Erik shrugged. “Just a quick trip up. I was careful to go while most everyone was away.”
Thorn didn’t respond. Erik was stronger than he’d been led to believe, if he could venture into the halls of his tainted past alone.
“The point I was making,” his father said, “is Rune has had her awakening, and lost control in the process. When she comes to us at the club, she will lose control again. And then, when she’s fraught with torment, I’ll offer her comfort and understanding. I’ll become what she’s been seeking for so many years: a father. You’ve already set the stage by earning her gratitude. In my full mask, I can easily step into your shoes without her ever knowing.”
“Our voices sound different . . . she’ll know,” Thorn asserted without thinking.
Erik’s lower lip curled on a scowl. “You spoke to her? What did you say?”
Thorn measured his answer. “I said that she and I are the same.”
Erik chuckled, a lyrical vibration that at first trickled like sweet rain, then bristled the hair along Thorn’s nape as the beauty soured to silence. “Making the first incision with the razor’s edge of sincerity. Well done. I’m apt at mimicry. I can sound enough like you to fool her. Although, I could simply erase you from her mind. She’ll forget ever hearing your voice once she hears mine.”
Thorn’s ears grew hot as that irrefutable truth ignited a flash of envy, no doubt visible to Erik’s discerning eye through the auras he was so adept at reading. Thorn struggled to compose himself.
“So what else is there?” Erik stroked the swan’s velvety red feathers, raking off the dust. “Why do you still seem so shaken?”
Because I’ve shared dream-visions with her for ten years. Because your pigeon is my mirror soul, but I didn’t know until she arrived. Because I touched her. As hard as I tried not to, I couldn’t resist. Our heart chakras have connected, and I’m helping her master her songs, against everything you asked me to do. I’m making her stronger instead of weaker.
The truth sat immovable in Thorn’s chest, and he couldn’t decide if it was fear, rebellion, or something else entirely motivating his silence. Under the scrutiny of Erik’s studious gaze, he felt his insides quake.
“I was ashamed to tell you how I’d failed,” Thorn answered at last, to ease the tension between them. “I know you wanted to be the first to make contact.” The excuse drizzled from his tongue like honey, sticky enough to make a mess but sweet enough to soothe the ache.
“I will still be the one to lead her to her identity and purpose. To free her of her cancerous songs. You merely interacted for a moment. You did what you had to do.” Erik stood, tucking his shirt into his pants. His fingers crept toward his mask and trailed the edge that covered his missing upper lip. “Unless there’s more.”
The accusation resonated on silvery notes, rising like a creature with wings, fluttering gracefully over to Thorn and tugging with its audible beak at the secrets he held caged behind his ribs. Thorn cringed at the tension in his chest, as if his breastbone actually shifted from the strain. He told himself it wasn’t real . . . buried his secrets deeper to keep them contained.
He’d learned hypnotism from Erik, although he couldn’t utilize his shattered voice for it. His talent was with his eyes and his touch. Yet, knowing how to wield such a weapon didn’t make one immune to it. Resistance was a skill that took all of his will and concentration.
“You’re not hiding anything from me, are you.” It wasn’t a question, it was a dare, and it didn’t come from Erik’s lips. It gargled up from Ange’s bill, a dark, trumpeting croak . . . it burst out of the bubbles on the surface of the fish tank . . . it hummed from the strings of Thorn’s violin housed within its case on his floor.
The barrage of disembodied voices was disorienting, even knowing his father was behind it. The first time Thorn experienced Erik’s ventriloquist wizardry, he was a child and it was entertaining and silly fun. Thorn practiced on his own so he could throw his voice, too, but never became as adept as Erik. Over time, seeing his guardian utilize the trick as a weapon to torture victims until they bent to his dark whims, Thorn lost interest in it altogether.
Just as bad as watching someone else be a recipient of the technique was being one himself. Ange squawked and waddled at his feet, sharing his discomfort.
Her ruffled reaction shook Erik out of the perverse and savage game—his default when he felt threatened. As if waking from a fugue, he blinked behind his mask, then glanced from Ange to Thorn. “Forgive me.”
