Spectacle(68)

It was real.

Nathalie looked at her hands. She couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t feel anything. The black-and-white striped blouse she wore seemed be on someone else’s arms. Her bones and organs melted and her body collapsed in on itself and she spilled onto the floor of the morgue like liquid.

Only when someone’s satchel brushed her elbow did Nathalie solidify into a human made of flesh and bone once again.

She’d averted her gaze from Agnès instantly but now forced herself to look again. Heart in her throat, she made the sickening observation that Agnès had the facial cuts of the others, the temple wound of the victim Mirabelle Gregoire, and something the Dark Artist hadn’t done before: two slashes ripped across the stomach.

Agnès’s father began to escort his wife toward the exit. Nathalie didn’t know whether to go after them or afford them privacy. She hesitated for a moment before deciding in favor of consolation, even though she herself had no voice, no means to verbally acknowledge what happened.

She’d just taken a step toward them when Mme. Jalbert broke away from her husband. She dashed toward the viewing pane, threw her heft against it with a thud, and bawled.

“My baby!” She pounded the glass several times, each strike weaker than the last. In a voice wrought with defeat, she leaned into the glass as if it were an ear for the dead. “You’re still radiant, Agnès.”

Acid crawled up Nathalie’s throat.

I have to. I have no choice.

Agnès’s father approached his wife, tenderly pulling her away from the viewing pane. Christophe appeared in the display room with two men. One carried a sheet, and the other, a stretcher.

“Non! Don’t take her away. Don’t!” Mme. Jalbert screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

For Agnès.

Christophe put his hand on the curtain, ready to close it.

You’re blessed, Nathalie.

“Why?” Agnès’s mother cried. “Why my girl?”

Nathalie did the only thing she could. She touched the viewing pane.



* * *



Something was different this time.

The vision didn’t take place in reverse, nor was it soundless like the previous ones. Everything played out as if it were a theater scene, pulling Nathalie deeper into the Dark Artist than ever before.

She felt with his hands.

Breathed his breath.

Agnès was drowsy and coming to, as if she’d fainted. “Where am I?” She mouthed the words; Nathalie couldn’t hear her.

“Somewhere safe. You had a little accident when you stepped off my carriage. Nothing serious.” That she heard; the Dark Artist’s own voice, with remarkable sharpness and nuance. Through his ears.

Agnès shook her head, confused. “I don’t remember.” Again, soundless.

She moved to get up and he pushed her down by the shoulders. Fear shone in her eyes. She screamed so hard her neck pulsed, but it was silent.

The Dark Artist straddled her, pinning her wrists with his left hand.

She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head. Tears streamed down her face, pooling into the blood oozing from her mouth.

The Dark Artist pressed one white-gloved hand into her neck and reached behind himself with the other. The blade led his hand back into view.

“No!” she mouthed, jerking her head.

The Dark Artist snorted. “Yes, of course!”

He plunged the knife into Agnès’s throat and Nathalie snapped to the present.

She was overcome with nausea. The curtain had been drawn across the viewing pane. She braced herself against the glass and looked toward Agnès’s parents. They were gone.

“Agnès.” She said the name of her friend. Now a corpse. She knocked on the window, as if she could wake Agnès up, as if Agnès could just hop off the slab and walk out with her.

Nathalie began to shake. She might as well have been standing outside naked in the middle of winter.

No one noticed her. The rest of the crowd huddled together, strangers bound through the dramatic outburst of Agnès’s mother.

Nathalie inhaled and exhaled carefully until the pulse hammering in her neck stopped. The questions battered her from within. Why wasn’t this scene in reverse like all the others? Why could she hear the Dark Artist but not Agnès? Was this vision different because it was Agnès?

Agnès, her beautiful friend who had spent her summer near the sea, in the kitchen, in the warmth of her grandmother’s home.

And now ending it in the morgue.

Nathalie was still too shocked to cry, and she was afraid that when she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

Someone—not Christophe—pushed the curtain open again.She stared through the morgue glass to study the other eleven corpses, but all she saw was Agnès.

I will find him for you, Agnès. Find him and bring him to justice.

She walked over to the wooden Medusa door and knocked. One of the guards let her in, closing the door behind her. She was just about to explain her business with Christophe when he stepped out of one the rooms, removing his gloves.

Did he just handle Agnès’s body?

“That’s my friend. Agnès Jalbert.”

Christophe pointed to the room he’d just exited. “The—the victim?”