It was in the darkness between the lights, at the center of the bridge, where it arched like a cat’s back, that the fog seemed to shift and take form. A pale arm came into view, then a gray nightgown, the hem of which was flapping in the breeze from the churning water below. They were only feet away when Eby realized it was not a ghost but a young woman, a teenager, standing on the bridge railing, her bare toes curled around the cold narrow stone like claws.

Eby froze, pulling George to a stop.

“What’s wrong?” George asked, then he followed Eby’s gaze up. “My God.”

For several moments they didn’t move, for fear any disturbance in the air would push the swaying girl over the edge.

Eby had heard rumors of the brokenhearted committing suicide on the Bridge of the Untrue, but, like all rumors, they were myths until proven. Her heart suddenly felt heavy. There was so much happiness in the world. It was everywhere. It was free. Eby never understood why some people, people like her family, simply refused to take it.

The girl was beautiful, her skin like fresh cream and her long hair so dark it seemed to suck the color out of everything it surrounded. She was small. French women all seemed to be small-boned bird creatures, delicate in a way Eby could never be.

The girl didn’t turn. Eby wondered if she even knew they were there. Eby slowly reached out a trembling hand. At her farthest stretch, she was still inches from the girl. Wasn’t happiness like electricity? Weren’t we all just conduits? If Eby could just touch her, maybe the girl could feel it.

“S’il vous plaît,” Eby said softly, wishing she knew something else to say. She’d studied French in finishing school in Atlanta with her sister, Marilee. Her mother had mortgaged the house in order for Marilee to attend Goddell’s School for Fine Young Women, hoping it would later put her in the path of rich men. Eby was sent on the small chance that one of the male teachers would take a liking to her and her studious ways, and at least she’d marry a man who wore a tie. Madam Goddell would have been horrified by how little French Eby remembered, though it was more than Marilee had. Eby at least knew how to ask for the time and a glass of wine. Marilee had filched Madam’s dictionary one day and learned all she wanted to learn when she figured out how to say “Kiss me, you fool.”

“S’il vous plaît,” Eby said again. “Please.”