The Collector of Dying Breaths

by M. J. Rose

  Isabeau was still alive.

  There was something I had to tell her.

  Leaning down low, I whispered, “It’s my fault. I did this to you. I made the gloves. They were soaked in poison. My own tricks were used on you. I am sorry, my love. I am so sorry.”

  I buried my head in her neck, the faintest heartbeat sounding in my ear. I needed her to understand and to forgive me. To absolve me. But I had waited too late, hadn’t I? She couldn’t hear me anymore. The drugs had walled her away from me. Isabeau was so deep into her dream state that my voice couldn’t penetrate it. I knew it, but still, I couldn’t give up.

  “It’s my fault,” I screamed. “Isabeau, it’s my fault, please forgive me. Please, I didn’t know. I didn’t know who they were going to give the gloves to.”

  Panicked, I listened. Yes, her heart was still beating. Her breath was still coming. “It was my fault!” I shouted again. “Please, tell me that you forgive me.”

  And then suddenly the scent of dying flowers was gone, and the wonderful perfume that I had smelled the first time I met her suffused the air. Isabeau’s garden was blooming around me. Inhaling deeply, I took in her lavender and lilacs, her lilies and violets, her orange blossoms and jasmine. I took in her wondrous roses. It was not words, but it was a gift. It was absolution.

  Catherine picked up the eighth bottle. Gently, I took it from her fingers and held the cool glass up to the parched, pale and chapped lips that used to be red with blood and life and laughter. I held the bottle and let her breathe her last breath, and then I corked the bottle. Still holding it tightly in my fist, I fell to my knees, laid my head on the bed, and then, for the first time since I was a boy and watched Serapino breathe his last, I, René Bianco, master perfumer, who twice in my life had helped someone I loved to die, wept.

  Chapter 42

  THE PRESENT

  Later, Jac wouldn’t remember what propelled her to walk to the center of the ruin and then drop to her knees and start feeling around on the worn marble floor. But when she touched the edge of the tile, her fingers began to tingle, and she knew that she’d found what she was searching for. Even if she still didn’t know what it was.

  The tiles weren’t large, but they were heavy. Each stone had withstood the elements for hundreds of years. She used a broken rock with a flat edge to pry up the first tile. As she lifted it up, a whoosh of air that smelled of dampness and dust, age and decay came with it. She’d smelled air like this in the caves in Jersey and Greece, in the catacombs in Paris and Rome, in excavations in Egypt and Cyprus. This was ancient air. Jac was certain of it. It had the aroma of centuries of fermentation and rot.

  Jac shivered. The pull was stronger than it had been before. She felt certain, after all these hours of working in his laboratory, looking at his notes and staring at his handwriting, that René was here waiting for her.

  She removed the tile. Underneath was a metal grid that fitted snugly over the opening, holding it in place. She started in on the next tile. And then the next. Once she had removed twelve of them, four across and three down, she removed the wire grid. Using the application that turned her cell phone into a flashlight, she examined her discovery.

  Small and narrow, the limestone steps were spotted with moss and lichen. There was life here where there was also death. Serge had been wrong. This was no folly. This ruined structure was a chapel, and she was gazing down into its crypt.

  Jac was careful descending the slippery steps that were barely wide enough for her feet. But that wasn’t what caused her the most consternation. It was the smell of putrefaction rising up to welcome her. Of sadness and loss. She felt as if it had been waiting for her . . . for a very long time.

  Reaching the low-ceilinged enclosure, she looked around. This was no rough-hewn dirt burial chamber. The cream-colored marble walls gleamed. Gold candelabras glowed. On each wall were mosaic scenes of Elysium. The brilliant squares of turquoise, sapphire, emerald, topaz, ruby and amethyst took her breath away.

  There were nine tombs filling the space. Three rows of three. Against each wall were marble benches. Examining the one closest to her, she saw it was inscribed with names and dates.

