And both were young

by Madeleine L'Engle

"What, Paul?"

"I have to go to the chateau tonight and see that picture. Maybe that will help me to remember."

"You don't look like him," Flip said. "You don't look like him at all."

"No." Paul picked up the poker and jabbed miserably at the logs. "But you don't seem as if you looked at all like either your mother or father, from their pictures."

"I don't," Flip said. "I look like my grandmother."

"Well, you see, then? It doesn't mean anything if I don't look like him. But Flip, I'm sure if I saw my father I'd remember him. Don't you think I would?"

"I don't know," Flip said. "It seems to me you would."

Paul knocked all the logs out of place with the poker and had to take the tongs to put them back. "He's so hideous, Flip. Like a snake. Or a rat. And Flip. If I were really his son and he'd spent all that time looking for me, it would be because he loved me, wouldn't it? And I didn't feel that he loved me at all. If only he'd had that picture with him. If only I could get it without going to the chateau to meet him tonight."

They sat looking into the fire. A log broke in half and fell, sending up a shower of sparks, and suddenly Flip thought of something that made a prickly feeling begin at the base of her spine and go all the way up her back. At last she said, "I know how you can get the picture without having to go to the chateau."

"How?" Paul asked eagerly.