L’HORREUR, L’ENLèVEMENT, LE FANT?ME
“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
Niccolò Machiavelli
Thorn shut himself in his room.
A family that can endure forever.
He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. If they accomplished what Erik wanted, was he going to resume stealing life from his victims again, so he’d never die? He hadn’t mentioned that as part of the plan.
The temporary nature of living was what made it invaluable. Life was to be respected, even the lives of people who had made bad choices, for there was always a chance for redemption. Thorn wouldn’t forget the woman who taught him this.
Mother . . . warmth . . . peace.
He lifted his violin from its case, caressing the silky black wood. Drawing out his bow, he poured every emotion into the instrument—letting it speak in ways his damaged vocal cords couldn’t. Every soulful vibration purled from the strings to his jawline, and sank into his throat, setting him adrift upon a sea of turmoil.
He’d never needed an anchor more than he needed one now.
“Maman,” he whispered. She’d been his moral compass, as ironic as that was. What would she think of the monster he’d become? Or had she expected as much from him, all along?
Thorn hadn’t been a typical child. He’d learned to talk at a very young age, and could sing songs so beautifully and affectingly, he could move people to tears, force them to face things they had hidden from themselves and the world. He was only four years old when the full ramifications of this power were revealed.
That was another time and place, when he was Etalon Laurent. When he and his mother lived in a small shack just outside of Bobigny, a suburb of Paris. They eked by without electricity, gas, or modern comforts, surviving on bread, water, dried meat (mostly from pigeons, rabbits, and the occasional squirrel), and the rare bruised and squishy tomato or plum—whatever damaged items fell from produce carts without the grocers being aware.
Back then, Etalon was too young to understand the sacrifices his mother made to keep him clothed and fed. He knew only that each night, she poured herself into skimpy dresses, then waited on their porch in a cloud of noxious perfume, her face caked in powder and lipstick, for a black car to drive her away until morning.
She would leave him in the care of a neighbor in their slum—an old hag named Batilde who did nothing but complain and recount stories of a better life, when she had a television, four-course meals, and money, before her husband left her for a younger woman.
Etalon’s mother gave Batilde food in exchange for her help, though the two women often had shouting matches over why Etalon was there at all.
“You should’ve given that bastard child away, Nadine. Sold him when Arnaund first made the offer months ago,” Batilde spat one morning after spending a sleepless night with a feverish Etalon crying for his mother. “We would both be out of this pig swill and living in the city.”
“Swallow your tongue,” Maman scolded, her freshly washed olive skin darkening as she shielded Etalon’s ears. “Never call him that. He is an angel born of dreams. And you! You are lower than a serpent’s belly to suggest something so debase! I would never have even left Ettie last night had I known he was ill.”
“Children get fevers.” Batilde bared her teeth—all four of them. “And when they aren’t sick with snots and vomits, they eat you up, house and home. Parasites they are.”
“You’re the parasite! Get out!” Maman screeched, pushing Batilde toward the shack’s paper-thin door.
Batilde pushed back, almost losing the moth-eaten shawl on her narrow shoulders. “One day you will see! You’ll tire of men’s pawing hands, their slimy tongues, and diseased lusts. We can leave the filth behind. Have working lights, hot baths, new clothes, restaurants . . . all the things we once had. The offer stands. Never has he seen a child so beautiful, Arnaund says of your Etalon.” The old woman lifted her hands to punctuate her point. The flab hanging on the underside of her arms shook like a chicken’s waddle. “This from a man who deals in children every day.”
“And those dealings are the very reason Arnie is the devil himself. Leave and never come back!” Maman tossed a plastic-wrapped brick of cheese onto the muddy ground, shoving Batilde out alongside it.
Etalon wiggled atop the pile of books that made him tall in his chair at the kitchen table. His body ached and shivered from fever as he drew circles with a dried bread crust in the surface of thick dust. He’d seen other children in the slum playing with real toys—stuffed animals, tiny metal cars and airplanes, music boxes. Some even had plastic walkie-talkies that worked with batteries. But he used his imagination. His toys were just as good as theirs.