The Book of Shadows (6 page)

Peronette had the crucifix in her left hand. “Play,” I heard her say.
“Play!”
I brought that warped bow down upon the strings again and again. I held so tightly to the violin I feared I might snap its thin neck.
“Louder!”
The bow scratched and slid over the strings. A
horrible
sound, well suited to a devil's jig! “
Yes! Yes!
…Louder, and again!” Peronette gyrated upon the sill, swayed to the infernal tune. All the while I remained hidden behind a heavy drape. Her movements were so broad, so lewd, I was certain she'd fall from the sill. Frenzied, she swung her wig of red wool around and around. I flushed with shame at what she did with the crucifix, using it as an instrument of self-abuse; she held its bottom and, through the shift, verily
throttled
her sex with it. It was all I could do to keep the bow upon the strings! But I dared not stop. I dared not disobey.

Rising above the din, there came a scream. Sharp and shrill, it clawed its way up the stone walls to our ears. Peronette leapt down from the window and snatched the bow from my hands. “That'll do,” said she, smiling; and then she added, rather ominously, “I got one.”

Moments later, the crucifix was back upon the wall, the violin was returned to its case atop the table, and the rooms were back in order. Peronette scrubbed the powder from her cheeks, and quickly lifted the shift over her head; once again, she stood before me naked. She stuffed the shift and the red skirt into the armoire. She dressed, not bothering with her undergarments, which she kicked under the bed; their buttons and laces would take far too long, and we hadn't the time. We had to hurry—to where, or from what? I'd no idea.

“Go!”
directed Peronette, pointing to the casement. “See what is happening down there?” I moved too quickly toward the window; I would have stuck my head out had she not stopped me with a hiss. “
Arrête,
fool! From behind the drape. You mustn't be seen.”

“Yes, of course,” I muttered. “Of course…mustn't be seen…” And I slipped behind the dark drape to peer down into the courtyard. Only later was I able to describe what I saw; at that moment, as I pulled back from within the folds of the drape, Peronette had but my horrified expression as testament to her success. She surveyed the room a final time. Deeming the scene satisfactory, she said, “Come, and quickly!” I obeyed.

This is what I had witnessed, down in the unpaved courtyard, puddled, muddied by the just-passed storm:

A group of girls, most of them young, encircled a figure prostrated on the ground. It was a girl, of course, lying motionless; she looked so small and lifeless, I wondered if she might be dead. Absurd, of course. A nun—Sister Claire, I think, though I cannot be sure—tended to the fallen girl. Someone had quickly produced salts and Sister Claire (it
must
have been Sister Claire) was trying to revive the girl. The girl had merely fainted. I would soon learn that it was young Elizaveta, of whom we knew nothing. Then, as I spied from the folds of the drape, Elizaveta, shocked or startled—no doubt they were very strong salts—Elizaveta sat straight up, screamed, and pointed to the very window at which I stood! I fell back, quick as I could. Had I been seen? Had any of the girls followed Elizaveta's accusing finger? I dared not look out again. But I had an answer when there came a chorus of screams from below. I heard then one distinct word: “Satan.” It was repeated, passed from girl to girl. It was then I heard Peronette speak: “Come, and quickly!”

Had it not been for Peronette's command I would have stayed in that very spot, would have been standing there, dumbstruck, in that drape, when the crowd—surely rushing up the main stairs at that very moment!—arrived at Mother Marie's rooms.

Peronette took me by the hand, as one does a child. She opened the door to the corridor; immediately we heard the scuffling and shuffling of a corps of girls ascending the stairs. Others were coming fast from the dormitory.

Peronette shut and locked the door.

“They'll send me away for sure, and I'll—”

“Stop!”
said Peronette. “And let me think.” She cupped her hands over her face. Was she crying? Would she admit that her charade had gone too far, and…No. When those hands fell a moment later it was to show a broad smile. “Yes,” she said, rather dreamily, “yes, of course.”

She directed me to retrieve the violin from its case atop the table. This I did. “What now?” I asked, turning to see that Peronette was gone and that the door to the hall now stood open; through it I could hear the oncoming girls.

I crossed quickly to the armoire, but I could not open it. Then I heard that familiar laughter, muffled, and knew: Peronette held the door fast from within.

A voice. “What is happening here?” I turned and watched with relief as Mother Marie slipped into the room, shutting the door behind her. She locked it against the girls massed on the landing, awaiting Sister Claire, no doubt, and against the braver girls who'd soon arrive from the dormitory to rap on the oaken door.
“What is happening here?”
repeated the Mother Superior, in hurried yet hushed tones.

