The Book of Shadows (23 page)

“Done.” Sebastiana held up the doll—a
thing
of white wax, pink tulle, and hair, run through with thirteen silver needles—and asked Asmodei, “Success?”

“Indeed. Nicely done.”

Father Louis, too, commended Sebastiana.

Please
, shouted Madeleine.
They are on their way!

What happened from that point forward remains a blur of magic and motion. I rose naked from the table, aided by the priest, and stepped into the blue wrap proffered by Sebastiana. I then turned to see…I saw standing…right before me…. My twin! Sister Claire de Sazilly. As
me
! Dressed in that foolish frilled pink dress—resewn through some aspect of the Dark Art—she stood barefoot before me, and I stood staring…at myself! Perhaps I spoke. More likely, no.

Sister Claire did not speak. She was still gagged.

Asmodei hauled the effigy to the chair and chained her there. She did not struggle. Was she resigned, spell-bound…had Sebastiana, in changing her outward appearance, also rendered her docile, dumb? Or was it simply a trance?

The cuffs were clamped around her ankles, just as they'd been around mine. Sister Claire choked on the gag, seeping now like a second tongue from her mouth. Asmodei laughed, laughed till Sebastiana scolded him, told him to step back from the effigy.

…The shuffling of slippers and boots along the stony corridors, on the central stairway. The scratch of metal on stone:
They have weapons,
said the succubus.
They will strike
.

“They are too late,” said Sebastiana. “We have already struck.”

Father Louis shoveled the books from the sill into a large leather sack that he drew from I don't know where. Madeleine returned the library to how it had appeared when first my jailers had locked the door against me, not twelve hours earlier. The earthenware pitcher, the candle, the chipped crystal goblet, everything was put in its place. (The blood she spilled in the process only furthered their end. “That is good, yes,” said Father Louis of the blood. “The Devil's Trace,” he called it.) Sebastiana tied the needles into the black velvet case.

I stood watching. It was then I realized something: none of these four—two spirits, incubus and succubus; a witch; and a demon or sorcerer or devil-man—none of these four feared for themselves, for
their
safety…. It was then I knew I would leave C——alive.

Asmodei tore the wet pink gag from the mouth of the effigy. Sebastiana cast words in an ancient tongue. And Sister Claire…rather,
me
…the effigy…I started to scream. It was
my
voice I heard. Screaming.

“It worked,” said Sebastiana. “Are you all right, dear? Not bad, I should think, considering.” And then, to Asmodei, “Are we ready?”

He said indeed we were, and we—excluding Asmodei—gathered at the lesser library's back door. Sebastiana and I, hand in hand; Father Louis, holding the bag of books; and Madeleine. Sister Claire sat staring at us, at me in particular; and from her issued screams and screams and screams; and then somehow she stilled herself enough to speak. I stood listening to…myself, or my voice as it railed against devils and demons and all the misdeeds she'd seen; as it began to spin the tale she'd deliver to the disbelieving assembly, then being led by Madeleine's blood to the library's primary door. Dumbstruck, I would have waited to hear the whole tale told, but Sebastiana called me back with a tug of my hand. “Let us quit this place,” said she, “as soon as…”

…It was Maluenda. I watched as Asmodei lifted the cat from the effigy's lap. It would not go without a final scratch, fast across the face.
My
face. I flinched when I saw it, fairly
felt
it!

“Shhh!” said Asmodei to the crying cat, holding it near enough to the effigy for its every third or fourth swipe to catch the disguised Sister Claire. “Your cries are loud enough to…
to wake the dead
!”

“Come,” said Sebastiana, stepping from the library, into the gallery. We could all of us hear the footfall of my accusers, coming along the corridor. It sounded as though some already stood on the far side of the library's main door.

Please! Do it now!
moaned Madeleine. She spoke to Asmodei, still holding the cat.

“Oh, all right,” said he to the succubus; and I watched as Asmodei took Maluenda to the window and, throwing it wide, with all his strength hurled the cat out over the sill. Yes,
hurled
it out! Out the window! I let go of Sebastiana's hand and rushed forward a step, two steps…but I stopped when I saw:

There, against the rising blue, the cat had burst into a flock of blackest birds. Rooks, or ravens. Birds that darted and wheeled through the dawning light.

I stopped. Was still.

It's part of the plan,
said Madeleine.

