Esmeralda awoke to find her blankets wrapped tightly around her, fingers gripping the fabric until her knuckles turned white. She must have grabbed them in her sleep. Moments ago, she had been clutching her husband's robes in her dream. She had covered his face in kisses before burying herself into his embrace, never wanting to leave.

Now, she wanted to go back to dreaming. The waking world was too lonely, too bleak. All she had left were these raw, emotional memories of her husband.

No. She had something more. She had the name plaque in Notre Dame cathedral. Claude had explained everything in the dream. Now she needed to see the name plaque for herself, to prove to herself that the ghost was real and not some figment of her imagination.

Esmeralda tossed aside her blankets and rummaged through a trunk of clothing. Passing over brilliantly colored fabrics, she finally selected a faded black dress, covering her head and shoulders with a ragged, dull green shawl. Today there would be no jewelry or bright colors; for once, she didn't want to draw attention to herself.

Today, she was some nondescript gypsy woman making her way through the streets of Paris. All she wanted was to find that name plaque without being bothered. If she kept her head down and her face mostly hidden, hopefully no one would recognize her as the late minister's wife.

She need not have worried. The streets of Paris were bustling with activity, people jostling and shoving each other and arguing and shouting. Es thought at first that a merchant had come to town and was unloading his wares. Boxes and chests were being carried through the streets and loaded onto wagons. Some of the lids were not shut; Es craned her head around and managed to get a glimpse of some of the contents. Fabric, silverware, glass bottles.

A rough shove caught her off guard; she almost fell to the cobblestone streets. "Move!" a man barked at her before turning to push another onlooker out of the way. Behind her, two men had shouldered a heavy bolt of cloth and were carrying it out to the wagon.

It unrolled slightly when they laid it down, and Es caught a glimpse of the pattern of the weave.

No. It couldn't be.

"Out of the way," one of the men growled, shoving her back into the crowd. "I know it's pretty, but it's nothing you will ever be able to afford."

She was too absorbed in her own thoughts to respond. She recognized that tapestry; it had hung on the east wall of her husband's bedroom. Their bedroom. And these people were taking it.

Ordinarily, she would have been angry. Now, her spirits just sunk a little lower and she turned away. She did not have the strength to be angry. All she wanted to do was curl up in the floor and cry.

But her need to know that the ghost was real was stronger than her desire to give up. She needed, needed to get to the cathedral to find his name plaque, proof that he hadn't left her. Her knees shook a little as she walked, and she had to stop and rest several times. She was tired; so, so tired.

She practically collapsed against the doors of Notre Dame, but the reassurance that she was so close to her destination pushed her to keep going. Latin chanting floated through the air from the very moment she opened the door. So beautiful; so, so beautiful. No wonder her husband spent so much time here; the beauty was balm on his tortured soul. She wished, not for the first time, that she spoke Latin so that she could understand the words.

He had offered to teach her.

But he had never had the chance. Claude had been brutally murdered before they could begin their new life together. He would never teach her Latin, never even get to hold their baby.

Esmeralda gulped, digging her knuckles into her closed eyes. She couldn't start bawling in the cathedral and make a scene. Not with everyone here. She needed to start looking for that plaque, now, before her eyes became too swollen and blurry for her to see. Trying to remember his directions, she tore through the cathedral, passing statues and stained-glass windows.

And there it was, hidden in a niche beneath a sculpture of a snake dangling from a tree branch. (Whoever chose the placement for that plaque clearly had a decided opinion of the Minister of Justice.)

The girl's exhaustion vanished in an instant, replaced by a fierce determination. The ghost was real. Tonight, she would go to sleep with this plaque under her pillow and dream of him. Maybe she would even ask him to give her Latin lessons. She dug under the plaque with her fingernails, attempting to pry it loose, but it only bent her nails. Undeterred, she grabbed a pin from her hair and pried between the metal and stone until the pin snapped.

A sturdier tool was clearly necessary. Glancing around, she caught sight of the long, thin metal pole used to reach up to light the candles. She dug it against the rectangular piece of metal, pushing with all of her weight. Concentrating fiercely, she angled it carefully against the stone, trying to deliver the most force possible.

She didn't notice the people watching her until hands roughly grabbed her shoulders. "Thief!" a voice shouted in her ear. "You should be ashamed of yourself, stealing from a church!"

To her credit, she recovered quickly, jabbing behind her with the pole. She heard a grunt and felt it connect with a body, but more people hemmed in around her and someone twisted the pole from her grip.

"Leave me alone!" she protested. "I'm not stealing anything! That plaque belonged to my husband!"

"No it didn't," a voice snarled. "No gypsy man has a plaque in here."

She opened her mouth to correct him, but closed it before making a sound. She remembered the men emptying the Palace of Justice. Somebody had claimed the late minister's estate, and whoever it was clearly didn't care that he had a wife.

The exhaustion returned in a dizzying rush. Esmeralda crumpled to the floor, her heavy lidded eyes closing as arms carried her away.