Baguette Rhymes with Dead || ONC 2024 | ✔

Chapter 8: Memorial

We reached the Place du Panthéon just in time. A crowd had gathered there, consisting of at least a thousand people, and they were just setting out on a march. Their destination didn't matter to Luc and I as long as it took us far away from Abelard and his students. From what I could tell, we'd already left them in our dust somewhere, but I still felt better when we slipped into the crowd of ghosts and dissolved in it like raindrops in the sea.

I'd never been a fan of crowds, but tonight I loved this one.

The protest march, demonstration, procession, whatever it was, didn't resemble the disorderly image my mother had sketched of vandalism, violence and fires flaring up in the streets. The group moved at a slow but steady pace; calm and controlled, peaceful, not at all what I'd expected.

I wondered if the dead had a track record of behaving excellently at protests and if this really was much of a protest at all. Though people held banners and cardboard signs and some did chant slogans I didn't understand, others chatted cheerfully amongst themselves as if the whole thing was little but a fun social gathering.

"What are they protesting?" Luc voiced the question that had been on my mind, looking around and trying to make sense of it all. Considering the fact he could understand French, I wondered what had him so lost.

"You speak French," I pointed out as we continued to move forward in the crowd. "Why don't you ask someone what this march is all about? That can't hurt."

"Good idea." Luc turned to a short, stocky woman holding a sign that read souviens-toi de Gilbert Perrault; a call to remember someone, if I read that right. Luc once more inquired about the English skills first, but this woman was the first to deny being able to speak my language. So I waited impatiently again while Luc extracted the information I desired, cursing myself for not having put more effort into my French classes when I'd had them.

"What did she say?" I asked when Luc turned back to me to relay what he'd learned. His tentative smile reassured me that we at least weren't in danger for now.

"Okay, French isn't actually her native language, so she could only tell me so much," Luc said, "but from what I understood, this is something of a... pro-life rally."

Somehow, I suspected that didn't mean the same thing here as it did back home.

"So are a bunch of ghosts vehemently against abortion rights, even though they have to be far too dead to be able to reproduce, or is there more to it than that?"

"It's different. Something about ethical treatment of the living." Luc's grin grew wider. "I think we're hanging with the right crowd this time. As a living guy, I'm all for ethical treatment of me, whatever that entails here."

I didn't understand how that cause could possibly be a good reason to protest in this place, considering how few living people made their way to the necropolis according to Béatrice. Even if Parisians leapt at any opportunity to band together and pelt the established order with molotov cocktails, it was strange. But whatever was going on, it probably centered around this Gilbert Perrault.

I had a new light-bulb moment.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it may be advantageous for us to advertise our alive status a little," I suggested, though still careful not to speak too loud just yet. "If they're 'pro-life', I bet they have much more wholesome thoughts on how to treat us than Abelard and his gang. They might even have useful information. About what their deal with the living is, maybe, and if it's got anything to do with Abelard and Heloise."

Luc nodded slowly. "I can get behind that idea. What should I tell the woman?"

"Tell her that she shouldn't freak out, but we're alive, and we'd like to speak to the person spearheading this demonstration. How's that sound?"