Sensational

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

  “Laudanum, that’s it!” she exclaimed. “Dr. Lomme gave me laudanum. I made a joke about it at the time.”

  Dr. Delacroix smiled and hesitated, as if he expected her to say more. When she didn’t, he repeated his initial question.

  She wanted to challenge him and insist on an answer about his own ability. But not nearly as much as she wanted someone to listen, even if she wasn’t as articulate as usual at the moment.

  Nathalie spoke to him using her voice and her hands, shaping her story with both words and gestures. There was so, so much to tell about being an Insightful. And really, who wanted to hear it? Dr. Delacroix did; he asked and she was going to tell him, from the earliest days of the Dark Artist until the present. She left out, of course, the fact that Aunt Brigitte killed her roommate.

  Why was she suddenly so inclined to talk? To a stranger, no less? It didn’t matter, she decided.

  Fatigue overtook her as she spoke, and she was vaguely cognizant that she may have repeated some details or left others out altogether, thinking she’d said them. She couldn’t be sure, because the fog that had descended over her remained intermittent. Would this feeling ever leave?

  “It will,” said the doctor, thumbing a brass button on his coat. “I believe it will.”

  Nathalie propped herself onto her elbows and focused on the man. Papa’s age, maybe older. Dark hair graying at the temples, good-looking in a professorial sort of way. “Why should you believe anything? If you’re an Insightful, you know it’s not a matter of faith. It’s science. And did you tell me what your ability is?”

  “I did,” he said, smiling good-naturedly. “You asked a second time, while you were telling me about Jules.”

  Jules. Nathalie scratched her forehead. She’d talked about her envy for Jules’s gift, so much more practical and helpful than her own. And she’d already forgotten what the doctor said about his own power. She was too embarrassed to ask him again.

  “Nathalie,” said Dr. Delacroix, “you’re right. Dr. Henard’s experiments were rooted in science. You also know—from your experiences and that of others—the unpredictability of the abilities and their consequences. That being said, your assumptions are correct. Direct touching prompts a much stronger response in you than indirect touching. As for this episode, it’s very likely that your connection to Aunt Brigitte provoked a response in you, perhaps complicated by her own … problems.”

  Nathalie shook her head. “But all Insightfuls don’t affect all other Insightfuls.”

  “Are you familiar with electromagnetism?”

  “Jules is intrigued by it and has talked about it. I’m afraid I don’t share his interest in the subject.”

  “It may clarify what transpired.”

  “What do you think transpired?” Nathalie sat up all the way.

  He studied her before responding. “The events you’ve endured in recent weeks have had a cumulative effect, cresting sometime during your visit at Saint-Mathurin. Complicated by your connection to your aunt.”

  He didn’t know she’d had a vision, then. Good. She must not have said anything.

  “Insightful blood gives off a frequency of sorts. Some are more powerful than others—not necessarily the ability, but the potency, so to speak.”

  She reached for the journal and pencil and began to write; she didn’t trust her mind yet, so it was important to record this. Her hand was stiff from lack of use and her handwriting, shaky. As long as she could read and understand it later.

  “You and your aunt are attuned, perhaps even more so because of how you acquired your ability, by birth.”

  Had she told him that? She must have. Why did they medicate her so?

  “That’s my guess as to why you surface in her dreams—and not, say, your father.” He stole a look over his shoulder, toward the doorway. “As unsettling as it is, your supposition about the Dark Artist was almost certainly accurate. You said your visions back then were in reverse, and then they weren’t. It could have been the encounter with him, his power, that changed that.”

  Nathalie rested her fingertips on her temple. “Everything about this is outlandish. This laudanum makes me tired and forgetful, hardly conducive to aiding my condition and could be worsening it. Do tell Dr. Lomme when you have a chance.”

  “The laudanum would wake you up and then make you drowsy, but not forgetful, I’m afraid.” He left the sentence suspended like that, and even in her diminished state, she concluded the rest. The medicine wasn’t to blame.

  “Is there anything I can take to get better? To hasten this … whatever it is my mind is enduring?”

