Spectacle(95)
Today there was no repulsive odor. The air was, if not quite pure, fresh. Rosemary and juniper wafted through the hall.
Nathalie wondered if it was intended to cover up the smell of would-be death.
Nurse Pelletier, lips pursed and strides brisk, approached Papa. They conversed briefly, and then the nurse walked away with steps as rapid as before.
“They put Aunt Brigitte in a different room for now, alone,” said Papa, pointing to a room farther down the hall than Tante’s usual room. “She woke up screaming from a nightmare. Nurse Pelletier calmed her down, and when she returned later to check, Tante was chewing on her wrist and bleeding.”
Maman gasped and Nathalie winced. Maybe it was her imagination, maybe it was the visions, but she pictured the terrible scene all too sharply.
“Also,” Papa continued, “she claims a demon dog came to her in her sleep, attacked her, and left her bleeding. That’s the story Aunt Brigitte is telling, and … they don’t want us to acknowledge it as a suicide attempt.”
“We’re to pretend it’s just another visit?” Maman’s hand flew to her throat.
Papa shrugged. “The doctor thinks that’s best for now. I’m going to meet with him before we go.”
They walked into Aunt Brigitte’s new room to find her bundled up and under the covers. She looked small, so very small, in that bed. Every time Nathalie saw her, Tante seemed tinier and tinier, like someday she would disappear into the bed altogether.
Aunt Brigitte held up her bandaged wrist. “One of the hounds of Hell got me last night.” Then, in a whisper: “It isn’t safe from them here.”
They approached the bed slowly and greeted her. Aunt Brigitte thanked them for visiting, as she always did. “Last night I dreamed I walked through the halls of this place and everyone was dead, mauled by an unseen creature. I knelt down to pray and a red-eyed demon dog appeared. ‘Your prayers mean nothing,’ it said, then attacked my folded hands. I woke up and…” She extended her wrist and let it drop.
Quiet settled among them all, and after a while, Maman coughed. “Because Augustin is humble, I suspect he didn’t tell you: Not only did he heal me, but he healed our neighbors’ daughter. She had some unknown ailment that had her feverish most of the summer.”
Aunt Brigitte’s face brightened as she beamed at her brother.
Nathalie observed Maman, impressed by how she excelled at helping Tante shift moods. Papa patted Maman’s hand; he was probably thinking the same.
Aunt Brigitte launched into a story about how Papa had tried to teach her to skip stones, but she never did master it. “Of course it’s too late now,” she lamented. Her expression abruptly switched to concern. “Augustin, take the box home. The demon dog is a sign that the box shouldn’t be here anymore.”
“What box?” asked Maman. She began to look around Tante’s sparse area, hastily remade from her other room. A set of wooden rosary beads without a crucifix. A worn prayer book. A stuffed cat Nathalie had given her one Christmas years ago, back when Aunt Brigitte lived at Mme. Plouffe’s, because it resembled Stanley. “There’s nothing here.”
“Ask Nurse Pelletier,” whispered Aunt Brigitte. “She put it in the vault years ago.”
“Where they keep patient possessions?” Maman darted a look at Papa. He glanced away.
“And goodness knows what else,” said Aunt Brigitte, waving her hand. “I don’t trust anyone here.”
“I’ll get it,” said Nathalie. Before anyone could object she left the room and found Nurse Pelletier feeding someone two rooms down. Once she finished up with the patient, she acknowledged Nathalie’s request. After muttering “Now, where’s the key?” several times to herself, she disappeared.
Nathalie watched the woman who’d just been fed, an elderly woman. She stroked a filthy rag doll as though it were a child. Another patient shuffled down the corridor toward Nathalie, murmuring. She stopped beside Nathalie, who pretended not to see, and stood on her toes. The woman leaned in to Nathalie as if to tell her a secret, and spoke in a whisper. “Where’s the key?”
The woman shuffled away. Nathalie stared after her, suddenly recognizing her and contemplating the filter of madness.
“Here you are.” Nurse Pelletier, returning sooner than Nathalie expected, handed her the box. “One of your parents needs to sign a document attesting to its receipt. Have them see a nurse in that office.” She pointed to a room at the end of the hall and disappeared into another room to feed another patient.
Nathalie strolled back toward Tante’s room and removed the box cover to see what was inside.
The papers.
The papers, the ones Nathalie had searched for, the ones scattered all over Aunt Brigitte’s room at Mme. Plouffe’s that day. The papers Papa so fiercely guarded. The papers Maman said had been burned.
MY STORY was written across the top of yellowed paper. Nathalie picked up the box and began to read.
My name is Brigitte Catherine Baudin and I am an Insightful. I am blessed, I am cursed, and I am proof that magic is real, beautiful, and devastating.
45
Nathalie’s grip on the box stiffened. This could be it. Finally. Answers no one else could or would provide, to questions she’d never had until this summer. Questions she didn’t think existed.