  Jac walked down one aisle, up the next, then down another and—

  There was a skeleton propped up against a tomb. Jac approached. His feet. His torso. His rib cage. His arms. His hands. In his hands . . .

  How was this possible? Jac thought she was seeing things. Walked closer. Knelt.

  In his bony hands was a single rose. And for one crazy moment she smelled its perfume. Impossible. But she did. Jac was inhaling its sweet, heavy liquor. Seeing ruby red petals and verdant green leaves. Impossible. And then the flower metamorphosed in front of her eyes, and he was holding only a dried-out flower. Leaves and petals and stem all the dark ochre of death.

  Jac looked down. Her flashlight had caught something glinting there beside him. It was a shape she knew. There were bottles like this upstairs, each seven inches high, made of thick pale-blue glass with a dark residue in the bottom. But unlike those upstairs, this bottle was missing its carved cork.

  There had only been ten of these bottles in the château, but there were twelve silver bell coverings. Melinoe had said Robbie had broken one of the bottles. The other had always been missing. This was that missing bottle. Jac was sure. This was the twelfth dying breath.

  But where was the cork? Why was the bottle opened? Jac searched the ground and found the small innocuous stopper under his thighbone—discarded. He hadn’t needed it anymore. He must have had another plan. Jac picked up the bottle and looked inside at the dark and opaque substance coating the bottom. At the dark streaks on the side.

  Was this residue the same elixir she was trying to replicate from his formula?

  Had he come down here and opened the bottle and inhaled the breath? But why would he have done that? Whose breath had René drunk?

  Yes, it was René. She was certain these were his bones. She felt it the same way she felt Robbie’s presence. She had been seeing the ancient perfumer in her mind for days now, living out his story despite trying to shut it out, and she knew it was him.

  Jac’s knees ached on the unforgiving stone floor. She stood. She hadn’t yet examined the sarcophagus. The red jasper marble was beautiful, with streaks of gold and black shooting through its surface. On the side closest to René was a plaque. Jac leaned closer and shone her light on it. Read the words. Shivered. Read them again. Reached out and touched the cold, cold stone.

  She felt it sigh. Impossible, but it had. As if it was relieved to finally be giving up a long-held burden, a secret that needed to be told.

  Her name was carved in small precise letters and painted with gold leaf that was still vital and vibrant.

  ISABEAU BIANCO

  Following that inscription was a series of roman numerals. Jac translated them.

  1537–1571

  Was Jac looking at her own tomb? Was everything Malachai told her true? Was everything Robbie believed right? Once upon a time, had Jac lived as Isabeau? Was that woman’s soul now Jac’s? Was the soul of the man who had laid himself beside Isabeau’s coffin alive in Griffin North?

  Was it possible that Isabeau and René, Jac and Griffin, were all connected through time?

  Even though she was still asking, she knew the answers deep inside of her. The cycle was endless. There was no denying it. Through centuries, Jac and Griffin had found each other and helped destroy each other. But that left her where she’d been in Paris. She couldn’t let it happen again. The thought made her tired. Maybe she should just give in and allow fate to play out. Even if it meant tragedy again. At least then it would be over.

  She put her face, her burning skin, against the cool stone coffin. There was so much sadness here. So much loss. In the air the smell of the rose was still viable. Jac inhaled. Impossibly, this was the scent from the sing
le flower that René had brought down into the crypt to give to his lover when he finally saw her again, not in life but in death.

  Or did the rose have yet another purpose? Was it a message that had waited all these centuries to be delivered? Was it intended for today? What was it René wanted her to know?

  Chapter 43

  Griffin found Jac sitting on the stone bench outside. In her hand was one petal that had fallen from the dried rose. Finding it on the floor, she couldn’t help but take it. She’d had to touch something René had touched. Had to connect to this man who had loved so much he’d chosen to die rather than live without Isabeau any longer.

  “Jac, I’m sorry, this isn’t going to be easy, but I know how he died,” Griffin said.

