The Collector of Dying Breaths

Chapter 6

THE PRESENT

FRIDAY, MARCH 14

PARIS, FRANCE

During those last days, while Jac sat with her brother as he lay dying, he asked her to write down some things he wanted her to do when he was gone. Now, two weeks after Robbie’s death, she opened her notebook and read down the list. Most items were bequests of art and antiques that Robbie owned and wished her to give away.

The first was a perfume bottle in the shape of a rose that Robbie wanted given to his friend and fellow perfumer Dmitri Distas. Next a Tibetan prayer necklace he wanted given to Mark Solage, who had been his lover for years and had remained his friend. Jac smiled, thinking about how Robbie’s lovers always remained his friends. One of the wondrous things about her brother was his ability to bring people into his life, care for them and keep them close.

Number three was for Malachai.

“I want to give him something special,” Robbie had said. “My jade Buddha. That’s something he’d like.”

And he would. Dr. Malachai Samuels was the therapist who had helped Jac out of her childhood crisis and had continued to watch over her. He and Robbie had gotten to know each other well over the years and shared a deep belief in reincarnation.

Jac’s eyes rested on the fourth item, a bequest for Griffin North.

Griffin. Her first lover and first love and one of Robbie’s closest friends. Griffin, whose imprint she wore on her very soul. She remembered the horrific accident almost two years ago. He had almost died saving her. How still and pale he’d looked lying in the hospital bed. Hour after hour, he remained unconscious, his breaths so shallow, his color so bad, the only way she knew he was still alive was by staring at the machines recording his vital signs. She remembered how it had felt to sit beside him, holding his limp, unresponsive hand. It seemed impossible that these were the same fingers that could set off sparks when he touched her skin.

Over and over she wondered how she would be able to live if he died, knowing his death was her fault.

Griffin had come to Paris to work with Robbie on the translation of the ancient Egyptian pottery he’d found. During that brief time, she and Griffin had reunited, and her strange and awful fugue states had started up again. Jac experienced two sets of hallucinations-or, as Robbie and Malachai believed, past-life regressions. In both, each of the men she’d seen in her visions had died tragically because of the love they had for a woman.

If Jac was having hallucinations, it didn’t matter-but if she accepted Robbie and Malachai’s interpretation of her memory lurches, she was the incarnation of those women and Griffin was the men.

She hadn’t wanted to give the theory any credence until Griffin had almost died while saving her life.

Once he’d gotten out of the hospital, she became obsessed by the idea that she’d almost been responsible for his death. She didn’t really want to believe in reincarnation, but what if her brother and Malachai and thousands of years of traditions were right? What if reincarnation was real? She could not be responsible for Griffin’s death a third time. She had to give him up.

She told him it was because she was worried about the effects of his impending divorce on his six-year-old daughter. Jac encouraged him to try and save his marriage.

Weeks after he left, Jac discovered she was pregnant. Even before she’d figured out what to do about it, or how to tell Griffin, she miscarried. She never told him. What was the point? He was where he belonged. Safe in New York with his wife and his child.

She hadn’t been in contact with him since.

Griffin had called the day before Robbie’s memorial service, but she hadn’t talked to him. He’d called the day after the service and the day after that. She hadn’t returned any of his calls, and finally he’d stopped trying. What was there to say? What was there to hear? Everyone had said everything to her already and nothing made any difference.

Jac returned to the list. Knowing Robbie, she wondered if there was some meaning in the order of the things he’d asked of her. Did he want her to visit or speak to these people as they appeared? She continued reading down. She came to the last item.

10. Call Melinoe Cypros/Barbizon.

Yes, she’d forgotten about this till now. On his deathbed, Robbie had pressed Jac to go retrieve the books he’d taken there from their own library here in Paris.

Barbizon was only an hour-and-a-half drive out of Paris. Suddenly the idea of going away was attractive. She wasn’t sure if it was losing Robbie-the one constant in her life-or Marcher’s concern, or a combination of both, but Jac hadn’t been comfortable since the detective’s visit. It might be good to get away and escape her extended family’s well-meaning but overwhelming kindnesses for a day or two.