“I…We…” I stood stupefied, both violin and bow in hand. “I…We…”

“Where is she?” asked Mother Marie; and in involuntary response I must have cast my gaze upon the armoire, for she moved to try its door, without success.

More rapping at the door. Ten, perhaps twenty girls buzzing hive-like behind it. And then the command of Sister Claire de Sazilly: “In Christ's name, open this door!”

Mother Marie took me roughly by the shoulders. “Did I not warn you?” she asked. And she said that we knew not what we'd done. Finally, she called over her shoulder: “Coming! One moment, Sister.”

“Sister Claire!” said I. “Please, Mother, no!” I shook my head in supplication. “Please, no.”

Mother Marie let go my shoulders. “Go then,” said she, “into the folds of the drape. There! And not a breath from you!”

It was from within those drapes, those folds of chocolate damask—not nearly as prime a hiding spot as my companion had secured—that I heard Mother Marie open her door to the sorority. The rush of bodies into the room warmed it and set the heavy drapes to rustling. Quickly, bodies gathered near me; they leaned over the sill; one girl pressed into me but mistook the mass of my body for pleated fabric. I stood flush against the cold stone wall, certain I'd be discovered.

“What is happening here?” asked the Mother Superior, feigning indignation. “I am passing by my rooms when suddenly I see a rush of pupils to my door. Who can explain? Can
you
?”

I marveled at what I heard: “It's Elizaveta,” said the questioned girl. “She's had a vision.”

“A
vision
?” mocked the Mother Superior. “And what of?”

“Satan Himself,” said another girl. She spat the salinized words.

The girls were afire with tales, growing ever taller, of what Elizaveta had seen.
The Prince of Darkness…One of his minions…. The Devil dancing with a possessed sister…Sex acts. The Dance of Death. Horrible curses…against the house, against Christ and the good people of C——…The music of the Dark One's fiddle
. Mother Marie dismissed every claim.

It was then, judging from the sudden silence, that I knew Sister Claire de Sazilly had come forward. I knew too—for it was just like her—that she had Elizaveta in her arms; yes, Sister Claire would have climbed the stairs with the stricken, the “sighted” Elizaveta in her arms. I heard the mention of salts; and soon Elizaveta spoke, incessantly, nonsensically. The other girls cried out at her words, her testimony. When she fainted away, the Head ordered another wave of those salts, and Elizaveta burst back into consciousness, screaming, her horror bright and fresh.

Poor Elizaveta. Not nine years old, and she'd believe in the bad—her sighting of Satan—as ardently as she believed in the good, perhaps more so.

“What do you, Claire, make of this? Surely—”

“No untaught child lies, Mother.”

“Do you mean to affirm this child's vision?”

“Do you mean to deny it?” Sister Claire must have turned to the girls, for it was then that one asked of Mother Marie:

“Is she lying, Mother? Or was it Dark Work that she witnessed?”

“I do not say she is lying, no.”

“What then? If it was not—”

That the girls would question the Mother Superior so, that they would shout out in her presence…these were peculiar circumstances indeed. And all the while Sister Claire stood silently, ominously by.

“I say only that this child, after some orange water and rum, will rest through the night and wake in fine shape, no worse for her…her ‘
vision
.'” Clearly, to use the word pained the Mother Superior. “And you, especially the senior among you, will apply your faith and maturity and conclude that certainly no such thing has occurred.”

“She
is
lying then!”

“But I saw the fire-haired fiddler, too. I swear it!” And all eyes were thus directed to the violin case, empty now atop the table.

“Girls, girls,” began the Mother Superior; but she was interrupted by Sister Claire, who said simply:

“We must pray. We must pray against this.” And tens of voices set to rumbling in fervid prayer. That the Head would interrupt the Mother Superior, and to direct the girls to action no less: this did not bode well. Sister Claire, in leading these prayers, invoked the “Darkness”; and at this a second girl fainted away. Now the prayers grew more fervid; and I was distressed to recognize the voices of several of the most senior girls. In the confusion a vial of holy water slipped from its holder near the door, cracking on the floor: proof positive of Satan's presence. And it was this shattering glass that set the flock of girls to rising up, noisily, and flying from the room—no doubt to spread their devilish stories. It seemed the room was suddenly empty, save for Sister Claire, the lifeless Elizaveta, and Mother Marie; and yes, my coconspirator.

Sister Claire came dangerously near the drape. I could feel her heat. “Are those not scuff marks upon the sill?” she asked of Mother Marie. “And what, among your
worldly
goods, is missing, if not your violin?”

