I have to admit, upon arriving in France, I was kind of worried. For one, my French was limited to conversational, "where is the bathroom?"-type stuff and medical terminology. The fact that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and various forms of psychosis ran in the French side of my family didn't help matters: I was working towards a bachelor's degree in psychology at the time, with the ultimate goal of becoming a psychiatrist, and volunteering in various mental hospitals across the country had shown me the hideous things the human mind can do to itself. My textbooks and real-life experiences had also taught me that, while genetics help snap your mind, insanity is catching. When you've got the time, look up statistics on medical personnel in mental wards that eventually get admitted to mental hospitals themselves. It's kind of terrifying.
The pitying looks I got from the Frenchman sitting next to me on the plane when I told him what my business was in France didn't help either.
"You seem like a nice kid, for an American," he told me in slightly accented English, patting my shoulder. "Try not to go batshit up there. The nephew of le bon docteur did, in fact, just last year. Tried to eat the dog. Hell, I think they're all fous there."
Great.
Anyway, I had decided to go, despite my fears of going Section 8, for three reasons:
1.) French women. (If I could get any to talk to me.)
2.) The internship that my mom's cousin, Doctor Mange, had promised me at his esteemed private practice. This internship, thanks to a program my college runs, would give me the ability to get my bachelor's a semester early and save half a grand in tuition and living expenses.
3.) I was sick and tired of being under my Boston Protestant family's thumb. They constantly check up on me and hate that I'm majoring in Psychology instead of, I don't know, Sports Appreciation or something equally pedestrian. My dad's side (the Irish Protestants) and my mom's side (the French Catholics) didn't get along so well. If I was lucky, going on this trip would mean the Bostonians would refuse to talk to me for a while. That, and I figured nothing separates people better than the Atlantic Ocean.
All things considered, when I arrived at the ivy-covered Mange estate, I was anxious... but my mom's cousin, Dr. Mange, was rather charming, with his trim, graying mustache and his horn-rimmed glasses. We made small talk for a bit, but I finally managed to choke out the question that was really on my mind. "How's, uh, how's Claude doing, Doctor?" I asked, unsure how to phrase the question.
His face fell. Without the gravity-defying effect of a smile, he seemed ancient, decrepit, and a chill ran through my bones. "Not responding to treatment, I'm afraid. We have hope yet, but... well, it looks as though he'll be an in-patient for the forseeable future." Dr. Mange sighed, then seemed to shake off the memory of his nephew like a dog dispersing water from its coat. "Now, tell me, if you will, how things are in America! My wife is fascinated with your celebrities' romances, more so than our own, I sometimes think, ha-ha!"
His hair was rather disheveled and his tie loose, but his jovial smile and boisterous laugh put me at ease-though I wasn't too found of the house or grounds. It just seemed... oppressive, like too many generations of crazy people had been walled up inside.
Dr. Mange introduced me to some of his staff, assured me I'd meet his wife, Clarice, later, showed me around the huge estate, and finally left me in my room. "Dinner will be - well, whenever Brunhilde can catch it," he chuckled, turning to leave. Brunhilde, a forbidding, frizzy-haired woman with arms like a tree trunk, was the cook, a German immigrant. I'd met her earlier, on my house tour. She had mentioned that I had "a nice set of meat" on my bones... charming.
"Catch it?"
"Why, yes, Brunhilde's an avid hunter. She prefers making meals as fresh as possible, so she's lately taken to hunting in the woods near our modest little chateau." Is that even legal in France? Huh. Well, whatever works, works. "I'll leave you to get settled, then. Au revoir, my dear." Dr. Mange left, leaving me to gape in awe-and slight discomfort-at the canopied bed, plush carpet, and attached bathroom. The whole place just had an eerie feel. As I set my luggage down and began to unpack, I heard the noise of running water from the bathroom. I don't know if it was those stories I'd heard a year ago about "cousin Claude" going crazy and trying to eat the family hunting hound or if it was my overactive imagination, but I froze up in fear. It was completely irrational, but... still. No one had entered the room - I'd have seen them, wouldn't I have? The door to the bathroom was only very slightly ajar. Had it been completely shut before?
"Hello?" I called, my voice hoarse and a bit screechy. Pull yourself together, for God's sake.
A pleasant voice replied, "'Allo?" A brunette, very well-built young woman poked her head out of the bathroom, holding a dusting cloth and Windex. Huh. Didn't know they called Windex 'Windex' in France. She had dark circles under her green eyes, but there was just something about her - maybe the way her full, cupid's-bow lips curved, or how she gave off an air of vulnerability. Upon seeing me, her eyes widened, and she fumbled the Windex in shock, dropping it to the floor.
