Spectacle(64)

Wasn’t that the point? To avoid being consumed by the madness of the Dark Artist?

She felt different this time, learning Charlotte’s name. The feeling was new, something mixed with a soft brushstroke of remorse, a drop of curiosity unfulfilled, and a pinch of liberation. Maybe that’s how she’d feel from this point on, now that she’d distanced herself. Or maybe that combination would shift—more of this, less of that, all of this, none of that—over time.

Or maybe the Dark Artist would stop. Or get caught. Then she wouldn’t have to think about it at all. And what would happen with her gift once the murders stopped? Would it emerge again? Would she see other murders? Why these killings in particular? Was there something special about them that brought out her ability?

None of these questions matter. I’m never going to use this power again anyway.

Yet they did. She still wanted to understand as much as possible.

A short time later, as she handed M. Patenaude her article, she asked if he had a few minutes to continue their conversation from the other day.

“Happy to,” he said, closing his office door. Arianne was away from her desk.

“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but … you’re the only one I can talk to right now. After everything we discussed the other day, I can’t keep this from you,” she said, pressing her knuckles together. With a sigh she settled into the chair across from his desk and explained how Maman had gotten a Henard transfusion but didn’t succeed in obtaining magic. Despite the modest amount of guilt she felt betraying her mother’s secret, she didn’t see any way around it. M. Patenaude had the ability to discern truth, and he’d know if something wasn’t quite right.

“I keep a lot of secrets, Nathalie. I promise not to say anything to anyone.”

She regarded M. Patenaude, with his not-so-thick glasses today, and thought about just how difficult that must be. To know the truth when sometimes it might be easier to accept a lesser version of it.

Nathalie cleared her throat. “I realize I may never know how or why I have this ability. I like to think what Maman didn’t get, I did, and that Papa’s magic added to it somehow. Whatever happened, and whether it’s correct or not, I consider myself one of you. An Insightful.”

Maybe Maman didn’t like that term, but Nathalie did. She liked choosing whether or not she touched the viewing pane, and she liked the idea of deciding what to call herself.

He smiled. “It’s human nature to want to make sense of things. We’ve talked about that with regard to journalism—it’s one of our truths, to be sure. So first, I think your theory is an excellent one. Second, I’d consider myself an Insightful, too, if I were you.”

Nathalie took off her cap and let her walnut-colored waves fall onto her shoulders. While she was in here with M. Patenaude, peeling back a layer of her identity, it felt absurd to be dressed as a boy.

Then she asked the question that had been bothering her since she saw that headline earlier. “Do you think it’s wrong of me to reject the visions? Am I being selfish?”

“Not at all.” His tone was decisive, which made her glad she asked. “No two people experience this the same way. Ability, symptoms, what it means to bring magic into your life … it’s very personal.”

It occurred to her that she didn’t know what side effect, or symptom as he called it, M. Patenaude endured. “What’s it been like for you?”

He walked over to his desk and sat behind it, moving a stack of newspapers to the side. “Sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse.”

That’s exactly how Nathalie had thought of it. She nodded.

M. Patenaude pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and continued. “The blessing is the feeling of clarity, of cutting through the nonsense when communicating with people. That’s also the curse. Believe it or not, there are times when it’s easier to hear a lie than the truth.”

Easier to hear, easier to tell. Sometimes.

“And as you know,” he added, “we all have something taken from us. For me, it’s loss of vision to varying degrees. It comes back, but it wavers.”

She stared at his glasses. That’s why sometimes they seemed thick, sometimes they seemed thin. He really had been wearing different glasses at various times; she hadn’t been imagining it. “Would you have done it if you knew you’d struggle with eyesight?”

“I’ve asked myself that question too many times, and the answer changes. So I’ve stopped asking.” He pinched the stem of his glasses. “More often than not, I think yes.”

“You’ve done a lot a good with your gift, like Papa. I’m sure that’s rewarding.”

“It is, but I can’t take too much credit for the gift itself,” he said. “You don’t choose the ability. It comes from who you already are.”

Nathalie hadn’t thought about this, and as soon as she did, her stomach knotted up. Seeing murder came from within? “That’s not comforting.”

“It should be; you’re learning something about yourself, what’s important to you.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “You have your father’s height and eyes but your mother’s nose. No one can predict which physical features a child might inherit. The magic works sort of like that—some intangible attribute that makes you ‘you’ weaves into your ability. For example, truth has always been interesting to me, and words captivate me.”