“I had to find out if the falling would end. Whether I’d ever hit the ground.”
My body cramped, a major total-twitch, one humongous elemental chill, so bad I started to shake all over. Dunno if Cécile noticed anything, cuz all I saw in front of me was the hospital bed in Lausanne, the mummy mask pulled tightly over that hideous grin, and Nick, who totally shouldn’t have been capable of talking: And you will also find out what it’s like to fall. To fall . . . and to fall . . . and to fall . . . and to fall.
Immediately after that, the cellar in Amsterdam. Nick covering the smiley mouth on his wrappings with his hand.
Smile! This way you’ll always know it’s me and never mistake me for someone else. When I smile, you don’t have to be scared of me, okay?
Little, fragile Sam.
It all started to hit home, and it revealed such a somber panorama that I fought against it with body and soul. Okay, you accepted the fact that that place up there in the mountains had entered your boyfriend. You accepted the invasive erosion of the soul. Your parasitic orogeny. Your base camp possession. But each cocktail had its own ingredients.
And mountains don’t wish people dead.
It was in Nick’s words that it had spoken. Filtered by Nick’s thoughts.
Nick’s fears. Nick’s remorse.
Nick’s hands. Nick’s teeth.
Nick’s will.
Was it really possible that Nick, drowsing, comatose, possessed, had catapulted Dr. Genet straight to his unfortunate death?
I didn’t buy that. Didn’t wanna buy that. Couldn’t buy that.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m so sorry you had to witness that. But Nick is not responsible for it.”
But who was I really trying to convince?
“Promise me you’ll ask him about it,” Cécile said. Almost begged. “That you’ll gauge his reaction.”
“I promise. But don’t forget, Nick means no harm. He’s trying to resist it. Let’s help him get rid of it. And let’s call it quits now. We’re both dead beat, and that desperate look of yours doesn’t suit you one bit, girl.”
She didn’t think that was funny. “Please be careful. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t want it to harm you.”
“Nick would never allow it.”
But I thought again, Little, fragile Sam.
We paid the bill. While waiting for my change, I asked what our next step was, and Cécile said she wanted to take me to the Val d’Hérens, where she was born. That there was someone she wanted me to meet. But that wasn’t the last surprise I got that night. As we walked out of the H?tel, I looked back at the semidark above the bar one last time, to the spot that, like a magnet, had drawn my gaze the whole evening.
In the birdcage, the silhouette was not a chough but a man.
He was grinning at me.
7
Excuse the cliff-hanger, but after the info influx (info OVERLOAD—all caps, as Julia would say), I figured it’s time to cut to the next scene. You’re probably thinking, Sam, WT-fucking-F? I see you shiver with antici—But have no fear; you’ll get the whole story. Soon. Pation!
First you had that chronically nerve-racking night when you tried to process the whole business and out of total exhaustion ended up in an hours-long textathon with Julia. One object of my concern lying asleep on the pillow beside me like an edelweiss and the other upstairs in the attic, probably cursing her own demons. All of us cramped in one chalet, a Friends episode on steroids, except no one was really “there for you” because we were all too busy plotting our own exorcism. So, insomnia à gogo, till sometime in the wee hours Ramses silently hopped onto my side of the bed, nudged me with his head, purring a whole Relaxation Therapy playlist. Nice to know there was at least someone you could count on, but it was a tad depressing, too, because Ramses is just a common stray, not even a Burmese.
Next morning, Cécile couldn’t beat it fast enough. Puffy eyes from little or no sleep, trembling corners of the mouth every time she tried to smile. My breakfast only half consumed before she directed me to the door. And Nick? Totally oblivious, despite all his noble intentions. And his power smoothie.
“Tonight,” I said, when he waved us good-bye, crestfallen. “I’ll tell you everything tonight.”
I kinda felt sorry for him. Standing there in the doorway, so alone. I didn’t have a good spiel about why it was just the two of us, but I’d promised Cécile.
Nick gave me a short hug and whispered, “You’re on to something, huh?”
“I’ve already sold the TV rights.” Tonight, I mouthed.
“Okay, but please be careful. With her, too. I like her, but she’s acting strange.”
The her in question already sitting shotgun in our Focus, but then all our gazes were drawn by a movement on the other side of the road. Trotting along from the direction of the village, none other than Ramses, terror of the Nile.
Every cat owner tries to turn a blind eye to two hard facts about their cootchie-cootchie-coo darlings: that they’re ruthless killers and that they lick their own assholes. About the former—once in a while in Amsterdam, Ramses would leave half-eaten mice for us on the doormat, and one time a mangled tit, but what he now had in his mouth, that really took the biscuit.
It was one of those big, black alpine choughs.
I shouted, “Dude, that’s someone’s ancestor!”
The limp feathered body almost half as big as the cat, red gore dripping out of his mouth—Ramses was dragging it, more than anything else. Looking furtively up the drive, giving me a cursory, stoical, arrogant look, like Yeah, what? Wasn’t me. Anyway, I deserve a medal for this, and next thing you know, the bird’s body shivers, the chough twists its neck and pecks the cat deep in his side, hacking short and fierce like a hawk. Ramses screeched with pain, leaped practically three feet into the air, and let go of his prey. It fell to the ground, spread its battered wings, hopped-stumbled a coupla fast yards, and flew away low over the ground, back to the village. And Ramses nowhere to be seen. Only a dark cannonball that shot past me into the chalet.
Cécile, sitting with the car door open, took her shades off and said, “Did he get one of those choughs?”
“Looks like it,” I said in French. “Though I’m not so sure who got who.” In Dutch, nodding to inside the house: “I think someone needs some aftercare.”
“Not the killer he thought he was,” Nick chuckled. “That’ll teach him to play with his food. Bonne chance aujourd’hui!”
He waved to Cécile and we left.