"Oh, hi." See? Nothing. Coward. I was ashamed at the rush of relief that flowed through my quivering limbs. "I'm -"
"What are you doing here?" she hissed, her pretty face contorting in terror. Before I could stop her, she grabbed me by the arm and yanked me into the bathroom. "Are you an idiot? They will find you here!"
"I'm... sorry?" I replied, rather confused - then my eyes landed on the bloodstain at the collar of her shirt. "What - ?" Suddenly, she spotted the luggage behind me, and her eyes ceased to bug out of her skull. "Oh. My apologies. I thought you were one of Brunhilde's - erm, visitors. Je m'appelle Sabine. I'm the maid here." Sabine explained that Jolie's salary wasn't exactly to her liking, and she therefore occasionally invited "visitors"-men and women-over to the Mange home to offer her...services. The doctor and Clarice knew nothing whatever about it, but Sabine was slightly intimidated by her, so she silently allowed Brunhilde's mini-brothel to parade around under the family's noses. Now, that explanation seems so stupid, so idiotically see-through - but I was blinded by Sabine's French charm, as well as her... various assets. I had ample time to explore those assets for the next six weeks-and explore them I did, whenever I was at the Mange house and not the doctor's private practice. As a college student, I'd had flings, yeah, but - God, Sabine was phenomenal. We also had various discussions about abnormal psychology, a subject that fascinated us both. Her knowledge of plants and the flavors and fragrances they produced was astonishing; I could listen to her lecture me on the virtues of rosemary and thyme for hours, focusing on those gorgeous red lips. She was nearly perfect.... save for her selective, extreme shyness.
She was, for some reason, extremely timid around other staff, and took the first opportunity to vanish whenever someone other than myself was in the room. I detected a sense of animosity between Clarice Mange (a tall blonde Amazon of a woman, who had maybe 30 years to the good doctor's 56) and Sabine, since Sabine would shoot her a half-cringe, half-glare whenever they happened to pass by in a hallway. Clarice, for her part, simply pretended Sabine wasn't there, her icy disdain nearly tangible as she would make small-talk with me, even flirting a little, while Sabine would slink away. The only person Sabine seemed to dislike more than Clarice was our esteemed cook. She scurried away whenever Brunhilde would clomp by, evidently terrified of her. I myself didn't blame her at the time. Brunhilde was gigantic... but hell, did she have a way with food. Meats, in particular, were delicious. She was an absolute artist with bacon.
As time went by and my summer break began to draw to a close, I noticed that Sabine became more and more jumpy, to the point that when I got up at night to use the restroom, she would awake with a shriek and start striking out at anything and everything. The half-moons beneath her eyes had now become full planets. I thought, idiot that I was, that it was just the fact that I'd be leaving soon. Whenever I tried to reassure her that I'd call, write, come back to France - she would only shake her head and run off.
Finally, three nights before I was supposed to depart, Sabine sat me down and choked out, "You... you aren't leaving on Friday."
"Sabine, I'm sorry, gorgeous, but I've got to-"
"No! You don't understand! They won't let you leave on Friday!" She wrung her hands, her eyes bugging out just as they had the day that we had met. She looked deranged - absolutely mad. "You remember the - the day you came. The day - " A sob exploded from her throat. "I should have told you then, I should have told you!"
"Sabine - what-" A chill, for some reason, travelled up my spine, snaking like a basilisk into my brain.
"No! Let me finish!" She leapt up from her perch on the edge of the bed and began pacing frantically. "Claude - he was so like you. So smart, but yet so - stupide. He came to stay here last year - he too, wanted to be un psychiatre - but he, he found out, about the - the meat - the police didn't believe him, they never do - that's why he tried to eat poor Bibi, he didn't have anything else - so they had him committed and now no one will listen-"
"Sabine! Sabine!" I grabbed her by the shoulders, stared into her eyes. No. It can't. I didn't. I could feel the door of my mind crack, like wolves were hurling themselves at it to get to the fresh meat behind it. "What about the meat?!" Sabine wailed, the sound sending shivers up my spine.
"Brunhilde - she goes hunting. For - people." Tentacles of fear shot through my body, wrapping around my brain and gut, as she continued. "I thought you were - were one of the victims, when I saw you. I try to help the ones she brings here alive - but it - it never - it doesn't work; they always end up as hoers d'ouerves... the human body, it tastes much like pork or chicken, if prepared right." Her eyes, wracked and haunted, stare into mine, and they shudder me. Oh my God, I thought - the bacon. Oh my GOD.