Sebastiana, coming to stand behind me, said I ought not worry, that I would see the familiar again, and very soon. She said too that she liked the name I'd given her precious pet (and I knew then: it was hers, not mine), liked it far better than the name she'd called it all these years; with my permission, she thought she'd keep it. “Maluenda,” said she.
“Oui, c'est parfait!”
As for me…all I could do was stare out at the brightening sky beyond Asmodei, where the black birds soared and spun, looped and dropped away one by one. I stared till the last of the birds flew from sight. And I would have stood there forever, slack-jawed and staring, but for Sebastiana.

“Now!” she urged. There came the first, still-tentative rapping at the library's main door. “Follow me!”

“Wait,” called Asmodei. “What about these chains?”

“Hang them from the door's latch,” directed Sebastiana. “Let them think, let them
know
this witch's devils have snapped them.”

“Of course,” said Asmodei. “…Yes, yes, I like that.”

Understand: to my accusers it would appear as though someone or something—Satan, or whatever lesser demons they cared to conjure—had broken into the library. And, at my bidding, surely, these Dark Beings had stolen up to Sister Claire's chamber and killed her. Now, having already found the nun lying lifeless on her pallet, my accusers were hurrying to the library as we stole from it. There they'd find “me” just as they'd left me at dusk of the previous day. And in the lesser library they would be met with a screamed story of witches, of spells and succubi, et cetera. “I” would insist that I was Sister Claire de Sazilly, Mother Superior of the House at C——. “I” would say that I'd seen Peronette Gaudillon in the night, that she'd taken some horrible shape before me. “I” would swear that I'd met a cast of devils who'd done me indescribable harm. And every word would be heard as a lie. Or even more damning, as the truth. “I” would be condemned without further process. “I” would be deemed too dangerous to bring to formal trial. “I” was bedeviled. They'd do to me what they would.

Finally, with Asmodei, we all of us stood in the shadowed gallery, at the top of the covered stairwell. Madeleine reported that the first of the accusers now stood at the library's other door, but no one dared enter without the Mayor present. They stood listening to the screamed story through the closed oak door, screaming in their turn.

I pitied Sister Claire then, if slightly. Something in my look must have betrayed the sentiment, or perhaps Sebastiana could access my thoughts as Father Louis could, for she said, “Forget her,” and added, “Her final prayer before sleep last night was that she'd wake to watch you die.”

And I did forget Sister Claire, for just then the screaming redoubled. The screams of the girls and nuns of C——, for, damning the absent men, they did finally open the library door to see the
thing
there. It was this discovery, and the attendant disorder, that we'd been waiting for. Now, under its cover—the slamming doors and all manner of hysteria—we took to the stairs.

It was all I could do to keep up with Sebastiana and the others. All I could do to not be trampled by the blond monster coming down the stairwell behind me. Soon we stood in the shadow of the convent wall. To our right sat the path leading to the stables.

I was blinded stepping out into the early sunlight behind Father Louis. I closed my eyes against the sun—they were closed but an instant!—and when I opened them I saw no sign of Father Louis. Nor Madeleine. They had disappeared. I was left standing between Sebastiana and Asmodei, our backs flush against the cold stones of the wall, lest we be spied.

Asmodei made a noise, though I should say that had I not been looking up at his face I would not have heard it. It was a whistle, seemingly too high and thin a noise for a man to make, or hear. It was a summoning. And sure enough, I followed his green-eyed gaze to where a huge white horse came rounding out from behind the stables. A horse I'd never seen before. Not a horse of C——. It stood too many hands high for me to quickly count. From Asmodei, then, I learned the beast's name. Cauchemar, he called it. The ground shook at its approach. Its coat shone as bright as the risen sun. Its mane had been braided. A puzzle of muscle and bone worked beneath its flesh. It was unsaddled. Seeing Asmodei astride it—up, up with an effortless leap—he appeared as blond and bright and strong as the steed.

Then: “Call her.” Sebastiana spoke to me. I did not understand. Not at first. But then I smiled at her, turned toward the stables, and more exhalation than speech, let go the words, “Maluenda. Maluenda,
come
!”

And she came. Came to the fading accompaniment of the ravens, which were nowhere to be seen…. A horse black as pitch to carry us away. Rounding out as Cauchemar had in a flash of sleekness and strength from behind the stables…. My Maluenda.

