Chapter 18
Six Weeks Ago
I fiddled with my scarf as Madame Dupuy and I walked, arranging it to better hide the bandage on my neck.
She’d given me the scarf so I wouldn’t have to walk back into school looking like a victim.
It was greeny blue and lighter than a sigh, perfect for summer.
And perfect for me; the colors complemented my hair and gave my pale skin a healthy blush.
When we reached the school, she told me to call her if I needed to.
Then she hugged me. I watched her walk down the street, and I felt suddenly vulnerable.
The noise of traffic and the chatter of my classmates as we waited outside the building roared inside my head.
Three boys hovered near a group of girls, showing off: punching each other on the arm, dodging and feinting, their laughter so loud it hurt my ears.
They smelled young and nervous—and delicious.
Like French fries. I popped another Altoid.
It didn’t entirely eliminate the delicious smell, but it did help remind me that they were people, not snacks.
By midmorning break, I’d gone through almost my entire tin, a headache throbbed behind my eyes from excessive peppermint and sugar, and I was so tense I thought I’d snap from the pressure of trying to be human.
And people had been staring at me all morning.
Nobody had said anything, but I felt like everyone knew what my scarf hid.
I wondered if climbing up on a table and ripping the bandage off my neck so they could see what a vampire bite looked like would be less weird than the covert way everyone was eyeing me now.
I drifted behind the tide of students pouring out of the building onto the sidewalk, feeling like an alien, searching for a quiet spot away from the crowd.
Somebody called my name, and I looked around to see Nick, Noor, Martine, and Youssef waving at me from under a tree.
My heart bloomed with love. I ran to them, and they surrounded me, shielding me from the rest of the world.
“You all are amazing,” I whispered, grinning.
I couldn’t believe Noor’s parents had let her come.
She was pale and so thin, and her fingertips were wrapped in bandages.
But she was here, hugging me like she hadn’t seen me in years, enveloping me in a cloud of menthol.
“Do you have a cold?” I asked her. Menthol salve was Dad’s cure-all for congestion and the curse of every cold and flu season as far back as I could remember.
She shook her head. “Text me later.” Her voice was as shredded as mine.
I wished Dad could see what a healing gift my friends were.
Having them there made me feel safe in a way being shut up in our apartment didn’t.
I felt safe not because I was hiding from something behind a locked door, but because I was facing my fear, with my friends to support me.
You can’t hide from all the scary things; you need people who will let you face them, who will support you while you do.
“How was school?” Madame Dupuy asked when I met her at noon.
I blew out a sigh. “Harder than I thought. People stared at me.”
“Well, of course they did,” she said briskly. “They wanted to see how a vampire’s victim looks.” I flinched at “vampire.” She took hold of my hand. “And now they know, and they will stop staring.”
I hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be to keep my guard up against v mode in a crowd of people.
The Altoids had crippled my sense of smell, but I still had had a couple of waves of heightened senses, where colors intensified and sounds became louder and denser.
I worried that if I let myself get distracted at all, something would happen.
Maybe I should tell Dad that I just wasn’t up to it.
But then would Madame Dupuy get suspicious?
I was furious at Le Bec for doing this to me, for calling me his creation, for expecting me to join his little coven.
He didn’t get to own me. He didn’t get to win.
I’d figure out v mode, and I’d go to class, and I’d be a normal person.
As I settled down to do homework after lunch, I remembered Noor’s bandaged fingers.
Me: Thank you for coming today. It was AMAZING to see you
Noor: You are welcome. How are you feeling?
Me: It was hard, but I made it
Me: Altoids work pretty well to stop weird cravings
Noor: I am using pommade mentholée. It is very strong, but I am no longer eating my fingers
I remembered her menthol smell. I went into Dad’s bathroom and rooted around in the drawers until I found a jar.
I dabbed some under my nose. My sinuses felt like they were exploding, but the salve killed all smells and stomped on their lifeless remains for good measure. I tucked the jar into my pocket.
Me: Wow. Way better than Altoids. I may never smell anything again
Me: …
Me: I need to tell you something
Noor: I am listening
I told her about leaving the apartment, the unhoused man, meeting Le Bec, and then my dumpster dive of shame. I didn’t leave anything out. I told her how Madame Dupuy’s silver pendant had burned me. The filigree pattern branded on the pad of my index finger still throbbed.
