The Collector of Dying Breaths

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.