The Book of Shadows (56 page)

That was the moment depicted in stone: the Judgment. How much of that scene exists, in Bourges, in Tours, or elsewhere, and how much of it I imagined I cannot say. And again, as the elementals would say, that is not what matters…. What seemed to me strange—I thought so then, and I think so now—is that the soul awaiting Judgment was that of a girl, not a man, not even a woman, but a
girl
. A girl knelt at the center of the world's oldest struggle. A girl like Madeleine.

There came over me then a feeling of…Well, how to describe what it was I felt as I sat suddenly upright—pricking my scalp on a branch of the olive tree—on that barren hill, hidden from the world in a hollow, the afternoon sun shafting down so golden, so pure on that great white rock? Dare I call it a revelation?

And so imagine what it was I felt that afternoon when suddenly I understood that come nightfall I was to be a player, an actor on the stage of the world, indeed in a drama that, to be simple, had only ever featured God and the Devil. I was to enter the great fray, to work the Craft among the forces of…call them what you will…. Good and Evil, Chaos and Order. I was to do this!
Me!

My pulse quickened. My eyes teared. I was conscious of the smile spreading over my face. And I heard in my head Sebastiana's words, written, in despair, at the end of her account of the Greek Supper. But I heard those words in a voice marked not by sadness, not by regret; what I heard then, in my Sister's voice, was an affirmation, words
triumphant
: “We are not insignificant. Though we may be peripheral, we are
not
insignificant.”

Those words seemed to me a battle cry.

I ran back to that hired cab, tripping lightly over the rough terrain, boots in hand, as though I'd lived upon it all my life. I leapt rock to rock, stopping only to pick what seemed to me to be ripened olives. And
oh
that taste! I'd never eaten an olive off the vine before, and at first I nearly spat it out, so oily and bitter and sharp…But then the taste came around, and it seemed I…I
tasted
the very sun and the white rocks and the rough and low-growing herbs, redolent of salt and sea and….
Enfin,
it seemed I tasted the world entire! Olives will always bring back that moment for me; they will be for me, always, the taste of joy. And it
was
joy I felt. Joy at knowing, at
believing
for the first time that I had a role in the world. Perhaps not clearly defined, not yet; and perhaps it will never be clearly defined, but I had a role to play. No one would ever tell me differently. (They will
not
.)…Oh yes, the world was mine, and I'd move differently through it regardless of what might happen that night under the new moon.

I snuck up on the sleeping driver, thinking should I…
Yes,
I should! I shouted in his ear and roughly shook his shoulder. He woke with a start to the sound of my laughter, full and unrestrained—had I
ever
laughed like that before? My laughter,
yes,
which resounded on that hill, ricocheted rock to rock, rolled over that rough landscape, overwhelming the silence, overwhelming the buzzing bees and the bleating sheep and the whistling shepherd.

It seems I hear it still, that laughter.

T
HE DRIVER WAS
a bit put off by me, by my having so woken him from his idyllic slumber. What did I care? I laughed full in his face. If he thought himself in the company of a lunatic, well, he would have been more right than he knew, for indeed I was crazed by the coming of the moon, still some hours off. Oh yes, I was
eager
for the new moon to rise,
eager
to work the Craft beneath it at the crossroads. A lunatic, indeed!

I directed the driver to hurry back to the inn in Avignon. As he was as eager to be rid of me as I was to achieve the city, we made excellent time. The sun had begun its descent: that ancient place seemed gold-cast…no,
candied:
awash in butterscotch and honey; with the river and the sun and the still air conspiring to set the scene to shimmering, as if beneath a rain of grated citrus rind and crystallized sugar.

I returned to my room, taking the stairs two at a time. I thought only of the brass bell. I wanted to ring it, wanted to summon the elementals.

And so I was at first surprised and then disappointed to discover a slip of paper under that bell, just where I'd left it on the sill. The heavy sheet was folded into quarters and in the instant it took to unfold it I thought back to that page I'd received from Madeleine at Ravndal, upon which she'd pled in blood, having dipped her pen in the font of her throat,
Help me.

No blood this time. The words on the paper were in black ink, and it was a script I'd not seen before, excessively cursive, ornate. It was the hand of Father Louis: I knew this instantly, before I'd read a single word or trailed the train of words to its end in search of the nonexistent signature.

The note showed a sketched map, and cursory directions. It told what I was to do in the hours of the early evening. And it directed me to the crossroads, where the elementals would meet me at midnight.

I was not happy to read what else I read. Not at all.

For the note stated plainly that I was to enter a small cemetery near the papal palace, spade in hand, and there fill two burlap bags (which I found conveniently laid across my bed) with consecrated dirt dug from the freshest grave.
Mon Dieu!
It's too much! Add grave robber to the ever lengthening list of what I was.
You are a man. You are a woman. You are a witch…. You are a ghoul digging dirt in the dark from atop the dead!
…No, I wasn't happy about this directive, not happy at all. But what was I to do?