"I was going to be one of them - but the Manges - they - they needed a maid who'd keep quiet. The police never believe anyone. They didn't believe Claude; they won't believe you. They won't let you leave; they won't; they'll know - and you'll end up as - God only knows - because Brunhilde, she likes your frame. Says you have - "
" -good meat on my bones," I interrupted her, remembering Brunhilde's comment to me. "Oh my God, Sabine - what are we going to do?" Sabine slumped, all the nervous energy draining into the floor. She looked utterly defeated. "There is nothing we can do... you, you will end up dead. Me, I will, too, eventually." She glanced back up at me, eyes so chillingly resigned and depressed that I finally realized the severity of the situation completely - that, in her mind, there was no way out. Me, I felt her pain and her despair drag me down - but a small glimmer of rational me remained, or maybe it was my stupid, stupid hero complex. "We must - we must end ourselves, before they can."
I kissed her forehead, then hugged her. "We kill ourselves, they eat us anyway. There has to be another way, Sabine!"
"There isn't!" Sabine ripped herself from my arms. "You're just like Claude was! Me, I am throwing myself from the damn bathroom window, into the garden, tonight. I can't bear seeing you in the kitchen, flayed like a - a - an animal." I clutched her again, silencing her, not wanting her voice to paint the vivid images in my brain that were appearing there.
"Sabine, I -" A knock came at the door.
"Hello?" Dr. Mange.
Sabine whimpered, broke from my hold, and darted into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. I barely had time to advance on the door before he opened it, disheveled hair, lopsided horn rim glasses, and tie, as usual. "Aha! There you are - dinner is - "
"I'm not fucking eating your sick shit," I snarled, stepping forward toward him. I might end up as someone's stew, but I wasn't going down without a fight. "I have a good frame on me? Lots of meat, huh?"
Dr. Mange paled, stepped back. "I am a happily married man-"
"Shut the hell up! You know what I mean! Your sick chef cooking up human haunch flambe? Prime rib from a human ribcage?"
"What are you - Brunhilde! Jean-Claude! Our guest appears to have gone slightly -"
"Cut it the hell out! The maid told me - "
His face paled even more, eyes nearly falling out of his skull. "Maid?"
"The maid! Sabine!"
As I heard footsteps stumbling up the stairs, voices calling in French, Brunhilde's heavily accented German, Dr. Mange told me, "We haven't got a maid."
An excerpt from an article called "Top 20 Reasons Some Americans Should Just Stay Home", published that year's August issue of "Trackless Travel", an American expat magazine:
"#4. Mental issues and/or uncontrolled mental illness.
We all remember the incident last year when Adam Kale, age 23 and California native, tried to dismantle Stonehenge on the grounds of its 'evil properties', as well as JFK supposedly living under the strange pagan formation (now thought to be a place of healing and a burial mound - but probably not the kind that would have our former President buried there). Should Kale, already diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and notorious for never taking his medication, have been abroad? Probably not. However, when combined with #7, crazy relatives, reason #4 can mess you up. Some of you may recall our piece in March on modern-day crazy families outside the US. While the piece focused on the Constanzo family tree, whose most infamous branch is that of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo (noted drug dealer, voodoo priest, and serial killer), you might recall a reference to the Mange family of France, whose 'history of crazy' stretches way back. Various Mange family members have been diagnosed with a whole gamut of mental illnesses, though psychosis and paranoid schizophrenia seem to be the most common. Well, an American relative of the Manges has recently been detained in a French mental asylum. Name, sex, and personal details have not yet been released, but a source close to French authorities alleges that this person was an American Psychology undergrad on a study program with Dr. Louis Mange (who, by all accounts, is thankfully relatively sane). Maybe you should've studied your own textbooks a bit harder, kid...."
From a book on the criminal history of France, "Vive le Crime: Money, Blood, and Bones in Historical France" by Andrea Knight and David Chenowith, specifically from a chapter on murder:
"... [as for serial killings], much like in the rest of the Western world at the time, they were mostly perpetuated by the upper-class. It is our opinion that the psychological makeup of people at the time encouraged a 'whatever it takes' mentality that did not have as many outlets in the Dark Ages and pre-Age of Revolutions, pre-Industrial Revolution era; therefore, while people with psychopathic traits tend to gravitate towards the business world now and people with mental illnesses and paraphilias are given medical and psychological help (sometimes), back then, psychopathic minds and paraphilic minds could get away with more criminal acts, and the mentally ill were rarely helped before it was too late. As psychology was obviously not a field of study in those days, people endeavored to explain the atrocities committed by disturbed individuals using constructs of their own minds - thus were born vampires, wendigos, etc.
