Judith Merkle Riley (35 page)

Oh, my, what a wonderful silk scarf. Not a good color for a brunette—so much prettier on a blond. She wrapped it about her shoulders this way, and then that, and then tucked it fichu style into the top of her dress, where it shone and glistened. I’ll have things like this when I’ve married Thibault, she thought. Why, just look in the mirror—I could be received at court if I looked like this. If Thibault saw me looking so fine, he’d see that no one would be my equal, if he were to dress me right. Ah! What was this beautiful little crimson velvet box, all tucked away, and hidden as deep beneath these stockings as if it were some sort of secret? A brooch, and what a brooch! Such valuable pearls, such a delicate, feminine design—like a flower, like a butterfly. I’ll pin it right here, to hold the scarf in flattering folds just beneath my face…ow! What a sharp little pin it has! Yes, there it is. How beautiful I look now.
Madame
de La Tourette. Why, because I wasn’t the oldest girl, I never even got to be the Demoiselle de La Roque. Just Laurette Artaud. Nothing’s fair. Especially when the people who deserve nice things don’t get them.

When Laurette was done sucking on the pinprick on her finger, she began to rummage about looking for a strange box, and it was not long before she thought to push aside the dresses in the armoire. There, glittering dully on the floor of the armoire, in the corner behind the flouncy hems and hanging hoops, was an antique silver-gilt box. She knelt and reached in for it, and as she did, she heard the oddest noise. It was exactly like a dog snoring, except there was no dog sleeping in the room, and nothing could fit beneath the low legs of the armoire. She pulled the box out, and noted the curious designs and strange words on it, then opened it up. Inside was a gruesome souvenir of some execution—a dried-up old head with shredded skin that let the white of bone show through here and there. Stringy old brown teeth showed behind its rotted lips, and the eyes were closed. But here was the curious thing: the snoring seemed to be coming from the ugly old thing in the box. Now there’s an odd thing, she thought. How could a thing like that snore? It hasn’t got any chest to breathe with. It must be a trick of the wind outside. But as for the head itself, she’d seen far worse human remains posted in quarters by the side of the road, and, after all, dead is dead and a diamond ring is a diamond ring. She didn’t even wonder who it was, because she was not the wondering sort.

She wrapped the box in a pillowcase, then took a last look at herself in the mirror. It wouldn’t really hurt to
borrow
these nice things for a bit, just to look good for Thibault, and remind him that she looked even better when set off by expensive things. It was only a matter of minutes to steal out of the gate and hurry through the orchard to the crumbling old wall by the brook. There, his horse tied to a low-hanging branch, in an old leather hunting jerkin and tall boots, sat Villasse, peeling his fingernails with his heavy knife. When he heard the rustle of her feet in the dry grass, he looked up eagerly. It’s the jewelry, she thought. I look like a lady at court. He’s surprised that I look so good.

“Do you have my box?” he said, without so much as a greeting.

“I do, right here, and where’s my ring?”

“First, the box—I have to see what’s in it.” Hurriedly, frantically, he tore open the pillowcase and grabbed the box, hardly pausing to inspect the curious rooster-headed god before he opened the catch. At the sight within, even he paused and drew in his breath. The dead, mummified thing inside was moving and—horror of horrors, its shriveled eyelids opened to reveal two evil, staring eyes!

“What pests have stolen me now?” said Menander. “Work, work, work! I take a little nap and—oh, what a wonderfully evil face! I sense a soul mate. And the other one, too—what hard little eyes you have in that pretty face, my dear. Tell me what you wish, but be quick about it—I can’t stay, even to collect another soul. Regretfully, I’m bound to return from whence I came.”

“First, I wish for a very large diamond ring of a size to fit this girl, here—”

“No, no—what kind of sorcerer are you? First you recite the words written on the box—” Menander sounded testy.

“Thibault, what is this thing? Is it sorcery?”

“It is an ancient secret known as The Master of All Desires.”

“Well then, when you are done, wish for a silk dress and a white mare with a silver harness, and when we are married, you can wish for a castle for me—”

“Married? You think I’ll marry
you
? Why should I have you when the most beautiful women of breeding and wealth in the kingdom can be mine now that I have this magic? I don’t need a country bumpkin for a bride.”

With a scream, Laurette launched herself at Villasse so fiercely that Menander tumbled into the dirt at his feet.

