The Collector of Dying Breaths

by M. J. Rose

  “There are other versions and copies of those books. I’ll get them so they’re waiting for him.”

  It sounded as if Melinoe knew when Griffin was coming back. But how could she unless she was listening in on Jac’s conversations? Had she been lurking outside her bedroom after all?

  Jac was trying to figure out a way to trick Melinoe into revealing what she knew when Serge asked, “Jac, do you know when he is coming back?”

  “Yes, tomorrow, I think. Or maybe the day after.”

  Melinoe paused.

  “Jac, I think it’s time to tell you that your brother did have an idea of what to do with the breaths,” she said conspiratorially. “Robbie was going to pierce the cork in the bottle with a syringe and feed in the potion. He wouldn’t corrupt the breath that way. Then the mixture could be inhaled.” She paused again. “Serge, we might need to get some medical supplies. You can take care of that too, can’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Melinoe was still caressing her stepbrother’s arm. As if he were a wild cat, Jac thought, and Melinoe was his eccentric and slightly mad owner, soothing him, hypnotizing him with her touch.

  And he’d responded. Jac could see it in his face.

  Jac stood up. The atmosphere here was suffocating. Melinoe’s passion and her desires weighted down the very air as if she were wearing an overbearing perfume that she applied too often and too heavily. For a moment Jac thought about leaving La Belle Fleur. Except there was no alternative but to stay if she wanted to re-create the formula. And she did. As much as Melinoe. Maybe more because now that Griffin was back in her life again, Jac was desperate to know what had happened to René le Florentin and how the ancient perfumer’s existence and hers were connected.

  “I think I’ll go to the laboratory and go over the list one more time tonight and then get an early start. Let me take these . . .” She pointed to the containers on the desk.

  “Serge, help her,” Melinoe said.

  “No,” Jac said even though Melinoe was right. She really shouldn’t try to carry them all herself. But Jac didn’t want anyone to go with her. When she was there, alone, the small room offered itself to her differently. The communication with the spirit who had used it before her was more direct. The perfumer whose life she was piecing together revealed more of himself to her when they were alone.

  “Here’s the box I packed them in to bring them here. You can use this to take them downstairs,” Serge said.

  Very carefully Jac carried the box out of the library and headed in the cellar’s direction. With each step her excitement grew.

  Jac knew that this time there was no hypnotic drug she was inhaling. Her visions weren’t induced by any specific material. It was more that the laboratory itself was the portal. She’d had other memory lurches outside of the cell-like room—when Serge had showed her the folly and in her own bedroom. But it was in the underground cellar that her path to René le Florentin was strongest and where she could channel him the easiest. And where she felt the closest to him.

  She was confused by how feelings for him overwhelmed her. Deep abiding love. Passion. So visceral that when she came out of the trance she wanted nothing more than to put her hands in between her legs and bring herself to orgasm to relieve the longing.

  Jac climbed down the stairs, cradling the box, holding tight to the handrail. The darkness waited for her . . . He waited for her.

  Two years ago Jac was still fighting the possibility that she could access her own past lives, much less anyone else’s. But a few months ago she’d stopped arguing with Malachai and her brother, who both believed she was a memory tool—that rare person who could access not only her own past lives but other people’s. Taking the time between seasons of her cable TV show to work with Robbie building fragrances in Paris had opened Jac’s mind to the idea that she didn’t have to understand in order to acknowledge other realms and constructs. She’d listened to her brother talk about Buddhism, reincarnation and karma, and being in the moment with a more relaxed mind. She’d almost reached a place where she believed that if this was her ability, she could deal with it. Even if she didn’t like it and still wished she could shut it down.

  When she’d told Robbie that, he said he was certain she’d be able to control it once she fully accepted it, but that there was still something in the past she needed to know. And once she did, she’d be able to make her own decisions about opening herself up to this other dimension.

  Jac turned on the light in the cellar and made her way to René le Florentin’s laboratory. There was no electricity in this room. Since it had remained hidden for so many centuries, it had never been wired. Jac was glad of that. She put down the box, lit the candelabra that René had used, then closed the door and ensconced herself inside René’s world.

  She unpacked the box, placing each new bottle on the shelf amid the others. Sitting in his chair, at his desk, Jac stared at the worn wooden table where he had mixed his elixirs and worked on his brews.

  There was no reason to wait till tomorrow, was there? The night was quiet around her. No one cared that she was down here. She had everything she needed to begin.

  Each beaker had been one René had used in building this same formula. Each glass was as cool in her hand as it had been in his. Each pipette and measuring device was one he had touched. Every action she took was mimicking his. After a gap of almost five hundred years.

  Take of good brandy, a half of a gallon . . .

  Jac poured René’s brandy. The amber liquor gleamed as the river of it flowed from bottle to beaker.

  . . . of the best virgin honey and coriander seeds, each a half of a pound . . .

  The honey was new. It came from Provence and was scented with lavender just as it would have been in René’s time. As she poured the thick syrup, she remembered something Robbie had once told her: in Hinduism honey was one of the five elixirs of immortality. She felt her brother with her as she watched the slow journey of the glistening gold. He hadn’t gotten this far—hadn’t found the formula with all the ingredients—but he had believed.

