The Cabinet of Earths Read Online Free PDF Page B

extras.
    But oh, the beautiful, luminous children!
    Those children were like little flames of silvery depth flickering against the ordinary flatness of everything else, and some of the flames were brighter and deeper than others.
    On the backs of the photographs were neat notations in pencil, numbers followed by something that looked like a droopy “X”: “174 X ,” “56.8 X ,” and even “216 X !!” on the photograph of the ringletted girl.
    â€œAdèle,” it said there, in fine and feathery script, and a date she could not read. 1951, maybe. 1957?
    Maya’s breath caught in her throat, and her fingers tingled as she slipped the photographs back into the envelope they had been waiting in all this time. It was the strangest feeling that filled her now, after all that long day of travel, bronze salamanders, elegant young men in sunglasses, and cousins your eyes just slipped right over—
    She felt—really she did!—as if the very walls of this room had sent her a letter.

Chapter 4
The Baby Who Sang in the Ruins
    T hey had just slogged through Parisian puddles for an hour, and now Cousin Louise was looking up and down the street, choosing a café.
    â€œThere,” she said finally, with a point and a sniff. “We’ll go there.”
    She liked cafés. Well, in principle, Maya did, too. Sitting at a little round table in Paris, watching well-dressed people stride by in their high-heeled shoes, clickety-clack, clickety-clack , while you sipped a fizzy drink—nothing more relaxing than that, under ordinary circumstances. That is to say: in other company than that of Cousin Louise.
    â€œPlease request that table over there, Maya,” said Cousin Louise (never in English, always in French). “The one facing the fountain. I’ll have a café crème , very hot, please tell him.”
    Even in parts of the world where people speak English, it can take some gumption to tackle a waiter on a busy day. But every afternoon spent with Cousin Louise led like clockwork to this uncomfortable moment when Maya had to sort through her new French phrases, fingering them like foreign coins in a pocket to see what she had to spend; when she had to march forward and catch the eye of a man whose vest and apron meant business; and then had to galvanize herself , open her mouth, and talk.
    This time Maya’s face must have sagged into a frown for a moment, because when they were safely at their table, and the waiter was about to bustle back any moment with their drinks, Cousin Louise asked, “You think I am making you do this only for tormenting you?”
    (Maya could understand more of Cousin Louise’s French now, but her brain still made peculiar English of it.)
    â€œNon, non ,” said Maya halfheartedly.
    â€œBut listen, Maya,” said Cousin Louise. “If I ask for a table, I will not get one. If I order café crème , they will not bring it. They do not see me.”
    For a moment Maya was filled with the most peculiar thought: Maybe that was the literal truth ! Had she spent this week trailing a truly invisible person all over Paris? But what could that possibly mean? What if the whole Davidson family was simply being haunted by this Cousin Louise?
    It was a foolish, impossible thought, but still she had to put her hands in her lap to keep the worry from showing, and when the waiter came with the drinks, she watched him with an eagle eye. But he put her Orangina and a tall cylindrical glass on her side of the table and the coffee on the other side, quite as if he realized Maya was not there all alone. A relief. Cousin Louise might not necessarily be a ghost, after all. Which would have been awfully hard to explain to her parents, come to think of it, if it had turned out to be true.
    â€œSo,” said Cousin Louise, after testing the temperature of her coffee. “And how was it, the first day of school?”
    But of course she