Chapter 5
Eleven Weeks Ago
Madame Dupuy got to our apartment earlier than usual the next morning, rousted me out of bed, poured a cup of coffee into me, stuck a pain au chocolat in my hand, and handed me my backpack.
“If I permit you to go to a club, Mademoiselle Tosh, you must repay me by going to class,” she said as she herded me toward the door.
“Just a minute, please.” I hurried into my room and retrieved her heart necklace. “Thank you so much for lending this to me.” I held it out to her, but she pushed my hand back gently.
“It is yours now. Please wear it every day. There was another attack last night, one street from the club where you were, and I would like you to be protected all the time.”
Unless the pendant shot stun rays, I didn’t see how it could protect me, but her concern felt like a hug. The radio babbled in the background, as it did every day. She’d insisted that we set our sound system up so that it played the same boring news station in every room. You couldn’t escape.
“It is very helpful for learning French,” she’d told Dad. “France Info repeats the main news stories every hour. By the end of the day, even if you are not truly listening, you will have understood at least one news item. So you will know a little more French and a little more news every day.”
Dad embraced total immersion, but he had to listen for only an hour or so in the evenings, because I turned it off the moment Madame Dupuy left.
I, on the other hand, had to listen whenever I was home, unless I was doing homework.
She’d quiz me on the news stories, too. Some days immersion felt like drowning.
“This attack,” I said, slinging my pack onto my shoulder. “What happened?”
Madame Dupuy looked uncomfortable. I was about to ask her again when I recognized a word in the newscast. “Did they just say ‘vampire’ on the actual news? Like as a possible suspect?”
She nodded grimly. “That is the attack I was telling you about. The victim died.”
I winced. “But they don’t really think a ‘vampire’ did it, do they?”
“There are people who do.”
I remembered what she’d said about her great-grandma fighting off a vampire with the necklace I wore. “Do you think that?”
“I hope it is not true, but it is possible, yes.”
“That there’s a ‘vampire’ in Paris?” I made the air quotes with my fingers this time because I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with a certified adult.
She nodded. Just, wow. “Listen, I love this necklace, and it’s so sweet of you to give it to me, but necklaces don’t protect against vampires, because vampires aren’t real. ”
She gave me a look filled with sorrow, then said, very quietly, “Yes, they are.”
“No,” I scoffed. “I mean, maybe it’s someone who’s mentally ill, but blood-drinking folklore creatures?
That’s just…stories.” How could we be having this conversation?
Madame Dupuy lived in the twenty-first century.
She was practical; she researched if Le Shopping was safe instead of, like, doing a protective incantation or making me carry garlic in my pockets.
“If your great-grandma drove a vampire away with this necklace, it was because she lived in a time when vampires were real in people’s heads.
If everybody believed silver repelled vampires, then the people who thought they were vampires would have believed they were repelled by it.
It didn’t work because vampires existed; it worked because everybody thought it worked.
It’s circular logic. And superstition. We know better than that now. ”
“Where I come from,” Madame Dupuy said calmly, “vampires have always been real, and silver has always burned them.”
We stood, staring at each other. Then, with an effort I could see, Madame Dupuy hoisted a smile onto her face.
“Bon, even if you do not believe me, what harm is there to wear it?” She looked at me almost pleadingly.
“Do not ignore any solutions, even ones that seem impossible. You do not have to believe that it has any powers. You do not have to believe that there are vampires. But please believe that it would make me very happy to see you wearing it.”
I looked at the necklace in my hand. Her wanting me to wear it showed that I meant something to her. She meant something to me, too. So I could ignore the superstitious stuff and do this just because it made her happy. “Okay,” I said, fastening it around my neck.
She sighed, relieved. “It would please me if you would carry these as well.” She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a handful of garlic cloves, still in their papery husks.
Just, no. I shook my head. “I’ll wear the necklace, but I’m not doing something out of a Dracula movie. Anyway, I have to go. I’m going to be late for class.”
—
My school looked like a mass conversion event when I got there.
Girls wore everything from tiny crucifix pendants to enormous Gothic crosses.
Professeur Joubert glowered at us as he walked to the front of the classroom.