“What are you doing you harpy—you’ve made me drop it. Quit this! Ugh, you little beast, your brooch has scratched me.” With a powerful backhand blow across her face, he knocked her to the ground. Only then, as he was sucking the scratch, did he notice the brooch on her bosom. Horrified, he drew back. “Where did you get that brooch? Your sister’s brooch?”

“If you can imagine, you ugly old man, I wore it to make myself more beautiful for you. Beautiful for you! That’s a joke! You’re as ugly as an ogre yourself, you one-eyed freak! You deserve a toad for a bride!” Blood was trickling from her nose as she spoke, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

“If you weren’t as stupid as a frog and as greedy as a bitch-hound yourself, you’d have never touched your sister’s things. I sent her that pin, you ninny, and it’s poisoned.”

“Poisoned?”

“With a very slow, but mortal venom. Distillation of toad, as I recall. But there’s plenty of time for
me
. I’ll just wish myself safe with the Master of All Desires here, and go to your funeral and weep. Think of me, when you remove yourself from the earth for my convenience.” Rapidly, he scooped up the mummified head, threw it in the box, and mounted his horse. Screaming, the girl ran after him, through the brook, but the fast-moving horse only splashed her and her finery from head to foot before Villasse flashed away toward the main road. Sobbing, wet, and bloody, Laurette staggered back to the house, where she met her father coming from the stables.

“V—Villasse—” she managed to say.

“Has he stolen your virtue?” said her father, his face flaming with rage.

“N—no, he stole my magical head that grants wishes—”

Hercule de La Roque looked at his hardheaded, pretty little daughter. Just like him, she was, and he loved her for it. Blood was trickling from her nose, a black eye was starting to show, and her clothes were splashed with water and mud.

“Where did you get all that jewelry? From the magic?” he asked. His eyes were shrewd and assessing. That brooch, there, worth a king’s ransom, with that big pearl in the center.

“N-no, from Sibille’s things. The brooch—the brooch, he says it’s poisoned with slow poison, and I scratched him with it. I have to have the head back, Father, so I can wish myself well. He’s taken it, and he says he’ll wish the poison not to work on himself, and not bother with me, so that he doesn’t have to marry me. Father, he says he’ll come to my funeral!”

“He’s not invited,” said her father. “A head, a head that grants wishes—but Villasse is long gone. How in the hell do I catch up with him? Don’t worry, Laurette. Slow, you said? I’ll have a horse saddled right away and get it back for you. But what if he wishes me dead?”

“I knew,
sniff
, you’d save me, Father.”

“Why of course I will. A head that grants wishes—what a thing to own. Does it talk?” They were returning to the house now.

“Yes, it says horrible things. But you have to say the words on the box, first.”

“And what else did it say? Everything’s important.”

“It—it said, I swear I remember it right—that it had to go back somewhere, so hurry—”

***

Once beyond the boundaries of La Roque-aux-Bois, Villasse pulled up his horse beneath the shade of a large tree, and opened up the box. Something was wrong with it, it seemed to shimmer in the afternoon light, and it was hard to read the words written above the catch. He’d barely begun to recite the formula when the voice of the mummy, all dry and rustling like dead leaves, said, “Too late.”

“What do you mean, too late?”

“I am already returning. Sibille Artaud de La Roque owns me, and I am bound to her—”

“Come back! Don’t you dare vanish! I need to make you have the poison vanish from my blood.”

“Too bad, too late, good-bye—” And with that, Menander and his box both grew translucent and vanished right from between Villasse’s hands. Frantic, Thibault Villasse turned his horse and spurred it to a gallop, back in the direction from which he had come. And all the while he pounded on the lathered beast, he thought, how long, how long did that Goddamned astrologer say it took before the poison began to work? Unspeakable suffering, he’d said, slow, he’d said. How slow? How many hours, days, weeks?

***

Inside the farmhouse door, Hercule de La Roque and his second daughter heard a terrified screaming coming from upstairs. At the sound, the Abbé, dozing over a book, sat up all at once. Suddenly, it seemed to Sibille’s father, from all directions, annoying women seemed to be swarming up to the girls’ room, Clarette and her mother putting down their embroidery hoops and running upstairs, his wife and sister, coming from the kitchen, his other daughters, and Sibille, gawky and homely as ever beneath her finery, all responding to Isabelle’s shrieks of distress. Hercule flung them aside and pushed into the room, where he saw his third useless little daughter in hysterics, while an open box containing a live, severed head seemed to be materializing in the center of the bed.

