Light Fantastique Page 4

  Marie put a hand over her heart, which tap danced below her corset. How did she get here? The last thing she remembered was—

  Now the mirror shimmered, and Marie dashed to the door, but the handle wouldn’t budge.

  I’m locked in!

  She allowed herself one terrified glance over her shoulder, and her heart nearly froze its frenzied tarantella.

  The same death’s head from the hallway stared back at her.

  No, not a death’s head, a metal man’s head. An automaton?

  She decided someone played a cruel trick on her, but she didn’t know of a passage behind the mirror. Lucille denied the existence of one, and Marie had never been able to find an entrance to it.

  “Whoever you are, sir, I do not appreciate your prank,” she said with as haughty a lift to her chin as she could manage. “Remove your mask at once. This theatre belongs to Madame Lucille St. Jean, and we do not abide trespassers.”

  The death’s head approached from behind the mirror, which seemed to stretch and bend around it. Marie knew mirror effects and could concede it moved, but whoever this was manipulated it like they’d…

  “…built it?” Marie murmured. She’d heard of a workman who’d been killed during the theatre construction, long before her mother had bought it with the help of one of her patrons, a stately duke who was long passed at this point.

  No, no, let’s not think about another dead man.

  She tried to ram the door with her shoulder, but it wouldn’t budge. Of course. The theatre had been constructed just before the Revolution, and they’d made the doors extra strong in case either side wanted to pay to keep prisoners there.

  The air warmed like the inside of a toaster oven, and a droplet of sweat trickled from beneath Marie’s hair line and down her cheek. Now she couldn’t look away from the mirror, where the ghost stood and watched her, a rapier at his side.

  “Are you going to kill me, sir?” she asked. Maybe if I can draw him out, I can disarm him and then get hold of his mask.

  “Why would I kill you? You’re banging yourself up beautifully without my help.”

  Indeed, Marie knew her shoulder and arm would be bruised. “Then why not show yourself all the way?”

  The air clouded, and Marie darted to and fro looking for the source of it, the flame that could grow and consume the theatre in a matter of minutes. She’d entered to find burning candles—what if one of them had tipped over? But her movements slowed, and she felt as though she pushed through a tub of the greasy substance actors used to remove the stage cosmetics. The smell—earthy sweet and familiar—tipped her off that no wood burned, and she found the fainting couch just before she collapsed.

  “You know that smell?”

  The voice was back, and Marie used every one of her upper face muscles to pry her eyelids open a sliver. The sneering automaton face hovered in front of her.

  Sick familiarity forced a memory to mind, and she struggled not to swim into it, but something weighted her body while her spirit floated above. “Go away,” she murmured.

  “What do you see?” the strange being asked.

  “I’m in a club, a gentleman’s club. It’s the night, the first night I met him…” The words tumbled from her mouth in spite of her trying to keep her lips sealed in her lolling head. The smell of Parnaby Cobb’s own personal tobacco brand, which he managed to get from his North Carolina plantation in spite of the ongoing war, threaded her past to her present.

  “Sleep now, my beauty,” the ghost crooned. “And may your conscience light your dreams.”

  * * * * *

  Club L’Or, Paris, 16 May 1868

  Marie entered the club, and although she kept her cloak around her and hood drawn, a murmur followed her like the foam at the crest of a wave—“Fantastique! It’s the actress from the Bohème. But what is she doing here?” She knew her cheeks must glow as brightly as the lamps in their beaded red silk shades, which cast everything in a lurid, ruddy glow, but she pressed on. She didn’t know what she felt, only that the emotion originated somewhere in the center of her pelvis, clawed its way through her stomach, and clogged her throat, from where it scratched at the corners of her eyes. But she held her head up as her mother had always taught her.

  “You are a fatherless female from a culture no one understands. You have nothing and everything to lose, so must never let them take anything away, least of all your pride.”

  She had lost everything. She had given it to him as a stupid accident, and now she would swallow her pride to retrieve it.

  Finally she found him. She should have known he would be at a table in the farthest corner, from where he could survey everything like a king. And of course a woman sat on either side of him. She’d heard he collected them. Their looks, like alley cats dressed up to be noble tigers from the far side of the British Empire, almost broke her composure because she saw her own future in their empty eyes and painted-on smiles. At least it would be if she continued her current course. Her mother would try to protect her, but she knew what kind of reputation actresses had, and it would only take one slip, one bad decision to fall into that role as easily as she had all the others that had been presented to her.

  “Give it back,” she said, the speech she’d rehearsed vanished in a puff of cigar smoke and whiff of expensive perfume.

  He tapped his ash into a—what else?—gold-rimmed square ashtray. Everything about him said controlled extravagance—just enough to show his wealth, but not to a gaudy extent. “Give what back?”

  “I’m not going to say in front of these creatures.”

  He dismissed the women with a wave of his hand. “Go find drinks for yourselves, Mademoiselles. Fantastique and I have business to discuss.”

