Redemption (21 page)

“Why would you do this?” Aude asks him.

I’m surprised at her reaction. She’d been so adamant to remain uninvolved that the sudden way she took charge left me momentarily unhinged.

He smiled. “Just a small reminder that the prophecy is about to be fulfilled.”

Aude stepped back. “What do you have to do with the prophecy?”

“Nothing, really. But I do find it interesting. Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. And what about those poor people?”

“Don’t worry, I don’t mean any of them any harm. They will be a little depressed for a few days, probably buy more of our records, then within a week they will be right back to normal. This is why having such a large crowd is beneficial. What we absorb is just a minute amount of each person’s essence.”

“What do you need so much essence for?” Garnier asked.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t plan to. You have no need to know.”

“We need to know how that essence was absorbed.”

“Getting weak, are you? Aude, you shouldn’t run with this crowd, they can’t protect you like I could.”

“Leave her alone,” I hissed.

Who did he think he was to approach Aude in this manner? She wasn’t just someone’s property to be used.

“You think just because she’s your witch, I can’t take her away from you? Think about it, Aude.”

He laughed and walked away.

“Should we follow him or something?” Garnier asked.

“I think we have to let it go for the time being,” I said. “He’s not going to give us more and we aren’t strong enough to force him. He’s done us a valuable service already, though.”

“He has?” Aude asked.

“Yes. This is confirmation that you could help us, Aude.” I paused, remembering the thoughts I had just entertained about Ramtin. “If you wanted to.”

“But I still don’t know how.”

“You will learn.” I felt optimistic. Aude would learn, and she could become our witch. It would be different as we wouldn’t have that protection bond, but I would still keep her safe. I needed to keep her safe.

When we returned to Aude’s mother, she was in the middle of a discussion with the event manager we’d just run into. In the dim backstage lighting, her resemblance to Marguerite was even more striking. I had noticed it when I had seen her and Aude through the window a while back, but I’d pushed it to the back of my mind, even thought I’d imagined things. Yet here she stood, right in front of me.

She didn’t look
exactly
like Marguerite. For one thing, this woman was probably in her forties. There were also slight differences. Her hair didn’t bounce with a slight curl at the bottom. She was taller than Marguerite was, and not as slight—as fragile. But the similarities were great enough that I found myself wondering if there was any possibility Marguerite could have survived the fall. I tried to calculate if the human in front of me could have been a child of hers. It was impossible on all accounts. Anyway, I’d watched Marguerite die.

“All I’m saying is the authorities will be asking questions and I want to have my bases covered.”

“Why would my daughter be involved with these birds? They were obviously a part of Fetid Crimson’s act.”

The man sighed. “I don’t know why anyone would pull a stunt like this.” He turned to Aude. “You’ll probably be getting a phone call to testify later. Someone out there could have gotten killed.”

“Everyone is all right then?” she asked.

“Yes, a dozen or so people were sent to the hospital for light injuries, but that’s about it.”

“Thank goodness,” she exclaimed. Her shoulders relaxed and I felt tension releasing from my body at the same time. I had no idea I’d been so wound up about it all.

“Aude, we should go,” her mom said.

“Why don’t you come over to my house tomorrow? I’ll make Italian,” she blurted out.

Her mom gave her an annoyed look and Aude smiled at her weakly.

“Dinner?”

“So we can talk about stuff.” She raised her eyebrows in a comical way as she said
stuff
and I understood she was finally ready to give her full cooperation toward our search for essence.

I smiled as I watched her walk away from me. The hope I’d felt earlier amplified within me. Some other emotion pushed itself toward my awareness but I couldn’t quite identify it. I didn’t really need to. It seemed each day I spent with Aude I was not only closer to some answers, but closer to real happiness. Was that even possible for someone such as me?

I went to find Garnier, who at some point must have wandered off, and found him deep in conversation with Fetid Crimson’s drummer.

“All I’m saying is to watch out for the Stone Monster, man.”

32

Aude

“I wonder what caused all those birds to die at the same time like that,” Mom wonders out loud while staring out the window. “You know, someone once told me of a prophecy about dying birds.”

“Was it my father?” I ask.

She doesn’t move from her spot at the window. “Your father? I thought we’d agreed a long time ago that you didn’t have a father. I wanted a child and decided to have one. That’s all there is to the story.”

“Yes, Mom. But I’ve learned a thing or two since then. I do have a father, but you just don’t want to tell me anything about him. I haven’t pushed, because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but things are different right now. These dying birds are part of this prophecy. My father was Native, wasn’t he?”

She nodded.

“Can you tell me more about him?”

“I don’t know much. He was just one of my
friends
. We came home, talked a lot, and he seemed very intelligent. There was something deeper about him somehow, and I desperately wanted a child of my own.”

“Deeper somehow? Do you mean like essence?” I correct myself. “Like he had a strong life-energy?” Mom will have no clue what I mean but I don’t know exactly how to ask this question in a way she would understand.

She hesitates. Her fingers grip the edge of the window. She lets go and turns to face me. “What do you know about essence?” she asks.

I’m taken aback. Does she understand? Can I just tell her everything? Or is it just an old name for a street drug or something? “It’s just a term I picked up,” I say. “Can you tell me more about it?”

