The Collector of Dying Breaths Read online

  “It’s about nine kilometers straight across to Fontainebleau castle,” Serge was saying. “Two hundred and eighty square kilometers of woods.”

  Jac pulled back from her memories to return to the present.

  “Five times the size of Manhattan,” she said.

  “Except, unlike your island, this forest is virtually uninhabited. Have you ever been here before?”

  “No, but I’ve always meant to come and see it. I haven’t spent a lot of time in France since I was a teenager.”

  “I thought you grew up in Paris.”

  “Until I was fourteen. And then I moved to New York.”

  “But Robbie talked about being a teenager in Paris.” Serge was confused.

  “After our mother killed herself . . .”

  “Yes, I remember now, Robbie told me,” Serge said sympathetically.

  “I had some problems,” Jac acknowledged, “and it seemed that New York, without all the memories, was a healthier environment for me. Robbie stayed in Paris.”

  “You say it as if it wasn’t the right choice. Didn’t you want to go?”

  “I wanted to very much. I’m just not sure now that it was the best way to deal with the situation.”

  “Because it was running away?”

  “That’s what Robbie used to say,” Jac said.

  “Robbie and I talked a lot when he was here. He was worried about you. He said he wanted you to learn to stay in the moment.”

  Jac was angry at her brother. Probably for the first time since he’d died. If he wanted to be so open about his own life, that was fine, but she never liked it when he talked to other people about her.

  “He said that he always wondered whether, if you’d stayed in Paris, you might have worked out your mother’s death in a manner that was more beneficial.”

  Jac didn’t say anything. She really wasn’t sure how to respond. Before she could figure it out, he continued.

  “Your brother loved you more than anyone . . .” Serge said. Hesitated. Then continued. “In the most wonderful way.”

  Jac wasn’t angry anymore. Rather she was ineffably moved. For a few moments they rode on together in silence. And then, as if it were a refrain from a song repeating over and over in her mind, she heard his words again.

  In the most wonderful way.

  When wouldn’t loving your sister—or your stepsister—be wonderful?

  The horses approached a gigantic boulder.

  “Let’s stop here. I’d like to show you this,” Serge said as he pulled his reins, and Jac followed.

  They dismounted and approached the rounded stone that was easily twice as tall as she was.

  “This is one of the famous Bleau boulders,” he said.

  Jac reached out to touch the rough stone that climbers came from all over to tackle.

  Back on their horses, as they continued on, Serge told the history of the magical forest. “Until the mid-nineteenth century the area was virtually unmapped. Kings and noblemen hunted here, of course, but rumors and legends kept most people at bay. Even criminals who escaped from nearby prisons were frightened of what they might find and stayed away.”

  “Is it haunted? Are there monsters?” Jac asked.

  “The legend I heard was about a monster—a giant predator who lived here and guarded his domain. As a result the forest and its thousands of caves remained untouched and uncharted for centuries.”

  “But some of them have been explored more recently—haven’t I read that?”

  “Yes, and the historians found prehistoric drawings dating back thirty thousand years.”

  “Do you know where those are?”

  “I do. Melinoe is funding some of the ongoing archaeological research on a cave that’s filled with cuneiforms that no one has been able to decipher yet. Some are simple lines etched into sandstone rock. Others are much more complex markings that suggest men who lived here were writing far before the year 3300 BCE, when man supposedly invented writing in Sumer.”

  Jac was fascinated. By the stories. By the purple shadows and dark-green leaves. By the loamy scents and the twists on the bridle path that suddenly revealed idyllic settings. She was familiar with how this forest had inspired first the Barbizon school of painters and later photographers. Had they defied the unfriendly spirits hiding here? Or just been oblivious to the spirits trying to chase them away? They couldn’t have ignored the tension she was feeling in these woods. Their work was so tranquil. Or was she sensing what those artists had not?

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Serge asked as they rounded a corner and came upon a stream, some smaller boulders, and a copse of beech trees.

  “Beautiful but disturbing.”

  “Really? Why do you find it disturbing?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  But she was afraid she did have an idea of what was bothering her. It was the waves of an episode coming at her as if out of the darkest part of the forest. The metallic smell that presaged a hallucination seeping out of the bark on the trees.

  Jac immediately went into survival mode, following her sanity commandments.

  Silently, she intoned them now.

  Take long, concentrated breaths. Count . . . two . . . three . . . four.

  Jac inhaled. Counted . . . two . . . three . . . four. Did it again. And again.

  Give yourself a task.

  She tried to identify and name the trees and shrubs they were passing. Scotch pine. European beech. Juniper.

  Take deep breaths. Concentrate.

  It wasn’t working . . . She was seeing a kind of double exposure . . . the present forest and a shimmer behind it; a parade of ghosts who’d passed through, from kings to princesses to peasants.

  “Jac?”

  “There’s so much history here,” she managed. “And sometimes I find the history of a place can be overwhelming.” She hoped he’d accept her explanation. It was still an effort to focus, but she concentrated on the horse trotting beneath her. On a shaft of light breaking through tree branches. On Serge’s profile.