  They scooted away with languid attitudes, but Marie caught their angry glances.

  You’re welcome to him, girls.

  For girls they were, younger than she. She removed her hood and sat at the edge of the banquette cushion, but he gestured for her to move closer.

  “Come now, I don’t bite,” he said. He shook his empty glass at a waiter and held up two fingers to indicate another should be brought for Marie.

  “No, thank you,” she said, both to the invitation in his eyes and the drink, but she did move close enough to him to speak to him privately. She grasped for the role of outraged actress, but all she felt was young and foolish.

  “Now what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “The autograph I gave you earlier, I need it back.”

  His gray eyebrows signaled surprise before they drew together. “Now why could an autograph be so important?”

  He drew it from his waistcoat pocket, and Marie clasped her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t grab for it and cause a scene. She was too known here. Too known everywhere in Paris, actually. Facing others’ expectations, feeling them crawling into her skin and under her pores until she couldn’t help but be who they wanted her to be, had grown tiring. But she wouldn’t reveal that to him.

  “It isn’t the autograph itself, sir. See? I’ve brought you another.” She removed a folded piece of paper from her cloak pocket and handed it to him. He compared it with the one he’d removed from his own.

  “You still haven’t told me why this one is so valuable.”

  “I apologize, but when you visited me in my dressing room earlier, I picked up the wrong piece of paper.” She tried to shrug in a nonchalant manner—See? Silly me. “So I would appreciate if you would return the other to me, for I need the letter on which it’s written.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” He unfolded the paper on which her first scrawl was written and scanned it. “You’re planning to leave Paris and visit a relative in the United States?”

  Another silly girl shrug. “Only for a short time. I’m ready for a change of scene, as it were.”

  His mustache didn’t move w
hen he smiled, she noticed, only the corners of his lips. “I can do much better than this,” he said. “A talent like yours needs to be seen in New York or Boston.”

  Marie kept her own smile stuck where it was in spite of her jaw muscles tightening so hard they stung. “Where I want to go is none of your affair, although I appreciate your consideration.” She held out her hand. “My papers, please?”

  He tucked it back in his waistcoat and handed her substitute back to her. “We’ll discuss it after tomorrow night’s performance at a late dinner. Do you know where the Hotel Auberge is?”

  “I’m afraid my mother will not look kindly upon me dining alone with a strange man.”

  The look he gave her made her wish she’d kept her mouth shut, for she now knew she was the prey.

  “Your mother doesn’t know about this letter. She has no idea of your intent to leave Paris.” They weren’t questions, so she didn’t answer them, but she had to look away. “Then your proposed adventure is much more risky than dinner with me, Mademoiselle.” He lifted her hand to his lips, and the brush of his whiskers put her in mind of a scraggly lion. But this one was far from toothless.

  “Tomorrow, then.” She stood and walked out. She tried to ignore the whispers after her, but she knew the gossip would be all over Paris by the following morning, by when she had intended to be gone. Now instead of “Actress Disappears,” the paper would read, “Actress Entertained by American Entrepreneur at Gentleman’s Club.”

  “Merde,” she whispered.

  Chapter Five

  Théâtre Bohème, 2 December 1870

  Johann sat in the pit and tuned his violin. Sometimes when he played, it felt like part of him, and other times it seemed a creature with its own mind that required cajoling and gentle handling. And rarely it seemed to hold a tempest, and he had to grasp the bow with even more care lest it slip away from him in the middle of a passage.

  Today feels like a tempest day, or perhaps that’s how I feel.

  Sometimes he was happy for Edward’s preoccupation. Johann felt his friend was the only one who had truly forgiven him for his role in the airship crash in spite of being the one most hurt by it.

  He made the tuning note a long and plaintive one. The tone hung in the air, but when he lifted his bow, a new sound floated to his ears.

  “Marie?” The name was asked in almost a whisper.

  Johann stood and saw Iris at the back of the theatre. When she saw him, she stepped backward, then squinted.

  “Maestro? I hope that is you and not some strange spirit haunting the theatre.”

  Her words made the skin between his shoulders tighten. It wasn’t like her to kid about the supernatural. “Mademoiselle, if there is a ghost in the room, it is not me.”

  She gave him what he’d come to think of as her analytical look and walked down the side aisle. “I hope you’re jesting. Have you seen Marie?”

  “Not since breakfast.” And she had seemed distracted with barely a glance in his direction. Not that he expected anything from her, but he’d found himself oddly disappointed. “Why?”

  Now Iris stood close to him. “I’m not sure what to make of it,” she said in a quiet tone. “Madame St. Jean seems convinced there is something evil here, and she is concerned for Marie. I told Madame I would help her search.”

  “And you’re sure Mademoiselle St. Jean is here?”

  “She said she was coming over to study her lines for the production.” Iris glanced around the theatre. “I’m to search in here and backstage.”