  This I do for you, she thought. Beside her, she could almost see him nodding.

  Jac shook her head; this wasn’t the time to focus on the impossibility of what she was experiencing. Circling around her were the mysteries of the ages that the most learned of men and women had tried to understand. She knew sometimes the only answer to explain the unexplainable was that there was no answer.

  Hard to accept for someone who preferred reason to fantasy.

  Glancing down at René’s formula, Jac counted out the noted amounts of coriander seeds. Then added the cloves, henbane, nutmeg, aloewood and dragon’s blood. The scent of the concoction was more food than fragrance.

  Now it was time to use the ancient essences that Melinoe and Serge had procured. For a moment Jac hesitated. What had happened in the woods in Wales?

  There are no coincidences, Malachai always said in reference to reincarnation memories. But it meant more than that. Here in the dimly lit laboratory that had been built by René le Florentin to aid him in his search for a way to bring back the dead, Jac thought about the man who had collected these ancient ingredients. She’d seen when the branch struck Bruge, but not hard enough to kill him. It had been a serious blow to the head; she knew that because when she had gone back she’d seen the pool of blood. Serge had said the branch caused his fall, and when he hit the ground, it was the rock he fell on that bashed in his skull. And then in those moments after Bruge had fallen, while he lay dying, while they waited for the ambulance, Melinoe had gone back and stolen the last necessary ingredients.

  Certainly she was wily and intelligent and seemed more than capable of acting that quickly. But there was another possibility that Jac hadn’t wanted to consider before. Didn’t really want to consider now.

  Instead she opened the bottle of tutty, inser
ted a knife and began to scrape at the hardened ash. Tipping the bottle over, she spilled a half dozen curls of the substance into a small glass dish. She needed an ounce. Then she went back to scraping.

  While she worked, her mind went over and over the accident in the forest. Surely Bruge was owed at least this. He was a man she’d only known for an hour, but he deserved homage. If his rare collection helped her re-create this elixir, he would have helped give her the greatest gift of her life.

  After she had amassed a small mound of the dark chimney residue, she added a few drops of the brandy mixture and watched it liquefy.

  Satisfied, she poured it in with the other ingredients.

  Now it was time for the last component. Jac reached for the skull casket. Opening it, she looked down at the momie. What had made someone think to examine the embalmed corpses and take the sap from the area between the brain and the spine and use it as a scent? Perfumers—even ancient ones—didn’t use human elements. But magicians did. So what did that say about René?

  She was slightly nauseated as she scraped a clean knife over the residue. Unlike the tutty, it was too hard to even scratch. Over hundreds of years it had turned into a solid. And a few drops of brandy did nothing to soften it.

  Stumped, she sat and stared at the black brittle.

  What to do to get it out?

  The purest method would be to heat the skull, but then she’d risk releasing elements from the fluorite into the substance and contaminating it.

  She had no choice.

  Using the same balneo-mariae that René had used, Jac heated the water in the lower section and then placed the skull inside of it. She watched the surface of the dark material, and within a few minutes could see it begin to glisten. Using ancient tongs she lifted the skull out of the water and put it down on the table. Then, using a clean knife, she dug into the substance. Finally it was malleable. Sticky. Viscous.

  Once again, Jac felt nauseated. She wondered what René had thought of using such an element. A man who distilled roses and orange blossoms. Who reveled in the scent of lilies and surrounded himself with the most glorious scents from nature. What kind of desperation had made him spend the last years of his life so obsessed with bringing back the dead that he would resort to using the death blood of corpses?

  It was while she was mixing the momie into the honey-laced brandy that she remembered something about the time she’d spent in Bruge’s alchemical laboratory. Serge and Melinoe had been looking at a book and talking only to each other. Was that when they’d been planning what happened next? Was the accident in the woods premeditated? But they couldn’t have accounted for the branch falling. Had they been planning on killing him some other way in order to steal the ingredients? Was Melinoe capable of something so egregious? Was Serge that much her puppet that he would have agreed to do that for her?

  He was an intelligent man with one fatal flaw. His passion for his stepsister defied logic, but then again, passion always did. Great leaders have lost kingdoms over lovers. Was Serge capable of killing someone to please Melinoe?

  Of course he was.

  She was more than his stepsister. Melinoe had saved his life. She was his lover and his family in one.

  So was that what had happened, or was Jac’s imagination running wild?

  Serge could not have killed Bruge. Jac had watched him try to save the man’s life.

  But it was time to concentrate on the elixir. Jac returned to René’s notes. She reread everything she’d done up to this point. The words swirled on the page. She was tired, but she wanted to finish. She wished Griffin were here. Maybe he’d be able to help her figure out what she’d seen in the rain, in the woods.

  Griffin. . . . The man she’d spent her lifetime missing had returned to her, but the dilemma that had confused her for the last two years still had to be resolved. Was she hallucinating or remembering past lives?

  Even if they were reincarnation memories, Griffin said she didn’t have to accept the inevitability of them repeating themselves. If you believed in karmic responsibility, you could rectify your past mistakes and change the future.

