Spectacle(28)

And she intended to keep it that way, for now.

Nathalie tucked the letter back into the envelope and sat down. She read through Agnès’s letter one more time (of course Agnès would find a boy at a resort—the boys loved her), and before she went on about her day, she let herself daydream about the ocean for a while.



* * *



Paris took a breath, or perhaps heaved a sigh, for the next seven days.

Victim #2 would forever remain that, an unnamed sculpture in death: Her body was not identified. She had to be pulled from display in the morgue, despite the crowds coming to see her, because nature began calling her back to earth.

She was decomposing.

Le Petit Journal and the other newspapers did their best to keep the story alive that week, even during the trial of Henri Pranzini (sentenced to death by guillotine for the triple murder, Nathalie was satisfied to read). M. Patenaude referred to this recent slasher as “the Dark Artist” in an editorial, and the front-page illustration of the Sunday supplement imagined him as a monstrous, cackling brute. The artist depicted his face in shadow and had the Dark Artist standing alone in the viewing room at the morgue, wielding a knife in one hand and a painter’s palette in the other.

The name took, even across the other daily papers. It also appeared to please the killer himself, who signed his third letter with the new designation:

To Paris,

It’s been silent, I know. I’m rather behind on my promise.

I decided to write in advance of my next exhibit, should you wish to queue up at the morgue early to get an adequate place. I shan’t keep you waiting long.

Until the next one, I remain,

Ever yours,

The Dark Artist



Nathalie’s bones had tickled from the inside out when she read it. The newspaper printed it a few days after she’d posted her anonymous tip. What if she had stood beside the Dark Artist at the bureau de poste? Or behind him in line? Just like the killer had been in the room the day she’d had her first vision.

She confided this, and other thoughts, to her journal (having since forgiven it about the memory gap). She wrote everything with as much belief as disbelief. Nothing came from her tip to the Prefect of Police, and while she hadn’t expected it to, she still wanted to keep a record of details in case something else occurred. Observations about the morgue. Theories about the killer. Fragments of conversation she overheard here and there throughout the city. Her own woes and worries about the visions. Now that she’d made the decision to help from afar and didn’t trust her memory, she wanted to be thorough. Just in case.

Something else nagged at her, too: what Maman had said about Aunt Brigitte seeing things. And since Maman refused to elaborate, Nathalie had but one choice if she wanted to find out what, if anything, that really meant. She needed to visit Aunt Brigitte alone.



* * *



After going to the morgue, an atmosphere infiltrated with dread thanks to the third letter, Nathalie made her way to the asylum. The sense of dread followed her; the hair on the back of her neck stood up more than once, and she found herself pausing every now and then, looking over her shoulder.

Perhaps because this was her first visit alone, aside from the childish excursion several years ago. She told herself it was no more or less unsettling just because Maman wasn’t beside her, even as she stepped into the sluggish cage-door elevator with two nurses escorting a man in a straitjacket. Even as the three of them got off on a floor where a man with one eye gouged out tried to enter the elevator, only to be pulled back by a nurse. Even as Nathalie walked down the hall, past room after room of wordless melancholy and hushed isolation, save for the giggling woman sprawled on the floor outside Aunt Brigitte’s room.

One of Tante’s roommates was praying. Another stood at the window, tapping it like a telegraph and talking to a bird on the other side, begging it to bring her a worm to eat.

Aunt Brigitte was sitting on the edge of her bed, eyes closed, and fussing with her braid.

Nathalie whispered a hello to her aunt, who opened her eyes and smiled.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Home. I was in the neighborhood today and thought I’d visit.”

Aunt Brigitte scrunched up her face into a girlish grin and put out a bony hand to stroke Nathalie’s cheek.

Her hand was so cold. So very cold. Nathalie didn’t think you could be so cold and yet alive.

Aunt Brigitte went through her usual ritual of thanking Nathalie for coming and complaining about her roommates’ eating and sleeping and praying habits. She did not, however, mention any dreams from the previous night. When Nathalie asked her if she’d had any, she grimaced.

“Nightmares,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about them.”

Nathalie understood that well enough. No one cared to relive nightmares. Given the vivid nature of Aunt Brigitte’s dreams and her fragile state of mind, Nathalie supposed her nightmares were doubly horrifying.

Her aunt sighed and fell silent.

As difficult as the next sentence was for Nathalie to say, she knew this was her opportunity. She cleared her throat.

“I learned only recently, Tante, that you—that you see things.”

Aunt Brigitte’s gaze fixed on her like an owl on the hunt.

“I mean before,” Nathalie added, in a small voice. “Before … here.”