Thorn wasn’t sure if the apology was directed to him or the swan.
“I can sympathize with what you’re feeling,” Erik continued, clarifying. He bent to pick up Thorn’s violin case. “This girl’s rhapsody and beauty have reawakened your muse. But know this: it’s temporary. Inspiration is a fickle and vicious mistress.” Bitterness laced his words as he tossed the case atop Thorn’s bed. “Rune was born for one purpose and only one, and she will accept this. If she doesn’t come to us, I will capture her myself. I know every catwalk, maze, and trapdoor. I redesigned the damn opera house to make it so. If your way doesn’t work, we take her by force.”
“Like what you did the first time?” Thorn suppressed a snarl. “You’ve seen the consequences of those actions. The witch told you it wouldn’t be successful unless the girl agrees to the sacrifice. Don’t let desperation cloud your judgment. Don’t let impatience endanger what you’ve waited so long for. She’ll come to us as planned. On the night of the masquerade. I’ll see to it myself.” Thorn strove for sincerity, all the while his mind scrambled to find an answer to satisfy everyone in this jumbled and hopeless equation.
Impatience glittered within the depths of the mask’s eyeholes. “If your plan fails”—Erik held his mouth tightly closed, again throwing his voice—“I’ll burn the whole opera house to the ground this time.” His answer drifted through the door, rising from the cages in the parlor. A flutter of feathers, growls, and chatters followed—discontentment and confusion rippling through Thorn’s animals.
Thorn cursed under his breath and strode across the threshold to settle them. “Don’t my patients already bear trauma enough?”
Erik followed, but stopped in Thorn’s doorway, a menacing imprint against the calming blue that radiated from the aquarium behind him. “You’re right, of course. It was not my intent to upset them.” He used his own mouth now, all tenderness and humility. “Remember our pact . . . made in the sewers of Paris all those years ago. Everything I’ve ever asked of you has a purpose. And you’ve earned your place as my son by doing them. But this is different than our work with the animals. It involves a mortal soul. The witch said it has to be done on a night of liminality . . . when the boundary between the dead and living can be crossed. We need Rune in my laboratory by All Hallows’ Eve to complete the circle. Only when she’s with us at last, will our family be complete. A family that can endure forever.”
12
L’HORREUR, L’ENLÈVEMENT, LE FANTÔME
“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
Niccolò Machiavelli
Thorn shut himself in his room.
A family that can endure forever.
He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. If they accomplished what Erik wanted, was he going to resume stealing life from his victims again, so he’d never die? He hadn’t mentioned that as part of the plan.
The temporary nature of living was what made it invaluable. Life was to be respected, even the lives of people who had made bad choices, for there was always a chance for redemption. Thorn wouldn’t forget the woman who taught him this.
Mother . . . warmth . . . peace.
He lifted his violin from its case, caressing the silky black wood. Drawing out his bow, he poured every emotion into the instrument—letting it speak in ways his damaged vocal cords couldn’t. Every soulful vibration purled from the strings to his jawline, and sank into his throat, setting him adrift upon a sea of turmoil.
He’d never needed an anchor more than he needed one now.
“Maman,” he whispered. She’d been his moral compass, as ironic as that was. What would she think of the monster he’d become? Or had she expected as much from him, all along?
Thorn hadn’t been a typical child. He’d learned to talk at a very young age, and could sing songs so beautifully and affectingly, he could move people to tears, force them to face things they had hidden from themselves and the world. He was only four years old when the full ramifications of this power were revealed.
That was another time and place, when he was Etalon Laurent. When he and his mother lived in a small shack just outside of Bobigny, a suburb of Paris. They eked by without electricity, gas, or modern comforts, surviving on bread, water, dried meat (mostly from pigeons, rabbits, and the occasional squirrel), and the rare bruised and squishy tomato or plum—whatever damaged items fell from produce carts without the grocers being aware.
