Spectacle(72)

The morbidity enthralled her.

At first.

After a while she drew in closer and closer yet; then she got so close she stepped on Papa’s heels. He stumbled and the lamp swung around, flashing light on a group of intact skeletons, lined up like an audience before a show. Then Papa regained his footing and the skeletons disappeared into the blackness.

“Ma bichette, hold on to me.”

Tentatively she reached for his palm and felt relief the moment her tiny fingers wrapped around his strong, calloused hand.

Then she heard voices in the crypt’s pathways. They spoke another language—Spanish, maybe?—and were probably tourists.

What if they’re ghosts?

Nathalie’s imagination wouldn’t and couldn’t rest after that. Millions of skeletons had been piled here. How could it not be haunted?

Even with Papa’s sure hand clasping hers, she didn’t trust these Catacombs. There had to be ghosts everywhere. Everywhere! They’d sense her fear and drag her away from Papa into one of the dark, twisting paths where no one ever came out and—

She stopped walking as if someone had tied her shoes to the floor.

Papa turned to her. “What is it?”

“I want to go.”

“Are you scared?”

“No, but I—I think we’re lost. I don’t want to get lost in here.” She didn’t want Papa to think she was too young to be here.

“You don’t have to worry about that!” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I know the paths in here. I promise we won’t get lost.”

Papa would keep her safe. He always kept her safe. Besides, he wasn’t afraid, so why should she be?

She put her free hand in her pocket and let the coarse dirt sift through her fingers. After a few seconds a feeling overtook her, coldness followed by intense warmth followed by the sense that she stood outside her own body.

Then something had happened to her mind.

She could see, as clearly as if it were happening in front of her, a young woman getting strangled. Then an old man getting struck with a rock to the head. Then a man shot. Then a little boy getting an arrow to the chest and a little girl getting pushed into a well, one after another, image after image …

Nathalie shook off the memory and inhaled the cool, still air of the Catacombs.

Had that been her imagination as an eight-year-old? Or the first inkling of her power? Or a supernatural punishment for taking the dirt?

At the time, she’d screamed and cried for Papa to take her out. Then she’d spun a tale to her classmates, Simone, and herself about how brave she’d been at the Catacombs. It made her feel guilty, however, so she’d begged Papa to take her again in several months, just to prove to herself that she could be there without fear. That time she didn’t imagine seeing people dying or spirits pulling her away, and she hadn’t ever since.

Would she today?

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard the burly policeman on the steps above and voices ahead, in the tunnels. Italian, it sounded like, with a tour guide. Nathalie crossed paths with them at the stone portal that led to the tombs, stepping to the side so they could exit. While they passed her, she stared at the inscription etched onto the portal.

Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort.

A warning to stop that seemed more like an invitation to explore. Who wouldn’t be curious about the “empire of the dead”?

She walked several minutes down the main, candlelit pathway, looking left and right. No one else was here.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Deathly quiet.

She turned to look at her policeman. He was standing way down by the portal, leaning on the white walking stick with both hands. He nodded. If her eyes weren’t fooling her, he was grinning, too. It was the first time he or any of the policemen acknowledged her. She gave him a subtle wave before turning her back to him once again.

Nathalie peered down the next lit path to her left. This one was as good as any.

She stepped into the alley, tucking her hair into her cap. Neat columns of vertebrae, separated halfway to the stone ceiling by a line of skulls, lined the walls. She reached inside her bag for the little box she’d found at Le Petit Journal. After removing the lid, she kneeled near the wall and scooped up some dirt. She poured it into the box.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Nothing. No hallucinations, no ghosts, no voices, no anything. Whatever had happened when she was eight was either imagined or connected to her power. It wasn’t some kind of catacomb soil curse.

She put the lid on, checking it to make certain it was secure, and put it in her bag.

A scream.

This is it. It IS the dirt. Leave it here.

But the scream wasn’t a ghost or a vision, it was real. It was a man’s yell.

Another scream, cut short.

She ran to the main alley. A slim man in a hat stood over the policeman, holding the walking stick. Except it was a long blade now, not a cane. A hidden weapon all along.

The man looked up at Nathalie.

He had no face.

The man bolted toward her.

She turned back down the tunnel she’d been in, sprinting until she reached a three-way fork. Unlit to the left and right, lit if she kept going straight. She looked over her shoulder; he hadn’t turned the corner yet.

Disappear.

She hooked right onto an unlit path. After a few yards she stopped and whipped around, taking soft steps backward down the path. It had to open up at some point, and she’d be facing him if he followed her.