“Shut up, you little cretin, and make a wish,” it was saying. “You can have anything you like. All it costs is your soul, but yours is as light as a feather, and hardly worth the trouble of keeping. Such a little sacrifice, and so many lovely things could be yours. Wouldn’t you like a pony?” But Isabelle just howled.

“It’s alive! And it’s ugly-dirty! Mama!”

“That’s it! That’s the magic head!” cried Laurette.

“I know,” said her father. But instead of grabbing up the box, he grabbed Sibille instead, turning her arm behind her, and twisting it in an iron grip. “At last, you stuck-up, sapless old maid, you’re good for something. Wish for me, Sibille.”

“Wha–what do you mean, Father?”

“I heard what it said. Do you think I want to lose
my
soul wishing? No, you do the wishing for me. First, I want a fortune and a palace on the Loire. Hurry now, or I swear, I’ll break your arm!”

“But Father, the poison—” Laurette cried, her voice between a sob and a shriek.

“Later, later. First things first. Sibille, wish for me, my dutiful daughter. Take the curse on yourself.”

“Father!” cried Sibille, her voice full of shock at his unnatural demand. “That’s wicked! I won’t!” She tried to pull away, but he pulled her harder, making her cry out in pain. “You can’t make me!” she shrieked in despair.

“Oh, can’t I? Think again, you thief of inheritances—wish yourself to Hell for me. Wish me back the fortune you stole from me. I would happily cut your throat for what you’ve done. It’s justice.” There was the sound of a gasp from the women in the room, as the Sieur de La Roque pulled his hunting knife and held it to Sibille’s throat. “Who will stop me?” he cried, the sweat shining on his brow. “I tell you, I
deserve
these wishes—this thing is mine by right!” His eyes glittered with the madness born of greed. “And what good has she ever been to me, this scheming old maid? Useless, vicious, bad from birth—At last I’ve found a use for you—Wish for me, Sibille, wish, or you won’t be wishing for anything in the future.” No one dared move. Even Aunt Pauline, huge in the doorway, paused in horror. In the unnatural quiet of the crowded room, it was almost as if you could hear the sound of Sibille’s heart breaking. Somehow, secretly, she had always thought that beneath his hard shell of cruelty and scorn, her father loved her. Now she had seen within his depths—and there was nothing. Nothing at all. As the castle of a lifetime’s illusions crumbled into dust, she began to weep. Everything was gone. There was nothing left, not love, not home, not family, not anything. Could Menander’s hell cause any more pain than this? “By Agaba—
sniff
—” The magic words were scarcely audible beneath her sobs.

“And don’t weasel word it. Make it clear the palace is for me.”

“I wish for you—
sniff
—to give to my father, Monsieur Hercule de La Roque—
sniff
—a very large fortune and—and—a palace on the Loire—”

“In the new style—in good repair—with an excellent hunting preserve—”

“In—in the n—new style—in good repair—with an excellent hunting preserve—”

“Well, at last, Sibille,” said Menander. “And what a job it was—one of my hardest in a thousand years. You really won’t miss your soul much. Not that many people have them these days anyway. And most of the time, a person doesn’t even feel it.”

“Hercule, you unnatural monster. The sooner you are dead and buried, the better for your family,” said Aunt Pauline, even paler beneath her white powder than usual.

“But Father, the poison—” said Laurette. She was sweating in terror.

“Not just now; I want eternal youth, too,” said her father, never loosening his grasp on Sibille or upon his knife. “Go ahead, Sibille, wish for me.”

“So sorry,” interrupted Menander. “I’m still working on the first wish.”

“Well, just put it on a list and do the second,” said Hercule de La Roque, his voice impatient.

“It doesn’t work that way,” said Menander. “First I have to figure out how to do it, then I set Fate in motion, and then I can do the next wish—”

“It ought to be easy. Aren’t you magical enough to give me a simple palace?”

“Oh, I’ve given kingdoms in my time. And right now, I’m engaged in fuddling Philip of Spain’s mind to delay the entire Imperial army from invading Paris. I do great things, I’ll have you know.”