Back then, Etalon was too young to understand the sacrifices his mother made to keep him clothed and fed. He knew only that each night, she poured herself into skimpy dresses, then waited on their porch in a cloud of noxious perfume, her face caked in powder and lipstick, for a black car to drive her away until morning.
She would leave him in the care of a neighbor in their slum—an old hag named Batilde who did nothing but complain and recount stories of a better life, when she had a television, four-course meals, and money, before her husband left her for a younger woman.
Etalon’s mother gave Batilde food in exchange for her help, though the two women often had shouting matches over why Etalon was there at all.
“You should’ve given that bastard child away, Nadine. Sold him when Arnaund first made the offer months ago,” Batilde spat one morning after spending a sleepless night with a feverish Etalon crying for his mother. “We would both be out of this pig swill and living in the city.”
“Swallow your tongue,” Maman scolded, her freshly washed olive skin darkening as she shielded Etalon’s ears. “Never call him that. He is an angel born of dreams. And you! You are lower than a serpent’s belly to suggest something so debase! I would never have even left Ettie last night had I known he was ill.”
“Children get fevers.” Batilde bared her teeth—all four of them. “And when they aren’t sick with snots and vomits, they eat you up, house and home. Parasites they are.”
“You’re the parasite! Get out!” Maman screeched, pushing Batilde toward the shack’s paper-thin door.
Batilde pushed back, almost losing the moth-eaten shawl on her narrow shoulders. “One day you will see! You’ll tire of men’s pawing hands, their slimy tongues, and diseased lusts. We can leave the filth behind. Have working lights, hot baths, new clothes, restaurants . . . all the things we once had. The offer stands. Never has he seen a child so beautiful, Arnaund says of your Etalon.” The old woman lifted her hands to punctuate her point. The flab hanging on the underside of her arms shook like a chicken’s waddle. “This from a man who deals in children every day.”
“And those dealings are the very reason Arnie is the devil himself. Leave and never come back!” Maman tossed a plastic-wrapped brick of cheese onto the muddy ground, shoving Batilde out alongside it.
Etalon wiggled atop the pile of books that made him tall in his chair at the kitchen table. His body ached and shivered from fever as he drew circles with a dried bread crust in the surface of thick dust. He’d seen other children in the slum playing with real toys—stuffed animals, tiny metal cars and airplanes, music boxes. Some even had plastic walkie-talkies that worked with batteries. But he used his imagination. His toys were just as good as theirs.
“What are you drawing, little Ettie?” His mother asked as she kissed his temple, testing his temperature. “Are you practicing your letters?”
“Musical notes, Maman,” he answered. “See the colors?” He often made up tunes in his head when he was frightened or upset. The songs would come alive in his mind, a rainbow that sparkled like the jewel-colored candied fruits at market—the ones Maman loved but could never afford. One day, he would buy them and fill the cupboards and pantries as fat as treasure chests. And Maman would never be sad or hungry again.
As Batilde stood outside their door screaming obscenities, Etalon heard that word once more.
“What’s a bastard, Maman?” he asked.
“A filthy lie that has nothing to do with you,” she said, raking his hair from his face with a hand that smelled of tobacco, stale men’s cologne, and something he didn’t quite know—a soured bleach stench fraught with regret and desperation. “Now, you just draw your music. Don’t listen to that wretch. I will get a washrag to cool your face.”
She puttered about the tiny kitchen, and as she opened the cupboard to find a tattered cloth, Etalon munched on the dust-caked crust, craving the cheese she’d tossed out for Batilde’s payment. His stomach sucked into itself on a growl so deep, it pulled all the way to his feet. For a distraction, he wiggled his toes until they poked out of the holes in his stockings. Earlier, he’d drawn eyes, noses, smiles, and frowns upon each one with a piece of charcoal. Though they chilled in the cool air, he giggled at them, his piggy puppet friends.
“Maman, Batilde’s a mean old witch,” he said, making his voice high and silly, pretending his toes’ mouths were speaking. “Take me with you next time.”
