Spectacle(86)
“Augustin,” Maman called from the bedroom, “could you help me reach the top of this drape?”
Papa reluctantly got up from his chair, which Stanley occupied in haste (the two of them had an ongoing disagreement as to whom the chair belonged). Nathalie moved on to another article that recounted the Dark Artist’s crimes throughout the summer—in spirited, exhaustive detail—and provided an account of each of his victims. The article spilled over to the next page, and when Nathalie turned it, she gasped.
Agnès’s photograph.
A thorn of sorrow pierced her heart.
Even in a newspaper account referencing her brutal death, even in a picture hazy in its reproduction, Agnès looked irrepressibly vivacious.
If Paris was going to have one final, visual reminder of Agnès, before everyone moved on with their lives and forgot the names and faces of the victims, Nathalie was glad it was that one.
She reached for Maman’s sewing box on the end table and found the scissors. Carefully, as though slipping would hurt Agnès herself, Nathalie cut out the photograph. Then she brought it to her bedroom, propped it up against the jar of beach sand and shells, and said a prayer for her friend.
* * *
The next evening, Maman, Papa, and Nathalie visited Simone’s family. Maman brought dinner, and as Simone and Nathalie put everything in the kitchen, Papa kneeled next to the sofa where Céleste lay. M. Marchand told him about her condition while Simone’s mother changed the girl’s blankets.
Only Simone knew what Papa was going to do.
The Marchands didn’t know Papa was an Insightful, and Nathalie’s parents wanted to keep it that way.
Nathalie and Simone set the table.
“Did you read the newspaper today?” asked Nathalie.
Simone nodded. “It didn’t take them long to dismiss the man they brought in for questioning, did it? The search continues.”
Maman cleared her throat from the parlor. The girls stopped talking and looked over to Maman signaling with her eyes to watch Papa.
Céleste smiled feebly at him as he told her a story about a stowaway monkey on his ship. Nathalie moved closer to them. Papa winced, just barely, as he clenched his fist (to show how upset the captain was at the monkey).
Nathalie then gazed at Maman watching Papa, proud and content.
Papa gently put Céleste’s tiny hands into his own for a few seconds. He flinched, so quickly and so slightly that no one who didn’t know of his power would have noticed. He kissed Céleste on the forehead and stood up, glancing at Nathalie as he did so.
And that’s when she felt it more deeply, more profoundly than ever. Being an Insightful wasn’t a source of shame, embarrassment, or worry. To witness strong and sturdy Papa using his gift with such tenderness illuminated her. Having this magic was an honor.
The families enjoyed dinner together a short while later. At one point, Simone started speculating about the Dark Artist’s killer and the letter to the paper; a stern look from her mother brought that to an immediate, mid-sentence halt. (“Not in front of Céleste,” M. Marchand mouthed when the little girl wasn’t looking.) After dinner, Nathalie and Simone excused themselves to meander around the block. They were scarcely down the front steps of the building when Simone hugged Nathalie at the waist.
“I’ve been bursting to tell you this for hours!” she said, her voice giddy. “Louis asked me to extend an invitation to you for tomorrow evening.”
“Oh?” Nathalie’s tone was cautiously polite. If it was to attend a poetry reading or some such, she’d have to find an excuse to graciously decline. “For what occasion?”
“To attend a séance!”
Ever so much better than a poetry reading. “Truly?”
“Truly. You’ll go?”
“Of course!” Nathalie used to think séances were nonsense, but several months ago she would have said murder scene visions were nonsense, too. And hypnosis. And the magic of Insightfuls. “You’ve been, so how does it work? Do we … choose someone to contact or wait to see what happens?”
“Well, Louis did have someone in mind.”
Nathalie’s heart quivered. “Agnès?”
“If she’s—willing, yes.” Simone bit her lip. “But I think for your sake and theirs, not any of the other victims.”
Nathalie was overjoyed by the idea of talking to Agnès. To plead for her forgiveness, to tell her she loved her and missed her. “Not any others, like you said. May they rest in peace.”
They began walking down the sidewalk. “Although we do want to disturb another,” said Simone. She threw Nathalie an impish smirk. “The Dark Artist.”
Nathalie gripped Simone’s forearm. “We could ask who killed him!”
“Precisely. Who knows what other secrets he’d give up?”
The idea of wielding power over the Dark Artist from the side of the living appealed to her. Yet she also wondered whether resurrecting a ghost who’d haunted her while alive wouldn’t cause a problem, like give her nightmares or visions or somehow interfere with her gift. Or worse, the memory loss that accompanied it.
Nevertheless, Nathalie couldn’t resist one last triumph over him. “Whoever killed him is pleased with himself, if that Ovid quote is any indication. Who do you think is behind it?”