  Dr. Delacroix shook his head. “Time. It’s the friend and the enemy of Insightfuls. Many have tried, and failed, to create a tincture or tonic to ameliorate the effects. It seems the good is destined to be forever linked with the bad. Don’t ever despair too much. There’s always, always hope.”

  “How so?”

  The answer was lost to sleep or memory.

  Nathalie didn’t recall when she stopped taking notes, nor did she remember falling asleep or the departure of Dr. Delacroix, but she had to have fallen asleep, else a nurse wouldn’t be rousing her to eat. She did (soup, and it was dreadfully in need of flavor. The bread wasn’t bad).

  As she handed the nurse her empty bowl, she strained to look at the makeshift guest register. “He didn’t sign it.”

  The nurse glanced at the journal. “He who?”

  “Dr. Delacroix. We had a nice discussion about Insightfuls.”

  “I don’t know of any Dr. Delacroix,” said the nurse, crinkling her brow. She was smooth-faced with wispy ringlets of hair. “But I only recently got transferred to this floor. It’s possible I haven’t met him yet.”

  Nathalie wanted to believe that explanation, but her curiosity couldn’t be so lenient with uncertainties. When Dr. Lomme with his bushy eyebrows and clammy hands came in later that day, she asked him about Dr. Delacroix.

  A slight frown preceded his response. “I’m afraid not, Nathalie.”

  She wanted to pursue it. To contest him, to show him the notes she’d taken. She knew how it looked, given the reason she was here. The futility was uncomfortably obvious.

  And in truth, even she couldn’t be sure that Dr. Delacroix and the conversation she had with him had been real.

  22

  Nathalie’s ability to converse was nearly back to normal the next day. Although the sensation of coldness had mostly subsided, she still had the occasional hindrance in her thoughts and speech. Her memory had improved from shattered mirror to mostly repaired, passable from afar yet distorted upon closer examination.

  Two thoughts dominated her mind, and when Simone arrived for a visit, Nathalie couldn’t have been more relieved. Overnight she’d worked something out, something so obvious now, she didn’t understand how she’d overlooked it yesterday, impaired thinking notwithstanding. She needed her confidante.

  Simone came in with a newspaper under her arm. Once they discussed Nathalie’s improvement and the rambunctiousness of Max and Lucy (Simone revealing kitten scratches on her arm to prove it), Simone sat in the visitor’s chair.

  “I don’t know how much they tell you about the outside world, but I thought you’d be interested in seeing this.” Simone held up Le Petit Journal tentatively, as if worried it would snap at Nathalie like an angry dog. “If it upsets you and you don’t want to read about it, we can skip the topic entirely, and I can regale you with Le Chat Noir gossip.”

  Nathalie chuckled, then read the title.

  Le Rasoir’s Latest: Headless Body at L’Histoire de l’Habitation Humaine, Found in Pool Outside Persian Dwelling

  “The Suitor.” She clutched her own throat, a gesture her hand seemed to do of its own volition. Did others instinctively do this as well? “At the Human Habitation exhibit. Where I went with Christophe.”

  That made it even more real. Worse. She thought about their time together there, a stolen moment of friendship she hoped would never
be taken from her.

  Then another thought entered her mind. No, invaded it.

  “Simone, do you think the killer is following me? Bodies turn up at the places I visited, then, obviously, they end up at the morgue…” The words came out too fast for her brain. She stopped and exhaled. “Is there a thread? Am I the thread?”

  Simone shook her head firmly. “Absolutely not, Nathalie. A thousand other people who’ve visited the fair and the morgue could make the same claim. Do not allow yourself to think those thoughts.”

  Nathalie glanced at her, then away. Simone was right. Just because past events involved her directly, that didn’t mean this series of murders did.

  “You … all supposed correctly that the Suitor would be next.” Simone had the careful voice of someone who wanted to change the subject but didn’t know how well-received it would be.