“Take that child to the infirmarian,” replied Mother Marie. “And put a stop to this madness.”

“Madness, is it?” asked the Head. “Madness is your ruling over a House of one hundred girls when you cannot control that one, your pet.”

“Do you threaten me, Sister?”

“I do, yes…. Indeed, I have long been attendant upon your ruin.” With these words—and a whispered
“Adieu, ma mère”
—Sister Claire turned to leave, Elizaveta in her arms; and in so doing, the girl's slippered foot—like a hook at the end of her lifeless, lank leg—caught the drape and pulled it back just enough to show the very end of the bow I held.

Sister Claire, fast handing off the unconscious child to Mother Marie, pulled back the dark folds of fabric, its rings screeching along their iron rod. There I stood, bow and violin in hand.

“Of course,” said Sister Claire, snatching the instrument from me. “I should have known. The accomplice.” She slammed the violin down on the table. She brandished the bow. I raised my hands to my face as a shield: she would slash me as though the bow were a riding crop and I the slow or stubborn beast.

“Stop!” shouted Mother Marie; and she stepped between the Head and myself. “Go from here, you…you
animal!
…Go from my sight.”

There was silence. In the Mother Superior's arms the girl groaned; she was coming around. “I will go,” said Sister Claire; “but this one,” and she pulled me to her, roughly, “this one comes with me.”

I
PASSED THAT
long, punitive afternoon in the smithy, planing the boards of rough-hewn pine that were to be installed in the pantry, my former room. Shortly after being discovered, and after being dragged rather indelicately to my sentence by a seething Sister Claire, a storm settled over C——, persistent and at times severe.

The work was difficult, as it involved heavy planks and chisels and blades of varying thickness. The slow-burning fire of the smithy and the heavy humidity occasioned by the storm made the tiny outbuilding grossly uncomfortable. Yet I remained; I had to. I grew slick with sweat; droplets fell from the tip of my nose onto the pine, as if to mock the rain slanting down in silver cords beyond the open half-door, falling from a leaden sky hanging suffocatingly low.

Those hours I had but two visitors; three, if one counts Sister Claire, who came twice to threaten me with more and varied labor. Marie-Edith came, at great risk, to offer me an apple—unaccountably delicious, it was—and a dry shift. And Mother Marie came, very late in the day; it seemed she'd come to apologize, though of course I did not yet know what for.

“It was unwise,” said she, “to indulge my niece. Did I not warn you?”

“You did,” said I. Where was Peronette? Was she among the girls? Did she too stand accused? Was our ruse known? Had Sister Claire meted out to her punishment such as I…But the Mother Superior answered none of my questions. Finally she raised her hand to still me, saying only, “I fear things may not, cannot be as they were. The balance of the House is upset.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, though I understood her too well.

“Claire is the Head, and it is within her purview to do so…. Sister Claire has declared the Great Silence, and I dare not rescind it.” Mother Marie added, absently, “Perhaps it is wise. Perhaps order and discipline are our only hope.” (Only twice in my years at C——had the Great Silence been declared: once when a group of monks came to us for shelter, and once to quell the hysteria occasioned by three girls suffering the simultaneous onset of their first blood.) “But what scares me,” continued the Mother Superior, “is that she is using the Silence to stir the girls, to rile them and win them to her ways.”

“What are ‘her ways'?” I asked.

Mother Marie looked at me. “You were there, were you not? You heard her: she has long coveted the rule of this House. How did she put it? Oh yes—she is ‘attendant upon my ruin.'”

“But can you not…?”

“I cannot order the girls
not
to pray; neither can I order Claire to desist from her prayerful talk of Darkness and such.”

“Then they do not know? They do not know that it was Peronette upon the sill, that it was I who—”

Mother Marie fairly shouted at me then: “Did I not tell you,” she asked, “that she was wild, that it was dangerous to indulge her? I did.
I did!
Silly of me to have thought you might control her. No one can control her. And now, the danger has come. I could lose this House! What then for me? Indeed, mark my words: danger has come.”

Mother Marie then directed me to follow her back to the house proper. “You must not remain apart. Go among them as though nothing has happened,” she advised, or commanded. I said I would—did I not owe her that much?—and the two of us, huddling beneath her umbrella, made our way back to the house with nothing but a cloud-occluded moon to light the muddy way.

It was in the kitchen gardens that my resolve began to break, and by the time I stood inside I wondered how,
how
would I find the strength to go among the girls in the dining hall beyond?

All was silent, as Sister Claire had decreed. Marie-Edith and, as best she was able, Sister Brigid, had just laid out collation. Mother Marie led me on.