Often, pre-revolutionary serial killers were upper-class or had connections there; while mostly male, there were certainly upper-crust females with a taste for murder: Elizabeth Bathory is a well-known example of this 'dark queen' archetype, so clearly exhibited in the Brothers Grimm tale of Snow White. However, for illustrative purposes, we will provide another, less-known example: Sabine du Bois, maid of the de Croy family (yes, those de Croys - we'll cover them and their seemingly innocent princess in Chapter 19). Sabine was a maid at the de Croy estate; she had been trained for this job from birth. However, in childhood, Sabine began exhibiting signs of a curiously oversexualized child, prostituting on the streets of Paris at age eight - with no encouragement evident from any source in her life. Recent historians have suspected sexual abuse, but considering that Sabine's father was dead before her birth, her mother had no living relatives, and her mother protected Sabine 'like a lion' [writes the wife of the Marquis de Lafayette; several contemporary de Croys agreed; see footnote], we consider this highly unlikely.
Time passed, the little du Bois girl grew to be a stunningly gorgeous woman, and her scandalous past was forgotten in the flash of her newfound haunting beauty. Her cleaning skills and flirtatious prowess were only matched by her green thumb - she tended a garden that produced several herbs for the de Croy kitchen, as well as some fantastic flowers and shrubs on the massive grounds of the estate. Armand de Croy joked in a missive to his brother Emil, 'We might as well not have a gardener; Sabine puts his sad little roses to shame every time [see footnote]...' Her particular favorites were the white roses on the grounds, which the gardener was never allowed to touch. This was a particular point of contention between the gardener, Leon Lacombe, and the lovely maid. Leon must have viewed this appropriation of the rose bushes as an encroachment of his territory; Sabine doubtless claimed that it was simply her way of doing something a little extra for her employers. This war would go on for more than a decade, and its termination would transpire in a way neither party could have expected.
Leon's views aside, Sabine was well-liked by all, and she cultivated a slightly timid, eager-to-please image that endeared her to her employers. This only serves to make the later discoveries on the de Croy estate more terrifying.
Examination of de Croy family letters and the journals of Henri de Croy, a young nobleman at the time, reveal that around Sabine's twenty-second birthday, peasants began to go missing. Men, women, children - whatever predator was on the estate seemed to have a voracious appetite for whatever it could get. After a decimated corpse was found, sans head and much of its flesh, it was assumed there was a rabid wolf on the property. About two years after the murders began, Sabine claimed to have seen the wolf carry a small child off into the woods surrounding the property. At first, the de Croys were stunned into near-disbelief, but then, a man named Jacques Coseaux (friend of Henri), and a female noblewoman named Josette Marie de Hernandez (a Frenchwoman whose noble-blooded mother had married a Spanish duke) came forward on separate occasions to say that they had seen a wolf dragging meat around in the forest. Bloodstained bits of a child's outfit, Henri de Croy's journal entails, were later found there by hunters, further supporting this hypothesis.
Wolf spottings continued throughout that decade and into the next. Hunting parties would often go out in search of this strange wolf, but never found one. Of course, it was assumed a werewolf, or loup-garoux, was the culprit - perhaps, some speculated, even a family full of them. The supposed haunt of this wolfish brood was the forest surrounding the de Croy grounds at the time.
Only twelve years after that very first disappearance, when the aged de Croy gardener spotted a splintered bone end sticking up from under one of Sabine's beloved white rose bushes, did that wolf story fall apart.
The gardens on the de Croy estate, once dug up, were estimated to hold a hundred separate bodies - far more than had gone missing on the estate. Sabine swore up and down that she was innocent and the gardener had set her up - but authorities didn't buy it, and threw her in jail while they investigated. Coseaux and de Hernandez then confessed to making up the story of seeing the wolf under request of their lover Sabine du Bois, who claimed that she really had seen that wolf, but the de Croys didn't believe her tale, which hurt her relationships with her employers. Each was convinced they'd done the right thing by the testimony of the other, remarkably unaware that they were both lovers of Sabine. They both swore they were unaware of Sabine's murderous exploits - debate regarding whether the two duped lovers actually were innocent or not rages on to this day; we personally believe it is entirely possible, since Sabine was clearly a mastermind of manipulation.
