Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 03 - The School for Psychics

by Carolyn Jourdan

  Scenes like that were played out all over the world, across thousands of years—from the body of Patroclus at Troy, to the fire department chaplain who’d been placed at the foot of an altar on 911. It was barbaric, but a body on display gave people a chance to take a moment and consider what the heck was going on and think about how they wanted to go forward.

  Unfortunately it was human nature to ignore most of the opportunities to calm down and to get het up instead and take action that would lead to an endless cycle of tit-for-tat destruction.

  Phoebe sighed and turned away from the center of the square and focused on the individual townhouses. High-end jewelers, famous fashion houses, and perfumers occupied most of the shops in the square. This was some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. At first she hadn’t understood how the numbering worked, but now she saw that all the even numbers were on the opposite side from the Ritz.

  She walked toward No. 12, a storefront in a corner of the square. At ground level the building had a tall arcade. The floor above it had grand French doors and ornate wrought iron balconies. The third floor was similar, but with lower ceilings, and then there was an attic floor with round or arched windows under a copper roof.

  No. 12 housed Dior Joaillerie. Phoebe looked the word up. It didn’t mean jewelry in general, as she had supposed. It meant a special kind of luxury gems—what the grand auction houses would refer to as important pieces.

  She saw a woman reflected in the glass of the shop window. Only when she saw the crutches did she recognize the image as herself. She was wearing clothes she never could’ve afforded, on loan from the communal closet at the monastery. Christophe had probably gotten them from stores near here.

  She checked the notes from her conversation with J.J. This house, No. 12, was currently known as hôtel Baudard de Saint-James. Christophe’s last name was Saint-James. She wondered if it was owned by a relative of his. She’d have to ask him if she ever saw him again.

  Then she noticed the plaque. Goodness, this was where Chopin had died. He’d had rooms here. His apartment had been on the ground floor and mezzanine level. Phoebe loved Chopin above all the other composers. She said a heartfelt prayer for him as she stood there.

  Chopin had spent his last days here, consumed by a terror of being buried alive and suffocating to death underground. It was an understandable anxiety in a high-strung man who was suffocating to death above ground, coughing and choking in the final stages of tuberculosis. The poor fellow’s last request had been to be cut open before burial, so to make certain he was dead.

  Phoebe hoped they’d honored his pitiful request. What an extraordinary soul. She stood still, trying to absorb whatever traces of beauty he’d left behind. Then she slowly continued around to No. 8.

  This was where Madame Pompadour’s brother had lived, one of several residences he had in Paris. The townhouse was in the south corner of Place Vendome. As it turned out, she’d taken the long way around. That was hard on her ankle, but she’d gotten to see more of the architecture that way.

  She stood in front of the lovely building and tried to purge herself of her feelings of grief for Chopin’s short life and his prolonged death. She shook herself to loosen the tension in her body. She felt a slight tingle emanating from No. 8, but nothing more. There was nothing significant left inside.

  Phoebe knew Marigny’s soul lingered at Menars. He’d waited there for over two hundred years, watching over the valuables he’d hidden in the château, until their arrival. He knew their location had been lost at his death. He’d been stricken so suddenly he hadn’t had time to transfer the information.

  J.J. shared with Phoebe that Marigny, too, had been an Archiviste. She was pleased that Mr. Botsaris, J.J., and the others had been able to set right Marigny’s accidental fumble. Phoebe hoped he could rest peacefully now.

  * * *

  She was done. There was nothing else here for Phoebe. She was satisfied she’d done her best for CR, Madame P, and Marigny. Now it was time for her to go home.

  It wasn’t much fun being here alone anyway. Phoebe didn’t like being on vacations by herself. It got boring pretty quick. Of course the food in Paris was a lot better than at home, but the irregular hours of her wacky job meant she’d missed a lot of meals.

  She had to admit to herself that missing some meals was actually a good thing. She needed to lose some poundage and could never have done it by relying on her nonexistent will power. But the stair climbing and wall climbing in these huge old buildings, and running away from psycho-killers, was helping her lose weight.

