This chapter does Not go in order, At All! Heads up!

Unexplained actions

Les actions mystérieuse

Scene XV

Focus: la Suédoise et le guardien galant

"Char…Charlotte…"

"It's alright Ralph."

"I'm so cold, Charlotte."

"I know dear."

He felt her hand caress his face and his heart rate jumped unexpectedly.

"Forgive me?"

"Forgive you? Oh! I'd completely forgotten Ralph. Of course I forgive you. I wouldn't leave you like this, but the sisters say you'll recover soon. Some business I have to take care of has turned up unexpectedly. I—it can't wait either, very important…"

"Recover? Charlotte…what happened? I saw you, out in the graveyard, in the middle of the night—"

"I'm really sorry Ralph. I can't—Pére Jacarde will explain to you. I'm sorry. I really have to go."

"Charlotte? Why are you crying?"

"I have to go."

"Charlotte!"

She shut the door gently. He tried to get up to follow but his limbs were working about thirty seconds slower than he might have liked, which meant he ended up sprawled across the floor. A nun soon rushed in to help, murmuring, "poor boy," quietly to herself. Ralph held his eyes shut and tried not to weep.

—

Scene XIII

Focus: la Suédoise

Charlotte rolled over on her cot and listened. Something had woken her out of her dead sleep. It seemed only minutes ago she had stumbled back indoors and collapsed into bed.

At first she only heard her own steady heartbeat, but a moment later voices came from down the hall. They sounded urgent. Quickly rising, Charlotte pulled a blanket around her shoulders and stuck her head out into the hall. She squinted in the light and held onto the doorframe for balance, slightly unsure of what she was seeing.

Several of the sisters were bringing in someone on a gurney. They hurried into a vacant room and Charlotte noticed Pére Jacarde trail in much more slowly. He went and sat, as if in a daze, in a chair across from the nurses' station.

Concerned by the shock evident on the frail priest's features, Charlotte padded down the hall to speak to him.

"Pére Jacarde, are you well? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

Unexpectedly, she bit her tongue, but the father did not notice.

"Yes," he answered, even while his breath wheezed.

Charlotte shivered slightly; surely he didn't mean he'd seen a ghost. Surely.

"Perhaps you should put you feet up," Charlotte suggested. She pulled one of the chairs around and tucked her blanket around him.

"I'll make some tea real quick, ok?"

She had whipped around into the little kitchenette behind the station before he could respond to boil water in the microwave. She added milk and honey to the drink like her father had when she was small and ill.

"Here you go."

She made sure his hands were steady before letting go.

"Thank you very much my child. I will be fine."

He sounded stronger; Charlotte was relieved. Yet she couldn't help asking, "Father, what happened?"

He folded his thin liver-spotted hands around the tea mug, and a frown tugged on his narrow lips.

"When I entered the sanctuary this for early morning devotions and to prepare for services, I discovered a boy, unconscious, half-frozen to death and stretched full length across the alter."

Charlotte's jaw dropped, and the priest had returned to himself enough to chuckle weakly.

"I am glad to see that it is not just me," he murmured.

"Wait, he was frozen?"

At this moment Sister Bridget emerged from the room.

"Sister Bridget—"

"Not now dear."

Charlotte shook her head and turned back to the priest.

"The sanctuary is a very expensive chamber to heat, during the week we often shut it off. There are too many more important things. It is a waste.

"I don't think that the boy did any of it himself. How could he? There was a sizable lump on his head that even I could see. And the holy water…"

He shook his head woefully.

"How anyone got in there I'll never know, I unlocked the door myself this morning!"

"Wait, what about the holy water?" Charlotte was terribly confused.

"Just this last week the Vatican made us a special gift of several gallons of holy water blessed by His Holiness himself. It appears that someone drenched the boy with it and then shattered the containers across the floor. It's a terrible waste, a terrible sacrilege. Terrible…"

Charlotte sat and thought for several minutes. This seemed strangely familiar, and that feeling made her angry. It shouldn't feel familiar. The book shouldn't have been familiar. None of it should have been, and she was scared and angry.

The next time a sister emerged from the room, she asked to see the boy.

It was Ralph.

—

Scene XIV

Focus: la Suédoise

"Sœur Bridget, where did you get this book?"

"Ah, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. Did you like it?"

Charlotte sat down with a whoosh.

"Le Fantôme de l'Opéra! That's what it's called?I think I'm going to faint," she muttered.

"Is something the matter?"

Charlotte stumbled over her words for a moment and then hastily decided on a slight bluff.

"There was an awful lot of detail about le Palais Garnier in it. It could provide some really useful information for us.

"I'm on an internship at le Conservatoire National where I'm collaborating with several colleagues researching at the old opera house," which was quite true, "Ralph is an architecture major and Maxwell is going into historical preservation."

"Then you are in luck!" Sœur Bridget exclaimed excitedly.

"What do you mean?" Charlotte stuttered.

"About a month ago an old widow in our congregation passed away. She was always very kind and generous, but quite mysterious. We were very surprised to find that she had willed her entire estate to the church. Well, you know my background well enough not to be surprised that I was put in charge of appraisals. My brother has been coming down once a week with a few members of his staff from the different departments at the auction house to assist me. We have been finding the most amazing things.

"It's such a shame that no one ever took the time to get to know the woman and it's far too late now. The stories she must have known! Really an awful shame...but you were asking about the book. Well, to all appearances," the youthful nun began to virtually glow as she spoke, "we have not only a first edition signed by the author, but his original manuscripts, notes, letters, and documentation, everything he used to write the book!"

Charlotte put her head between her knees feeling decidedly woozy.

"I know! Isn't it wonderful!"

The misguided sister patted her gently on the back.

"Right after mass I'll speak to Père Moneau about loaning you everything and we'll go pick up the papers from the house and I can take you straight to the station."

Charlotte hadn't heard a word of this.

"Charlotte? Charlotte! Oh dear…"

—

I was, in fact, going for a little humour right there, but I know it isn't exactly my forte. In review, Charlotte is now returning to Paris with lots of extremely valuable documents and a major headache, half convinced that she's just plain lost it, so…review!