  “And if you find her?” Now Johann’s nerves thrummed like someone stroked them with a bow. Iris seemed worried, and she wasn’t easily disturbed, not after all she’d been through. Something felt off about the place today, but he didn’t know whether to attribute the sensation to something truly there, or merely because he felt conscripted to be there and would prefer to remain hidden in the background, not front and center in the orchestra.

  “If I find her, I’m to tell her to go to the townhouse, and to run if we have to.” She glanced up at him. “This sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Nothing in here could hurt us. It’s the middle of a Friday morning.” But she rubbed her hands together, and the strips of pale skin between her gloves and the bottoms of her sleeves showed goose bumps.

  “I’ll help you search for her,” he said. “If only to prove that this is all nonsense. Madame seems a sensible woman, but the old have been known to start seeing things that aren’t there.”

  “I doubt Madame is going senile, but yes, the sooner we can find Marie the better.”

  Johann placed his violin in its case and secured it. He’d return to practicing later. Mademoiselle St. Jean hadn’t been far from his thoughts all morning, so it made a strange sort of sense he would search for her now. And when he found her? She’d probably be irritated at the interruption rather than rush into his arms.

  “Maestro, look,” Iris said. She’d climbed the stairs at the side of the stage and found something, a piece of the script, toward the front. “It’s hers, I think. The notes are in her handwriting.”

  He joined her, and together they followed a trail of pages through the backstage area and green room and then down the back stairs into the hall where the dressing rooms were. They stopped in front of one of the doors, which had the name Mlle. Corinne scrawled on the nameplate.

  “This is the star’s dressing room,” Iris whispered.

  “I’m sure Madame will change the nameplate soon,” Johann replied, also sotto voce. “And why are we whispering?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s oddly quiet down here.”

  Indeed, noise from the street could be heard in the theatre itself but not in the lower levels. Now the only sound came from shadows, which was to say, none at all. Even the gas lamps flickered silently. Johann fought the urge to hunch his shoulders against an invisible threat. No matter which way he turned, he felt something stood behind him and watched.

  Iris raised her hand to knock on the door, and her taps echoed in the corridor. “Marie?” she called, but still in a muted call. “Are you in there?”

  A noise came from behind the door, and something rattled the handle.

  “Iris? Is that you? I’m locked in!”

  * * * * *

  When Marie woke, she found herself back on the chaise lounge, and she scrabbled against the feeling of fingers brushing over her. No light illuminated the room, which was a normal temperature again, and the groping feelings subsided as she anchored herself by pinching the fabric against her skin.

  A knock at the door made her run to it, but she found it was again locked.

  “Marie? Are you in there?”

  “Iris? Is that you? I’m locked in!”

  “Stand back,” a male voice said.

  “Maestro?” Marie asked. Shame at being caught in that predicament warred with a strange relief he was there. “Whatever you do, don’t damage your hands.”

  “Do you want me to get you out or not?”

  Just hearing his voice calmed her and shredded the cobweb-like wisps of the dream that clung to her brain. “Of course, but let me think for a moment.” The darkness behind her pressed in on her, and she resisted turning around lest she see the metal face leering at her. She couldn’t allow Bledsoe to risk a broken hand or dislocated shoulder by breaking down the door—Lucille would surely blame her. Plus Marie hadn’t turned to a man for help in a long time, so she knew she could figure this one out. She ran her hands over the door, and her right thumb brushed against something metal sticking out from it—the key.

  In the lock.

  She leaned with her forehead against the door. The key hadn’t been there a moment ago, had it? Her brain must still be addled by whatever had been in the smoke that dragged her to the past. She wasn’t even sure if she had described her vision out loud or if she had only dreamed it. And she
had been fighting the role of a woman who went mad from opium—had she dreamed everything, even the man?

  They’re going to think I’m insane. “Never mind, I found the key.” She turned it, opened the door, and squinted against the light in the hallway. Although dim, it was brighter than the darkness in the dressing room.

  “You were locked in… With the key?” Iris asked. Her facial expression only showed concern. “We found these.” She handed Marie the missing parts of the script. “They led right to you.”

  Marie rarely found herself speechless, but she had no explanation that would make any kind of logical sense. “I wish I could tell you what happened, but I’m not sure myself.”

  “What do you mean?” Iris asked simultaneously with the maestro asking, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Aside from my little involuntary trip into the past. “What’s wrong?”

  “Other than you being locked inside with a key and parts of your script leading us to you in a trail?”

  Marie could tell Iris’s mind sifted through the possible explanations like her fingers would eventually search for shards of pottery or other clues to the past in the desert sands. The crease between her brows and sharpness in her dark blue eyes said Iris could not come up with any good, sane explanations for Marie’s predicament. That was fine because Marie hadn’t, either. Who would believe a story about an automaton that had trapped her and forced her to reveal a past she wanted to keep hidden?

  “Yes, that. I may have had some help, but I don’t want to speak of it here.” She looked back into the dressing room, but it looked ordinary again, the mirror just a mirror.