Noor: Can you see yourself in the mirror?
Me: I don’t think the mirror works. I almost bit that guy, and I’m craving blood
Her reply bubble pulsed for a long time, and I wondered if I should have told her.
Noor: Silver burns me, too
Me: Ugh. I’m so sorry
Me: I’m so angry at Le Bec. He acted like what he did to us was some great thing. He stole our lives
Noor: What will we do?
Me: Have you noticed it comes in waves? Like you’ll be fine and then you get a wave of vampire mode? If we could prevent those waves, I think we could manage this
If we didn’t control it, I couldn’t go back to school. I’d have to tell Dad, who’d probably think I had PTSD or something. I’d have to tell Madame Dupuy, too. That was a scary thought.
Noor: The pommade stopped the urge to eat my fingers. Maybe that would help to manage this
Me: I’m going to try it at school. If it works there, I think we could control our cravings and be normal
I’d also need to have a plan for what to do if it failed.
Knowing that Noor and I were in this battle together helped.
The menthol pommade helped, thank goodness.
And my friends showing up for morning break every day helped, too.
I don’t know if I could have kept going to class if they hadn’t done that.
With them I could be the Tosh I wanted to be: human and happy.
Or at least human. Happy wasn’t always possible with Professeur Joubert.
“Help,” I croaked Wednesday morning when I met them at break.
“Tough morning?” Nick asked, kissing me.
“Ugh,” I rasped. “We had to do oral presentations again. From memory. I forgot an entire paragraph and fumbled around like an idiot, trying to remember what came next. Then my voice gave out. It was disastrous.”
“You’re not an idiot,” he said. “Oral presentations in French officially suck. Even French kids hate them.” Everyone nodded.
Martine blew a stream of smoke out the side of her mouth like a beautiful dragon. “I think you need an excursion,” she said. “Something to take you outside yourself.”
Youssef smiled. “An excursion is always good.”
“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “We can adventure to the farthest reaches of Paris, relax on the sunny quays of the Seine, or summit Montmartre. Whatever mademoiselle desires.”
I sighed. “It sounds wonderful, but I’m still on house arrest, remember?”
“We’ll engineer a jailbreak.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Intriguing. Tell me more.”
The plan was simple and brilliant. I’d bring a note to school the following day from Dad saying I had a medical appointment Friday. “Tu sais, it is not really from your father,” Youssef said, giving me an exaggerated wink.
“Really?” I replied, deadpan, and returned his wink.
Friday morning, Madame Dupuy would walk me to school as usual.
I’d wait until she was out of sight, and then, rather than going into the building, I’d casually join the morning pedestrian stream headed toward the Pont de l’Alma and meet everyone at Princess Diana’s shrine.
We’d head out from there. It sounded wonderful: a whole morning with my friends.
I hesitated, though. If I got caught, Dad would yank me out of school and not let me out of my room till I was eighty.
But I liked that tickle of risk. It made me feel alive. “Okay,” I whispered.
Nick did a fist pump. “Where do you want to go?”
“Notre-Dame.”
Hunchback was still living in my head. Hugo had made the cathedral one of the characters—by far the most real and relatable one. “I want to see where Quasimodo swung on the bell ropes and yelled, ‘Sanctuary!’ I want to see gargoyles.”
He smiled at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Your wish is my command.”
The next morning, I headed for freedom as soon as Madame Dupuy had turned the corner.
I rode a wave of exhilaration down the street, smiling so big that hardened Parisians, incapable of showing any public emotion but bored aggression, couldn’t help curving their lips slightly in reply.
It felt like I was in a movie, one of those golden Paris rom-coms where everyone is gorgeous and there’s a retro-cute accordion soundtrack for the kissing scenes.
As I crossed the bridge, I saw my friends already waiting by the golden sculpted flame where people left bouquets and tributes to the princess.
Nick dashed across the busy street when he spotted me, earning a chorus of impatient honking.
He caught me up in his arms and swung me around.
I laughed and kissed him. This time the honks sounded approving.
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