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Fleur De Lies(61)

By:Maddy Hunter


            BONGbongBONGbongbongbongBONG!DINGbongding

BONG!

            “… outside the …” BONGBONGBONG!

            I gazed at the church spire towering above the rooftop of the galleries and realized that even though Rouen was a city of medieval houses, winding passageways, and sidewalk cafés, it was mostly a city of church bells that rang out with riotous abandon at any odd minute on the hour. Even earbuds and receivers were no defense against the cacophonous clang.

            “Could you repeat that?” Cal yelled out to Madeleine. He waved his hand toward the distant spire. “The bells.”

            She nodded happily. “In the eighteenth …” bong … bong … BONG

BONG … “poor boys …” ding … DING … DING … dingding …

            Yup. This was going well. I unplugged my earbuds, which were wedged in my ear canal as comfortably as a couple of peach pits, and wandered away from the group to shoot a few photographs.

            The four buildings that boxed in the square were an architectural mixture of half-timbered masonry panels, long banks of framed windows, and decorative wooden columns carved in chilling, graphic relief. Spooky skulls grinned down at me with empty eye sockets embedded with eight hundred years of soot and grime. A ghoulish chain of crossed bones marched above the window frames, vying for space with coffins, burial shrouds, gravediggers’ shovels, and the Grim Reaper’s scythe. Aitre de St. Maclou might have appeared less gloomy in full sunshine, but with its macabre history and the overcast sky, it seemed as if a veil of gray haze had descended upon the entire complex, tarnishing the view.

            “Do you want to have your picture taken with the mummified cat?” asked Cal as he headed toward me.

            I zoomed in on a skull and snapped my camera shutter before turning to him. “Excuse me?”

            “The mummified cat. Full-grown, I might add.” He pointed toward the entrance. “They discovered it in the wall when they were doing some repair work, but instead of removing it, or walling over it again, they slapped a glass panel over it so it can be on display for the tourist crowd. I’m a dog guy myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel for future hordes of grossed-out cat lovers.”

            “How did a full-grown cat get inside the wall?”

            Cal shrugged. “It has an Edgar Allen Poe feel about it, doesn’t it? Madeleine says certain felines were thought to embody the devil. Black cats, mostly, so some overly superstitious zealot probably entombed the thing to help ward off evil spirits. And, yes, rumor has it that this particular creature was black.”

            BONG … BONG … BONG … BONG … BONG …

            Cal rolled his eyes. “You think it’s like this every day, or only on Sundays?”

            “Are you taking pictures?” Woody called out as he hustled toward us.

            “Of what?” asked Cal.

            “The mass grave! What? Too obvious for you?” Woody eyed the courtyard in the same way P. T. Barnum might have eyed the Feejee Mermaid. “There’s money to be made here.”

            “Geez, Dad, will you give it a rest?”

            “You know what your problem is, Cal?” scolded Woody. “You don’t think like a funeral director. You think like an accountant. We’re standing on a mass grave. Think of the presentation we could put together comparing the barbaric burial customs of our ancestors to the humane practices offered by funeral homes today. Give it historical context, stir in some subtle marketing, add a pinch of a discount, top it off with a followup call after potential clients have let our offer bake in their brains for a week. We could be looking at the windfall of a lifetime.”