Sensational

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

  For the duration of the omnibus ride she’d seethed, nails digging into her palms as she went over what she would say. Now that she was here, now that he was in sight, twenty paces away, sustaining the fury she’d worked herself into proved taxing. It was easier to be angry with intangible Jules than with the one who stood before her looking distraught.

  They’d never had an argument. Few cross words, really. Theirs had been an uncomplicated relationship. Not passionate or thrilling, but sweet and comfortable and satisfying because they could and did speak of so many subjects. Yet here she was, prepared to end everything between them, like snuffing out a flame.

  As well I should. His choices are unforgivable.

  Then why did it feel so unwieldy?

  Nathalie set and reset her posture several times before stepping into the garden. She tipped the brim of her hat up and approached him wearing what she hoped was an aloof expression.

  “You look contemplative,” she said, startling him.

  “I am,” he said, more composed than she expected. “More than ever.”

  “Why did you want to meet here?”

  He opened up his arms to their surroundings. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  She stared at him. He met her eyes for a moment, then turned away.

  “I think it’s quieter off to the side here.” He took several steps to the right. “Shall we?”

  She shrugged and followed him to some benches near a pool of water, passing an enamored couple sitting on one of them. Nathalie made a sniff of contempt she hadn’t intended to be audible and cleared her throat to cover it up. Don’t begrudge others their moment.

  She tried to hold on to that thought, but it slipped away like a river fish through the hands.

  The next bench, beside a rhododendron bush full of purple blooms, was unoccupied. Jules sat on it and Nathalie joined him, putting as much space between them as the seat allowed. Jules glanced at the exaggerated distance and up at her. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped.

  Nathalie sat up straight. “Let’s discuss whatever it is you wished to discuss.”

  “I think you know what I’d like to discuss. I said as much in my note.” His tone was cool but not cold, shrouded ever so slightly with regret.

  “Go on, then.” She folded her arms.

  “Do you recall the morning after the four of us went to the Exposition?”

  “The Jester’s body was found in two pavilions, yes. And you were still in quite a state from the vin de coca, as I recall.”

  Jules shook his head. “That’s not why I was so shaken up, or why I was so standoffish toward Gabrielle during our first encounter, or why I had difficulty doing my thought reading. I felt tired and had no appetite, but that wasn’t the whole story.” He curled his fingers into fists. “When I removed my coat at the end of our evening at the Exposition, I discovered a note. Le Rasoir—I assume, unless he had an agent working on his behalf—slipped it into my pocket.”

  “What?” Nathalie was incredulous. This didn’t seem plausible. “How? When?”

  “On the tram, on foot, on the ferry … who can say where or how?” Jules clenched his jaw and released it. “The note demanded that I lie about my next vision regarding the guillotine killings or my mother and sister would be next. By name, Nathalie: ‘your mother, Clotilde, and your sister, Suzanne.’”

  Nathalie kept her face stoic in spite of the emotions that bounced around inside her. She wasn’t sure which one would emerge. Dubious frustration clawed its way out first. “If so, then why didn’t you go to the police with it? Or show Christophe that morning instead of give a false reading?”

  “The note wasn’t the only thing I found in my pocket. There was also a considerable sum of money,” he added, rolling his shoulders. “Much more than my wages.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was weaving a tale or not. He seemed to be speaking in earnest; then again, the same had been true for his claim at the theater when he “found” the note and she confronted him about it. Presumably Monsieur Patenaude had made similar inquiries—there was plenty she hadn’t overheard yesterday—but she still wanted Jules to be answerable. To her. She witnessed him do that reading, tell the first in a series of lies. “And where is this note and this money?”

  “I destroyed the note immediately.”

  “Convenient,” Nathalie scoffed. Yet she herself had once poured blood and a note into the Seine, so fatigued had she been by the Dark Artist’s games.

  That was different.