  She was drifting off. Not concentrating. Jac wished she had some coffee but didn’t want to leave the laboratory while she was this close to finishing. She dipped a clean spoon into the pot of honey and ate it. The sweetness would give her a burst of energy. Even if she’d crash harder on the other side.

  Jac counted out the vanilla beans the recipe called for, and then read on.

  . . . benilloes, number four; the yellow rind of three large lemons. Bruise the cloves, nutmegs; cut the benilloes into small pieces; put all into a cucurbit and pour the brandy on to them. After they have digested twenty-four hours, distill off the spirit in balneo-mariae.

  She had forgotten to get the lemons. She was going to have to go back to the kitchen after all. But first she poured the brandy mixture on the other ingredients. Watched the swirl of colors. Breathed in the scents as they mixed together. The fragrance was so provocative. Like nothing she had ever smelled. It was the odd tutty and momie. She could only begin to imagine what the elixir would smell like after it was distilled and she added the final items.

  The aroma had filled the small laboratory. René must have sat right here and inhaled the very same scent.

  Jac needed to get the lemons . . . but she was slipping . . . the air was waving. She was letting go of the present and entering into the past. His past. She smelled not only the scent she was building but also another. An ancient one that René had created for himself and wore religiously. Oak moss, pine, musk. Sensual waves of scent enveloped her like a man’s arms. Like Griffin’s arms. No, not Griffin’s. René’s.

  She closed her eyes. Her fingers gripped the edge of the desk as if part of her was resisting leaving, as if part of her knew that it was unsafe to go into that long-ago darkness because what she might find there might be dangerous. But she had to go. To see him. The mysterious, cautious, mercurial and determined René le Florentin. To learn from him. To feel the power of his passion for the woman he was in love with . . . passion for her.

  Chapter 34

  MARCH 24, 1573

  BARBIZON, FRANCE

  “Is that a new perfume, René?”

  Catherine was back in Paris. She’d been meeting with Protestants in Navarre, and she looked exhausted. We were no longer young, she and I, and the toll of the political burdens she carried was aging her.

  “Yes, Your Highness. Not as floral as what you’ve been wearing. I’ve been experimenting with woods and spices from the Far East.”

  I handed her an elaborately carved box that I had purchased in anticipation of giving her this gift. Her eyes lit up as she took it. Despite my ulterior motive, I cared about Catherine and was glad I was able to please her.

  The queen opened the box, and smiled when she saw the small vial encrusted with pink-tinged pearls nestled in velvet.

  “How very lovely—” She’d found the chain tucked behind the bottle. “What is this?”

  “A scent bottle to wear like a piece of jewelry.” I’d gone to the court jeweler with the idea, and he’d created the bottle to my specifications. Isabeau and I had talked of how best to ask the queen to release Isabeau to marry me, and the gift had been her idea. I’d thought it inspired. Now I was sure it had been.

  “How clever you are, René. The women of the court will all besiege you now for their versions.” Catherine unscrewed the top—one large pink pearl. Attached was a small wand studded with minuscule rubies that gleamed with the oil it brought up. At the very tip was a teardrop-shaped diamond, wet with my newest scent.

  “You and the jeweler Charpitier have outdone yourself,” she exclaimed with delight.

  “He has for sure, Your Majesty, but you haven’t even smelled the perfume. Allow me.”

  I took the wand from her and drew it across her wrist. Ho
w different this gesture was than when I applied perfume to Isabeau’s skin. That was a seduction; this was a privilege.

  Catherine lifted her hand to her face and sniffed. Once, and then again. “How curious this is, René. I’ve never smelled anything like it. It’s very exotic, very foreign, yes?”

  “Exactly. I was thinking of ancient Egyptian queens and Indian maharajas when I was mixing it. Picturing deserts and oases.”

  “Thank you, it’s a very charming presentation.” She recapped the bottle, lifted it and hung it around her neck. The glow from the pearls helped soften her haggard complexion.

  “I’m glad it pleases you,” I said.

  She studied me for a moment and then asked, “What is troubling you then?”

  Catherine knew me too well.

  “I wanted to ask a favor of you.”

  “Of course. You know I will do anything I can for you.”

  “I’d like you to release one of your ladies-in-waiting and allow me to take her as my bride.”

  Catherine’s eyes grew wide. She tilted her head to one side and stared at me as if she had never really seen me before.

  “I thought you were a satisfied bachelor. Over the years it’s been said that you tire of your women quickly and prefer variety to companionship.”

  “Over the years I have.”

  “It occurs to me once again that there is much I don’t know about you. It’s not that I don’t care for you, René; it’s just the reality of being in this position.”

  “I know that.”

  “But it’s not right. There are so many things I should know . . . What is your favorite food? Do you like to read? What music do you prefer? Do you miss Florence even now as much as I do?”

  “You shouldn’t trouble yourself with such questions, Your Highness. I have never expected you to waste time on trivialities about whether or not the Seine had replaced the Arno in my dreams. I am only talking about my personal life now because I need you to release the woman I wish to wed.”