Sabine, after several months of detainment, finally decided to confess, loving the attention lavished on her by the French press at the time. She dropped the timid guise and emerged, showing what may be considered her true self: sophisticated and witty, but uncaring, callous, cavalier in her vivid descriptions of seduction, capture, sexual assault, vivisection, even cannibalism. When asked why she killed, she simply replied, 'Why not? They were there. I felt the urge.' When asked if she had killed more than had been found on the property, she simply giggled and replied, 'Does the she-wolf only kill what you see her eat?' She explained the cannibalism by saying, 'This way, I can keep them with me forever; they are part of me; it's a beautiful thing, a beautiful act.'
Sabine du Bois was seized by a mob that stormed the prison and executed one year after her arrest. Her last words were, reportedly [translated by Dr. Georgia de Fontaine, history and lingual expert], 'As les cosettes [her term for her victims] are forever with me, I am your little cosette. I am forever with all of you. Au revoir.' She blew a kiss and, with that, was hanged.
But why would du Bois commit such heinous acts without any known trauma or psychosis in her life to push her towards murder? This is a question that even modern psychology struggles to answer. Explains Dr. Louis Mange, an esteemed French psychologist and psychiatrist who actually currently owns the de Croy estate, 'Sabine du Bois was absolutely a sociopath. There's no other word for it. I almost wish I could deem her clinically insane, because, to me, it would explain her acts - but the truly insane are, I find, sometimes more human than we are. They are overwhelmed by the revolt of their own minds against them, and can show extreme brutality at times - but they, generally, when lucid, will regret things that they have done that they realize have hurt others -perhaps on a smaller scale than us, but the regret will still be present; they still have that capacity. Take a paranoid schizophrenic who has shot someone he thinks is trying to brainwash him and doesn't feel bad about that. This same schizophrenic is capable of feeling and expressing sincere regret that he accidentally ran over a rabbit while driving. Often, actually, I find that the insane are capable of empathy far beyond what is present in a normal human being. If insane person A and sane person B see insane person C suffering from a very bad hallucination, something insane person A knows to be a hallucination, then sane person B might feel bad, but at the same time there's a disgusting attitude of pity, of 'well, you poor thing.' However, insane person A will be terribly empathetic, and will even attempt to coach insane person C through the hallucination in many cases. Sabine du Bois was in no way mad. First, she had no empathy and no regret. What's more, she had the presence of mind to abduct her victims, kill them viciously in secret and sometimes sexually assault or cannibalize them, bury some of them right near her, concoct this story of a wolf running around, and seduce two people into backing that story up! A truly insane person does not have the capacity to do all of this; getting caught is not a concern to them; whatever they get away with is incidental. Sabine liked the atrocities she was committing and wanted to keep doing them. That's what's terrifying.' When asked why he chooses to live where this woman of France killed so many, he replies, 'I want to remind myself of the horrifying power of the human mind, to remind myself that we are all capable of being deceived by people like this woman - even psychologists are not immune to psychopaths...'"
An unedited transcripted excerpt from the "Season Four's Greatest Haunts" episode of "Like Hell International", a globe-trotting ghosthunting show featuring an international paranormal team of the same name:
FRANZ: "Yeah, so that was the old brothel and surrounding grounds in Kinshasa -"
MAIREAD: "And thank God Bahiyah speaks Swahili or we'd have totally missed those awesome EVPs - "
BAHIYAH: "Thank you, thank you! [beauty-pageant-contestant-like waving motion]"
FRANZ: "Alright, settle down, ladies - but what freaked me the fuck out was the Mange estate in France."
BAHIYAH: "I completely agree. How many family members have gone completely batshit?"
FRANZ: "No, no. Have you met my mother? I'm used to batshit family members. [to camera] Hi, Mum!"
DALE: "I think Franz would be referring to the fact that France's freakiest serial killer - and, I'd venture to say, Europe's freakiest serial killer - lived, worked, and murdered there for the better part of her life."
BAHIYAH: "Ah, yes, Sabine du Bois."
SCARLET: "Bloody scary shite up there."
DALE: "Thanks for the summary, Scarlet."
SCARLET: "Not a problem, Dale."
FRANZ: "As our resident expert in all things bloody and disgusting, Scarlet, would you like to tell the viewers about Sabine and our experiences at the Mange estate?"