  “You remembered?”

  “Remembered?” He gave her a quizzical look.

  Jac realized they were in different times, different eras.

  “I’m sorry. You mean Robbie! You found out?”

  “It’s part of what I was doing in Paris. What I wanted to tell you. I asked Marcher not to call you. I thought it would be better . . .” He took her hands. “I had an idea when you told me that you’d found out Robbie had broken one of the antique bottles, and I asked the pathologists to test it out. Robbie died from the mixture of breath and elixir he inhaled. The lab identified an ancient toxin that is several hundred years old.”

  It took a moment for Jac to take in what Griffin had said, then asked him if they were sure. He said they were.

  “If it is true, why wasn’t the lab able to identify the poison before now?”

  “It’s so old, no one thought to test for it. And then, when I suggested it . . . I don’t know. It was just a guess.”

  “No. It was something you remembered,” Jac said.

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “You told me that you once asked Malachai to hypnotize you so you might remember some of your past lives, and it failed. But I think you can have a memory without knowing that’s what it is. While I’ve been here, I’ve been learning about Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. And of the romance he had at the end of his life. I think it was us, Griffin. I think you were René. I was Isabeau. And it’s another tragic chapter of our past. Another incarnation where you died because of me.”

  And then she told him the story she had pieced together.

  “René got permission to bury Isabeau here and continued to work on reanimating the dying breaths. And then, realizing what he had spent his life creating was toxic, he swallowed Isabeau’s breath.”

  “He committed suicide?” Griffin asked.

  She nodded. They were both quiet for a few moments.

  Then Griffin leaned forward, put his arms around her and kissed her. Offering comfort, and taking it at the same time. It was, Jac thought, a sacred kiss in a sacred place. And below her, in the crypt, she was certain that the man and the woman who’d lain there, together but separated for so long, knew somehow they were reconnected.

  When he pulled away, Griffin’s face was filled with resolve.

  “Jac, you know you need to leave here, don’t you? There’s nothing in Barbizon for you but danger—from the breaths—from Serge and Melinoe. Clearly she’s obsessed and doesn’t have boundaries. Back in Paris we can talk this through. I don’t doubt the story you are telling me. But I do believe with everything in me that you are getting the meaning of all this wrong. You and I are not doomed. How much do you know about the cult of Dionysus?”

  “A lot.”

  “Okay then. How many lives did someone live before they could go to Nirvana?”

  “Three lives over three thousand years.”

  “You know Melinoe was the name of a priestess of the Dionysus cult?”

  She nodded. “Of course. She and I talked about that. The goddess of the underworld and ghosts.”

  “If you give any credence to fate, then now her job is done. Fate’s delivered you to the place where you could learn about your third incarnation. And now that your past is known, it can be dealt with. In the last couple of years you’ve remembered three of our lifetimes—the first dates back to the ancient Egyptian era. Your three thousand years of being reborn are over. Now it’s time for our version of Nirvana. No one ever said it can’t exist here on earth. I believe we can learn from the mistakes we made in those other incarnations and put them behind us. Maybe we were never strong enough before. There was an ancient perfumer who loved a noblewoman but allowed their affair to take place in secret to protect his position with his queen instead of declaring his feelings. There was a French perfumer who went to Napoleon’s Egypt to chase a dream instead of staying home in Paris and being with the woman he would love forever. And now we know there was an Italian perfumer who cared too much about his power and wealth to give them up and leave the court with Isabeau. They could have gone to Germany or Spain and had a fine life. Or even stayed in Paris and kept his store open. But he wouldn’t give up his position.

  “In this life, we’ve already been given chances we’ve squandered, like they all did. But not anymore. We’re going to grab this chance.”

  He kissed Jac again.

  Intellectually, she didn’t know if she understood what he was saying any more than she understood what Malachai had explained about her ability to remember other people’s past lives . . . but it didn’t matter. Everything Jac felt told her that Griffin was right.