  “Yet we could do nothing to stop it.” Nathalie had conveyed their working theory over lunch the day after their breakthrough. The theft of her memory had not, luckily, reached far enough back to eliminate that. Despite feeling like it happened months ago, she was able to remember everything about the case that hadn’t already been taken from her. “No, I didn’t know Le Rasoir took another life. Thank you for telling me. I don’t like being treated as though I’m suddenly too delicate to cope with reality.”

  “That’s my Nathalie,” Simone said with a grin. She adjusted the corset on her peach-and-white checked dress. “You must truly be feeling better.”

  “Not completely better. I read my journal this morning and had to reread several sentences in order to understand them. But … I’m greatly improved.” Nathalie reached for the paper, smoothed it out on her lap, and read.

  Le Rasoir cuts down another at the Exposition Universelle.

  A man’s headless body was found in a small, decorative pool outside the Persian dwelling early this morning at the L’Histoire de l’Habitation Humaine. He was well-dressed, with an evening suit and silk tie. His age is presumed to be between twenty-five and thirty-five.

  Speculation abounds as to the whereabouts of the head, including from international visitors in Paris for the Exposition who spoke to us through a translator.

  “Maybe it will show up in another exhibit,” said a young female tourist from Russia.

  “What,” asked a Moroccan visitor, “if it never appears?”

  “Jack the Ripper might be taking heads now,” said a Scottish tourist.

  A traveler from Japan shared these thoughts. “I think the river should be watched closely,” he said. “Or the fountain with the lights.”

  “The fountain. If he only knew,” said Nathalie.

  “I wonder if that’s deliberate,” said Simone. “If someone knows or suspects something and attributing a quote to a tourist is a way of getting it out there.”

  Nathalie’s mind turned that over a few times. She wished she’d deduced that herself. “The newspapers have gone from trying to brush aside these murders for the sake of the Exposition to embracing it, more with every issue. Even Le Petit Journal.”

  “They didn’t say anything about a nail and a script page.”

  “So either there wasn’t one,” Nathalie said, handing the paper back to Simone, “or they withheld it again.”

  Simone agreed. She reviewed the newspaper before folding it and placing it beside her on the chair. “Jules won’t have a thought reading from this, but maybe your favorite Insightful did.”

  “No, I’m certain Papa didn’t have a vision.”

  Simone smiled. “Céleste said to tell him hello. She’s very fond of him.”

  Papa had healed Simone’s younger sister a couple of years ago. Although Céleste wasn’t aware of what he’d done (only Simone did, not even her parents), she’d taken a liking to him and his storytelling. “I certainly will.”

  “You do know I meant Gabrielle, oui?”

  “I don’t know what to think of her. She’s polite at times and clearly shy, but her condescension toward Henard’s magic? It’s hard not to take that personally.” Nathalie got out of bed and stretched. She didn’t like it that Gabrielle was able to help right now while she herself was bedridden. “On the topic of Insightfuls … I have something to share with you. Two somethings, in fact.”

  Simone studied Nathalie before replying. “Your face is telling me they aren’t good somethings.”

  Nathalie crossed to the door and closed it.

  “They aren’t.” She stepped closer and put her hands square on Simone’s shoulders. “Why do the doctors and my parents say I’m here?”

  “Memory loss,” Simone answered without hesitation. She placed her hand on top of one of Nathalie’s. “You’re not nearly as cold as before. That’s good.”

  “Better every hour, I think. Finally. So … what else, besides memory loss? That’s happened before. This”—she said, gesturing around the drab, windowless room—“has not.”

  Simone’s deep amber eyes fell on her, unblinking. “You weren’t able to remember anything from one moment to the next. Complications from visions around Le Rasoir’s murders, too close to one another. Maybe discovering that Aunt Brigitte’s roommate died brought on some sort of hysteria. That’s what your mother told me, anyway. They don’t know for sure.”

  And yet Dr. Delacroix knew. Nathalie looked away and began to pace the room. It felt good to stand, to walk. To pace. “Has anyone read my journal?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Simone crossed her legs at the ankles. “Why?”