His mother’s sad brown eyes met his. “No, Ettie. You will never go with me. Do you understand? Never follow me, either. Do you hear? The place where I go . . . it’s no place for a child.”
“But Batilde said it is. She said Arnie likes me most of all the children. He loves me.”
His mother paled as she pumped water from the spigot, holding the rag under the brownish flow. “You shouldn’t even know that demon’s name. And you don’t want that kind of love. It isn’t love at all. It’s dark, and it’s evil. Just like the devil and the witch in your favorite story, who treated Jean and Jeanette like possessions, to be eaten like fatted calves. But children are powerful, and clever. They should be treated as gifts from the heavens. Remember what happens?”
“They ax the witch and outrun the devil!” Etalon shouted, laughing.
“Yes.” Maman pointed her finger at him in praise. “But that’s the only time killing is all right . . . when it’s to save a child’s precious life. Do you hear me, Ettie? Now, enough of this gloomy talk. Sing for me. Make my heart full.”
Etalon started humming then, following the colored notes written in the layers of dust. Maybe it was the fever, or maybe it was the suffocating worry as Maman spoke of the fairy tale, but something was different this time. The colors conjured by his voice didn’t stay in their place at the table. They rose and drifted to his mother beside the sink, spinning around her then capturing her wrists and linking together—a rainbow of chains. She closed her eyes, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Soon, she’d fallen to her knees with a loud thud.
The melody was simple, yet somehow it weighed heavily enough to drag her to the floor. Her eyes opened, and sunlight streamed from the window, shadowing every wrinkle and line within her once-pretty face. Her mouth gaped, and like the spigot spouting tainted water, she confessed the ugly truth: why Etalon never knew his father. That she didn’t even know who the man was, but he was too beautiful to be real; he’d come to her in a dream and then was gone. She believed the devil himself had seduced her. She believed it the penalty for the life she lived. For she was a whore, and Etalon her baseborn child.
After that day, his mother loved him even more fiercely, but she also feared him. As he grew over the next two years, she watched with cautious, sidelong glances. Each time he became agitated or sad, he would sing instead of cry, and level her emotions until she confessed something else from her past. Something she’d never told anyone.
Their positions had shifted, and Etalon was in charge. He demanded she not leave in the car anymore at night. Although, at age six, he didn’t quite unders
tand what a whore was, he knew it hurt her. He wanted her safe.
Maman found a new job as a laundress, to appease him. He was wiser than most children his age, and she left him alone on the days she took the bus to collect and deliver laundry, knowing he would stay inside and care for himself. She was afraid for anyone else to watch him.
She told him he’d been sent to the earth to expose men’s evil ways, that God himself formed his vocal cords of truth serum. Because his songs not only brought his listeners to tears, it sliced their hearts open and forced them to look upon their vilest secrets—sins they’d blotted out with the ink of repression in hopes never to remember.
She insisted he would not be safe if anyone knew, and begged him to stop singing. But Etalon couldn’t, for by then he understood that music gave him power. One autumn afternoon, Batilde came to prey upon Etalon while his mother delivered laundry. The hag threatened that Nadine would be punished if she failed to fulfill her contract with Arnaund, but that Etalon could fulfill it for her and save his mother’s life.
Her words scared Etalon, and birthed the most powerful song he’d ever sung. The poignant melody forced Batilde to confess the affair she’d had with her sister’s husband, that it was the real reason her husband left her. And that she was to blame for her poverty-stricken state. After her confession, Batilde scooted out of their house on her hands and knees, like a whipped dog.
She stayed away after that, and each time Maman would hang laundry outside with Etalon handing her the clothespins, Batilde would slam all her shutters and doors closed.
On the eve of his seventh birthday, Etalon’s mother didn’t return from delivering laundry to her patrons in Bobigny. By morning, news had reached their hovel that she’d been killed by Arnaund.
Etalon stood on his porch with the basket of clothespins cradled to his chest. It was his fault. He hadn’t traded places with her; he could’ve given himself for Maman. Now she was gone, as far out of reach as the invisible father he’d never know.
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