  As she let the kiss absorb her, a slight breeze blew around them. In her mind she saw it winding around, silver ribbons binding them. She saw the Greek goddess Moira standing inside of a marble temple, the Aegean Sea gleaming blue behind her. Moira was watching her sister Fates at work; Clotho was spinning thread, Lachesis weaving it into these silver ribbons that were tying Jac and Griffin together through time.

  When they pulled away, Griffin asked her if she would show him what she had found. Together they descended into the crypt.

  Jac watched Griffin look at the skeleton slumped beside the sarcophagus. He squatted down and examined the rose and the bottle and looked into the man’s empty eye sockets. And then he did a strange thing. As if in some kind of ancient greeting, he reached out and touched the man’s right hand.

  Jac thought she saw glimmers of silver ribbons encircle Griffin and René. Invisible connectors were everywhere.

  Griffin stood and began an inspection of the tomb itself. He ran his fingers over the plaque engraved with Isabeau’s name and birth and death dates.

  Jac wanted to ask him what he was feeling, but at the same time she didn’t want to speak while down here. As if to do so would disturb these dead. But as Griffin spoke, when she heard what he said, she knew the dead would not be disturbed.

  Taking Jac’s hand, he said, “For them we’re going to right all the wrongs.” And then, for the third time that afternoon, he leaned forward and kissed her. There was no passion or longing in this embrace. Just a promise.

  “Love,” he said, “like energy, never dies. You lose people only in the moment. But time is a long road that circles back. At some point the missing turns into love and returns. It’s returned now.”

  Jac felt the underground burial chamber growing warmer. The chill she’d experienced down here before was gone. The sense of dread and depression was lifting. The scene of René beside the coffin of his new wife was still tragic, but now it was also beautiful.

  “It’s time to go,” Griffin said.

  He was right. It was time to go. It was finally all right to go. What had needed to be learned had been learned.

  Jac went first, and Griffin followed. Then together they replaced the wire mesh grid and the tiles on top of it. On their knees, they spread the dirt and debris around the opening so it didn’t appear that—

  “What are you doing?” It was Melinoe.

  Jac and Griffin both looked up at the same time.
>
  She was standing on the steps to the ruin. With a gun in her hand.

  Chapter 44

  “Oh goodness, I’m so glad it was you. I was taking a walk and heard voices and thought you were intruders.” Melinoe put the small silver pistol back in her pocket. “What were you doing?”

  Jac quickly lied: “We were examining the stones for some kind of carvings or impressions. Just trying to date the folly.”

  Jac watched Melinoe assess what she’d told her. The woman took little at face value, but there was no reason for her to doubt Jac. What she was saying made sense. Besides, what else would they be doing? No one knew about the crypt. In fact no one knew the folly, fancilly built to look like a ruin, was a true ruin of a real chapel.

  “We’re going to have drinks soon. Would you like to join us for dinner, Griffin?”

  As they all walked back to the château, Jac thought that over drinks would be a good time to tell Melinoe what Griffin had learned. While they were all together having a glass of wine, she’d explain there was no reason to continue on with the experiment now that they’d learned the breaths were lethal.

  At the house Jac excused herself to freshen up, and as she headed toward the stairs, she heard Melinoe offer Griffin the opportunity to visit the wine cellar and pick out a bottle from the collection.

  When Jac returned fifteen minutes later, there was no sign of them. She headed toward the cellar.

  “Griffin? Melinoe?”

  There was no answer. She saw the laboratory door was open and walked in. Empty also. She took a moment to check on the formula she wouldn’t need to finish now. It smelled wonderful. Ancient and rich. She imagined what adding the ambergris to it would do. How it would round it out. For a moment she regretted that she’d never smell the final composition.

  The cellar was large, and she walked its perimeter, thinking Melinoe was showing Griffin some corner even Jac hadn’t seen. Or that they were bent over a dusty bottle of Bordeaux. But then why wouldn’t they have answered?