SCARLET: "Why not? [screenshot of a lithograph of Sabine du Bois] Sabine du Bois was a maid for an esteemed family in France. However, from a young age, she was sexually voracious - kind of expected from French women - "
MAIREAD: "Hey! [smack on Scarlet's arm] Watch it! My middle name is Victoire!"
SCARLET: "Ow, calm down, May - anyway, she was not only that, which wasn't entirely unusual at the time and honestly isn't a big deal... except for the fact that she apparently started around age six or eight as a prostitute."
BAHIYAH: "Well, then. That'll raise some eyebrows. And she said, according to her mother's letter, as an eight-year-old - what was the quote?"
MAIREAD: "'If I can get five francs in five minutes, it's damn good pay."
BAHIYAH: "Pragmatic."
SCARLET: "Yeah. She was also unusually manipulative and precocious for her age. It was unusual. When about a hundred mutilated corpses turned up under the rose bushes that she loved to tend, du Bois was arrested for and later admitted to, summarily, a shit ton of murders, and hinted that the bodies on the grounds were not her only victims."
FRANZ: "Creepy indeed. So, care to give the audience a recap of what happened to us there, Scarlet?"
SCARLET: "I'd rather not relive it, but here goes. [footage up on screen as Scarlet recaps] I'd gotten locked out because I'd left my EVP recorder in the van and you lot had already locked yourselves in. Hiroshi, one of our four camerapeople - say hello, Hiroshi."
HIROSHI: "Hello, Hiroshi."
SCARLET: "Cheeky blighter - anyway, Hiroshi was a gent and offered to come out with me, as we aren't supposed to split up on investigations after what happened on Poveglia. [shot of jolty camera in night vision running around with cameraman Jason yelling "Guys? Guys? Hello?!" Footage then returns to a shot of Scarlet walking up to the mansion] So we went and got my EVP recorder, and we came back to discover you'd locked yourselves in already. So there we are, locked out. [Scarlet jiggles the door, kicks it, then throws her hands up in exasperation and says something inaudible to the camera] I can't get in. You can't see it, obviously, as he's the cameraman, but Hiroshi is getting out his cell to text one of you lot - annnnnd there! [As Scarlet's back is turned to the door and her hands are in full view, gesticulating wildly, door pops open. A faint bit of a skirt is visible. Gleaming eyes and a smiling mouth are visible, with the faint outline of an obviously female body, but nothing more. There seems to be a dark stain down the corner of the mouth onto what would be a neck]
SCARLET [on footage]: "OH SHIT!"
HIROSHI [on footage]: [hand is visible, jerks Scarlet back] "Scar!"
SCARLET [on footage]: "SHIT! Hiroshi, are you getting this?"
HIROSHI [on footage]: "Yeah, yeah - [figure seems to rear up in doorway] oh DAMN! [figure disappears]"
SCARLET: "So, as you can see, we had the shit scared out of us. Skeptics aren't sure what to make of the footage other than saying we edited it."
HIROSHI [off-camera]: "Which is an insult to my editing skills, seeing as if I'd decided to edit it, I'd have added claws and flames and razor-sharp teeth."
SCARLET: "And it still wouldn't be any scarier. You could see her eyes, bright, and fucking - ugh. I get chills just thinking about it."
FRANZ: "Why do you say 'her', Scar?"
BAHIYAH: "Well, you can see the skirt."
SCARLET: "Good eyes, Bahiyah. But it's more than that. Hiroshi or Kali or Jason or Nasrin - someone pull up the audio."
NASRIN [off-camera]: "Got it."
SCARLET: "Play it raw, would you, Rinnie?"
[audio plays, sounds vaguely like a female, followed immediately by Hiroshi's "oh, DAMN!"]
SCARLET: "With the background filtered out, please, Rinnnie."
NASRIN: "Can do."
SCARLET: "Thanks, Nasrin."
[audio plays]
UNKNOWN FEMALE VOICE ON TAPE: "Bonjour, mes cossettes."
HIROSHI [on tape]: "Oh, DAMN!"
SCARLET: "Now, we heard it clear as day while this was happening. I've got no clue why you can't hear it on tape unless we filter the background noise out - but anyway. I strongly believe that that was the spirit of Sabine du Bois."
MAIREAD: "Why, though, Scar?"
SCARLET: "Because du Bois referred to her victims as "mes cossettes", roughly translateable to "my little things of no consequence" or something similar."
HIROSHI [off-camera]: "Well, that, and Scarlet and I smelled burning flesh the whole way back to the hotel."