She stood as tall as Cauchemar, was as black as that horse was white. She came up beside the other, stomping and steaming, eager. Asmodei reached over her and helped us both up, Sebastiana and I. I settled behind Sebastiana on the horse's unsaddled back. Sebastiana's legs hung to the side; I straddled the horse. Sebastiana held tight to Maluenda's black and unbraided mane—her ears were torn, forever ragged despite the shape she took—and I held tight to Sebastiana, my cheek flush against her blue silk, her warm back. I listened to the beat of her heart. I felt the warm horseflesh beneath me. Finally, Sebastiana kicked into the horse's flank with her slippered feet.

We rode up the drive, passing the bushes in which I'd hidden, despairing, fearing for my life. Too late, I remembered the cypress cross. The one I'd left in the cellar. I started to ask Sebastiana to stop, to…

But that cross had been a mere weapon. A weapon I neither wanted nor needed now. So I let it lie.

And clinging to Sebastiana, eyes closed, I listened with intent to the fast-receding screams spiraling flame-like from the stony casements of C——.

I
WOKE SLOWLY
,
into perfect darkness.

When I calmed myself enough to lift my hand and reach out I…I touched wood. Carved wood. I was surrounded on every side by walls. Walled in. I began to breathe with difficulty. I came to the heart-stopping conclusion that I'd been interred. Buried alive!

…
Mais non, ce n'est pas possible:
so large a coffin, one with walls so intricately, so carefully carved? With effort I slowed my breath. Steady, steady…

I reached out with first one hand, then the other. I lifted my hands up, up and out, reached forward till both hands were flat on one of the carved walls. Still I could see nothing. I felt all around. A handle! And its twin. I slid two panels back and…
light!
Blinding light!

I squinted against the sudden strong light. I waited for the return of sight. Breathe, I reminded myself; breathe…

Ah, yes, of course: the carved mahogany walls of the large box into which I'd been laid—by whom, I'd no idea—formed what is called a
lit clos:
a traditional Breton bed; a tiny room, really, often tucked into the corners of bedchambers to assure privacy. I had never slept in one, but I knew them well enough by sight. I ran my fingers over the skillful carving, its smooth ridges, its flatter forms. I was reminded of a fire screen belonging to Mother Marie-des-Anges, a gift, she'd said, from some prince of the Levant. That quick recollection, that sudden and unsolicited memory, was enough to flood my mind with questions, just as the
lit clos,
once opened, had flooded with light.

Where was I? How had I arrived here? So many questions. I knew the answers to some of them, of course; but part of me resisted the truths I knew. After all, I'd seen such strange and inexplicable things.

I
insisted
on the few simple facts I knew. I
refused
fear, refused confusion.

The truth as I knew it was this: I was at this place—she called it Ravndal—rather, her distant, discreet, and, simply,
scared
neighbors in the low-lying fields around it had renamed the place thusly, owing to the birds so often seen circling its turrets and towers and tumbling chimneys. She, Sebastiana, adopted the name long ago, preferring it to one the pile bore when first it came into her possession—I say again, all I knew was that I'd been brought to this manor by its chatelaine, Sebastiana d'Azur.

But as I sat thinking those first few moments, my eyes still adjusting to the sudden light, I came to
understand
a thing at once quite simple and quite complicated: I was alive, and unaccountably altered. Alive!
I am alive!
I think I may have said it aloud. What I meant of course was this: I had very nearly died. For I knew then, and believe still, that my accusers at C——would have killed me; killed me or in some subtler way allowed me to die. And I, having seen what I'd seen that final night at C——, well…I could only wonder what
my
new life would be like.

So I was awake—
alive
—sitting on the edge of that boxed bed staring out through the carved panels at the most amazingly appointed room I had ever seen. It came into view slowly, as my eyes mastered the light.

I rose, stepped through the window of wood. I turned around, full circle, to take in the room. Awed, I verily fell into a fauteuil covered in worn green velvet, beside which stood a three-legged filigreed table of mahogany and inlaid marble, with a smooth and golden-red veneer of tortoise-shell and brass. On its top was a note, “Join me, S.,” and a plate piled high with Chinese ginger, tangerines, and crystallized fruit. There was a tiny teapot of the palest faience, full of a steeping tea; betony leaves, I'd learn. I sat. I ate and I drank. Looking around the room, I forgot the note for a long moment.

There, nestled in the corner, was the
lit clos
. Sunlight shafting down into the room through tall windows lit the uncarved wood of the bed's outer walls, showed its grain and its age—oak, it seemed, inlaid with ebony; and veneered with tulipwood, perhaps kingwood. Soon I was wondering how long I'd been asleep. It might have been hours; it might have been days.

