ma mère

[beheld_beauty]

Jane's out again.

But at least this time Rose fetched Renée up from Downside first. Renée's been reacquainting herself with life; Charlie has been catching her up. Belle was a small child when her mother died, and her mother has spoken with her a little, but mostly wants to catch up on the past decades from Charlie, who is more or less as she left him.

Today Renée is ready, she says, to meet her son-in-law and grandchildren.

They walk, because why not. Céleste is obliged to leave Rainier at home; creatures more mythical than grandchildren are not for today's revelations for Renée. Renée is living with Charlie, of course, in his cottage that he has allowed Belle to renovate but not expand.

Belle knocks on the door. Charlie opens it, and holds out his arms to solicit hugs from granddaughters. Céleste provides gladly.

Comments

[carillons]

"I don't think so. I will stay here and think about mice."

[campanas]

"Okay," says Céleste, and she launches herself out of a pretty stained-glass window that opens at her approach, falls until the last minute, and then zooms off into the sky.

[carillons]

Hyacinthe watches her go, with a little smile.

And then she returns to thinking about mice.

They are fuzzy, and small.

[beheld_beauty]

Belle wanders by not long after, eating a pear. "Hello, Hyacinthe. How are you?"

[carillons]

"Do you think a mouse with wings would be happy? I think they might get in the way," she says.

[beheld_beauty]

"I don't think they would get in the way for a well-designed winged mouse."

[carillons]

"How would you design a good one?"

[beheld_beauty]

"I would think about how mice are shaped, and how wings work. I already did some of the thinking about how wings work when I made Rainier for Céleste."

[carillons]

"Could you design a good winged mouse, and show me, but not make an alive one yet?"

[beheld_beauty]

"Of course. What color would you like your not-alive-yet winged mouse?"

[carillons]

"Grey," says Hyacinthe.

[beheld_beauty]

"All over?"

[carillons]

She nods.

[beheld_beauty]

"All right." Belle thinks about mice, and spends a pentagon, and eventually she has the requisite skeleton alterations picked out. She conjures up an illusion of a dove-grey mouse with a twelve-inch feathery wingspan.

[carillons]

"Pretty," says Hyacinthe.

[beheld_beauty]

"Yes."

The illusion mouse flaps, then folds, its soft grey wings.

[carillons]

Hyacinthe smiles.

[beheld_beauty]

Belle dismisses it. "You may have one if you like, although you would need to look after it as Céleste does with Rainier."

[carillons]

"How do you look after a mouse with wings?"

[beheld_beauty]

"You would need to feed it - mice can eat most anything and so could one with wings - and make sure it had water and exercise. I would make it so it would be okay if it got lost - in case one day you don't want it anymore and you set it loose - but if you do lose it, you won't have it."

[carillons]

"How do I not lose it?"

[beheld_beauty]

"You could put a little leash on it, or train it to come when you call it, or keep it in a cage most of the time."

[carillons]

Hyacinthe thinks about this.

[beheld_beauty]

"Rainier comes when Céleste calls him and he's also much larger than a mouse, so he would be harder to lose."

[carillons]

"A mouse with wings shouldn't be in a cage," she says. "And I don't think a leash would be very nice either. But I don't know how to make a mouse come when I call it."