  “And the money I kept because I—”

  “Did as Le Rasoir asked,” she sneered, “without even going to the police or Christophe or me or any other option that wouldn’t have involved abetting a murderer.”

  Jules looked up at the sky, a gray blanket of clouds, then at her. “Ma colombe, I—”

  “Do not call me that.”

  He put his hands in his lap. “Nathalie, I owe you and all of Paris an apology. I was wrong to take the money. I was wrong to throw off the case. I should have gone to the police without hesitation. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He paused and knotted up his fingers. “That’s not true. I do know what I was thinking. About my mother and Suzanne. Is that not reason enough?”

  It was. Yes. If other lives weren’t at stake. She threw up her hands. “That’s what the police are for!”

  Jules put his hands on the bench, knees bouncing. “My mother is prone to drink and can’t keep a job. Faux Papa has gambled away what little money we have. I believe the weight of the family and the betterment of Suzanne’s life to be on my shoulders. Who else will do anything? The temptation was too great. How much do you think I make in a hat shop, or as a chocolatier’s apprentice?”

  Nathalie regarded him. A kiss of pity touched her heart. She didn’t know things were that dire for his family; he complained about his mother’s husband, and he said his mother often changed jobs. He’d never said why.

  Perhaps they didn’t talk and share as much as she’d assumed.

  But then she thought about the victims, and how as much as Suzanne deserved saving, so did Le Rasoir’s victims. How much further would Jules have led the police astray? What if their wasted efforts had been focused on something else, a path that could have led to the killer? “It isn’t your right to determine who gets saved and who doesn’t.”

  “Nor is it yours to decide how I respond to a threat from what I assume is the killer.” His tone was stiffer than it had been. “I was desperate, and I made a devastating mistake. And I was terrified. It’s not an excuse, but it’s the truth. You yourself have refrained from using your ability at times.”

  “That’s because I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know any better. And if I could revisit that choice and change the past, believe me, I would.” Because I might have been able to save Agnès.

  Nathalie paused, the moment plummeting her into water, like getting pushed off a boat in the dark.

  She’d been robbed of Agnès. Their friendship had been immediate and meaningful, but it had also been of too short a duration. It wasn’t only that she longed for one more lunch, one more letter, or one more shared joke. Nathalie also wanted a greater repository from which to draw her memories and a deeper history to stay connected. Part of what tore at her was the loss of Agnès, and part was the loss of what might have been, a friendship cut down just as it was flourishing into new branches to explore. Nathalie had never traveled outside of Paris, save for the outskirts. What might that summer have been like?

  Agnès’s murder would forever be an anchor around her soul. The one and only time Nathalie underwent hypnosis, or tried to, it ended with her being dragged away into the frothy depths of the sea. Agnès was still alive at that time, but the episode was embedded in her deepest self. For now, in her darkest dreams, a nightmare that had haunted her for two years, Nathalie was stuck in the shallow waters of the ocean where Agnès spent her final summer. A Tantalus of Normandy, never able to swim or return to shore.

  �
�Yes,” she said again, her voice as far away as that shore. “I would change the past.”

  Jules hung his head and spoke in a quiet voice. “So would I.”

  Her own guilt about Agnès, unfounded or not, channeled into annoyance. “But you can’t take it back, Jules. It doesn’t matter how sorry you are or how well you justify your motives. People may have died or might still die because of you. Your lies and inaction may have perpetuated this terror upon the city.”

  Jules turned his head and rested his gaze upon her. Frustration, anger, and sadness teemed, a storm behind his gray eyes. “What would you have me do? I can’t reverse my mistakes, and every day I walk around with invisible chains of guilt weighing me down.” He lifted his wrists with effort, as if wearing manacles. “I don’t sleep at night because I’m so full of shame. Your judgment doesn’t help.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “At least this much understanding, perhaps?” He pinched his fingers together to indicate a minute amount. “From the young woman I cherish, with whom I’ve shared more of myself than anyone?”

  And yet still left so much unsaid.

