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I nodded.
But first it was time to come clean.
I told him about the glass bottle and the three visions.
“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe I wanted to explore them further first. Now I know. They weren’t dreams. I wasn’t an observer. I was there, as someone else.”
He smiled. “Not someone else, Cassiopeia. They were past life memories. Your memories, released. That bottle does exactly what the legends claim. It opens a door in your mind.”
Which was hard for me to accept since I don’t believe in reincarnation.
“You do realize,” he said, “that your fascination with medieval times and your desire to rebuild a castle stems from a past life experience.”
I’d never considered that possibility. But I’d also never quite understood my obsession with the project either. Especially considering the millions of euros it cost.
“I want to know more about that formula,” I said. “I want to know if and how it’s causing those hallucinations.”
“Then that’s where you should start. Go and see my cousin in Paris and ask her what she discovered. She can explain it far better than I. But I can call Claude at the auction house and have him meet with you too.”
“And the glass bottle?”
“Take it with you.”
I climbed the stairs back to my room and gathered my things. When I descended, ready to go, Nicodème met me at the door with a brown paper bag. “A baguette with Camembert and ham. For the train ride from Nice to Paris.”
I smiled, appreciative of his efforts.
“Stay safe,” he told me.
* * *
It was seven p.m. when I arrived in Paris.
The Montalembert was a boutique hotel on the Left Bank housed in a lovely 1926 building, just off St. Germain des Prés. I often stayed there not only for its old-world ambiance, but modern functionality. I texted Cotton from Nicodème’s phone to let him know how to find me, but he didn’t answer. After a light supper from room service, I watched an old black and white movie and was about to go to sleep when a gentle beep interrupted the silence. Cotton replying? I read the phone’s screen alert and was shocked.
Called the shop and Nicodème provided this number. I’m in Paris. Antoine.
I replied and told him we should meet.
Not yet. Soon.
I debated what to do, but decided I had no choice. He was calling the shots. I glanced at the stoppered bottle lying on the dresser, debating whether to again allow an intrusion.
No. Not tonight.
So I slept.
Without dreaming.
Chapter 8
I left the hotel early, the bright Parisian morning warm, and headed toward the Seine. My hotel sat only three blocks away from my appointment with Jac L’Etoile.
Rue des Saints-Pères was a narrow street lined with residences and antique shops. Nestled between two of them I found my destination and rang its doorbell. A returning buzz sounded which released an electronic lock. I turned the knob and entered L’Etoile Parfums, one of Paris’ most iconic perfume shops, dating back to before the French Revolution.
A bouquet of scents greeted my nose, as did the period decor. Mottled antique mirrors covered the walls and ceiling, scattered atop murals of pastel flowers and angels. My attention was drawn to the rosewood cabinets against two walls, each filled with antique perfume paraphernalia. I recognized several of the house fragrances. Vert. Blanc. Rouge. Noir. All, I knew, created between 1919 and 1922, still considered among the top ten scents of the industry, alongside such classics as Chanel No. 5, Shalimar, and Mitsouko. A woman sat perched behind a glass table. She wore a black shift, high heels, and a black scarf.
“I have an appointment with Jac L’Etoile. I’m Cassiopeia Vitt.”
She rose from the table and, pushing on one of the mirrored panels, opened a doorway. I followed her into a long hallway that ended at a carved wooden door which she opened.
Jac L’Etoile waited to greet me.
She was lovely, with almond-shaped, pale green eyes, and an oval face framed by wavy mahogany-colored hair. Perhaps a bit older than me, maybe mid-forties, she sported a stylish white smock over black slacks and suede ballet slippers. She seemed entirely comfortable with herself and I kept telling myself that this woman was a direct descendent of a long line of perfumers stretching back to the late 1700s.
“Bonjour,” the perfumer said, as she extended her hand. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”
I asked for coffee and the receptionist left for the refreshments.
“Welcome to my shop,” Jac said, waving her arms.
Cabinets filled with hundreds of bottles of sparkling liquids in shades of yellow, amber, green, and brown lined one wall. A set of French doors opened into a lush courtyard filled with blooming flowers and verdant trees.
“Nicodème called and said to treat you like family.”
“He’s a dear old friend.”
“Who seems to have a problem.”
I nodded. “That he does.”
“He also mentioned your love of perfume. Would you like a quick tour?”
I nodded. Absolutely.
“This,” she said walking over to a wooden apparatus that filled a quarter of the room, “is the heart of what I do. The perfumer’s organ.”
Which I knew about. About eight feet long and six feet tall, made of poplar. Three-tierd, and instead of keys to play music, rows of glass vials lined up like soldiers, each of a different essence. Best guess? It looked like there were more than three hundred vials.
“We don’t know who the cabinetmaker was,” Jac said. “But according to my grandfather, it’s as old as the shop. For centuries, perfumers have been practicing their craft in laboratories, like this one. Even though modern labs have stopped using perfume organs, for me there’s no better way. As my brother used to say, ‘perfume is about the past, about memories, dreams.’”
I couldn’t disagree with that, and I admired her obvious love of her craft.
Jac spread her arms. “Every generation of perfumers in my family has used these same bottles.” There was something both proud and forlorn about her statement. She caressed the organ’s wood. “My brother created perfumes here. My father before him and his father before him, going all the way back to the first L’Etoile, who opened this store in 1770. Like all the early perfumers, he
’d been a glove maker who used scent in order to imbue the kidskins with a more pleasant aroma. When he saw how well it pleased his clients, he added other scented products. Candles, pomades, soaps, sachets, powders, skin oils, creams.”
The door opened and the receptionist returned with a tray of china cups, a silver coffee pot, creamer, sugar bowl, and spoons.
“Shall we?” Jac asked and we returned to her desk.
Sitting opposite her, I declined sugar and milk and accepted the cup she offered and sipped the black coffee. Not surprisingly, it was not only delicious but exceptionally fragrant.
“What is in this to give it a scent?” I asked.
“Just a couple of cocoa beans. Do you like it?”
“Quite a lot.”
“It’s one of the first lessons a perfumer learns. How sometimes the smallest addition makes all the difference.”
“That’s true in life too.”
She smiled. “And in business. I suppose you want to know about the Sabbat Box, and what I discovered from the samples.”
I nodded.
“That was quite an investigation,” she said. “I did the work about a year ago. Amazingly, it appeared one of the oils Nicodème sent me had many similarities with a fragrance I worked with six years ago. It’s the same formula, with only a few variations. I still believe that can’t be a coincidence. How familiar are you with chemical analyses and botanical properties?”
I shook my head. “Not much at all, beyond a fascination with the whole concept of perfume.”
“When Nicodème sent me the samples I ran them through gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. In most cases it’s used for drug detection, environmental analysis, and explosives investigations. But fragrance companies often employ them to study the competition’s scents. In a matter of hours those machines can break down a rival’s formula that took months to create.”
“What did you learn?”
“We were able to identify several ingredients. A few from over a decade ago, then two more from a recent scientific breakthrough. Quite a surprise, actually, to find one particular substance there. Three years ago a botanist in Israel managed to grow two ancient plants that have been extinct for years. Because of that, their chemical fingerprints are now in a database.” Jac found three sheets of paper. “Here is the analysis.”