“Your grandmother kept a journal. She spoke of essence. It’s … ” Mom pauses.

“What is it?”

She sighs and takes a seat on the living room couch. “Well, my mother was one of the people now referred to as the Duplessis Orphans. Children who were mislabeled as mentally unstable and transferred to asylums here in Montreal beginning in the Forties and continuing into the Sixties.”

“Why?”

“Money, of course. Orphanages were the financial responsibility of the provincial government while mental institutions were funded by the federal government. In order to save money, it was decided that some orphanages would be renamed as mental institutions, and some children were sent to actual mental institutions.”

“So grandma was in a mental institution even though she wasn’t crazy?”

“Well, I don’t think she should have been there, and she seemed very functional … ”

“But?”

“She talks of supernatural stuff in her journal as if she actually believes it. She said she could use her essence to do witchcraft.”

“What?”

“Your grandmother thought she was a witch. Not only when she was young, either. She would make subtle references now and then when I was growing up. So, where did you hear about essence?” she asks.

“What if she
was
a witch?”

Mom shuts her eyes as if she’s affected by a migraine. When she opens them again, I can see defeat in her eyes. “I can’t believe these things, Aude. I spent my youth protecting myself against her craziness. I don’t think she was insane when they put her in that asylum, but I do believe it made her crazy.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. But about the journal … ”

“It’s yours. I’m supposed to give it to you.”

She leaves the room and returns with a small black leather-bound journal. She tosses it to me. “Read the inscription inside the front cover, first,” she says.

The entry is dated for a day before her death, which was about eight months after my birth.

Dear Aude,

I don’t think we will meet, but I wish for you to know me in the way I can. There are many things I wish to explain to you in detail, but sometimes I fear everyone is correct and these things are not real. As such, I have decided I will not pass to you the knowledge that was passed to me by my grandmother, but I will leave you the tools to discover them yourself in case you have need for them. I have asked your mother to pass on this journal to you if you are ever to ask her about essence or witchcraft.

I wish I could get a chance to know you. Your mother has decreed that you would be the first generation not affected by the tragedy of my past. I hope with all my heart that she is right.

With all my love,

Audrée

33

Guillaume

I stood at her step, holding up the cake box containing the tiramisu I had made for the occasion. Lorraine opened the door and eyed me suspiciously.

“Good afternoon,” she said as she stepped back to let me in. “Aude is in the living room.”

After removing my winter clothing and hanging up my coat, I peered in the first doorway on the right—the direction Lorraine had pointed me to. There, Aude lounged on the couch with her head resting on its arm and her feet up. She had earphones on and a small black notebook in her hands.

As soon as she saw me, a small smile drew itself on her face. She sat up while slipping off the headphones and turned off her music player. She twirled a strand of her hair—one of the few that escaped her loose ponytail and brushed against her face. She wore a pair of jeans and long-sleeve shirt with a band logo on it.

“My grandmother was a witch,” she blurted out.

“Your grandmother?”

“Yes, my Mom’s mom.”

“That’s great news, Aude. We just need for you to learn how to transfer essence. She didn’t leave you any instructions by any chance, did she?”

“No. She has a journal, but it’s mostly about her time in the nuthouse. It’s a pretty sad story.”

“The nuthouse?”

“Yeah, she was institutionalized. I need to get dinner started. Come with me, and I’ll tell you about her.”

“Oh! That reminds me!” I handed her the package. “I made tiramisu.”

“You
made
tiramisu?” she asked.

“Yes, I didn’t want to show up empty-handed.”

She led me to the kitchen.

“Have you heard of the Duplessis Orphans?”

I racked my brain trying to place the term but I’d heard so many things over the past few decades that I didn’t come up with anything. I shook my head.

She sighed, not with annoyance; it was a sad sigh.

“The Duplessis Orphans is a name that has been given to a group of orphans that more or less got screwed by the system in Montreal.” While she talked, she stirred the sauce on the stove and I noticed the empty cans on the counter.

“Is this a special recipe?” I teased her.

“I didn’t want to poison you, so I thought I’d use preprepared sauce.”

“Aw, are you saying that you can’t cook?”

“Nope, neither can my mom. Are you disappointed?”

I laughed and it occurred to me how often I was laughing these days. “I’m not that easily disappointed.”

She smiled at me, a shy smile, not the huge confident grin I was so used to seeing from her.

“What it is it?” I asked her.

“Nothing. I’m just distracted.”

She leaned against the counter and told me about the Duplessis Orphans. The more she explained, the more appalled I became that I had never heard the story before.

“These orphans were actually placed in mental institutions and health care facilities where they suffered through physical and sexual abuse, and medical experiments. My grandmother was lucky to survive.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my index finger, covering my face in the process as I tried to digest the information.

“Audrée was fourteen when she got pregnant. She knew that other girls who got pregnant disappeared—never to be seen again—and so she found an opportunity to run away.”

“And your mom?”

“Well, it was the Sixties, and her mother was homeless when she had her. I think we can imagine the sort of life she lived.”

“What a sad story,” I said. “I wonder if her family never created protectors or what happened to them.”