  Nathalie turned away. “Well, you—you’ve lost that.”

  Jules was soundless for so long, she turned around again to see if he’d left. He was there, as motionless as one of the garden’s statues, eyes forward and unblinking.

  Ever since the incident at the morgue, she’d been angry at him. Another feeling gnawed at her, too, one she’d ignored until now: worry. Something about the way he sat there brought it forward. “Are you … still worried for your safety? For your family’s?”

  His focus remained in front of him. “My mother and Suzanne are with some family in Chartres. Faux Papa, as you might guess, isn’t afraid of anything. He carries a pistol everywhere. Always has.” He shrugged. “He gave me a knife to carry and said as a ‘man,’ I should be able to use that and my fists to defend myself.”

  Nathalie swallowed. How different from the police protection she’d once received.

  Then another thought occurred to her, one that would render all of this—the anger, the worry, the betrayal—irrelevant. “What if—what if it’s a joke? And not Le Rasoir at all, but someone pretending to be him?”

  “If only,” he said with a resigned snort. “I don’t have any enemies I’m aware of. To what end would someone craft a trick like this? I’m certain it’s not that.”

  “Are you? It would be a prank of pure wickedness, but not impossible.”

  He shrugged with indifference. She had to admit, the possibility that someone would torment Jules this way for no obvious reason weakened the theory.

  Maybe there was hope yet for his redemption. If this was, in fact, Le Rasoir, perhaps he could lead them to him. “Who else knows you’re an Insightful?”

  Jules swung his eyes toward her. “Family, friends, classmates, teachers … and anyone they might have told, and so on. I’ve had my power for years, and while I didn’t tout it, I also didn’t hide it.” He clasped and unclasped his hands. “Are you looking for clues about Le Rasoir? Because Monsieur Gagnon asked me this same question yesterday.”

  Nathalie was proud to have thought like Christophe, but also embarrassed to be proud of such a thing in this moment. “People might know of your ability, but you’re still an ‘anonymous Insightful’ as far as the city is concerned, so the circle might be smaller than you think.”

  “I’m inclined to believe the opposite. How anonymous do you think we are? All it takes is someone knowing what my gift is and then seeing me go to the side entrance of the morgue every day to associate the two.” His voice was one of disenchantment and defeat. “You’d be amazed how many secrets Paris can’t keep.”

  He was correct. But Nathalie didn’t want him to be correct. She wanted his mistake, this lapse in judgment and ethics, to be fixable. Explainable. She wanted a glorious conclusion to an inglorious choice.

  Jules really had ruined everything, hadn’t he?

  She gazed at him, worry and pity washing away as a wave of deeply felt disappointment crashed over her once again. “Well then, we’re back to where we were. You’ve made a mess of things and I—I can’t comprehend it. I’m trying to, I think I do, but the sense of understanding doesn’t persist.”

  Jules looked at her, the ground, his hands, and her again. Finally he spoke, his tone steely. “Nathalie, not everyone has it as easy as you.”

  “Easy?”

  “You wear dresses above your class because your mother is a seamstress. Your father is a sailor and the République will take care of your family. Those are blessings.”

  She remained silent. Her family had neither money nor money troubles. Her jobs as morgue reporter and Insightful adviser had helped considerably. Her parents were responsible and lived within their means.

  The amorous pair from the bench strolled past them, oblivious. Blissfully oblivious.

  “It’s more than that,” Jules continued. “Not everyone has parents who love them, much less parents who comprehend what it’s like to be an Insightful. How nice it must be simply to have a father, and not be a bastard or a daily reminder to my mother of all that she’s suffered.” He broke free of the statue pose and turned to her with blazing eyes. “Do you even know what pain is, Nathalie?”

