She turned to move past the cabarets of the Boulevard de Clichy. As she passed the Moulin Rouge, she was surprised by the sharp smell of urine. She spotted a woman in a red lace dress standing near the cabaret’s entrance. It was the style of dress that seemed familiar to Juliet. She searched her memory for where she’d seen this particular dress before. Then it occurred to her and she began to back away. The version that she’d seen was not red at all—it had been yellow—the woman on the platform at Challans in the yellow dress. This was the same dress in a different color, as though the costumes had been in a variety of hues. Was there a blue one out there somewhere on the streets of Paris? A green version as well? As with the woman in yellow, this dress was also old and faded with a cheap theatrical quality to it, something that looked better from afar. This woman was striking—her red-orange hair clashing with the deep garnet red of the dress. Juliet thought she must be a prostitute who’d bought the dress secondhand, but she was not as heavily rouged as the woman who had been with Varnier. There was an unfortunate feeling about this woman; she did not appear to be earning money on the streets.
As Juliet passed, the woman stared at her with something like familiarity—which was impossible because she was in disguise. It was the same hungry stare as the woman on the train platform, and Juliet felt a chill and an innate sense that she needed to run. From the corner of her eye, Juliet saw the woman begin to walk quickly toward her. Juliet walked quickly, pushing through the thick crowd and turning back to see that she had not lost her. The woman trailed closely behind. Instead of heading toward the omnibus stop, Juliet ran back up the hill toward the Rue Norvins in the hope of turning down one of the winding side streets. At the empty square, Juliet turned to see that the woman was close enough to reach out and touch her.
“What do you want?” Juliet spun on her heels to face the woman. She pushed her with her hands.
“You,” said the woman. “It is you. I cannot believe it.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Juliet was watching the woman’s face when he came out of nowhere. The woman was sent backward with such force that her skirt dragged along the road as if by a team of invisible horses.
She got up and began to walk toward Juliet. Again, it was as though she were picked up by invisible hands and dragged backward away from Juliet with such force that the woman’s skirt briefly lifted before she was released to the ground in a thunderous, dramatic display.
Juliet’s heart was pounding. The woman was now lying on the ground, her head at an awkward angle.
“Leave her.” The voice was familiar. Juliet turned to see Varnier calmly lighting a cigarette.
Juliet was speechless. “What did you do?”
“It’s not important.”
“But you didn’t even touch her?”
“We need to leave.” He looked at her sharply. “I don’t think that my actions tonight are what we should be worrying about.” He waited for her to join him as they began to walk down the hill to catch one of the last omnibuses back to the Latin Quarter.
Once back on the Saint-Germain, Juliet spoke. “She knew me.”
“She most certainly did not.”
“She said, ‘It is you.’”
“That was a madwoman, Juliet. They’re all over Paris. She probably was suffering from syphilis.”
They reached the door to the apartment. He opened it, but Juliet did not walk in. “You killed her, Lucian.”
He waited until she entered. “I was protecting you, Juliet. I told you that I always would.”
The next morning, Juliet studied the breakfast china with intense interest, as she found she couldn’t look directly at Varnier. It was a curious combination of repulsion and something else that she couldn’t quite describe. She looked at his hands, remembering them on the prostitute, but also the same hands that seemed to send the woman in the red dress flying in the air on the Rue Norvins. The odd angle of the woman’s broken neck. She had seen many different sides to Varnier last night, things she was sure she wasn’t expected to see. And it had changed her feelings on him in many ways.
As he lifted his coffee cup, Juliet could see the blond hairs from his arm peeking through his sleeve—the intimate details and spaces of him. Now she wondered about them all. He was both father figure and protector to her, but he was no relation. And after last night, the fact that he was a man was very much on her mind.
Varnier didn’t speak to her but opened the morning paper that Juliet had already read and put back to the left of his place setting. Le Figaro’s lead story was the news of Philippe Angier: When his pistol had failed to fire on the flats of Bois de Boulogne, he had been mortally wounded in the absurd duel with the writer Gerard Caron. Angier’s death had not been easy—the occultist had lingered for two days in and out of consciousness, finally succumbing to his injuries late in the night. It was claimed from his deathbed he had cursed the young writer, who, racked with guilt for shooting when his opponent’s pistol wouldn’t fire, took his own life—shooting himself with Angier’s faulty pistol, which this time fired brilliantly. With this act, he had fulfilled Angier’s prediction. Varnier was so engrossed with the article that he did not seem to notice Juliet squirming in her chair.
“You don’t make a very convincing boy, Juliet.” He folded the paper and took off his reading glasses, something he seemed to need more frequently. “I instructed Marie to find the costume and burn it.”
Juliet nearly choked on her coffee. Clearing her throat, she looked at him for the first time. “If you do, I’ll just buy another one.”
He leaned back in his seat. “I trust you enjoyed your little excursion last night.”
“Seems you did as well. At least the first part.” Juliet took her knife and began to spread jam on her bread—anything to keep her hands from shaking. “It sounded like you did anyway…” Finally she met his eyes.
“That’s why I didn’t want you near Montmartre,” he said, but there was no shame in his face. “You shouldn’t see or hear such things. It wasn’t safe for you. Instead, I come out to find some madwoman grabbing what I thought was a boy—but then I find it was you.”
“What did you do to her?”
“I protected you, Juliet. That is what I do. You know that.”
“Why? You didn’t even have to touch her. You have powers, like my mother did. That’s the connection between you both.”
“You’re safe now,” he said. “And you won’t be going back to Montmartre dressed in some ridiculous costume, skulking around the streets getting into mischief and seeing things that are not appropriate for a young girl.”
Juliet lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know about Marchant. What happened between us. You know that I’m not a child, Lucian. I am a young woman. You cannot keep me locked up here like some princess in a fairy tale.”
“Oh, Juliet, how wrong you are.” He was calm, but there was an edge to his voice that she had not heard before. He took her hand in his, patting it. It was dry and warm. “That’s exactly what I aim to do.”
“And what about what I want?”
“I have a duty to you. I intend to honor that duty.”