Spectacle

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

  She wished her mother a sheepish good night in return and went to her bedroom. She pulled out the newspaper—one sheet, pages nine and ten from April 27, 1869—and began reading.

  “Marriage Announcements.” Her parents were married April 24 that year. She read through the notices and spotted her parents’ names on the list.

  She’d never seen a newspaper so old. Beside the marriage announcements were birth announcements and obituaries. An advertisement for Café Maxime spread across the top of the page. The other side had two stories, one about an upcoming parliamentary election that was so dull she stopped reading after the fourth sentence. The other was continued from page two, with the headline “Effects Uncertain”:

  … has denied that the experiments are correlated with insanity. “I’ve brought magic into the world,” said Dr. Henard, “not lunacy.”

  Still, Dr. Henard does not deny that many patients who have successfully undergone the blood transfusion have observed side effects over time. “I’m not at liberty to discuss individual cases, but there do appear to be treatment results that were not anticipated.”

  Although Henard offers no further comment, the Tremblay family remains adamant. “My wife was a good woman, a good wife,” M. Tremblay said, shaking his head. “I’ve lost her to madness, just like the other four families who lost someone to the asylum after these experiments. And I have to wonder, what happens to my children if I’m next?” Tremblay shakes his head again. “Henard promised us that we’d ‘gain insight.’ Maybe in his mind insight is just another word for devastation.”

  Or, as we see it, sorrow.

  Nathalie dropped the newspaper. It floated onto the ground with a quiet rustle.

  Insight.

  The parallel was too much. Too uncanny. Too everything to be a coincidence.

  She didn’t know much about Dr. Henard’s experiments, only what she’d heard from some schoolmates who claimed to have a relative who’d been a patient. Henard had found a way to impart seemingly magical abilities—clairvoyance, mind reading, superhuman strength—through blood transfusions. Then terrible consequences had come to light; people lost their powers over time, some died as a result of transfusions, some became physically ill. He’d fallen out of favor and, as far as Nathalie knew, disappeared from public consciousness over a decade ago. Few people talked about “that fraud Henard” anymore.

  Nathalie had never before heard of a connection between the treatments and insanity.

  Aunt Brigitte claimed to see events in her dreams that became real, or so she thought, and was judged to be insane as a result. Had Tante been one of his patients?

  Nathalie sat on the bed as another thought seized her. The visions, the memory loss …

  She shook her head; those things couldn’t be related. She’d never gotten a medical procedure, not that she could remember.

  That. She. Could.

  Remember.

  21

  Nathalie arranged and rearranged the questions she had for Maman, writing them out in her journal before bed. Then she did something else that, she now decided, she should have done in the first place.

  Told Agnès about the visions.

  She couldn’t be hypocritical, pressing Maman for answers while holding on to secrets of her own.

  Using her nicest stationery, employed only on special occasions, she wrote the letter.

  Dear Agnès,

  My friend, I hope you will forgive me. I have kept this from you long enough. I cannot withhold this from you any longer.

  I know far more about these murders than you can imagine, because I am experiencing something that is, in every essence of what the word means, unimaginable.

  Nathalie wrote slowly at first, choosing her words carefully. Then she let them flow and told her everything: what she’d truly meant in that first postcard, how the memory gap had stolen Nathalie’s recollection of penning a letter, the trip to the hypnotist. She asked if Agnès had heard of Dr. Henard’s experiments, and if so, what she knew about them. She wrote pages and pages. Alleviating the burden of secrecy liberated her.

  I promise to explain more and answer any questions when we meet for lunch at Le Canard Curieux the day after your return at 1 o’clock. I know we set this date and time before you left for Bayeux. Does it still hold?

  Bisous,

  Nata

  P.S. I do hope I remain in your good graces. I also hope you understand why it meant so much to me to hear about your summer. Many, many times I have thought about how much I would rather be learning to make tarts or strolling through town or teasing Roger with you or spending the day at the beach. Instead of all this. My apologies again.