There we stood, in the service doorway. At first unseen, hisses and whispers built within the Silence till all turned; none stood, as they ought to have in the presence of the Mother Superior, but I made nothing of this, so distracted was I by my own discomfort. There I stood before the assembled girls, bedraggled and scared, yet trying to act as though nothing untoward had taken place. What a sight I must have been! Like some creation of the Shelley girl, sister to her sad, sad monster.

“Perhaps this is not a good idea,” said I to Mother Marie, as I tried to circle behind her, back into the kitchen.

Mother Marie held fast behind me. “Go,” said she, shoving me forward. And I'd not taken two steps into the hall when I heard behind me the door's rusted hinge: Mother Marie had gone, and I was alone. This I had not anticipated.

As I walked between the tables, the girls on their benches spoke curses, and prayers that sounded like curses. Someone invoked the Prince of Peace. Others—much to my astonishment—railed against the Prince of This World. Sister Paulien, wordlessly, with the rapping of a wooden spoon, reminded the girls of the Silence. A group of younger girls sat before their chilling stew, reading their rosaries so fast it seemed the small wooden beads might burst into flame. I moved as though deaf and blind, guided to my seat by something unseen. It was as though I walked through water: every step slow, deliberate, difficult.

A small medallion of hammered gold was thrown; it landed at my feet and skidded across the smooth floor. Of course, this—the sacred thing's revulsion, its sliding away—was proof of the devils resident within me. At this there were audible gasps; and someone begged Salvation in nearly unintelligible Latin.

Nearing my usual seat, I noticed two things: no one, not even the old mumbling nuns with whom I usually dined—and certainly not Peronette—was seated at the table; and a book—a black leather-bound tome, its pages yellow with age—had been spread open on my seat. The Silence then was deafening! Every eye was upon me. What to do? I swallowed my tears. And then…and then I did something quite…regrettable. Irresolute, confused, I simply sat down at my usual place as though the book weren't there. Why I did this I have
no
idea—I might have closed it and set it aside, swept it onto the floor—but no. It was as though Satan Himself had appeared at my side.

One girl—beautiful, quite tall, whose grace I'd always admired—stood on her bench, pointed down at me, and asked of all present what further proof was needed of the pact I'd signed with Satan. Hadn't I sat upon the sacred text? (It was the writings of an obscure theologian, opened to a passage on tribadism.) And hadn't every eye seen me shamelessly kiss the sacred text with my nether mouth?

This girl's witnessing was met with fearsome cries and prayer. The nuns, with pinches and pulled hair and rapping rods, succeeded in restoring a modicum of calm.

I dared not move, dared not slide the book out from under me. Shaking, shivering, I tried to choke back my tears. I even tried to eat the bowl of now-cold stew that was slid before me by…I don't know who. The stew—rabbit? venison?—was gamey and slick, a heartier collation than usual. I could not eat, even if I'd wanted to: my hands shook too badly to use a spoon.

I did not look up. I stared down into the enameled bowl. Tears fell onto the skin of fat covering the stew like a caul.

I prayed. Prayed for
release,
for something—god or demon—to deliver me. I would do anything. Sign any blood pact, agree to anything.

Just then the far doors of the hall opened, and a group of older girls nearest the doors stood, with slight hesitation; soon all the girls rose, and I stood too, so great was my relief that Mother Marie had returned to…

…But with a sickening twist deep within, I saw Sister Claire de Sazilly enter the dining hall and scan the room. She was looking for me; I knew it. The others knew it too, and when their quick glances betrayed me I found myself staring across the hall at Sister Claire.

That Sister Claire had come in search of me was bad fortune; that the girls had risen in her presence was something else altogether.

Yes, it was clear, and irrefutable: there stood Sister Claire de Sazilly, ascendant.

After surveying the girls, quite contentedly, and nodding that they should resume their seats, Sister Claire made her way to her seat. From over the trembling rim of my cup, I spied Sister Claire talking to Sister St. Eustace and a group of the older girls. Sister St. Eustace—insipid, rail-thin Sister St. Eustace, who suffered an unnamed disorder of the skin and was ever scabrous, like a half-flayed deer—Sister St. Eustace sat nodding her head. This conference, held in defiance of the Silence, did not bode well. The girls attended a pronouncement, and finally it came:

Sister St. Eustace rose to announce with tremulous voice a work plan: flooding of the grounds threatened the first-floor rooms of the house. The sandbagging drill was familiar to us all. At the expected groanings, the audible laziness of several of the girls—they were, of course, less than fond of such labor—Sister St. Eustace reminded one and all that the Great Silence was still in effect, would remain in effect until we retired. Silence only descended in full when Sister Claire stood; she bade the girls follow suit and join her in prayer. I stood as well, but knew not to join in the prayer; and indeed it ended with: “…keep us safe, Lord…safe from the Darkness that has come.” By which, of course, she meant
me;
lest any doubt it, with a nod she led all eyes my way. I was the first to sit.

