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Back The Lollipop Shoes
Chapters (96)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. The Lollipop Shoes
  4. Dedication
  5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  6. PART ONE
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. PART TWO
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. 6
  19. 7
  20. 8
  21. PART THREE
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. PART FOUR
  29. 1
  30. 2
  31. 3
  32. 4
  33. 5
  34. 6
  35. 7
  36. 8
  37. 9
  38. PART FIVE
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. PART SIX
  52. 1
  53. 2
  54. 3
  55. 4
  56. 5
  57. 6
  58. 7
  59. 8
  60. 9
  61. 10
  62. 11
  63. 12
  64. PART SEVEN
  65. 1
  66. 2
  67. 3
  68. 4
  69. 5
  70. 6
  71. 7
  72. 8
  73. 9
  74. PART EIGHT
  75. 1
  76. 2
  77. 3
  78. 4
  79. 5
  80. 6
  81. 7
  82. 8
  83. 9
  84. 10
  85. 11
  86. 12
  87. 13
  88. 14
  89. 15
  90. 16
  91. 17
  92. 18
  93. 19
  94. Epilogue
  95. About the Author
  96. Also by Joanne Harris

Now, close to midnight, I find my thoughts straying, as they often do at such times, to my mother, the cards, and the Kindly Ones. Anouk and Rosette are already asleep. The wind has dropped abruptly. Below us, Paris simmers like a fog. But above the streets the Butte de Montmartre seems to float like some magical city of smoke and starlight. Anouk thinks I have burnt the cards; I have not read them for over three years. But I have them still, my mother’s cards, scented with chocolate and shuffled to a gloss.

The box is hidden beneath my bed. It smells of lost time and the season of mists. I open it, and there are the cards, the ancient images, woodcut as they were centuries ago in Marseille: Death; the Lovers; the Tower; the Fool; the Magus; the Hanged Man; Change.

It is not a true reading, I tell myself. I pick the cards at random, without any idea of the consequences. And yet I cannot rid myself of the thought that something is trying to reveal itself; that some message lies within the cards.

I put them away. It was a mistake. In the old days I would have banished my night demons with a cantrip – tsk-tsk, begone! – and a healing brew, some incense and a scatter of salt on the threshold. Today I am civilized; I brew nothing stronger than camomile tea. It helps me sleep – eventually.

But during the night, and for the first time in months I dream of the Kindly Ones, snuffling and slinking and sneaking through the back streets of old Montmartre, and in my dream I wish I had left just a pinch of salt on the step – or a medicine bag above the door – for without them the night can enter unchecked, drawn in by the scent of chocolate.

PART TWO

One Jaguar

1

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Monday, 5th November

I CAUGHT THE bus to school, as usual. You wouldn’t think there was a school here but for the plaque that marks the entrance. The rest is hidden behind high walls that might belong to offices or a private park or something different altogether. The Lycée Jules Renard; not so large by Paris standards, but to me it’s practically a city.

My school in Lansquenet had forty pupils. This has eight hundred boys and girls; plus satchels, iPods, mobile phones, tubes of underarm deodorant, schoolbooks, lip salves, computer games, secrets, gossip and lies. I have just one friend there – well, almost a friend – Suzanne Prudhomme, who lives on the cemetery side of Rue Ganneron and who sometimes calls in at the chocolaterie.