Papy nodded at me, acknowledging my words, but still lost in his own thoughts. “There is the whole concept of the golem in Jewish folklore . . .” And he was off throwing out bizarre stories that he theorized might have fact buried within the fiction. The rest of us listened—me rapt, Mamie and Georgia trying to follow but losing interest before we finished dessert.
After dinner, I followed Papy to his study, where he sat down behind his desk and began stuffing tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. He waved at me to close the door—ostensibly so that Mamie wouldn’t know that he was smoking, but we both knew she was fully aware. This charade was a symbol of his gratefulness that she allowed him to carry on with his not-so-secret vice.
“So tell me more about what this guérisseur said about ‘re-embodiment,’” he requested.
“Well, the way he mentioned it, it was as if he expected the revenants to know about it. He said it was used for revenants who had been destroyed against their will and who were trapped as wandering souls.”
“It must be an extremely rare occurrence, since you would think that if numa attacked a bardia, they would burn them immediately in order to destroy both body and spirit.” He lit the pipe and puffed on it until the flame caught. “Unless they had some nefarious plot like Violette’s.”
“That’s exactly what Gaspard said.”
Papy thought for a moment. “How old is the oldest of the Paris revenants?”
“Jean-Baptiste is Napoleonic. Jeanne said he was two hundred and thirty. But Arthur, the one who was Violette’s protector, is something like five hundred.”
“And he wasn’t aware of this re-embodiment possibility?”
“No,” I responded.
“So, if none of the revenants are aware of it, that must mean that the story predates the year 1500. How long is Bran’s lineage?”
“Well, the book that the numa stole from your gallery—Immortal Love—mentioned his family, and that dated from the tenth century.”
“Hmm. This line of guérisseurs, who happen to be specialists on revenants, have been passing down their family secrets since at least the Middle Ages. No wonder both the numa and the bardia wanted to get their hands on them. They must possess a veritable wealth of information.”
He puffed on his pipe for a few seconds, and then leaned back in his chair and eyed me. “What we can deduce is that if this process of re-embodying wandering bardia souls actually exists, it fell out of revenant lore and oral history well before the sixteenth century. So we are looking for ancient examples, which falls within my area of specialty. I certainly don’t recall coming across anything like this in direct reference to revenants, but I will begin to put my mind to it.”
I watched my grandfather jot down a couple of notes onto his leather-edged blotter, and felt overwhelmed with gratefulness. I hadn’t specifically asked him to help. But he had jumped right in and taken on the task. Because he loved me.
And he also loved a good treasure hunt, his treasure of choice being esoteric knowledge of ancient things. Like revenants. Whatever it was, I was glad he was on board.
“Thank you, Papy,” I said, walking around the desk to hug him.
“Don’t worry yourself, ma princesse. But tell me as soon as you know what is in the guérisseurs’ account so I can start my research with as much information as possible.”
“I will,” I promised, and left my grandfather alone in a cloud of pipe smoke and musings about immortality.
NINETEEN
I SAT IN BED, WAITING TO FALL ASLEEP BUT unable to keep my mind from wandering back to La Maison and the library where Bran searched for a way to give Vincent a body. I wondered if he would look the same, and quickly decided that I didn’t care. To be able to touch him, see him, have him back . . . I didn’t care what he looked like as long as he was flesh and blood.
I distractedly picked up a book from the stack next to my bed, and seeing the title, I smiled. The Princess Bride. I had read it three or four times. Minimum. I had gotten it out a couple of weeks ago for a certain reason. And stuck here with no other recourse but to obsess about something that was out of my hands, any distraction was welcome. I let the words of “S. Morgenstern” draw me away from my reality into someone else’s fairy tale.
I had gotten to the sword fight with Inigo Montoya, which contains my favorite-ever fight-scene repartee, when my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the words, What are you reading?
I snapped my book shut and sat up in bed. “Holy cow, you scared me,” I said.
I’m sorry, mon ange. I thought you’d be expecting me.
“Well, I was hoping you’d come, but wasn’t sure if you’d remembered that promise—after all of the archives excitement,” I admitted, squirming.
How could I forget wanting to see you? he asked, and his words were like a hug. Um, Kate—why are you shoving that book under your blanket?
I sighed and pulled it out, holding it up to the air and flapping it around since I didn’t know where he was.
He laughed. Don’t tell me you’re still trying to win our longest-running argument.