  She’d already lost ten pounds. To be honest, she need to lose twenty more, but dreaded what that was going to take. The only bad part of her new job, aside from the occasional rude slap or broken ankle, was that she made these great friends but then, at the end of the task, they all went their separate ways. She wondered if the School for Mysteries or the School for Psychics ever had reunions or conventions so she could see them again.

  The friends you made on a job like this were close. Phoebe figured it was like people who served together in the military. We few, we happy few—a band of extremely eccentric brothers and sisters.

  Phoebe still wasn’t exactly sure what she’d gotten herself into with the new job. She loved her boss, but she didn’t really understand who these people were. Oh well, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Most male bosses were afraid to hire women her age. She reminded them too much of their mother.

  It was amazing to Phoebe that more than half the world was still comprehensively underestimated and routinely abused. And she was blessed to live in one of the best places! God help the women in the third world and countries where various religions or cultures allowed horrible, unimaginable things to go on—and even encouraged them. How did the women cope?

  They were tough, obviously. So were men, but men got credit for it. Women were expected to suffer in silence. The arc of being female was certainly a challenge. When they were young, they were preyed upon. When they aged, they were ignored or discarded.

  It had nothing to do with her personally, she knew that. She’d experienced the full spectrum during her nearly sixty years. She’d been super-attractive as a tall, slender, blonde. That lasted until she was almost fifty, or until the man realized she was smart.

  The drop in her perceived attractiveness was shocking when her hair darkened to brown during menopause. A gay friend had said to her one day in mock horror, “Oh. My. God. You have the not-blonde-hair disorder!!”

  Brown hair alone was a serious handicap, but being overweight and sweaty was disastrous. When she began to break out in sweats and gained a lot of weight she became invisible, if not repulsive.

  But then, when she’d thought all was lost, she’d gotten this great job out of the blue and they liked her. The Boss treasured her talents and seemed to know more about her abilities than she did herself. He found things for her to do that really mattered and helped people. It was amazing. Life was such an adventure.

  Reentry into White Oak was going to be a rude shock. Phoebe was looking for a taxi when her new phone rang. It was the fancy one Sister Émilie had given her. She wondered who could possibly have her number. “Hello?” she said, mystified.

  “Miss MacFarland,” a familiar said. Oh, it was the Boss’s Executive Assistant, the redoubtable Arabella Devlin-Forrest.

  “Yes?”

  “Le Seigneur asked me to contact you, now that your tasks are complete, and relay a bit of information he believed you would find significant. It’s an address.

  Arabella was Phoebe’s dispatcher. She was a terribly efficient British woman, but this call just plain scared her. It had been less than thirty seconds since she’d decided she was finished with her work. That was downright freaky. The Boss had to be behind a coincidence like that.

  “Do you have a writing instrument at hand?” Arabella asked.

  “No, sorry, I don’t.”

  ‘”Then I shall transmit the information by text.
”

  Arabella hung up. Phoebe’s phone chimed and she looked at the address.

  Nicolas de Lalande

  Château-Saint-Germain-de-Livet

  14100 Saint-Germain-de-Livet, France

  +33 2 31 31 00 03

  * * *

  Phoebe hailed a taxi, but instead of going to a hotel or the airport, she asked to be taken to the nearest ÉuroCar rental location. She’d decided to visit Nick, the accidental partner from her previous mission. He’d said he might renovate his family home in Normandy. Now that she knew where he was, she thought it might be fun to see the house and her friend.

  Chapter 29.

  Nick appeared from over the rise looking like a modern day Heathcliff in winter. He was wearing blue jeans and an oversize long-sleeved white shirt. The tails were hanging out, flapping in the wind from underneath his down coat. The breeze was ruffling his curly hair and a dramatic, turbulent-looking, gray sky was spitting snow.

  He was headed downhill, carrying an armload of firewood. When he saw Phoebe, it startled him and he dropped a few pieces of wood. One of them landed on his foot and he hopped backwards and winced. She could see he wanted to shout an expletive, but was being manfully reticent.