  By the time Nathalie finished the letter, she was exhausted and fell asleep soon after. She woke up confident and prepared to talk to Maman. At last she might have some answers about Aunt Brigitte. About herself. She braced herself for the truth.

  She tucked the newspaper she’d found last night into her journal and brought it into the kitchen, smiling. Maman was finishing breakfast and didn’t pick her head up.

  “What were you doing in my room last night?”

  Apparently Maman had some questions of her own. Nathalie had been hoping this was one of those times when Maman didn’t follow through on a we’ll-talk-later warning. “I told you. I followed Stanley in there.”

  “Don’t lie.” Maman looked up, her eyes brimming with disappointment.

  Nathalie blushed. “I was searching for something. Papers that Papa brought home once.”

  Maman raised a brow, beckoning her to continue.

  “Something Aunt Brigitte wrote a long time ago. When she was in Madame Plouffe’s place, just before she went … away.”

  Whatever it was Maman was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that.

  Nathalie spoke in a calm voice. “Something made me think of that day, and every detail came back to me. I couldn’t help but search. I was embarrassed about getting caught. I didn’t know what to do when you walked in, and for some reason I was afraid to tell you the truth. There was a newspaper in the drawer, and I took it. The one with your marriage announcement.”

  She handed the old newspaper back to Maman.

  “You shouldn’t have been poking about,” said Maman, grimacing. “Especially when you could have asked me about those papers.”

  Maman had a point. Nathalie could have, should have asked her about those papers. Yet these visions, this curiosity that had turned into a curse, had Nathalie burying deception on top of deception. It had begun with evading M. Gagnon’s questions from that very first life-changing day with Odette. Being evasive with Maman and ever so much more coy to Agnès. Even in the fight with Simone, who knew almost everything, she’d had to refrain from saying anything about the Dark Artist’s threat. And wasn’t disposing of the blood jar another form of lying, if only to herself?

  “I’m sorry.” Nathalie met her mother’s gaze and sat down at the table. “Then … what about Aunt Brigitte’s papers?”

  Maman looked over her shoulder as if seeing into the past. “Most of what she wrote was illegible. Your father insisted on keeping the papers anyway and brought them home. The next day they were gone.”

  Something about the way Maman spoke those words—the cadence, the hollow tone, the bitterness of a swallowed hurt—told Nathalie she’d touched on an unwelcome memory.

  “Gone?”

  “He said he burned them.”

  She chewed the inside of her lip. “I never considered that.”

  “Why do you have to consider it at all?” Maman folded her arms. “All these years you just accepted Aunt Brigitte for who she is and where she is. Now all these questions.”

  “And I have one more,” Nathalie said, struggling not to let her voice quiver. “Based on something I read.”

  She flipped over the newspaper and pointed to the story about Henard. “This.”

  Maman’s face hardened. “What about it?”

  “I think Aunt Brigitte was one
of Dr. Henard’s patients.” Finally. Finally, the words that had nearly burned a hole in her tongue all night came out. “Am I correct? Did she have one of those blood transfusions? Is that why she’s in the asylum?”

  Maman still hadn’t taken her eyes off the newspaper. Gradually she lifted her head. She clasped her hands with sluggish fingers and leaned back. “No.”

  Nathalie regarded her mother. “I don’t believe you.”

  “We are not talking about this.”

  “Yes, we are!” Nathalie crossed her arms. “Why shouldn’t we?”

  Maman tightened her folded hands, thumbs pressing into her flesh. “Where did this come from? This interrogation? This behavior? I won’t be spoken to that way. I am your mother, not Simone.”

  A twinge traveled through her heart. Maman didn’t know about the quarrel with Simone, which made it even worse.

  “Then maybe I’m the one who needs to be at Saint-Mathurin.”

  Maman threw up her hands. “Now that’s a fanciful conclusion. What are you talking about?”

  “Insight. Aunt Brigitte wrote it on those papers. It’s here in the article, the idea of ‘gaining insight.’” Nathalie tapped the newspaper. “Tante claims to have insight. She dreamed about future crimes and tried to prevent them. Then I guess she went mad somewhere along the way like the people mentioned in this article. Am I wrong?”