  Nathalie stopped pacing and faced her friend. She mustered the strength to say the sentence, an uncomplicated one in and of itself, that she’d been formulating since Simone had arrived. “Because I didn’t know that the woman—Véronique was her name—was dead. I assumed she was sleeping. I put my hand on her to help untangle her from her sheets and…”

  The realization spread across Simone’s face. “You had a vision? I thought that only happened when someone died at the hands of anoth—” Simone clapped her hand to her mouth. “No, don’t tell me your aunt…”

  Nathalie bit her lip so hard she briefly thought she’d pierced the skin. After a deep exhale, at some point, “yes” emerged from her mouth.

  She had difficulty believing these facts, this story, this uncomfortable truth about herself. It was real and it wasn’t.

  “Simone, you don’t know how badly I need to tell someone.” She sat on the edge of the mattress. “Not tell someone. Tell you. Who else could I possibly confide in?”

  Simone took her by the hand. “Nathalie, ma soeur.”

  That was all Simone had to say and do for Nathalie’s emotions, barely buried under broken earth, in an unmarked oh-so-shallow grave, to surface. She told Simone who Véronique was, guessing (correctly) that she’d recognize the case as soon as Nathalie mentioned it. Then she described what happened at the asylum, nomadic words alternately coming to her and drifting away as what she remembered intertwined with what she’d written down. The empty bed made for an unexpected, ironic accessory, allowing her to pantomime parts of her story.

  “Do you—do you think anyone suspects anything?” asked Simone.

  Nathalie gently pulled her hand away and pressed her fingers into the mattress. “As lamentable as it is to say, I don’t think they investigate the deaths of patients at Saint-Mathurin closely unless it’s obviously violent. There have been some horrific episodes in that regard.” Several months ago, a fight had broken out on the men’s ward below, with one patient killing another with a blow to the head. Although the asylum kept such matters from the public, Nathalie and her parents happened to be there shortly after the commotion. Nathalie had seen drops of blood in the stairwell where it had taken place. “It doesn’t matter, though. I know what happened.”

  Simone nodded, her face full of questions she was reluctant to ask.

  Nathalie stood and walked over to the wall, placing her hand where a window should be. “If they find out Tante did this, they’ll isolate her. Patients who
kill other patients are essentially prisoners within the asylum—no daylight, visitors only on the first Sunday of the month, no outside time, not much of anything besides meals.”

  “Are you … thinking of not saying anything?”

  “I don’t know.” Nathalie’s shoulders slumped. “If I do, she suffers that fate. If I don’t, I’m protecting a…” She swallowed. Thinking the word was one thing. Saying it out loud, the heft of the syllables in the air, was another. “Murderer. One that I love and pity, but a woman who took the life of another all the same. What if someone did that to her? I don’t know what brought her to this. What if she kills her next roommate?”

  “I’d be consumed by the same questions,” Simone said. “She’s never shown any signs of violence, has she?”

  “Not toward another patient.” She’d harmed others before coming into the asylum. To prevent them from killing a child, or so her dreams had told her. But there were no children in the asylum.

  Simone clasped her hands over her knees, tension turning her fingers white. “Perhaps she’ll confess.”

  Nathalie waved off the suggestion. “I doubt it.”

  “Perhaps she can be … convinced to confess.” Simone’s voice was rife with foreboding. “Then the dilemma isn’t yours to bear.”

  Nathalie hadn’t thought of that. She’d been so focused on the burden of secrecy and its various iterations that she hadn’t considered Aunt Brigitte’s own volition. It was, unfortunately, a pattern of thinking she and everyone else were prone to when it came to her aunt. “I suppose that’s where I should start. When I feel better. And when I discern whether or not anything’s transpired.”

  Simone rose from the chair and, without a word, embraced her.

  “Thank you,” said Nathalie, stepping back after a moment. “As if that weren’t enough, there’s something else I—”

  The door opened and a nurse poked her head in. “Nathalie! Good that you’re up and about. Unfortunately,” she said, opening the door wider, “this needs to stay open.”