Seated, quite comfortably, I realized, with some embarrassment, two things: I wore a long white nightshirt (and so I had been
undressed
by someone) and I was sore. In places I had never been sore before…. Thoughts then of Father Louis and Madeleine. Where were they? Would I see them again? And who…
Alors
, countless questions.

I set myself the simple task of taking in the room, one object at a time.

Two of the walls were muraled, amazingly detailed. I could not be sure, having not traveled at all, but weren't these scenes of the great cities? Yes. For there was Venice, with all its decrepit beauty; and that scene's title confirmed it: “The Doge Marries the Sea and Saves the City.” There was Naples (I knew Vesuvius). Rome (the Coliseum). Russia (the gilded onion-domes, the deep drifts of snow). And scattered among these murals were portraits, in varying degrees of completion. Interesting: I noticed that all, or almost all the Parisian scenes were unfinished, the horses and men of the street scenes outlined in lead or pastel, then abandoned, midstroke.

A carpet from the Far East covered the whole floor; over it were strewn smaller carpets from
la Savonnerie
or some such place.

The furniture was impossibly grand, almost gaudy. In a corner I saw a full set in miniature—chairs, tables…These were the child-sized models that were sent to the wealthy, from which they made their choices, ordering full-sized replicas. (Clearly there was, or at least had been, great wealth at this place, Ravndal.) Though I've never much cared for dolls or their trappings, I found these pieces irresistible. Approaching, I picked up the sofa with one hand. It bore the imprint of a Parisian upholsterer, Daguere. The name meant nothing to me, though no doubt his had been the atelier of choice in the Paris of the past. Looking up from these toys, I realized with a smile that the full-sized set of furniture was arranged before me. These larger pieces were upholstered in green damask, wonderfully worn, smooth as skin, while the tiny set showed a dainty printed silk. I sat on a wide chaise and resumed my inventory.

Armoires, full of who knew what. I didn't dare look. Not just yet. Neither did I approach the tall mirror that stood between two lace-draped windows.

In another corner were piled some bricks—rather incongruously, I thought; they seemed mere rubble. Intrigued, I crossed the room to take up a brick; doing so, I saw that it bore the seal of the Bastille: souvenirs.

There was a small escritoire, and on it a stack of stationery, each sheet weighty and crisp. There was a jewel-set inkwell—in the shape of a cock, whose head tilted back by the comb—and an assortment of freshly cut pens. The desk itself, I knew, was deceptively simple; surely it contained some secret compartments. Here again I was informed by the many novels I'd read;…nevertheless, I promised myself I'd look the desk over later.

As for the rest of the room, which I surveyed as I stood at its center, it was rather cluttered: stacks of yellowed, once-fine linen; books piled flat on footstools and shelves; a chess set carved of wood, each piece representing some Revolutionary personage. The commode, I saw, was from Sèvres; in it had been painted a careful likeness of Benjamin Franklin, who, throughout the pre-Revolutionary mania for things American, had been revered in Paris; but this vogue passed, of course, and nowhere was this more evident than in the porcelain bowl before me.

I noticed frames (so obvious I'd overlooked them), scattered all about the room. Some stood nearly twice my height; some hung crookedly on one nail, while others were propped up against the walls. Each frame was empty. Nothing but cobwebs in their gilded and carved corners. Smaller ones, I saw, had been broken; stacks of golden kindling flanked the fireplace.

Near a set of open doors, over which hung bolts of Alençon lace, billowing sail-like on the breeze, there sat an artist's easel. In its gentle vise sat a yellowed canvas, gone slack over its frame; beside the easel stood a tall table littered with pigments, tiny spatulas, palettes, and other tools. Brittle brushes stuck up from a cut-glass vase like so many dead flowers. So this was, or had been a studio of sorts. But whose?

I sat again in that green fauteuil, nibbled at a piece of ginger, and rediscovered that note. “Join me, S.” Sebastiana, of course.

But where would I find her? Looking around for other doors leading from the room, I startled myself: there I was, far across the room, reflected in a free-standing, gilt-edged oval. Entranced, I walked toward the mirror. Toward myself.

How many times had I shunned such mirrors? For how long had I hidden from myself?…But now I looked, long and hard, and happily.

My hair hung loose, tussled from my long sleep. I ran my fingers through it, a rough comb, and admired (yes,
admired
!) the golden play of light as it settled down over my shoulders. Back-lit, dressed in that simple white shift, I appeared—dare I say it?—
seraphic
. At this I had to smile. I moved closer to the mirror. Closer still, till I stood mere steps from my reflected self, which I was seeing for the first time as…as beautiful.

