Chapter 32
Zina
That Night
The Witch Rock was located in a cobbled Montmartre alley, quiet and hidden from the rest of Paris and me. If not for Agnès, who once more served as my guide to Marie-Louise and her eclectic group of friends, I would have had trouble finding it.
Rain hung on the cool spring air. The mistiness to the atmosphere added its own brand of the occult to the mysterious location and the meeting to come.
We were the first to arrive, the alley empty save for us.
I approached the craggy stone, covered in creeping, crawling vegetation, and the small opening at the bottom, hinting at a secret cave.
I touched the ivy and green leaves, feeling the thrum of living energy beneath my fingertips; hearing something watery and rushing; seeing a shadowy entity, their rage and pain, the strength of their power; breathing in a burnt smell reminding me of flames.
“What is this place?” I asked Agnès, not pulling my hand away.
“Some say the rock is a piece of an old well, this street only a passage to a water source. Others maintain it was once a fountain attached to the house of a woman suspected of witchcraft, and to touch its stone is to absorb some of her power.” She shrugged.
“Still others believe if you touch the stone, you will be happy in love.”
I couldn’t help but snort. “Love. What is that, exactly?” Some people knew. Katya’s engagement with Dr. Misha had gone so happily, she had barely noticed my absence.
“I quite agree with you. But then, I have never been lucky, or happy, in love.” Agnès paused thoughtfully.
“People are always eager to make Paris about love. But our city hides many ugly truths, unknown mysteries, and horror, always horror. If this was a fountain belonging to a poor woman accused of witchcraft, laughed at, ridiculed, maybe persecuted, witch or not, she would not leave traces of love behind her through the ages.”
I nodded in agreement, thinking of the rage and pain I felt against my fingertips, bubbling and gurgling, indeed, like water in a fountain.
Suddenly, a group of people materialized out of the mist. I yanked my hand from the rock, recognizing the straight-backed Henriette, the stern-faced Marie-Louise, the other participants from the séance at 40 rue de Paradis.
My insides clenched. What if the séance hadn’t been enough?
What if they didn’t, or couldn’t, provide me with the answers and the training I needed to help me, Baba Valya, and, most importantly, Mama?
Silence settled onto the little alley as I faced my judges with my chin tilted up and my shoulders pulled back. I had nothing to fear. I was Svetlana’s daughter.
“We believe you,” Henriette said, evidently reading my mind.
“Not all of us,” Marie-Louise amended, but the nasty woman went ignored.
“We asked you to meet us here,” said the witch, Mary, “because this is the most powerful place I know in Paris.” She signaled to the others, who each came up to the foot of the Witch Rock and patted the stone, some even throwing their arms back and embracing it, before taking their places on either side of me to form a circle.
They wore solemn expressions and black capes with hoods that shadowed their faces. Their energy had the twilight blue-gray tinge of melancholia, with a heady, flowery scent. It felt as though I was about to partake in some otherworldly ritual. I likely was.
“We wanted to show you what we remember,” said Henriette. “Take our hands, Zina Lenormand.”
Heart thudding awfully fast, I took up her hand on one side, Mary’s on the other.
A flash of blinding white light cut into my eyes.
Then I was back in the tearoom, a blurry, hazy version of it.
In the vision, I was standing in the same circle of people, but there was something in the middle of it—somebody, a woman—lying motionless in a pool of freshly spilled blood.
It was Mama.
A howl, terrible in its anguish, issued from somewhere behind me.
Somebody pushed past, breaking the circle. It was a man in a nice, official suit. He clutched his head, tearing at his hair. I couldn’t see his face, but I caught the shine of blond strands. He threw himself on my mother’s body, sobbing unrestrainedly.
My fault, I heard his whisper. My fault. All mine.
What do you mean? Henriette asked sharply from her place beside me in the vision.
It was because of me that she was killed.
Speak clearly, someone else said. She was killed?
He did it, the Grand Duke, cried the man.
Why was it your fault? Henriette asked again.
The man picked up the dagger, the thunderbolt on its hilt sparking madly. He killed her. Like she said he would. He would not let her leave, to have a life—
How do you know about that?
But he only sobbed harder, dissolving into his grief and pain, his guilt. I felt it emanating from him like dust the dark blue of a dying day.
Then the white light once more pierced me, and I was back in the alley, black spots exploding into my vision.
“What did you just show me?” Though I knew.