  In one swift motion, Maman pushed her chair back and stood. She walked behind the chair and gripped it firmly, as if to steady herself. She stared at her scars and exhaled through her nose. “No. You’re right. Everything you said is true.”

  “It is?” Nathalie asked, her voice laden with bittersweet awe.

  “And now what?” Maman asked in a tranquil, even tone that Nathalie found unnerving. “You know the truth, and you know the shame that was brought on our family. That your aunt is insane because she sought magical powers. She’s considered a fool for taking part in those experiments. What else is there? That’s everything.”

  “What about—”

  Maman held up her hand and closed her eyes. She paused a moment before opening them again. “I said that’s everything. You can do all the sleuthing you want, you can ask all the questions you want. I won’t answer them.”

  “Why? Does it bring shame to the family to tell the truth?”

  “How dare you?” said Maman, her face a mixture of indignation and hurt. “The decision is mine, not yours. You’re sixteen. What do you know about truth?”

  “Until today, I didn’t know much at all,” Nathalie said, hands on hips.

  “Enough. I will never discuss this again.”

  That last sentence set a flame to everything else Nathalie wanted to know. Needed to know. Am I one of Dr. Henard’s patients? Did something happen to me in childhood that I don’t remember?

  That might have come up in the hypnosis, had she gone under. Wouldn’t it?

  I see things, too, Maman. Like Aunt Brigitte.

  Now she had to wait. For a better time, when she could try again to talk to Maman. She had to believe that they could talk, that she could tell her everything, some other day.

  Maman went to her bedroom and returned several seconds later holding her shopping bag.

  Then she locked her bedroom door.

  Nathalie’s heart descended into a basin of sadness. Maman hadn’t locked that door in years.

  Silence settled between them, a chasm full of more questions than answers and one that neither wanted to cross. Maman let out a sigh, composed of both frustration and weariness, and announced that she was going to run errands. Nathalie asked her to mail the letter to Agnès. Maman’s eyes lingered on the envelope too long, Nathalie thought, perhaps wondering what Nathalie had written, what family secrets she’d spilled.

  After Maman left, Nathalie approached the window. She watched her mother walk down the street and out of sight. Stanley nuzzled her shin and weaved in and out of her legs.

  She retreated from the window and felt a lump form in her throat. Tears followed. So many that she went to her bedroom and cried into her pillow, weeping until her nose stuffed up and her face swelled.

  When she had cried all she could cry, and maybe even more, she fell asleep. She awoke with a stabbing headache and lay there, petting Stanley. Maman still wasn’t home. Good; Maman would assume that in her absence Nathalie had gone to the morgue and newspaper.

  She wondered what Simone was doing. Whether she was at the club. Or sleeping, because she was keeping her “vampire hours.” Or Simone might, at this very moment, be eating grapes. Maybe with Louis, who almost certainly would tell her about Nathalie’s trip to the hypnotist. Or maybe Simone was with some other girl she’d befriended at the club, a replacement friend. After a while, when Nathalie was done imagining all the ways Simone might be spending her day, she drifted off again.

  And so went the rest of the day, this hazy vacillation between sleep and wakefulness. One of the few moments she remembered afterward was Maman coming in to kiss her on the forehead just after nightfall.

  * * *

  The headache subsided by the next morning, which was good, given that it was Nathalie’s first day back as morgue reporter in almost a week.

  After a few bites of fruit for breakfast, she dressed in her boy clothes and left. She forgot to tie one of her shoes, though, and tripped down the last few stairs of the apartment building. The spill resulted in a tender ankle and a maddening splinter (thanks to the railing) in the palm of her hand. Maddening because she couldn’t get it out, despite going back to get one of Maman’s sewing needles and picking at it on the tram. She tried again while standing in line at the morgue.

