Page 149 of Saint Céline
I saw Daniel before he saw me, and that was the only reason I did not make a sound. The rain had finally stopped sometime before noon, leaving the courtyard slick and shining beneath a thin grey sky. Bellamont looked too clean after the storm, all wet stone and black iron and old windows reflecting pale light. Students crossed paths in clusters, laughing over coffees, coats open now that the weather had loosened its grip on Blackwater. For one strange second, everything felt ordinary.
Then I saw him standing near the archway.
He did not belong there. That was what made him impossible to miss. Bellamont had a way of absorbing ugliness if it came dressed properly. Rich cruelty, polished neglect, inherited violence, academic arrogance, all of it could pass through these halls as long as it knew which shoes to wear and which vowels to soften. Daniel Martin had none of that camouflage. His jacket was too thin for the weather, his jeans faded badly at the knees,and his face was unshaved beneath the weak afternoon light. He stood with his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into his pockets, looking around with the same mixture of resentment and hunger I saw in myself sometimes.
I stopped so abruptly that Wendy almost walked into me.
“Céline?”
The name hit the air between us. Daniel’s head turned. For one impossible second, he looked directly at me and did not recognize me. I saw that happen. I saw his eyes move over the cream coat, the dark hair pinned neatly back, the leather bag over my shoulder, the face I had spent years teaching into elegance.
Then recognition arrived. It changed his face slowly into satisfaction.
My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag. The prescription bottle sat inside the inner pocket, small and useless and suddenly very present in my mind. Pills could quiet the panic. They could not erase the man who had taught my nervous system what panic was for.
“Céline?” Wendy said again, softer now.
Daniel smiled, and my stomach dropped. I had survived Katherine’s death. I had stood over her absence at her funeral while her mother called me a saint. I had lied to police, professors, friends, and myself. I had survived Vincent Moreau’s file, his mouth, his threats, his careful dismantling of every place I tried to hide. And still one look from my father made me feel ten years old again. That was humiliating enough to make me move.
“I forgot something,” I told Wendy.
She frowned. “We’re already late.”
“I’ll catch up.”
She followed my gaze. Daniel had started walking toward us. Wendy’s face changed with polite confusion. “Do you know him?”
“No.” The lie came too quickly. Daniel heard it. His smile widened.
“Now, sweetheart,” he called, voice rough enough to scrape across the courtyard, “that’s no way to greet your father.”
Several students turned. The world narrowed, and Wendy went still beside me. A boy near the fountain slowed with his coffee halfway to his mouth. Two girls under the archway glanced between Daniel and me, already interested, already sensing the possibility of something ugly enough to repeat later.
My skin went cold under my coat.Father.The word did not just expose him. It exposed me. It dragged Selena Martin into the middle of Bellamont’s courtyard by the hair and made her stand beside Céline in broad daylight.
I walked toward him before he could say anything else. I didn’t want to be closer, but if I reached him first, maybe I could contain the damage.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Daniel looked me up and down, and the scrutiny felt worse than touch. “Well,” he said. “Look at you.”
“Leave.”
He laughed softly. “Still got that mouth. A disrespectful cunt like your mother.”
I glanced around. People were watching. “Not here,” I said.
“Why not here?” Daniel looked past me at the stone buildings, the iron lamps, the students pretending not to listen. “This is where my daughter goes, isn’t it?”
I wanted to slap him. I wanted to run. I wanted Katherine alive for one terrible second because at least Katherine would have understood what it meant to be ruined by a name. Instead, Katherine was dead because of me, and Daniel was standing inthe courtyard asking for money in front of people who believed I had the perfect life.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“Bus.”
“Then take one back.”
His expression hardened just enough for me to remember the kitchen in Portland, the way his jaw used to shift before shouting became physical violence.