  He had a healthy looking tan and a bit of a windburn. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days either. Getting out of the basement of his house in Cleveland, even under less than ideal circumstances, had done him a world of good.

  Phoebe got out of the car and hobbled toward him on her crutches. “I was in the neighborhood,” she said.

  “Please don’t tell me why,” Nick replied.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I did. Let’s just say I think I might have some job security now.”

  Nick stared pointedly at her crutches and knee-high splint. His expression conveyed his doubts about whether her newfound job security was a positive development.

  “So this is Mars?” Phoebe said, to distract him. One of Nick’s hereditary titles was Prince du Mars. Phoebe found this hilarious.

  He smiled and swept into a grandiose formal bow, “Welcome to my humble home.”

  He was gesturing toward a walled cluster of buildings. His place was tiny compared to where she’d been during the previous week. It was the size of a nice middle class house and yard, but sat on a small island in the middle of a wide moat. A brick wall ran around the edge of the island, enclosing the house and grounds.

  The wind suddenly gusted and nearly blew her down. She remembered his mentioning hurricane force winds blasting in from the North Sea. “Mars ain’t the kinda place to raise yer kids,” she said, “in fact it’s cold as hell.”

  He smiled at that, “And yet, look how I turned out?”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “I’ve lived in Cleveland, so this is nothing,” he said, as he stooped to pick up the firewood he’d dropped.

  * * *

  There was only one way to get into the walled compound without swimming or boating and using some climbing gear. The entrance was by way of a narrow wooden bridge. “This drawbridge looks like it would actually work,” Phoebe said.

  “It does! Wanna see?”

  “Not right now.”

  There were two delicate round towers with pointed roofs on either side of the main entrance connected by a lodge above the gate. They walked through the arched opening and came into a courtyard. The château was comprised of a charming group of contrasting buildings that were all connected in a row like small townhouses built during sequential eras.

  “This is wonderful!” Phoebe said.

  Nick pointed out the various sections. “A half-timbered manor from the second half of the 15th century, a Renaissance residence wing from the 16th century, and an Italian-style gallery with architecturally important basket-handle arcades.”

  The place was unexpectedly colorful. The half-timber was stark chocolate and white. The Renaissance section bore a chequered pattern of glazed green brick alternating with pale stone. The Italian part was pink brick and gray flint mixed with cream stone. This was what theme parks wanted to be, but weren’t. It had all the fun features of a château, but was built on a manageable scale.

  “Now I see why you weren’t afraid to climb all over Château St. Cloud,” Phoebe said, reminding him of one of their over-the-top escapades. “You played here as a child, didn’t you?”

  Nick’s lips curved into a smile and he nodded to confirm Phoebe’s suspicions.

  “But this is like a toy version of St. Cloud,” Phoebe said. “It’s the most livable château I’ve ever seen. It’s wonderful. The scale is much more human.”

  “The château for a man on a budget,” Nick said. “Easier to heat than the more ostentatious piles, but more pretentious than a mere Manor.”

  It was snowing in earnest now. “Thanks for the tour of the grounds, I’m ready to go inside now,” Phoebe said, shivering.

  * * *

  Nick stacked the wood in an ancient mudroom just inside the door.

  The interior was sparsely furnished in a style that Phoebe was growing accustomed to in these historical buildings. The highly textured construction materials were decoration enough—walls of stone or thick undulating plaster, high ceilings with massive timbers, windows leaded with wavy, bubbly, and eccentrically tinted glass, and floors of pitted stone or softly burnished terra cotta tile. The first room she saw bore lovely partially-restored 16th century fresco of a battle scene.

  Most of the windows had solid wooden shutters, folded and swung out of the way, stored in the deep recesses provided by the thick walls. Upholstery throughout the house was faded tapestry in gold and khaki, highlighted with muted blues and reds, or else the lively cotton Souleiado indienne block prints.