The note went on: I was to pile the bags of dirt into the berlin and drive it—by myself, mind you,
sans
Étienne—to the crossroads, as marked on the map. Fortunately, my day's excursion had familiarized me a bit with the land beyond Avignon, and so I had a rough idea of where I was to go. (The crossroads—I cannot give the exact location—lay beyond Les Baux, north of Arles, amid the hills of the Alpilles.) Given the unknown roads and the darkness and the great weight of the berlin, which I'd have to drive slowly over the narrow and often steep roads, I'd leave myself two hours of traveling time. That seemed sufficient. Figuring back from midnight, I calculated that I'd a great deal to do in the coming hours. Night cover was needed. And, blessedly, a dark night it would be, for a new moon—aligned as it is with the sun—shows the earth its dark side.

And so there it was: the plan. Or the first part of it. I had my objections, yes, but it seemed to me simple enough. I had some questions too, primarily: why, if we were to disinter what remained of the mortal Madeleine, did I need to harvest two bags of blessed earth? I'd have an answer in time.

I got a bowl of stew from the innkeeper's son—no friendlier than she—and returned with it to my room. I sat eating in silence. I felt so still, so strangely still; at once eager and calm. I listened to the occasional comings and goings of my fellow travelers, even eavesdropped at my door. I paced the room, looking out my window on occasion to see people standing on the banks of the river, gauging its level. A cart went slowly by beneath my window, laden with sandbags. Children darted about like birds, excited by the occasion. For them the flood was but a welcome break in the routine of their lives.

I sat on the edge of the bed. I was tired but sleep seemed out of the question. I banged the heels of my boots against the hearth, and let the loosened mud fall into the fire. I located some playing cards and cheated terribly at solitaire. In short, I did this and that, waiting for the hour of action. And darkness. I waited for the moonrise, which finally did come to the accompaniment of my own drumming heart. I thought often of the uncertain night to come, the days to come, and then finally decided to sleep and chance the freight of dreams; certainly, the thoughts conjured by my
conscious
mind were none too pleasant…. But I could not sleep. I tossed and turned till the woolen blanket was twisted around me.

All through those interminable hours, attendant upon the dark, I tried without success to chase from my mind images of graves and splintered coffins and putrid flesh; images of sea travel and sickness, red weather, and the salted company of sailors—would they know what I was?
Who
I was? I fended off thoughts of my coming life alone in a new land, homeless, friendless, struggling to speak a language not my own. I held to the promise of seeing Sebastiana again, for wasn't it said that a new witch had to host her Mystic Sister? Surely Sebastiana would sail behind me, someday. But this happiness faded fast as my thoughts turned to those witches I'd yet to meet, the coven I'd need to convene—would it be a band frightful enough to scare the sisters present at the Greek Supper? My thoughts grew dark as the night…. But I do not deign to catalog such thoughts, for now—with that new land but a few hours off!—they come again to taunt and tease me! It seems unwise to grant them stronger shape through description…. But in truth—then as now—such thoughts were,
are,
but the manifest flames of my fired excitement.

Finally, darkness. I gathered up all my things and quit the inn.

I easily found the berlin. I'd directed Étienne—who, presumably, was having his fun in Avignon: I'd not seen him since our arrival—I'd directed him to park it on the darkest and least populous street he could find. He'd left a note with the innkeeper, and she directed me to the street he named. He'd done a good job with the team, too; I found them hayed and watered, and already hitched.

Rounding the corner of the street in question, there sat the berlin. Instantly, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Impossibly, it seemed even larger and more ornate. Two old women and a young man stood beside it, shining a lantern on its gilded and painted surfaces, wiping away the obscuring mud, climbing up to look in its windows; thankfully, Étienne had drawn all the shades, as directed. And then—quite cheeky, she was!—the heavier of the two women tried the door latch, first looking this way and that. It was locked, of course. (The key—or so I hoped—lay atop the back right wheel.) How I wanted then to scare that impudent cow like a sister of yore, send some vision to her, cause the door handle to come off in her hand as a length of bone or a writhing snake…(Someday, perhaps, I'll have greater facility with such spells.) Finally, the brazen bitch hopped thuddingly down from the runner, and the inquisitive trio tripped away. And I approached the berlin to the anxious snorts, the muffled welcome of my team.

I saw that the
nécessaire
was still secure, strapped to the back of the berlin. Pity someone hadn't broken into
it,
relieved me of the remaining costumery I'd never wear, spare me the guilt I'd feel in ridding myself of those clothes. But then again I was fast filling the
nécessaire
with books, books that I would not want to lose. (Only days later, at sea, would I realize just what treasures I'd left in that
nécessaire
—secured only by a few worn-leather straps—there on that dark street.)

I sat in the berlin for some time, doors latched and shades drawn, but I cannot now account for a single moment of that time, tangled as I was in a skein of worries. I'd easily secured a spade, and I had the burlap bags. I'd changed into clothing suitably dark for grave robbing, or so it seemed to me; over this ensemble I wore a many-pocketed wagoner's coat, “borrowed” off a hook at the inn.

