Bouchard curses in French and starts toward me. I step up to meet her halfway. Diable hisses from the chaise across the room as Aunt Charlotte steps between us.
“C’est assez!” She grabs her cigarette from Bouchard and pokes a finger into her chest. “I’m over being patient with you. Yes, yours is a recessive gene; yes, the power passed you by. Stop taking your jealousy out on Rune. Remember what I can do to you, should I decide I no longer care to tolerate your negative energy.” She opens the door to show our bony second cousin out.
Bouchard twists around and shoves her pointed toe over the threshold, preventing Aunt Charlotte from closing it.
“Oh, you don’t believe I’ll do it?” my aunt asks her on a sinister murmur. She looks to the left of the door, where a clock hangs on the wall. “Hmmm. A quarter to eleven. I suppose I could have my midnight snack early. Cynicism tastes like flat ginger ale and cold peppermint tea, two of my favorite flavors. Rune, you’ll join me, won’t you? Bon appétit.” She licks her lips and her eyes flash.
Bouchard shrinks back and her foot slips free.
“Off to bed then. And sweet dreams, dear cousin.” Aunt Charlotte closes the door.
I stand there in awe of the energy-sucking aunt I’m only starting to know, too tense and confused to move.
“Sit.” She commands.
An ember of rebellion flashes to life, but she inferred she wants to give me answers. I’m not about to jinx that.
I take my seat. Diable has forgiven me for dropping him, and curls into my lap again. In all these weeks he’s been my companion, he hasn’t let me pet him, but he’s been more attentive tonight than ever. I’m guessing Etalon gave him very strict instructions. Testing my theory, I stroke his back. He arches his spine toward my palm, a request for more. Despite looking like an abrasive steel-wool cleaning pad, he’s plush, thick, and so warm.
As I continue to caress his fur, he purrs and squeezes his eyes to blissful slits, his peaceful energy soothing me enough that I find my voice again. “Dad’s violin,” I say to my aunt, massaging the downy skin between the cat’s bat-like ears. His front claws knead my thighs. “Everything is tied to it.”
“Who told you that?” Aunt Charlotte asks, frowning. She sets her e-cig aside, waiting.
I don’t answer. Etalon is my secret. One I’m not willing to expose. I have to keep him safe, just as he’s doing for me.
Aunt Charlotte makes a frustrated grunt before turning her back. She shoves aside e-cigs and disposable contacts to clear a space at the bottom of her armoire. There, she exposes a hidden compartment from which she drags a shoe box.
“I apologize for allowing Fran?oise such liberties the past few weeks.” Taking a seat next to me, she places the box between us. “When you began to show signs the music no longer controlled you, I had to let her test you to be sure. She took too much glee, tormenting you. But as you’re about to see, it was all in hopes of helping.”
I frown. “Right. Just like Grandma’s homicidal boat ride and the Valentine’s fire parade?”
Aunt Charlotte’s mouth tightens. “We each have different ideas of how to help, clairement.”
“Clearly,” I repeat, scoffing. “I need to see her. I want answers for what she did . . . and I want to know about Dad’s Strad.”
Aunt Charlotte opens the box between us, revealing old newspaper clippings, a folded stack of aging letters with the name “Christine” scrawled underneath a string holding them together, a playbill spotlighting the famous Swedish soprano, and a black journal with the words Livre Ancestrale de Sang embossed across the front in shimmery red text.
Ancestral Book of Blood. In spite of the morbid curiosity spurred by that title, I reach for the letters first, drawn by Etalon’s brief insight into the affair between the prima donna and her opera ghost. My aunt stops my hand.
“Patience, Rune. An opera is best viewed in the sequence the composer intended. And know this: your grand-mère has been paying for what she did while locked in prison. Now she will die there, alone. She is too weak to answer questions. So I will answer for her.”
Before I can respond, my aunt flips through the journal pages then brings it closer, brushing Diable’s tail with her wrist. He leaps down and settles on the other side of my feet to lick himself clean.
Aunt Charlotte moves her hand so I can see the diagram spanning both sides . . . a family tree, with names partitioned off on countless branches. Her fingertip trails to the line at the top, a script I can barely read for the faded ink.
“Comte Saint-Germain,” she reads the name aloud. “You were researching him yesterday at the library?”
I let my silence answer.
“I’m not sure how much information there is online . . .”