Order, and silence, reigned, though Chaos threatened: several girls rose and ran from the hall. Others clung to their neighbors as though they were being led sightless through the deepest night. There were the requisite tears and prayers. Most disconcertingly, every girl, as she filed from the hall, passed Sister Claire and was informally “received” with a nod or a word; in this way, pledges of loyalty were sworn and accepted.

Where, I wondered, was Mother Marie-des-Anges? Had she willfully ceded the rule of C——to Sister Claire? If so, why had she not told me? When would she come among us to set things right?

Forbidden to speak through the afternoon, the girls had been unable to calm or comfort one another, had been unable to relieve their fears, unfounded or not, by giving them voice. Sister Claire, the strategist, knew the Silence would only stir the girls, make them more impressionable. They were further agitated by the break in our well-ordered day, the strangeness of the declared Silence; and later by the steady rains that had begun to fall, rains that came now to the accompaniment of thunder and ragged seams of light that showed the girls pressed into service.

We were made to stand at arm's length from one another and form a loose chain that wended up from the mud-floored basement to the kitchen, where it branched in three, each line ending at an exterior door of the house, under which a sort of primordial slime oozed. The youngest girls worked below-stairs, filling the canvas bags with sand shoveled from several mounds kept for this purpose; older girls tied off the bags and passed them upstairs and along the lines to us, the oldest girls, who secured them around the doors. I was stationed at the kitchen door. We succeeded in stanching the slow flow; and we did so in silence. I was grateful for the quiet, and the distraction of a duty.

Two branches had been disbanded, and I stood at the end of the third line when the youngest girls were dispatched, told to wash and ready for Compline—the seventh and last of the canonical hours—and then, blessedly, sleep. Finally, I was released by Sister Claire: the last to leave the kitchen.

When next I saw Peronette it was in the dormitory, where she waved to me from her cot with red-tinged fingers. As Sister Claire eyed us both, continually, I dared not speak to Peronette; but she, tripping lightly past my cot as she came from the washroom, whispered, wickedly, “
Bad
girl! See what it is you've done?”

In concession to the storm, and to the strange events of the day, the novitiates let the younger girls burn their candles down; this, and a faint moon, lit the dormitory, but still I fell fast asleep. I was exhausted—emotionally, yes, but more plainly from my labor in the smithy and on the work line.

Attendant upon sleep, I listened to the rain fall from the roof into buckets and bowls placed among the disarrayed cots, and I tried not to cry. The storm raged on, and the crash and spark, the great show, gave rise to something akin to the call and response of the mass: one girl would whimper and another would cry out to comfort her, and so on till a high-pitched keening filled the room. Scattered here and there were appeals to the Higher Powers.

My neighbor, a bovine little blot named Constance, whimpered terribly. When she'd woken me a second time, I leaned from my cot and threatened to cuff her if she did not desist. I was terribly tired, and hopeful of sleeping away my fears.

It was later that night—how much later I cannot say—when I was woken by the movement of my cot, and a warmth beside me: Peronette.

Though I'd begun to consider her careless and dangerous, though I had begun to see her as willful and wrong, irresponsible, all she had to do was come near me and I forgave her all and everything. Fool that I was. What's more, finding her beside me, I opened to her comfort.

Of course, we girls were not to sleep together; this was plain, so plain as to have never been openly stated. Still, it sometimes happened, for myriad reasons. It was a punishable offense, yes, but we slept unpoliced—rarely did the novitiates dare to walk those dark and quiet floors at night, for fear of mice, or worse. And that night—that night of all nights!—I gave not a thought to breaking the rule, gave not a thought to the day's hysteria and the heightened…
feelings
to which it had given rise. All I thought about was…In truth, to say that I
thought
at all is to overstate things; all I would do that night is better described as
instinctual
.

Peronette was shivering, no doubt from stealing barefoot across the stony floor, amid the scattered cots. I folded back my blanket, slid the single sheet down, and as she slid in beside me the mattress sank, and the thin strips of hammered iron stretched across its frame gave with an eerie song. Her white nightgown was buttoned up to the base of her neck; a thin band of throat showed like a collar beneath her chin. Her loose, dark hair was afloat on the pillow, wavering in the inconstant light.