“Vampires do not exist,” he said flatly, enunciating every word in his measured way.
“However, evil people do. We all hope that this person will be caught and punished. In the meantime, girls, be careful where you go and do not be alone. And,” he snapped, “save the crosses for church. They will not protect you from a predator. Furthermore, they are technically in contravention of the law, and I will not allow them in my classroom.” He folded his arms and scowled at us until everyone took them off.
When Nick and I met after he got out of school to go see Le Bec’s piece, I was jumpy, worried about the attacks and about staying safe.
I told him what Madame Dupuy had said to me.
“I wonder if I should tell Dad she thinks vampires exist,” I said as we got on the Métro.
“What if he fires her, though?” I sighed.
“I really like her. And she did let me go clubbing on a school night.”
“A sterling characteristic,” Nick agreed.
“Maybe I just see how it goes. She’s trying to keep me safe.”
Nick nodded. “If you think she’s okay, then she’s okay.”
The train rumbled under our feet. Nick threaded his fingers between mine. “So do you have plans for Saturday night?” he said.
“Um. Not really, why?” My skin tingled where he was touching me.
“Let’s go see the Eiffel Tower.”
I grinned at him. “Yes, please. I’ve been meaning to go see it so I can share selfies of it with all forty-eight of my Instagram followers.
” He laughed, throwing his head back. The people in the seats around us eyed him suspiciously.
I wondered if I’d missed the sign saying it was forbidden to laugh on the Métro.
When we got to Le Mur, Nick’s friends were already there.
Martine was smoking as she talked to Youssef, carefully blowing the smoke away from him.
When we did kiss-kiss, I noticed how the harshness of the smoke balanced the sweetness of her perfume.
“Those things’ll kill you,” Nick said. She did look glamorous, though, with her wrist cocked back, the cigarette held between her languidly curled fingers.
“Maybe you could vape,” I suggested.
She shook her head. “It looks like an infant sucking on its, euhm—” She motioned with her cigarette like, What’s the word?
“Pacifier?” I said.
“Yes. I prefer not to look like a baby.” She blew a stream of smoke out the side of her mouth like some vintage Hollywood actress. “Does it bother you that I smoke?”
“Only because it’s bad for you. I don’t really mind people smoking outside.” It was such a city smell, like diesel exhaust or hot asphalt or roasting garlic from a nearby restaurant.
“One day, I will quit. But for now, it is my friend.”
“That’s an interesting way to describe it.”
“I can always rely on smoking to calm me when I am agitated.” She pointed to the wall where Le Bec had painted his mural.
“I think these birds feel the same way.” At fifteen feet tall, they practically exploded onto the street.
The first one in line, sleek and fashionable in heeled black boots and a cropped leather jacket, was holding its cigarette with its wing cocked back, blowing smoke out of the side of its beak.
“It looks exactly like you,” I told her.
She regarded it critically. “The jacket is very nice. I would wear it.”
The pigeon next to it wore a Mediterranean-blue messenger bag slung across its body and clutched an e-cigarette.
Martine was right; it did look like it was sucking on a pacifier.
The third one cradled its backpack between its checkerboard Vans–clad feet, like penguins do with their chicks.
It was lighting up, its wing cupped around the lighter, which cast dramatic shadows onto its bird face.
Next to it, a goth bird wearing a black leather bustier and flamboyantly winged eyeliner flicked its cigarette onto the sidewalk.
The last pigeon wore a beanie pulled low over its eyes and battered, half-laced boots and was lighting a second cigarette off the end of the first one.
It amazed me how Le Bec had made them seem more real than the actual pigeons pecking at the sidewalk below.
I loved how he’d given the birds personalities—how he’d changed the curve of the beak slightly to give goth pigeon a sneer, how he’d made vaping pigeon’s feathers a little raggedy and its body gaunt, like maybe it had an eating disorder.
Each bird had a story you could read in its stance, its expression, even the color of its feathers.
I knew how hard it was to do that—to bring life to a painting.
I’d struggled to do it in art class, my vision of what my painting should look like always at odds with my technical skill.
I’d told myself I should have a little genetic advantage—Mom had been a medical illustrator—but it wasn’t until we did a printmaking unit that I found a medium that loved me.