I squeeze through the hordes of villagers, shoulders tightening from the crush of bodies. I usually enjoy crowds, enjoy working them. Since I’m not working, the contact of so many limbs sets my teeth on edge.
Once I’m free of the throng, I drop my gaze to my map application, following the directions to the dormitories. When I pass the last of the shops, the winding road clears of people but swarms with shadows. A furry black creature streaks across the street, inches from my boots. No wonder people think this town has wicked origins; it looks like something out of a Grimms’ fairytale.
The cold humidity pricks my skin as I finally step beneath an illuminated, rectangular bronze panel strung up on a chain between two houses. The words THIRD KELC’H glint as it swings and clanks. How the hell do the people living nearby stand the grating noise? I would’ve clipped the thing down and melted it.
Huh.
Maybe I could clip it. Could be worth something if it’s an original. I snap a pic, then go back to studying my map and stroll past narrow houses made of gray stone and damp timber that lean against each other like love-starved kids.
Though it looks nothing like any campus I’ve ever seen, the dorms and faculty housing are supposed to start on this circle. I find the address Rainier de Morel indicated in his letter, a three-story townhouse with a large four-leaf clover stamped over the entrance. I tap in the security code, climb up a set of creaky stairs, and unlock the door marked with a brass 3.
The room beyond is cramped and squat. Who the hell lives here usually? Elves? The walls and floor are weathered wood, and so is the bed frame, claw-footed nightstand, three-drawer dresser, and armoire covered by a speckled mirror. A window made of square panes looks out onto the shiny road peeking from beneath the dense fog. No ensuite bathroom, no dusty art on the walls, no knick-knacks on the dresser. I chuck my bag on the bare mattress.
Pop music leaks from the room next to mine, the sort Bastian adores, the sort that makes my stomach turn. I can’t stand boppy love songs. Just like I can’t stand having neighbors. Especially carefree students. The whole set-up feels way too much like a foster house. At least I have a door and a lock, more than I had back in my formative years.
After checking the contents of the dresser and armoire—both empty—I decide not to ring in the New Year alone in this elf hole. I button up my coat and shut the door, the brass 3 swinging from side to side as I lock up and pocket the key. I forgo the winding road for a set of stairs sprinkled with salt that lead me back to Second Kelc’h. Snow starts to drift down. Like this town isn’t wintery enough already.
I buy a cup of mulled wine and a ham and cheese galette from an eatery called Merlin’s Baguette, then pound the cobbles toward the square. At some point, I find myself discussing the cost of a decent drink with a bunch of inebriated sophomores. We buy several bottles of wine from a tabac ranging from dirt cheap to mildly expensive to test our theories before coming to the conclusion that, after several drinks, anything’s decent.
But even with all the distraction and the booze, I can’t get the gall of Rainier de Morel off my mind. I swallow a mouthful of Pinot Noir every time I think of him. And with every mouthful, I get more and more pissed off.
The villagers begin to sing a melancholic song in Breton. It feels like they’re burying the past year instead of celebrating the coming one.
I leave the square and stagger down the windy road, the half-drunk bottle and brimming anger my only companions.
I want to do something. Something petty to make me feel better. So, when I stumble over the cemetery grounds and find myself outside a mausoleum with DE MOREL etched into the stone, I grin from ear to ear. I recall Bastian saying, “Loot his home. Would that make you happy?”
It’s not his home but will do just fine.
My vision blurs before clearing and sharpening. And yes, Bastian, it would make me very happy.
I’m about to make the acquaintance of the legendary Viviene, a few dusty great-grandparents, and a pervy second cousin, because every family’s got one of those. Or at least, all the families I lived with had some touchy-feely relative. Not that anyone’s ever managed to slide their hands down my pants, but some tried. One ended up with smashed knuckles; the other with a missing phalanx. Booze dulls the memory of their ugly faces.
The granite structure sparkles intermittently behind the mist, a miniature version of the pantheon, complete with a portico of four columns. I step between the columns and practically kiss an iron bar. Damn fog.
Behind the metal gate, I make out the statue of a woman, carved so that her stone tunic and hair are perpetually blowing in the wind. She stands atop a weather-beaten tomb inscribed with the name VIVIENE that’s so worn it’s practically illegible.
Putain de merde. I shake the bars, but they don’t even rattle. This can’t be the only way in. There’s got to be a door worthy of the tools I carry around. I stumble back into the snow and round the structure. Sure as shit, there’s a side entrance that might as well display the words BREAK IN HERE in neon tubing.
I take my rake pick and tension wrench from the inside pocket of my coat and jimmy the padlock. The rusty hinges scream as I push open the iron door. The reek of mildew, soil, and rotting meat reminds me a lot of my third foster home. Such fond fucking memories.
With my phone light, I take inventory. Eight coffins lie on recessed shelves carved into walls covered with spiderwebs and moss. A stone sarcophagus with an engraved four-leaf clover on the lid sits in the middle of the crypt like a beacon.
I gulp another mouthful of Pinot Noir, then drop the bottle onto the packed-dirt floor. It tips and spills, tingeing the foul, musty air of vinegar.
I start with the coffins set out like hors d’oeuvres, just ready for the picking. One good kick and the decaying wood on the first coffin snaps. A skeleton glares at me from inside, ancient pennies where its eyes should be.
The other seven are just as easy to open. I pocket a pearl brooch, two necklaces made of precious stones, several gold rings, and sapphire buttons. There’s really no reason for me to put any effort into opening the sarcophagus.
The rule when looting is in and out. My second foster father, Hector, taught me that. He learned the hard way, spending time behind bars for taking an extra forty-three seconds to open a drawer he should’ve left shut.
This is different, though. This is personal. So I’m leaving no stone unturned.
I’m here to do damage.
Using a thighbone from coffin number three as a crowbar, I begin prying the heavy stone lid, my breath coming out in white puffs. The marker on the sarcophagus reads Amandine de Morel—Rainier’s Sister? Cousin? Mother?—and dates her death as February 29th, seventeen years ago. I’m drunk enough to find that both funny and kind of heartbreaking. Imagine the anniversary of your death only being marked every four years.
It makes me wonder when my parents died exactly. And how? And if maybe they’re buried somewhere in this eerie, frozen cemetery.
I’m not really sure I want to know.
The stone cover inches to the side as I coax it with my nifty bone. When there’s finally enough space for me to grip the edge, I shove the damn thing with all my might. It slides over, revealing a shiny mahogany coffin inside. The lid pops off like a rotten tooth, and like a rotten tooth, the stench is eye-watering.
My first reaction, after wanting to heave up all the wine, is disappointment. All that artifice for a decaying corpse with no jeweled crown or tiara. She doesn’t even have worthless pennies over her lids like the others, and her palms aren’t sandwiched in prayer around a family heirloom.