Turn Back Time (The Full Circle Series Book 1) Annette Anders (shoe dog free ebook TXT) 📖

a window, then looked out over the expanse of the bay. In the distance, they saw water glittering in the early evening sunlight.

“You’ve found a true treasure,” Caroline’s voice startled them. She sat on a large rock. “This is the chapelle Saint-Aubert, and not many people venture far enough around the island to discover it.”

“What do you know about it?” Stella asked, hoping Caroline had another story for them.

“There are many legends surrounding this place. One claims the rock on which the chapel sits was pushed down from the top of the island by a child. I don’t know…but have you heard the story about Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, the founder of this abbey?”

Stella and Naomi both shook their heads.

“Well, it is said the archangel Michael appeared to Aubert three times in dreams and asked him to build a sanctuary bearing his name. The first two times Aubert ignored the request, but the third time, the archangel poked his finger into Aubert’s skull to get his point across. This time, Aubert complied, and had the relics of the archangel transferred from Mount Gargano in Italy to the Mont-Tombe, as Mont Saint-Michel was known then. The sanctuary was dedicated to Saint Michael in October 709.”

“The angel poked a finger into Aubert’s skull?” Naomi asked and scrunched up her face. “Yuck.”

“According to legend.” Caroline shrugged. “The relic of his skull, including the hole, is on display in the Saint-Gervais Basilica in Avranches.”

While listening to Caroline’s story, they had wandered back into the small village and met the rest of the group at La Mère Poulard. Once seated and looking at their menus, Harry complained, “Omelets? We’re supposed to eat breakfast for dinner?”

“You can order something else, but omelets are what Annette Poulard served when she and her husband Victor opened this restaurant in 1888,” Caroline explained. “They…”

“Oh, no, do I sense another love story? How many die this time?” Harry grumbled.

Julia put her menu down and said, “Please continue, Caroline.” She sat next to Harry but avoided looking at him.

Others also encouraged Caroline and looked at her with interest.

“Okay, so…. In 1872, the well-known architect Édouard Corroyer was appointed to restore the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel. Édouard frequently traveled from Paris to the Mont, bringing with him his wife, child, and their maid, Annette Boutiaut. Annette was an incredibly good cook, and Édouard was a gourmet. He liked to brag about her skills, and said she was able to cook everything he asked for.

“One day, when they arrived in the fog by a horse-drawn carriage, the island appeared dark and forbidding to Annette. The tide was rising fast, and she didn’t know how to get out of the carriage without getting soaked. The son of a local baker, Victor Poulard, recognized her dilemma and carried her onto dry land, and soon, while Édouard worked on the old Abbey, Victor grew closer to Annette. He wasted no time, and the two were married in January 1873.” Caroline paused to raise her glass and take a sip of her wine.

“Later in 1873, the young couple acquired their first hostel business on the island and began to offer meals. Meanwhile, after news spread about the abbey Édouard had restored, more visitors began to arrive at the Mont. For a long time, it had only been of interest to shrimp fishermen and convicts’ families, but now scholars, archaeologists, and pilgrims came. Annette remembered her own arrival on the Mont, remembered being hungry and cold, and decided to add a lunch menu.

“But serving lunch guests caused a problem. She never knew how many people would arrive between tides, and planning ahead was difficult, if not impossible. Annette started to invent new, lighter recipes, avoiding heavy meals of red meat, using more local products from the bay, the land, and the sea between Normandy and Brittany. Her most famous meals were her light, fluffy omelets.

“A few years later, Victor and Annette sold their first establishment and bought another property here on the Mont, closer to the gate. They opened an auberge in 1888, and later added three annexes where we are sitting right now.

“Annette didn’t travel, and she rarely left the Mont, but she loved to listen to her guests’ stories, and often asked them for a photograph or a drawing as a memento, a practice which has continued till today. You’ll want to look at the pictures later,” Caroline pointed at the walls. “Annette and Victor lived happily until Victor died in 1923 and Annette in 1931.”

Andrew raised his glass and said, “To Annette and Victor!” and most of their group joined him by repeating the toast.

Before they left, Stella and Naomi checked out the photos on the walls.

“Wow, the question isn’t who was here, but who wasn’t?” Stella said.

Naomi put her hands to her heart and sucked in a breath. “Harrison Ford was here! Right where we’re standing. I can’t believe it.” She put her face closer to his photo and took a selfie.

“You and your hero. I’m surprised you’re not kneeling. But look over there! Pablo Picasso! And there’s Theodore Roosevelt,” Stella said in a similar awe-inspired voice. “Oh, and Ernest Hemingway.”

“Who?” Naomi asked with a wide grin and linked arms with Stella.

Leaving the island, they listened to frogs and crickets serenading their potential mates, and in the approaching twilight, the marshes looked very mystical.

When Naomi noticed the long line of people waiting for the next shuttle bus, she said, “The evening is too beautiful to squeeze into a bus with tons of sweaty strangers and overtired babies. Let’s walk back to the hotel, it only took us thirty minutes this afternoon.”

“I’d like to come back in the fall or winter months. Can you imagine how it would look with dense fog covering the lower half of the island?”

“The only thing missing would be one of your ghost-tour guides swinging a lantern back and forth. Boo!”

“Ooh, spooky,” Stella laughed, and they made up stories about ghosts hiding in the marsh grass on their way back to the hotel.

“We