There is an underground city home to runaways and lost children. It is a city made of

caverns and rats and the light from passenger trains. Just above it and to the left is a metropolis

known colloquially as Paris. For the runaways, Paris is made of clipboards and false petitions

and well-positioned wallets.

In Paris, there is an apartment that should be in the sunshine. Heavy blackout shades

prevent this. There is a daughter – the youngest of thirteen children – who helps to clean and to

cook and is told to be happy about it. She has her elbows in grey dishwater, unclogging a drain

from grease and little hairs. The kitchen walls are bare but for the scratches of grown children

and grime from the stove. The little girl’s father routinely and proudly boasts to his friends, “I

have not visited the Louvre in fifteen years.” It is a respectable boast to fellow zealots, who seek

new-seeming answers to new terrors and new regimes. The little girl is taught day in and day out that life is solemn.

In this same apartment there is a long hallway and a tall wooden door. It leads to separate

rooms. They belong to the little girl’s grandparents – long since away on a trip to London, or

Brussels, or some other far place. These rooms are clean. The floors are scrubbed, and the

pillows are plumped. There is a fresh scent in the air like roses. There are things like duvet

covers and vases on side tables. There is a picture of the grandparents; they are wearing a tuxedo and a long evening gown, and they are smiling. A young woman, a student, is currently

occupying their rooms. The grandparents allow one student to stay there each semester while they are gone.

The student has dinner with the current generation of Morels each night and smiles an

almost too polite smile. One night, as she lies awake in bed, she notices a thin stream of moonlit dust. It circles and flips, and the young woman is surprised to find that it falls onto something – something dark and huge. It is a quiet thing that the little girl, youngest of thirteen, will never see.

It might have been made of mahogany, or cherry. In any case, the bookcase is made of a

warmer wood beneath the dust. The young woman brushes a handful of the stuff aside. She

marvels at the volumes, bound in leather, painted gold. There are red books and green ones, and paper that shines silver if you look at it from above. There are bookmarks and notes in the

margins; there is an entire shelf that has “Danielle” written all over it in girlish script. It is a

jewel of a piece, or a treasure or an heirloom, but anyway it is there, tucked expertly away

beneath the thick curtains.

Upon her departure the next morning, the young woman asks about Danielle.

“She is lost,” says Mrs. Morel, dressed in black.

The young woman notices a large family picture on the wall; there is a face blotched out

with ink. The little girl watches her leave.

Runaways follow the young woman, hoping for an easy time of it.

She is lost. A self-righteous echo off of the concrete.

The young woman tries to find Danielle in their eyes, in their cardboard petitions, in their

nagging, clawing clamour for her attention. She does not find her there.

She is lost. A patronizing rustling in the trees.

skimpily on a street corner in the night air. The young woman suspects that she might find her at the Louvre.

She is lost. A frantic, hoarse whisper from a dark corner.

On her way to the museum, she purchases pink gloves with purple stars for the little girl.

Paris is cast in a momentary shadow, and it is cold. To the whispers, the echoes, and the rustling, she pays little mind.