  She hated splinters, unlike blood blisters, which she almost enjoyed. They intrigued her, because sticking a needle through your skin and having blood come out painlessly was rather thrilling. But splinters were just aggravating.

  “Nothing worse, eh?” said a throaty voice. A tall, striking woman with raven hair pointed to Nathalie’s hand. “My beau gets splinters all the time.”

  “I’m right-handed and have to use my left to get it out. Most inconvenient.”

  The woman fussed with her hair, atop her head like a crown, and smiled. “Would you like my help?”

  “No, no, thank you,” she said. Something about the woman’s demeanor was off-putting. Familiar and false all at once.

  Nathalie picked away and finally caught the end of it as she crossed the threshold of the morgue. As she finished pulling out the stubborn sliver of wood once and for all, she bumped into the man ahead of her, causing him to drop his newspaper.

  “Je suis désolée,” she said, bending down to scoop up the pages. While handing them to him in a clumsy gesture, she noticed an illustration across the top half of the newspaper.

  A tarot card with a man and a woman, with an angel hovering above. The Lovers. She knew this because the first time Simone had done a reading for herself, this card had come up. Simone had talked about it for a month, all but certain it boded well for herself and Louis, who at that time she only admired from afar.

  DARK ARTIST SENDS TAROT, the headline read.

  Nathalie knew, in that split second between seeing the headline and looking at the viewing pane, that Victim #4 was on display.

  And so she was.

  This unfortunate girl, with Seine-bloated, olive skin and dark hair, was sliced worse than any of the others. Mirabelle Gregoire had been left with a gash on her temple. In Nathalie’s vision, Mirabelle had been pushed and fell against the corner of a table. This victim had cuts in the same place where Mirabelle’s wound had been. And on her throat and cheek like the others.

  They were deeper. Stronger. Angrier.

  Nathalie’s stomach seized up. She reached inside her satchel and pulled out the vial of catacomb dirt. She clutched it with so much force her hand went numb.

  The compulsion to touch the glass, to see a few moments of what happened, overwhelmed her.

  You’ll regret it. Don’t do i
t. Pray for the girl and write your column. This is none of your concern.

  The urge grew more pervasive, and Nathalie felt a change in her breathing.

  Maybe I overreacted. Maybe I gave up too soon. Maybe I’m nothing like Aunt Brigitte.

  Each breath was shorter and shallower than the last.

  It was surprisingly hot in here, given the mild day. The room felt crowded, yet it wasn’t any more so than usual.

  It darkened inside the morgue, as though a black cloud moved over the building and blocked the sunlight. Bathing it in shadows that grew blacker and blacker …

  The next thing Nathalie remembered was being sprawled out on a cold stone floor staring at the ceiling. Three people, including the man she’d bumped into and the tall woman who noticed her splinter, stood over her. The woman extended a hand. “You fainted. How do you feel?”

  Nathalie knew she had to have been scarlet from head to toe because she had never, not once, been so embarrassed. She took the woman’s hand and got up, carefully, because the only thing worse than fainting would be fainting again immediately afterward. “I’ll be better once I get some fresh air. Merci beaucoup.”

  Nathalie looked at the viewing pane again.

  The visions have done enough harm. Don’t.

  She took a step and heard something crack at her feet.

  Her vial of catacomb dirt, shattered. The dry soil spread out on the morgue floor in between bits of broken glass. A mess to anyone else, good luck charm and unexpected source of comfort to her. Nathalie’s heart sank.

  “We’ll clean it up,” whispered the guard. No doubt he thought he was reassuring her.

  Cheeks burning again, she hurried out. She took long, fast strides across the bridge and went to Café Maxime.

  “Mademoiselle Baudin,” called a familiar voice from over her shoulder.

  She turned to face him.

  “I saw what happened at the morgue. You ran off before I could check on you. May I join you for a cup of coffee?”

  Her heart fluttered. This was the last thing she expected this morning. Her instinct was to say no because … well, she couldn’t think of a good enough reason, other than that she was self-conscious. “Please do, Monsieur Gagnon.”