Finally, I forced myself from the confines of the cab to steal in the direction of the small cemetery, tools in hand. I slid from shadow to shadow, avoiding the light of posted torches as well as that which issued from the windows of the homes past which I practically
crawled,
so fearful was I of encountering someone curious, or worse, friendly. Eventually, I reached my goal—or so said the markings on the map—but there was no cemetery.
No cemetery!
I scanned the simple map again, and twice more. I turned it this way and that, turned
myself
this way and that till I was certain of my location. Yes, this is where it
should
be, I reasoned, but there
was
no cemetery! In fact, there was nothing at all. The map had led me to the side door of a dilapidated cottage, dark as pitch and seemingly abandoned; and though there may well have been bodies buried in
its
yard, I doubted they lay in consecrated earth.

Not knowing what to do, I wandered a bit, keeping always to the deepest shadows. Imagine my relief when I stumbled upon, literally, a low fence of wrought iron that bounded a small yard
behind
said house—a cemetery! Or so said the tiny sign on its gate: actually, dark as it was, and not yet daring to light a lantern, I read the sign's raised cross with my fingers. I could not see very far into this yard. The sign said cemetery, or rather it bore a cross; but I was uncertain. It might have been a vegetable garden or a flower bed or a pitch for boules! I stepped over the low fence, cursing the priest when the wagoner's coat snagged a jagged upright. Then I saw the telltale signs: dull white tombstones poked crookedly up from the earth at all angles, like rows of rotted teeth. The cemetery was not more than forty paces wide, twenty deep. I worried that it was not the one I'd been directed to, but then I thought, What of it? This dirt is as consecrated as any other, no? Was that not a cross on the gate? I must say that there was planted in my mind, then, a seed of thought that soon sprouted terribly: what if this was
not
consecrated earth, and what if, for that reason, our work at the crossroads failed? I put such worries out of mind as best I could, and I took up the silver-headed spade.

I drew from a pocket of the coat—an inspired idea, stealing…no
borrowing
that coat—a single white taper, thick as my wrist, and lit it with some phosphorous matches. By its light I went grave to grave, crouching to read the dates, for I'd been directed to dig dirt from a
fresh
grave.

The dates!
Mon Dieu!
Ages past. Here lie Avignon's ancient dead, many of whom shared their year of demise. Cholera, no doubt. Or invading armies. What to do? What to do? I stepped from rough, clotted grass to dirt, and looking down, kneeling down, I saw what seemed a recently dug grave, for it showed no grass at all. The headstone was as yet uncarved, and free of lichen or moss; this eased me somewhat as I drove the spade down into the mounded dirt. I directed myself to dig. I was due at the crossroads by midnight. So dig I did, filling both bags with the worm-writhing soil. Begging pardon of its resident, I leveled the grave as best I could.

I tied the two bags together with a length of rope—I'm embarrassed now to say that I'd foreseen
every
possible need, and that the pockets of the coat were chock full of rope and a hundred such sundries. I slung the bags over my shoulders, so that one hung before me and the other behind. I held the spade too, assuming I'd need it again at the crossroads. Snuffing the taper between two spit-wet fingertips—the same fingers with which I then sketched the sign of the cross on the air—I stole from the cemetery the way I'd come. I made my way back to the berlin and hurled the burlap bags into it. A clock tower of the town showed I'd less than two hours in which to make my way from Avignon to the crossroads.

Soon I was on the road south, headed toward Les Baux.

Now it was time to worry about the floodwaters. What if they rendered the roads impassable? What if…? But I soon saw that the road I was to take out of Avignon
ascended
toward Les Baux, and so it seemed to me safe. In fact, the road leading to Les Baux winds around the foot of the hills atop which that city sits, the whole rocky ruin of it seemingly ready to slip from the summit to which it clings. The road then passes into a sort of valley, from which the approach up to the city proper is easily made, even by a carriage as large as ours.

In a day now centuries-past, Les Baux had been a great city. Indeed, more than a city: an empire. Then, the islanders of Sardinia and those nearer still—in Arles, in Marseilles—paid homage to the lords of Les Baux. These men, feudal proprietors all, never more than several hundred in number, and lords of fewer than five thousand subjects, were seneschals and captains-general of Piedmont, of Lombardy, and grand admirals of the kingdom of Naples; their daughters were coveted by the first princes of Europe.

But
that
was a long time ago.

How it all fell to ruin I've no idea. Doubtless the Revolution took its toll on whatever remained of the place years ago; but the fall of so great a place I cannot explain, can only date to the middle years of the seventeenth century (this according to Father Louis, who told me that much and no more later that night. “No questions now,” said he. “The hour has come.” As indeed it had). But I did learn this: Father Louis and Madeleine had lived and died in another city that sat at no great distance from Les Baux and is now so changed, so consumed by ruin as to be unrecognizable. On that place the mighty sculptor Time has had his way. What was once a city is now but a shade on the Map of Ages; it is not marked on the maps of our time. Neither will I locate it precisely here, other than to say again that it sits, or
sat
in a valley south of Les Baux and north of Arles.