  It was working. The episode was passing.

  She was surprised to realize Serge was talking, and she’d missed the first part of what he’d said. But she listened now.

  “. . . and I once saw an art gallery installation where the artist had painted flat cardboard cutouts of all the people who had walked in and out of the room in the last six months. You had to traverse through narrow paths between the facsimiles of the hundreds who had come and gone. It was a visual history of the room. All those people who had left nothing of themselves but the fact of their presence.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m sensing—I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nobleman from another century ride past us.”

  “I’m sure you could guess this given her other interests, but Melinoe is fascinated with time warps,” he said.

  There it was again . . . that timbre in his voice that fitted the way he had looked at Melinoe—no, gazed at her. Up till now Jac had thought it was awe. But now she guessed that it was lust. She heard it so clearly now in his tone. It was in every syllable of how he spoke her name. His voice deepened around the word, which slid out as if he were forming it carefully, feeling every syllable with his tongue.

  Jac looked over at him. At how his hands caressed the leather reins. How his thighs strained against his pants. He was a vital, sensuous man. What was he doing living with Melinoe in a château in Barbizon?

  “Do you live here all the time?” she asked.

  “No, we travel quite a bit. There’s a manor house outside of London, a house in Marrakesh, an apartment in New York City and a yacht that spends most of its time in Saint-Tropez. And of course the villa in Greece, Melinoe’s father’s family home.”

  “Do you have a big family?” She hoped she didn’t sound as if she was prying.


  “No. Just the two of us.”

  “Melinoe never had children?”

  “Several marriages, but no children.” Then he laughed, almost cruelly. “Her husbands were poor saps. None lasted long.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They couldn’t in the end, any of them, accept her conditions.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “I suppose it is. Some people think Melinoe is a psychic vampire. Do you know the term? It’s someone who sucks people dry, exhausts them emotionally. She has a knack for making men think she’s inviting them on the adventure of their lifetimes.” He laughed again. “I suppose it was ego . . . but each of her husbands thought he was the one who could tame her. She led them to believe that—to trap them. In the end, none of them lasted more than a couple of years. And when they left, each was quite damaged.” He said that last part with sympathy.

  No, Jac thought, it was more than sympathy; it was empathy.

  “You make her sound like a character out of a nineteenth-century novel.”

  “You’ve met her—does that surprise you? Melinoe is not one woman. She is not one color. She’s part of every era, every time. There is no one like her.”

  Jac felt his passion. His words, coming at her in the gloom of the forest, were somehow arousing her. Not that she wanted Serge, but she wanted a man to talk about her that way.

  “Have you ever been married?” she asked.

  “I’ve never left Melinoe.”

  It was a non sequitur. It didn’t answer the question. Or maybe it did.

  They had reached a large outcropping of rocks that appeared to form the entrance to a cave when Jac’s horse let out a long whinny and stopped. Following suit, Serge’s horse did also. The two beasts stood pawing the ground and snorting.

  “What is it?” Jac asked.

  “I don’t know. The horses don’t seem to want to pass by these rocks.”

  “No, they don’t. Should we see what’s inside?”

  Jac felt the pull of the rocks, of the entrance to the cave. She dismounted and tied the reins to a nearby tree. At the opening to the cave she peered in.

  “I think this is one of the Neolithic sites you told me about. There are carvings in the wall. Odd shapes and symbols.” She peered at them. Some were older than others. The very ancient ones were indecipherable, but there were pentagrams she recognized.

  He got off his horse, tied her up and joined Jac.

  Together the two stepped inside. The air was cooler here. She sniffed it. Rotten eggs. Reaching out, she traced the carvings with her fingers. Some were cut deeper into the stone than others, but all their edges were smooth. Jac had been on enough digs to know what she was feeling.

  “Even the most recent etchings go back at least five hundred years,” she said.

  Taking another few steps, she went deeper into the cave. The scent grew stronger. The darkness became forbidding.

  Jac was thinking about the pentagrams. Five hundred years ago royals had spent summers at Fontainebleau, moving their whole court for a few months until they depleted the food and supplies in that castle and then moving on to the next. Catherine de Medici had been among them. And she was rumored to have dabbled in black magic.

  The scent of sulfur was overwhelming now. It was a putrid smell often associated with the devil. Jac felt the all too familiar waving as air moved around her. What had happened in this cave?

  Behind them, one of the horses whinnied again. Then snorted. The other joined in.

  She and Serge both turned in time to see his horse jerk away with such force she broke the branch her reins were tied to and took off.

  “What the hell?” Serge said as Jac’s horse followed suit. He ran off after the horses but gave up quickly.

  “They’re too fast,” he said as he returned. His face was flushed and he looked annoyed.

  “I wonder if the sulfur frightened them? It has a lot of strange properties,” Jac said.

  “Do you use it in perfume?”

