Page 6 of Saint Céline
My fingers tightened around the stems.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I loved her very much.”
She nodded, eyes a little teary, and left. Sophia closed the door behind her with a quiet click.
I carried the peonies across the living room and set them on the low table beside the cold tea. Their petals looked too bright against the grey afternoon light coming through the tall windows. Anya watched me carefully.
“Do you want me to find a vase for those? Or I can put them in your room if you’d rather not see them every time you walk through here.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
Moving felt easier than standing still, so I went downstairs to the kitchenette on the first floor of the residence hall. Theair smelled of old wood, laundry detergent, and the faint damp of rain-soaked wool from all the coats hanging by the door. Students’ voices drifted from the common room, lowering when I passed, but I pretended not to notice. I found a tall glass pitcher, filled it with water, and cut the stems at an angle the way my mother had taught me years ago in the Montgomery cottage.
Remove the lower leaves. Arrange the blooms so they look effortless. Katherine had once told me I made everything look effortless because I never let anyone see the work. She had meant it as a compliment. I think.
When I turned with the pitcher in both hands, Professor Vincent Moreau stood at the far end of the hallway. For one second, the whole world narrowed to just him. He was speaking to the residence director, smiling easily, one hand tucked into the pocket of his dark coat. Whatever he said made her laugh out loud. He had that effect on people, warmth without ever getting too close, attention that made you feel chosen for the length of a conversation and then left you wondering what you had actually said.
Then his eyes shifted and found mine. The smile stayed on his mouth, but the warmth drained away like someone had turned off a light behind his face.
My grip tightened around the pitcher until my knuckles ached.
The residence director said something else. He answered her without looking away from me. After a final polite nod, he started walking toward me slowly, as though we had planned to meet right there in the middle of the hallway.
“Miss Martin,” he said when he reached me, his voice low and smooth, the kind of voice that made students lean in closer during lectures.
“Professor.”
His gaze dropped briefly to the pink peonies. “More offerings from the well-wishers?”
“People are trying to be kind,” I said, keeping my tone even.
“They usually are.” He paused, studying my face the way he had at the funeral, like he could see straight through the careful mask I wore. “You withdrew your application for the lab.”
My pulse kicked hard once in my throat. “I did.”
“Why?”
I lifted my chin a fraction.
“Personal circumstances. I thought the email made that clear.”
He gave a small nod, pleasant as ever. “Yes. I read the email. Very polite. Very neat. But it told me nothing I didn’t already know.” The hallway seemed quieter suddenly. A pair of girls walked behind him, whispering to each other, and both of them smiled shyly when they recognized him. He returned the smile warmly, called one of them by name, then turned back to me and the warmth vanished again. “I chose to ignore it.”
I stared at him. The pitcher felt heavier in my hands, water sloshing lightly against the glass. “Excuse me?”
“I reviewed your proposal again this morning,” he went on, conversational, as if we were discussing the weather. “It’s excellent work. Too excellent to let an emotional decision get in the way of what the lab could gain from it.”
A cold feeling moved through me, sharp and low.
“I withdrew it. You can’t just decide to accept me after that.”
“I can,” he said simply. “I usually don’t let administrative preferences interfere with research I find interesting. And your proposal interests me, Céline. Or should I say… Selena? Grief does interesting things to people, doesn’t it? It makes them hide in plain sight.”
The way he said my other name sent something prickling across my skin, the same way it had at the funeral.
You hide under your grief beautifully, Céline.
I thought of Katherine hunched over that proposal, making it brilliant while I simply claimed it, and the guilt twisted tighter in my stomach. He knew something was off. I could feel it in the way his eyes held mine, patient and watchful, like he was waiting for the mask to slip.
