Death and Transfiguration

Chapter 39

Panicked, I ran after Jean-Luc. "What are you doing?" I asked him as I sprinted toward the police station, catching up with him seconds before he walked in.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Jean-Luc asked angrily. "I'm going to talk to the police."

"Jean-Luc, just think about this," I said.

"It's the right thing to do. And it's what you want, isn't it?"

"Why would you think that?"

"You said there would be repercussions. You said that Bergmann, Lajoie, and Pascal deserved justice. So I'm going to the police. To make that happen. To make things right."

"That's not what I meant, Jean-Luc."

Jean-Luc looked confused, like he couldn't figure out what else I could have possibly meant. Perhaps I should have been more careful with my words, but I hadn't considered that Jean-Luc might turn himself in. I thought that he would know better, that he would realize that he might be killed if he confessed to murder, no matter the motivation.

"I thought we were going to talk about this," I said. "I thought we were going to wait and come up with a plan before we make any rash decisions like confessing to the police. They haven't exactly been trustworthy or competent in the past, and...you could die, Jean-Luc. Maybe the judge will have mercy on you, if only because you're still a child, but that's what happens to people who are found guilty of murder. They die at the guillotine, and it won't just be you, Jean-Luc. Romain would be guillotined too, and maybe even Antoine, if they decide that he's an accomplice to murder. Every last one of you will be dead, and it will all be because you were foolish enough to confess."

"Maybe it's what we deserve," Jean-Luc said, and before I could stop him, he stormed into the police station. Nothing I could do would keep him from confessing: Jean-Luc was a lost cause now.

Feeling rather defeated, I headed back toward Sylvestre's house, but I couldn't bear to face him. How would I break the news? How could I tell Bertrand Sylvestre that his son was a murderer? I could hardly breathe in the fresh Paris air as I entered his neighborhood, much less tell my composition teacher about what I had discovered.

Just before I reached his house, I turned back, and I ducked into a nearby telegraph office and sent Sylvestre a telegram, telling him that I had suddenly fallen ill and needed to take the day off. It felt wrong, lying to Sylvestre, but it didn't feel like there was anything else I could do. The alternate path - actually telling Sylvestre that his son had killed his friends and colleagues - was unthinkable.

After I sent the telegram, I wandered around the city for a while, wondering what I could do. I crossed the Seine dozens of times, walking back and forth across the bridges, looking into the sparkling water, thinking of the thirteen-year-old I'd gotten to know over the past few months. Jean-Luc was going to die. Now that he had told the police what he had done, it seemed nearly certain, and it seemed equally certain that there was nothing I could do to stop it. The show was over, and I couldn't stop the curtain from coming down.

More than anything, I wished Léa was there with me. She always seemed to know what to say, what to do. Maybe she would know how to handle Jean-Luc too. Maybe she would know how to save him.

I headed toward the fencing hall, wondering if Léa was there, but when I went inside, she was nowhere to be found. I sighed and went back to wandering around Paris, but when I walked past the Palais Garnier, I heard a faint, high-pitched voice, as if it were calling to me from somewhere in the distance.

I looked around inside the opera house, and in one of the back rooms, I found Léa, accompanying herself as she practiced singing a Verdi aria. I stood outside the door for a few minutes, listening to her gorgeous voice, hearing her hit each high note with clarity and precision, marveling at the fact that she was here, alive and singing with a voice more beautiful than the most melodious songbirds, and that I was lucky enough to witness it all.

When she reached the end of the aria, she immediately got up and ran to the doorway. "Mattie!" she exclaimed before kissing me on the lips, leaving me a blushing mess once again. "What are you doing here? I thought you had work today."

It all came pouring out of me at once: the attendance sheet, my conversation with Antoine, everything that Jean-Luc had told me, everything that had happened this morning. Léa was shocked, of course, but she took it well, much better than I had, at least. I crossed my fingers, hoping that she might have some crazy scheme to get Jean-Luc out of this, to keep him alive.

"I wish I knew what to do, Mattie, but I don't," Léa said. "Maybe we should just let it happen. I don't trust the police either, but I don't think there's much we can do at this point."

"We can't just let Jean-Luc die," I said. "He's thirteen!"

"I don't know what you want me to say," Léa said. "It's over. We've caught the killer. There isn't anything more for us to do."

Léa quickly changed the subject, but I still wasn't satisfied. I needed a solution, and if Léa wouldn't give it to me, if she didn't have any idea of what we could do, then perhaps Moreau would.

I stayed with Léa for a little while, the two of us talking about everything from Léa's latest audition to what Gertie was up to back home, but it was all rather tense as we both tried our best to avoid bringing up Jean-Luc. After I kissed her goodbye, I headed back to the boarding house, and just before I returned to my room, I knocked on Moreau's door.

"Is that you, Miss Brackenborough?" Moreau said, his bow still flying across his violin.

"Yes, it's me," I said. "I wanted to speak to you for a moment."

"I'm busy, Miss Brackenborough," Moreau said. "I have an audition for the Concert National tomorrow, and I can't botch this audition like I did with the one in Nantes. I have to practice."

I sighed and headed into my room, feeling hopeless. At this rate, Jean-Luc and Romain would both certainly die, but Jean-Luc's echoed in my head. Wasn't that what I wanted? Wasn't that what they deserved?

I didn't know what to do, but I knew that killing two young boys didn't feel like justice to me.