  “No. It was sometimes incorporated into skin creams but never proved effective,” Jac said. “Its most popular usage was in black magic to create protection and aid in breaking spells. They say the devil smells of sulfur.”

  “Maybe that’s who scared away our ride back to the château.” Serge smiled at her and then took out his phone. “Let me send a boy from the stables out looking for them. Do you want to walk back—we’re only about a half hour away—or do you want someone to come get us with more horses?”

  Jac had been looking back, toward the cave, thinking about the malevolence she’d sensed emanating from deep inside. “Sure, we can walk . . . That’s fine.”

  He finished with his call, then looked around. “It shouldn’t be hard to get back. Once I figure out . . .” He peered to the right, then to the left. “I have to admit I’m a little turned around and not sure where we are, but it can’t be too far. We were headed south and followed a fairly straight path . . . We just need to make sure we’re heading north . . .”

  Jac pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket. “I have a compass on here.” She clicked on the application. “Don’t worry. I get lost a lot, but never stay lost for long.”

  But that wasn’t really true, she thought. She’d lost part of herself when Griffin first left, and she’d never really found it again.

  Chapter 16

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” Serge asked when they returned to the château.

  Much to Jac’s relief, it had been a leisurely walk without anymore disturbing occurrences. Her experience at the mouth of the cave had been unnerving to say the least.

  She said that would be perfect.

  “Feel like experimenting? I was thinking of visiting the cellar and picking something unusual.”

  Remembering the first time she’d seen the cellar and smelled its provocative and curious scent, she asked if she could accompany him.

  “I’d be happy for the company,” he said.

  They went down the narrow marble staircase that led from the kitchen to the underground rooms. As they approached the wine cellar, Jac could smell it. Inside the musty ancient room, she inhaled, trying to pinpoint the direction of the scent. The odor was emanating from a section of shelves to the right of center against the back wall.

  As Jac walked toward the shelves, her mind flashed on Griffin. But why here? Why now? And then she felt the cold pinpricks of a hallucination coming on. What was down here that triggered them?

  The closer she got to the wall, the stronger the sensations. They were pulling her like a magnet to metal. Her curiosity was an actual force. She needed to know what was just hovering on the edges of her mind . . . a story . . . tantalizing her . . . a past that demanded to be discovered. And for only the second time in her life, she didn’t fight but invited the images.

  Then she saw a familiar man standing just where Serge was now. Like the two other glimpses she’d had of him, he was once again dressed in dark pantaloons and a tunic shot with gold thread. He smelled like no one Jac had ever smelled. So alluring . . . so seductive . . . a scent that embraced her . . . pulled her closer . . . that made her want just to stand here forever inhaling him.

  But when the man reached out toward one of the bottles, his hand went in between spaces. He manipulated something, and the whole shelf of bottles swung out like a door. And inside was . . .

  Jac blinked as the room around her came back into focus.

  “Are you all right?” Serge asked.

  From similar experiences that she’d had since childhood, Jac knew that in reality almost no time had passed. While she felt as if she’d lost minutes—sometimes hours or even days—only seconds had ticked by. In the past she’d asked those around her—her brother, Malachai and Griffin—what they saw when she entered into her fugue states. All they reported was
that she’d had a faraway look in her eye and seemed distracted, not always hearing them when they spoke to her.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She didn’t know him well enough to explain, so she just said, “I had an odd kind of déjà vu.”

  He nodded. “Your brother told me about that.”

  Jac was startled. Robbie had talked to Serge about this too?

  “You’re surprised? I’m sorry. Robbie told me in the context of how difficult it had been for him to watch you suffer and how frustrated he was that he couldn’t help you find relief. He was so pleased that you finally seemed to be coming to terms with your abilities. He told me that he hoped one day you’d see it as a real gift—and even pursue it.”

  In the forest, she had been angry at Robbie for talking about her to someone she didn’t even know. But now it was more like being given a gift of flowers. She was hearing Robbie say those words to her from across time and distance.

  Jac cleared her throat. “Thank you for telling me,” she said.

  “He was very special.”

  She nodded.

  Serge was silent for a few seconds. Jac almost reached out for him, so palpable was his sorrow. But then the moment was over. He gestured to the many shelves and extended his hand.

  “Reds here, whites here. Champagnes there. What’s your pleasure?”

  But Jac gravitated to a section he hadn’t pointed out. She walked over to the stack of shelves where the very old wines were, and then it was as if someone else took over her hand. She was reaching past the bottles. Stretching behind them to the back wall, where she searched for . . . and felt . . . yes . . . she felt it . . . a knot in the wood. Ordinary. Nothing you’d notice unless you knew that if you . . . Jac gripped it. Twisted. Nothing happened. She exerted more strength. Twisted it . . . and finally felt the first bit of give. She took her hand out, shook away the pain, and then tried again using all her might. It turned with a loud creak, and she felt the release of the mechanism. Then, with almost no effort, she was able to swing that whole section of the shelves out.