THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THREE THINGS
1. A painting. It is called Les Roses Blanches, which, in English, means “The White Roses,” and it is a very precious thing indeed. All paintings are precious, of course, but this one is particularly so. It has survived love and loss and the sort of sadness that can rest so deep inside your heart that you do not even know it is there.
2. Footnotes. If you have read one of my books before, you will know that I am very fond of footnotes. I am quite a forgetful sort1 and footnotes allow me to fill in the bits that I remember later on. Every time you see a small number next to a word like this,2 that means that there is a footnote for you to look at. They are usually on the bottom of the page unless Good Sister Gwendolyn3 has gotten a little overexcited when she’s printed this out and then who knows where they’re going to happen.
3. A very small and very revolutionary plant shop on the Rue de la Vérité, a street that is full of buns and pastries and rebellion and is located right in the heart of Paris.
A GIRL NAMED MARIANNE
When she was fourteen years old, Marianne Montfort had been sent out to find a job. She was not particularly happy about this, but she had not been happy about anything since her family had moved to France and left the country of her birth far behind. It was the sort of sadness that had begun to rule her every waking moment. She would find it talking to her as she laid the table for lunch, or whispering in her ear as she tried to make friends at school: You do not belong here; this is not your home.
Her parents knew about this sadness, for they had their own. Her father had started a new life teaching at a university in Paris and felt that somebody would tell him that they had made a mistake with every lecture he took or student he spoke to, and her mother had found a job in a local shop and bit her tongue when somebody pretended that they did not understand her accent or what she was saying to them. It was only the knowledge that their family was safe and together that kept their sadness and worries at bay.
Marianne’s sadness, however, lingered. Her parents watched it wrap around her and slowly pull their daughter away from the world. She began to stay inside the house and home from school, and every day saw her grow quieter and paler and stiller. And so they came to a decision: Marianne must be sent out to find a job that would distract her from her sadness and pull her back into the world.
And that was the day that she found a very small and very revolutionary plant shop on the Rue de la Vérité.1
Copyright © 2022 by Louise Johnson