  If she’d been standing, the question would have knocked her back on her heels. She leaned toward him, gripping the edge of the bench. “No, not at all, dear Jules. You’re the only one who’s ever experienced it. Tell me, what’s it like to have one of your dearest friends murdered in your stead? Then to witness it? What’s it like to carry that burden day and night?” She clasped her hands to her heart. “Oh, I remember now. You’re not the one who went through that. I did. I am. It’s not pain. It’s a soothing balm of good feelings. I’m surprised they don’t sell it outside the morgue or in a stall at the Exposition.”

  Nathalie stood, hands on hips. Jules stood as well, waves of hair falling across his forehead. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate and callous on my part. I know you’ve endured pain.”

  “Yes, I have, and—”

  “It—it comes in many guises, does it not?” He brushed his hair back.

  She was ready to fire more words at him and halted abruptly. There was no one way to define pain or to quantify it. He didn’t walk in her shoes, but he wasn’t wrong—she didn’t step into his, either, day in and day out.

  She reached into her pocket and presented him with the silver-and-red bracelet. “Here. Give this to Suzanne.”

  He waved her off. “Keep it. It was a gift.”

  Jules started to walk away, shoulders slumped.

  Let him go.

  Nathalie wound the bracelet around her fingers, then put it back in her pocket. She took several steps in the opposite direction.

  No. Don’t leave.

  She kept walking, another few steps, until she got to the topiary they’d stood under that first time together in the garden. He’d held her hand and told her all about topiaries.

  After a few more hesitant steps, she glanced over her shoulder. Jules was shuffling away, downtrodden. Did she want to end things this way?

  Nathalie followed him on quiet feet and grazed his shoulder with her fingertips. “I’m sorry, too. For being so harsh just now.”

  He nodded, venturing a small smile. “Do you forgive me?”

  She put her hands to her temples with a sigh. “I don’t know how to answer that. I’m not sure if what I’m feeling toward you is forgiveness or understanding or sentimentality for affections past.”

  Jules cocked an eyebrow.

  “I can’t be with you, Jules,” she continued. “Not right now. I can’t hook my arm around your elbow and go to cafés and concerts and have chocolate and pretend this didn’t happen. I—I don’t feel that way about you anymore. Maybe I will in time. Or maybe I won’t ever again.”

  Jules swallowed. “I expected that.”

  “I don’t hate you. And I t
hink we can be friends of a sort. Don’t you?”

  He took her hand and she let him. Tenderly he lifted it to his lips, then kissed her knuckles. “No.”

  Nathalie withdrew her hand. “You came here hoping to keep me, but you’re rejecting my offer of friendship?”

  “I care for you too much to be your friend, Nathalie.” He moved away, just out of reach. “I’ve long suspected that you mean more to me than I to you. I allowed myself to accept that feeling because I figured that in time, your heart would change. And it has, but not for the better. Even though that’s my fault, I don’t think I could bear the distance.”

  Nathalie’s throat swelled, suddenly and against her will. “And so, what?”

  He took one more step backward. “I think for now, it’s best if we don’t see each other at all. Should I see you on the street or should our paths otherwise cross, I’ll smile warmly. I don’t know that we should pursue much more than that.”

  Regret drifted around her, a mist on an English moor, dissipating as she admitted to herself that he was probably right. It would ultimately be best, and eventually less painful, this way. The mist left behind the damp, uncomfortable feeling of sadness.

  “Well, then,” she said, giving him a soft kiss on the cheek. “I—I will be on my way. I wish you the best, Jules Lachance.”

  “I will read your column every day,” he said with a bittersweet grin. “And be grateful for the memories, brief as they were.”

  With that, he walked away, and she turned on her heel and strolled in the other direction. She felt a lot of things, none of them familiar, all of them complicated.

  32

  For two days, her heart swelled and shrank and maneuvered itself into shapes a heart couldn’t possibly be, rendering pain a heart couldn’t possibly hold. For Jules. For the way she’d parted ways with Christophe. For Aunt Brigitte. For Agnès, yet again and always. And even for her own memories. That which she’d endured and that which haunted her congealed into one ugly morass of emotions.