Spectacle(40)

Nathalie’s hand was on her neck, resting now, but her fingers felt tight, strained.

Anything but relaxed.





17


Nathalie gathered her satchel and headed to the Arc de Triomphe, where she took a crowded omnibus down the tree-lined Champs-élysées avenue. She got off at the Place de la Concorde, beside the Louvre gardens, sick of passengers and of sitting. Going the rest of the way home by foot would take a while, but she needed to release some energy.

At first she didn’t walk; she paced, like the restless black panther at the Ménagerie in the Jardin des Plantes. Whenever she went to the zoo she made it a point to visit that panther. It didn’t matter what the weather, season, or time it was; the panther paced almost incessantly, stopping only for feeding time.

But she wasn’t a panther and she wasn’t confined, so there was only so much pacing she could do. She resumed walking. She wanted to tire herself out, to be fatigued enough to collapse when she got through the door. It would be a welcome relief from all of … this. There was no other term to describe it. This. All she had to do was give in to weariness.

She couldn’t, and she wouldn’t. Not yet, anyway.

Those papers in Aunt Brigitte’s room preoccupied her after that memory-dream. She hadn’t given the papers a thought in years; in fact, she’d forgotten about them entirely. Ever since she’d left the park, they’d consumed her thoughts.

After all, it was better than thinking about the Dark Artist, who may or may not be M. Gloves, what he was doing now, and whether he had his eye on her a week ago. Yesterday. Now.

It was also better than thinking of Simone, who, Nathalie decided, had simply changed too much since moving away. The old Simone would never have gotten so caught up in the idea of a “gift” that must be nurtured at all costs, even memory loss. No doubt Le Chat Noir and all its influences, including Louis, played a role in Simone’s fantastical notions.

She took a route along the Seine. In her periphery she saw something in the river, floating. Another body? She whipped her head around.

A bather. Just a girl cooling off, lying on her back. The girl lifted her head and spoke to a friend sitting on the bank, who then plunged into the water with a splash.

Nathalie scoffed. Au revoir, visions. I won’t miss the paranoia.

Tranquility had been rather standoffish toward her lately, and she hoped to reconcile with it soon enough. For good.

With a sigh, she reached into her bag for her vial of catacomb dirt. Her fingertips explored the bag until they bumped into the glass. She clutched the tube.

It felt different in her palm. Shorter, fatter, bulkier.

She yanked it out of the bag. A small jar containing dark red liquid.

Blood.

Nathalie stumbled and almost fell into someone. She moved to the wall, pressing herself against it for support.

Breathe.

Perhaps it wasn’t blood. Just a rash assumption prompted by the sight of the girl in the river.

She raised the jar to eye level, tilting it to see the consistency. The sticky way it streaked against the glass, the slight thickness of fluidity—she was right. She wanted to be wrong because that would mean this might be harmless or a prank or even a mistake. And it would mean she wasn’t standing here beside the Seine, with a jar of someone’s blood in her hand, in this bizarre life that felt like it belonged to someone else.

Then she noticed something else inside the jar. Thin, opaque.

She unscrewed the lid and sniffed, cringing at the unmistakable metallic smell. A slip of paper was submerged in the blood, all except for a tiny corner.

Some leaves tumbled with the breeze over her feet. She picked up a few, making them into a cradle in her hand, and pulled out the paper by the clean edge. Blood droplets fell to the ground. Disgusting. She held it away from herself and placed it on the leaf cradle.

The paper had something written on it. Even with the blood, the ink showed through clearly. Just one word.

Inspiration.

She crushed the leaf cradle over the paper and made a fist.

Whose blood? Why? When? On the omnibus … no, she was far too aware of pickpockets and always held her satchel close in a crowd.

The park? It could have happened while she was asleep. She tried to picture M. Gloves, strolling up to her sleeping body, whistling with his rat in his pocket. The image didn’t fit, and she couldn’t say why.

Or …

No.

The thought was too much to bear and made her want to become water and seep into the dry earth. Like blood back into the wounds in her visions.

Maybe she had encountered the Dark Artist and couldn’t remember.

He might have approached her. Threatened her. Done something to her. And she couldn’t remember. Maybe the nap wasn’t a nap—the dream started out as a memory—but a new kind of memory gap prompted by … by what? Seeing the wax figures of the morgue, the argument with Simone, something else? Something might have happened. Or it might not have.

She couldn’t say for sure.

“Is that blood?”

Nathalie looked up to see a young woman in a black habit, frilly white cap, and black veil. She recognized the garb as that of the Sisters of Bon Secours who tended to the sick.

“It—it is,” said Nathalie.

The nun glanced from the bottle Nathalie held in one hand to the fist she’d made in the other. Her inquisitive green eyes swept up to Nathalie’s face.