A Drop of Night(46)

He delivers his clincher in a bitter, irony-dripping newscaster’s voice: “But look at me now, Stainfield, Nebraska. Chilling in a French palace. More gold than I know what to do with. Living the dream.”

He swings around to me. “Anouk. Your turn.”

“I’m not telling you anything. This is stupid. I don’t even know what you want to hear.”

“Just talk to us! Tell us why you came to the airport dressed like a bag lady.”

“No.”

It would be cool to hear Will speak. I would like to listen to his drawly accent, figure out if his house is nice, if his parents do dishes together while listening to Greatest Country Hits of the 70’s, whether he likes William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair or if he’s more of a Joyce kind of guy. Except maybe he likes neither. Maybe he likes loud baseball games and corn dogs, in which case he should just continue not-speaking forever and let me live in my delusion.

“Why?” Jules asks.

“Because. I don’t need to give you reasons.”

There aren’t any doors in the north wall. We’re still heading east. I feel like we’re getting more off track by the second.

“Come on, Anouk. Maybe I won’t be next. Maybe you’ll be.”

“Psh. Please . . .” My voice is caustic enough to burn metal. “I’m the Final Girl. Gaze upon my wholesome innocence and despair.”

Will has maneuvered to the front of the pack, either completely oblivious to the jabber or pointedly ignoring it. I hurry after him. I think of the little smile he gave me. Maybe I can talk to him alone, without doing this awful group storytelling thing. He’s moving pretty fast.

“Will?”

He stops in the doorway three steps ahead of me, shoulders tense. I scuffle up behind him.

I freeze. We’re looking into a vestibule. An alabaster vase of red roses, petals thick and velvety, stands on a table in the center. And floating throughout the room, as if paused mid-fall, are dozens of small steel orbs.

“Uh-oh,” Will says.








Palais du Papillon, Chambres Jacinthe—112 feet below, 1790


We went on a journey once, to visit an old duke and a relative of Father’s. It is the custom with noble children, once they have been born, to send them away. An aristocratic child’s life is a parade of wet nurses, governesses, maiden aunts, and gloomy tutors, children’s apartments in the high floors of the family chateau if you were fortunate, convent schools and distant relations if you were not. I was packed off at seven years old. Father accompanied me, though he rode in a different carriage, hiding behind his scented handkerchiefs and brass mask full of herbs for fear of the plague, or fevers, or whatever disease were crawling through the towns and byways that year. When we stopped at inns for dinner or to exchange the horses, he always looked at me nervously when my governess brought me too close, as if I were some feral little lapdog contemplating opportunities to gnaw on his leg.

My memory of the duke’s house is dim. It was a drafty old fortress, a precarious and ancient heap rising from the middle of a great old wood, like a castle from a fairy tale. The duke’s children and the servant’s children were indistinguishable from one another and seemed terribly frightening to me, scarecrow creatures drinking ale in the kitchens and playing wild gambling games with the guards. But there is one scene that stands out clearly: I am kneeling next to a great bed, surrounded by many people, and I am peering at the cankerous old duke. He died only days after Father’s and my arrival in his house. His body lay curiously solid and forsaken, his belly a vast snowy hill beneath the sheets. His face was covered in sores, and his wife and children, even the guards, were all weeping quietly into their sleeves and beards and lace handkerchiefs.

Father had not yet begun the return journey. He was in the chamber, too, and I remember his expression as he looked upon the figure in the bed. It was an expression of animal terror, a condemned man looking upon the countenance of his executioner. And I could not understand why, for to me the duke’s silent, oozing face looked perfectly at peace.



The steels orbs float at three different levels. Knee. Torso. Head. Three across, seven down, making a grid. They’re the size of Ping-Pong balls.

Will studies them, his blue eyes clear. And he steps into the room, like he’s walking into a party.

I grab at him and so does Jules, trying to haul him back. “Are you insane?” I hiss, but he shrugs us off, slipping lithely between the floating orbs.

“Will, get back here!” I whisper from the doorway.

He turns and points to the zipper on one of his pockets. It’s floating, sticking straight out from his pant leg, doing weird circular motions like a tiny waterwheel.

“Magnetic,” he says, and he sounds fascinated, which makes me want to slap him twice around his dense head.

“Will, this is not a science project,” I snap, and my voice squeaks in a worried way that I do not appreciate at all. “This is a room designed to kill an idiot.”

He shakes his head and moves farther in, one hand reaching out to touch the orbs as he passes them. We stay in the doorway. “There’re magnets in the walls probably,” he says, like he’s talking to himself. “And the floor and ceiling. Vertical and horizontal bars of magnetism, pluses and minuses. At the cross-point the orbs stop—”