It was also a chance to escape from the silver box containing her brother’s ashes, which she’d hidden away in the armoire in Robbie’s bedroom. Even there, in a room she never entered, behind a closed door, they haunted her. She needed to find a resting place for them-but then she’d have to let him go. Accept that he really was gone. And she couldn’t do that yet.

Jac called ahead and made arrangements with the contact her brother had given her-Serge Grise-to come to Barbizon the next morning. She also called a hotel in town and booked a room for that evening.

In the garage downstairs, the sight of Robbie’s car gave her a fresh pang. He’d bought and restored the sleek 1964 silver Mercedes when he was eighteen, and had never owned another car. This vehicle was one of the few things that tested his Zen-like attitude toward objects. He adored it and fussed over it and worried about every scratch.

She opened the door. His smell overwhelmed her. Intense and powerful. As if he’d just gotten out of the car himself. Jac tossed her overnight bag on the back seat, slipped inside, and adjusted the seat to fit her shorter frame. She put her hands on the wheel and caressed the smooth wood. Suddenly she sensed Robbie, right there beside her.

She listened, sure he was going to talk to her, and when she felt the air beside her vibrate a little, she shivered. Instead of upsetting her, it made her comfortable to think that she wasn’t quite alone. With a relief she hadn’t felt for weeks, she put the key in the ignition and started up her beautiful brother’s beautiful car.

Driving away from Paris was liberating. As if she were leaving part of her intolerable sadness behind her. No matter that she was venturing out to collect Robbie’s belongings-the freedom of the road was invigorating. As soon as she was out of the city proper and driving through the countryside, she opened all the windows and let the damp early spring air in.

After an hour she reached her destination. The “village of painters,” as Barbizon was known, consisted of a long curving street lined with gray stone buildings and ancient trees. A bit bleak on this March day, but still charming. It seemed time had not touched the town. Jac imagined it had looked exactly like this in the early nineteenth century when a group of painters rebelling against the Romantic movement came here to form an art colony. They availed themselves of the wondrous forest of Fontainebleau, where they worked from nature-a hallmark of their movement.

It was before lunch and there weren’t many people on the street, so Jac could imagine that when she did see the villagers they were going to be dressed in nineteenth-century garb.

“No wonder you were so enchanted with this place,” she said out loud, unconsciously, to Robbie. She wondered if that was a bad sign, and then decided it didn’t matter. She wanted to talk to him. It made her less sad to think he was hovering and could hear her.

Jac reached the end of the road and the inn. After checking in, she spent a quiet afternoon exploring the town and then having a simple dinner of salad and coq au vin in one of the small restaurants lining the street. It was filled with locals who were treated more like family by the host than guests. The atmosphere was easygoing and the food was delicious, and Jac felt less lonely here than she had at home. She was used to being away, on her own, traveling in search of mythological stories to tell. Used to being by herself.

In the morning, following the directions Serge Grise had given her, she turned out of the inn, onto the main street and then turned right, then left and then, after another stretch, came to the next turnoff. The town disappeared, and she began driving through the woods. Twice she passed a gate but never saw any houses. After another ten minutes she came to the stone well Serge had given her as a landmark. She turned right and took that road almost a kilometer until she reached a set of ornate gates decorated with a coat of arms featuring roses, fleurs-de-lis, a flag and a shield.

She rolled down the window and pressed the intercom button.

“Qui est là?” a disembodied female voice asked.

“Jac L’Etoile.”

“Entrez.”

The gate opened. In the distance the château came into view. Planted in the middle of the woods, it was encircled by a moat, complete with an old-fashioned drawbridge.

Jac was surprised how familiar the château looked, from the elaborately carved limestone facade to the multiple towers and chimneys gracefully rising out of the slate roofs and into the clouds.

Only the woods seemed wrong. They were too close to the house.

Why did she think she’d seen this place before? She’d never been to Barbizon. Had Robbie described it? She didn’t think so. Perhaps there was a famous landscape that featured the château that she’d seen. She’d ask the owner.

As she approached the driveway, Jac thought she saw a man in period dress-a tunic and leggings-and sporting long hair. Then the clouds shifted and she realized there wasn’t anyone there at all. It must have been light playing on one of the columns flanking the front door. No one was waiting for her. It was just her imagination.