You are a woman. You are a man.

I took the loose shift by the hem and slowly, slowly, began to pull it up. Higher. Higher. Over those long, long legs, so lean and muscled. I wanted to see. To look. At my body, at
myself
. As one looks at a lover. I wanted to
savor
the first-time sight of…

Just then I heard singing, and I let the shift fall—embarrassed: the
shame
should I be discovered in such a pose!—and I turned from my mirrored self toward the sound. It wafted into the room like the very
sound
of sunlight. It came from beyond the door, beyond the billowing lace. A woman's voice: soprano. An Italian aria, sung at half-voice, for the sole pleasure of the singer.

The studio had been sunlit, but I'd no idea if it was nearer dusk or dawn until I stepped outside in pursuit of that song.

Again, a blinding light. The light of a low-angled sun; and so I knew that I'd woken into late afternoon. As for the day or date, I'd no idea. The sunlight felt so fine on my face. My bare feet were warmed by the square of slate on which I stood. At noon (perhaps four, five, six hours ago?), the slate would have been too hot to stand on. But it was cooling now, and so too was the air. The sky was cloudless and deeply blue.

I stood on that slate, my senses wonderfully keen. Soon I was able to open my eyes fully and take in all that was so perfectly sunlit. Yes: it was definitely late-day light. I heard sounds: that lilting soprano, but also the chorus of birds that backed it, and the lazy fall of water from a fountain, and beyond, the arrhythmic churning of the sea. Ah, I thought, this Ravndal is on the shore. I wondered then, fleetingly, how far the manor sat from C——. I remembered nothing of the ride—only our charging away, and my holding fast to Sebastiana.

Sight. Sound…. Smell. The sea, of course; so familiar, that salted air. Stronger even than the salt air was the scent of…What
was
it? So familiar, yet…I remembered then the moment when Sebastiana had first held me close, comforted me in the library at C——. There'd been a single rose in her hair, woven into her braid. Of course, it was roses I smelled. But so strong a scent, as though from a million blooms. How could that be? This seemed the very
essence
of rose. Looking to either side of the shell path that sloped away from the studio door, I had my answer when I saw the first of those million blooms. Here was a garden in the grandest sense. There were buds tiny and tight, roses frilly and full. Petals the color of cream, of butter, of fruit, of meat from the knife…. Crimson. Blood-soaked scarlet.

Only then, wide awake, every sense so keen, was I able to take in the entirety of what I discovered beyond the billowing white lace. A garden, indeed, with beds laid out in geometries of green, their angles formed of boxwood. The shell path, wide enough for two strolling side by side, glistened under the late sun; its oyster shells were ground and broken, and looked like teeth fallen from a beast. Many of the rosebushes and all the bordering hedges stood quite tall; still, as the garden sloped down and away from the manor, I could see beyond it to the strand and the blue-black sea.

The singing had stopped. I realized this only when it began again. I could not see the singer. Neither could I see the fountain, which, judging from the loud play of water—so different from the sound of the sea—was large and near. I'd find both singer and fountain behind one of those tall hedges, no doubt. I moved toward the song, toward the trill of the falling water.

The song—more exercise than aria—was, I knew, Italian. Ornate and rich as any rose in the garden. Scarlatti, I thought. (There'd been stacks of scores in Mother Marie-des-Anges's chambers—she'd once studied that same violin I'd sawed upon—and I'd taught myself to read them passably well, imagining the sounds of unknown instruments and the preternatural voices of the castrati for whom the fanciest, most florid songs had been composed.)

Moving toward the song, I stopped beside a rosebush identified, as were they all, by a thin band of ivory bearing both its French and botanical names, calligraphed with a penknife; these ivory tags were tied to a branch or stem by a blue ribbon. This particular bush, I recall, of pinkish double blooms, was called Borboniana, after our family of kings.

I stopped at this Borboniana to savor its scent and, with a half-turn more, I discovered the fountain. Much larger than I'd guessed. Its waters rose overhead, arcs of silver glistening in the sun. It was old. Very old. The wide bowl of its base was lichen-covered, and the sculpted figures bore a deep patina. This was a narrative in stone and bronze, but its story was lost on me. All I saw were tens of toads, hideous things depicted at various hopped heights, some openmouthed, others pop-eyed and grossly fat. It was
horrific
! I must have stepped back from it, repulsed, for just then I heard: