eyes. And she had said weeks. Had Keefe been here only weeks ago? Was he still here in Paris? Sophie tried not to get too excited or hopeful. She had to remain composed, although the two women had already witnessed her reaction to his sketch and they didn’t seem deterred by the fact that, for a moment, she had been on the verge of tears.
“Hmmm, I guess I can see the resemblance you noticed, but the sketch isn’t signed. Who drew it?” Sophie asked, hoping the women would offer up additional details without her having to reveal too much about herself.
“The beautiful mystery artist?” the dirty-blond haired worker replied. She giggled again. “He’s a man of few words and none of us know his name. He comes in every so often with his satchel of art supplies and sits over there,” she motioned to the far corner where a small round table with two wrought-iron chairs sat, ”sipping coffee and sketching all afternoon. We’ve both been trying to work up the courage to ask him out, but he doesn’t talk much and the most we’ve been able to get out of him is that sketch, which he left after Manon tried to chat with him about it the last time he was here,” she finished, gesturing to her co-worker. “We’ve wondered if he’s a Beaux-Arts student. The campus is not too far from here.”
Sophie inwardly cringed when the woman mentioned asking Keefe out. One thing she had figured out pretty quickly after Keefe left the lost cities is that she was in love with Keefe, and had been for some time even while she was obsessed with Fitz. Keefe was the one for her, she knew it now, and she knew that he loved her back, or at least he had before he left. Gah! It was all so complicated and messy, but none of that mattered until she found him. And he could be here, in Paris, right now! Her palms started to sweat and her heart started to pound the more she thought about how close she might be to seeing him again. Sophie took a deep, calming breath and asked if she could look at the sketch more closely. The brown-haired woman, Manon, retrieved it from the bulletin board and handed it to Sophie. She traced her fingers over the lines of the sketch, willing herself not to cry. Here was proof. Proof of how much he loved her. How much he must still love her, if this sketch truly was from within the last few weeks. “Keefe,” she whispered, mostly to herself, “where are you?” She looked up at the two women, both watching her rather dramatic exploration of the simple sketch. “Do you remember when he was here, when he made this?” she asked them.
“It was probably about two weeks ago,” Manon replied. She had a curious expression on her face, searching. “You know him, don’t you?” she asked, almost accusingly. “I knew it was you, in the sketch. I knew it was her,” she said, turning to her colleague.
“I’m not sure,” replied Sophie, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. She knew Keefe was the artist, but did she still know him? It had been four years. Looking at the girl in the sketch, she realized how much she had changed since Keefe left. She was a young woman now, no longer a girl, the last vestiges of childhood having been replaced with soft curves and more defined features. She thought about how much Keefe must have changed as well. What would he be like now? “I think this may have been made by an old friend, I recognize the drawing style, but I haven’t seen him in years,” she finished. “It’s good to know that he’s doing ok, and still drawing though,” she added, trying to seem more casual about it than she felt.
A group of tourists, German by the sound of it, entered the cafe and came up to the counter. Sophie paid for her order and took her coffee from the dirty-blond cafe worker. “I’m Sophie, by the way.”
“Charlotte,” replied the woman.
“Thanks for the coffee and croissant. I would love to reconnect with my friend, the mystery artist as you call him, again. If I give you my number, could one of you text me the next time he comes in? I live nearby,” she lied, “so I could easily pop over and surprise him.” The two women nodded, and as Charlotte went to help the new customers, Manon handed Sophie her cell phone and Sophie entered her number. She noticed that when she handed the phone back to Manon, she added a note that said “mystery artist’s mystery girl.” Sophie didn’t have a cell phone, but when she’d started the search for Keefe, Dex had incorporated human cell phone capabilities into all their imparters, so Sophie could receive calls and text messages from human devices now.
With her coffee and croissant, Sophie walked over to the small round table in the corner. The table where Keefe sat when he came here. To draw. Sketches of her. After all this time, he still thought of her. She took a sip of her coffee and a bite of the croissant, and she barely noticed the buttery, flaky goodness as she became consumed in a mess of emotions. She imagined what Keefe would say if he were in the room with her right now. That’s a huge mess of emotions you’re throwing at me, Foster. How are you not hurling all over the place? And he would smirk. She could picture it perfectly, and as she let her mind go there she felt her heart flutter remembering how roguishly handsome he was. Sophie sipped her coffee, staring off and letting her mind wander to her memories of Keefe. She wondered if he might be close enough for her to track, like she used to do when they played base quest. She wasn’t sure she could handle what she would find if she tried that right now. She needed Biana, her steadfast friend who was always there for her for all things boy-related. In fact, she needed to talk to Biana now, before she had the epic freak out she could feel coming on.
Sophie finished her croissant and sipped the last few ounces of coffee and got up to leave. She walked toward the counter. “Thanks again,” she said to Charlotte and Manon as she waved, indicating her plans to leave. Manon gestured for her to come over, and when she did Manon put the sketch in her hand. “You keep it,” she told Sophie. “I can tell it has sentimental value to you,” she finished with a wink. Sophie smiled and took the sketch, putting it inside her satchel as she walked out of the cafe.