“It was how we found her,” Mila said from across the circle. “Your mother.”
A part of me wanted to pack away the image, never talk or even think about it. But I couldn’t. “Who was that man?” Something in him reminded me of Gabriel. I felt a painful pang in my chest—at his betrayal, that last kiss, us not meant to be. “So the Grand Duke really did kill my mother.”
“I believe so, dear girl.” Coralie spoke for the first time. Her voice was pillowy soft, dreamlike, her eyes still focused on the empty space behind me. “It was his dagger, after all.”
The visions I had seen of the Grand Duke and Mama, his aggression and possessiveness, rushed back. So did Baba Valya’s and Gabriel’s theories. Guilt shot through me for thinking my dead mother a murderess.
“You see,” said Klara, “your grandmother and mother frightened the Grand Duke away from Paris. But he returned some months later, threatening to take you and the tearoom. He gifted it to them—I know because I saw the deed—then wanted it back. And he believed you were his daughter. Your mother had planned to flee with you.”
“And the man you saw in the vision just now was an inspector by the name of Lucian Laurent,” Mila added. “He was disturbed by Svetlana’s death and did everything he could to find the Grand Duke afterward, but he never did. I believe he is now a chief inspector with the police.”
Gabriel’s superior, Inspector Laurent? Is that why he supposedly had my best interests in mind? Because of his guilt? And the most pressing question of all: “Did my grandmother kill the Grand Duke?”
“She maintained she did not,” replied Klara.
“What do you think?”
“It is not our place to tell you what we think,” Henriette said serenely.
“Are we really pretending she didn’t kill him?” Marie-Louise shook her head in astonishment.
“She did not,” came Coralie’s voice.
“You don’t know that,” snapped Marie-Louise. Her eyes shifted to me. “Coralie’s dice gave her an answer in the negative when she asked. But dice are fickle and cannot be trusted.”
Coralie was unmoved, her face tranquil. I believed her.
“Was he my father?” I whispered, this time wanting to believe Baba Valya.
“Of course he was!” Dasha burst out with explosive cackles and coughs. “There is no way they weren’t sleeping together with everything she got.” A note of resentment colored her words, feeling as green as the ivy growing over the Witch Rock.
“I am not so sure,” said Sergei. “Svetlana had many hangers-on, friends, beaux.”
Mila gave a small shrug. “All I know is Sveta wasn’t permitted to go anywhere or to have other clients, would constantly need to deal with his fits of jealousy and rage, his possessiveness and control. If it wasn’t the Grand Duke, I’ve no idea who your father could have been.”
So then it had to be the Grand Duke. I didn’t want to think about that too much. Instead, I looked around at the people who had known my mother, my grandmother. “Did you help them—to steal?”
Klara let out a sigh. “We were in on the scheme, yes. They had so much money and we none. She had a good heart, your mother. She wanted to give us a chance to earn some money, too. At first, it was earned. We would entertain the Grand Duke’s men, try to win as much as we could through skill and talent.
But it wasn’t enough, and we started to employ other means.
Alcohol and powders, the promise of love, other things.
When the men were under the influence or unaware, we took more—coins, banknotes, even pocketbooks and bank accounts.
The Grand Duke found out, and Sveta and Valya ran him out of town. Or tried to. But we never conned him.”
“Why did they—you—do it? I mean, except for the whole wanting-to-take-from-the-rich thing.”
It was Mila who spoke, Mila who seemed to have known my mother on a more personal, more intimate level.
“Sveta didn’t want to be a fortune teller anymore.
So she came up with the scheme to make money quickly.
This way, she would no longer be beholden to your grandmother or the Grand Duke, retire somewhere in the countryside, take care of you.
And once her mind was made up, that was it.
” Mila drew close, touching my cheek with a gentle hand.
“She loved you, Zina. Oh, so much. Everything she did was for you, to keep you safe.”
“Unfortunately, it cost her her life.” Klara’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “We wanted to show you this vision not only to answer your questions about what happened but as a sign of good faith. We will do anything to help our friend, and you.”
“Well, I don’t know about ‘anything.’ ” Sergei gave a bark of a laugh, turning to me. “I have heard you want help with a spiritual expulsion. But as I told your grandmother long ago, I haven’t been able to do it. Not many can. I know no one in Paris save for myself has even attempted it.”
“But you must know how it is done.” I stepped toward him. “Teach me, please.”