  There was a dining room with a few old pieces, a hall, and the kitchen where an enormous array of antique copper pots hung from the walls and ceiling. She prayed he had a microwave in there somewhere, or at least some cheese and bread.

  At her insistence, Nick helped her up the stairs and gave her a quick tour. The rooms were furnished with curtained antique alcove beds and charming old tile stoves. Phoebe was relieved to note that the house had modern plumbing.

  Nick led her back to the ground floor and into the room where he spent most of his time. It had a large working fireplace that was in use. There were a couple of upholstered chairs and a couch near enough to the blaze to be comfortable. A hopelessly untidy desk and a Herman Miller chair were tucked into a corner as well.

  Phoebe flopped down on the couch with a sigh of relief at being inside a warm room and no longer on her feet. She stacked her crutches out of the way and Nick took a chair nearby.

  “I know better than to ask what you’ve been up to,” he said. “In light of the crutches, I don’t think I could stand to know. So I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing instead. I’ve been burning through obscene amounts of euros restoring this place. This is not a money pit, it’s a black hole. A death star. Thank God I’m rich.”

  Phoebe smiled at his newfound wealth and the rapid diminution of it.

  “Is it fun?”

  “Yes, but let’s just say you wouldn’t believe how much a yard can grow up in a coupla hundred years.”

  Phoebe snorted.

  “There are enough moldering piles of stone in my family to keep me occupied for the rest of my life. Thank goodness I’m nearly done with this place and the medieval cottage on the other side of the hill. You’ll love the little cottage. I’ll take you there tomorrow if the snow isn’t too deep. It has a thatched roof! Thank goodness there are still craftsmen around who know how to do that. It’s not easy.”

  He smiled. “You know how they heated it?”

  Phoebe shook her head. He looked so happy. It was nice to see him like this.

  “The horses and cows were kept safe and out of the weather on the ground floor and the people lived in a loft above them! Apparently animals can put out quite a bit of heat, and heat naturally rises, so there’s no need for expen
sive duct work.”

  “How do you adjust the thermostat?”

  “Open a window or buy another cow.”

  * * *

  It took Phoebe a few minutes to thaw out enough to notice it, but the limestone mantle over the fireplace next to which they were sitting bore a huge carving of some sort of critter. She studied it. It looked like a porcupine. That made sense. It was the perfect symbol for Nick.

  This particular porcupine had many long, sharp-pointed quills. An ornate crown was carved into the limestone so that it hovered above the middle of the porcupine’s back. Some sort of indecipherable motto was scribbled underneath the prickly beast.

  Nick watched Phoebe try to read the inscription.

  “It says, Cominus et Eminus. That’s Latin for From Close and From Afar.”

  “That’s pretty vague,” said Phoebe. “Shouldn’t it be something pious like I Pray Night and Day, or fierce like Do What I Say or I’ll Kill You?”

  “I know it’s not very glamorous or catchy, but it’s Louis XII’s motto and the rallying cry of The Order of the Porcupine.”

  “You’re making that up!”

  “Unfortunately, I’m not. In French it is rendered as the Ordre du Porc-Épic.”

  As usual Phoebe’s comprehension of French lagged far behind hearing it, she thought he’d said The odor of the epic porker. Or was it The stink of the Big Pig? She decided not to ask.

  “It was a chivalric order created in 1394 by Louis I, Duke of Orleans. Later it was merged with the Order of the Golden Fleece and then eventually the name was changed to the Order of St. Michael.”

  Phoebe marveled at the increase in marketing savvy over the centuries—from naming their club after a smelly hog, to St. Michael, but it took six hundred years for them to get there. Yes, this was clearly Nick’s family. Not a decent sound bite to be had anywhere.

  “They had to wear these hideous necklaces made with three gold chains that had a gold porcupine hanging on a green-enameled flowered terrace, whatever that is. There was a ring, too. Gold with a cameo engraved with a …,” Nick started laughing at his own lecture, he couldn’t help himself. He could barely get out the word, “pppporcupine.”