Chapter 43
Zina
I was anxious that no one would come. But at exactly eight o’clock in the evening, one hour before the expulsion was set to begin, they entered one by one through the kitchen door.
Our oldest cast-iron pot was already bubbling on the stove, the ingredients for the potion neatly laid out on the counter, chopped and ready to be tossed in: three purple thistle flowers, three yellow Saint-John’s-wort blossoms, one rosemary leaf, a combination of ground sage and chamomile powder, and a pinch of coarse salt.
Separately, we prepared stinging nettles in a pan with red peppers, shredded pieces of Mama’s divination card with the hearse, the ruby from the Grand Duke’s dagger (I had confessed to Baba Valya that I had found and buried it, only to unbury it for the expulsion), three of my grandmother’s best coffee beans, and three of my tears, all sautéed not in fat or oil but in the zavarka tea concentrate we had brewed extra strong.
The rank smell of the potion was turning my stomach; I steeled myself, gritting my teeth.
“Well, look at you, ladies, how domestic!” trilled Inessa, the first to arrive.
Her gaze lingered on Sergei, who was stirring the pot with Baba Valya, both of them smiling for once.
“Ah, I see we have a man in our midst. No matter. I bought the best French wine I know for the occasion, though it is a tad dry for my taste.”
“Hmph,” Baba Valya grumbled, but accepted the bottle. She had a fresh spring in her step and moved about with the help of her new purple cane. “French wine is shit. Katya, please assist Inessa.”
My friend hurried to do my grandmother’s bidding as Karina entered.
She swept a critical gaze over the kitchen, her chestnut eyes keen and missing nothing. “Well, this certainly feels like old times. Except for the man. Who is he and what is he doing here?”
“He is here for the ritual, dear one! A medium, and a dancer!” Inessa ogled Sergei’s muscular arms as she pulled out another bottle of spirits, this time champagne, along with trays of jubilee cookies, poppy sushki, gingerbread pryaniki, homemade zefir, sharlotka apple pie, and other mouthwatering baked goods.
I greeted our sitters before sneaking a pryanik from one of the trays and popping it in my mouth. I hadn’t eaten much that day, and I was suddenly ravenous.
The door opened, and Nina stepped inside.
As usual, not one hair was out of place on her head, her dark features pulled into a pert expression.
“Good evening,” she said stiffly. “I…” Her eyes grew large as she beheld the milling women and Sergei, the massive pot on the stove, the herbs laid out like sacrificial items on the counter.
I didn’t hear the rest, for in came Masha, as quick-footed as usual, followed by Katya’s mother, the always elegant Madame Sherbatskaya.
“Oh, my dear! You look a fright!” Masha remarked with true Russian honesty as her beady eyes latched onto Baba Valya and dissected her like a scientific experiment.
“Same to you, dear,” Baba Valya replied tartly before turning to Madame Sherbatskaya. “I never thanked you for letting Zinachka stay with you during her illness.”
I was focused on the door, willing it to open, Mama’s friends to enter. They didn’t. I shot Sergei a questioning look, but the medium only shrugged. Zefir meowed in indignation at my feet. I knelt beside her, scratching behind her ears and playing with her to distract myself.
Baba Valya turned to the assembled women, who immediately quieted, though the clink of glasses as they poured the wine and champagne, the crinkle of paper as they grabbed for the pastries, didn’t abate.
“Take something to eat and drink, ladies,” she said magnanimously, eyes twinkling and posture straight, enjoying the attention, contrary to her fears.
“We wouldn’t wish anybody’s stomachs to be empty for the expulsion! ”
The women nodded eagerly, poured more wine, grabbed more pastries. Their energy was just as eager, zinging like the taste of radish. Purplish pink like it, too.
I popped another pryanik in my mouth, savoring its delicious gingerbread flavor. Thankfully, it soothed my stomach. I gave Zefir’s ears another fond scratch.
“Zina and Katya will hand out protective amulets to each of you.” Baba Valya gestured to the herb necklaces.
“Then we will begin by placing the ingredients into the pot. Once they come to a boil, we will dip these towels”—she turned to the two dirty kitchen towels on the counter—“and say a spell before giving the potion a chance to cool while we proceed into the consulting room for the séance. When Zina is communing with the demon, we will finish the expulsion with the potion in the garden.” She turned to Sergei. “Did I miss anything?”
“No, dearest Valentina.” He looked out at the women. “It is most important to believe in our work and to enjoy yourselves. Both will increase the chance the expulsion will succeed.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the rest of our party?” I asked, my anxiety stirring up the nausea.
“Well, it doesn’t look as though they are coming, does it?” Baba Valya reached for the towels and tied them into a hard knot. “Ladies, toss in the ingredients.”
I felt my cheeks flame in anger. Sergei and Katya hesitated while the women surged toward the herbs.
Katya gave me an apologetic glance and followed, tossing in the thistle and Saint-John’s-wort.
I had no choice but to make my way to the stove, where Sergei directed me to carefully drop the sautéed ingredients from the sizzling pan into the once more bubbling pot.
A crackle, a low hiss, then nothing. I was still angry at Baba Valya even as I helped her climb onto a creaky stool and stir the ingredients in the pot under Sergei’s whispered instructions.
The kitchen once again filled with chatter and laughter, the clink of glasses and the rustling of paper—when the door banged open and a group of black-robed figures streamed inside.
My anxiety thawed, for I instantly recognized the party from 40 rue de Paradis.
First Henriette’s tall, graceful figure, then the stocky yet clear-eyed Klara, the lovely if quiet Coralie and her as-ever-unpleasant companion Marie-Louise, the alluring Montmartre brothel owners Mila and Dasha, and the wise witch Mary.
Agnès entered last, and I hurried over to her with what must have been relief flooding my face.
“I was convinced you wouldn’t come,” I said, squeezing her hand.
She tsked. “You have little faith.” But she squeezed my hand back.
“I’ll give our newly arrived sitters their amulets,” Katya was quick to say.
Baba Valya merely stared at the new arrivals, seemingly frozen on her stool; Sergei nodded at them sagely, as though he never had a doubt they would come.
“Hello, Valya.” Henriette’s smile was benevolent. “It has been some time.”
“Yes, yes,” grumbled Baba Valya, turning back to the pot, ever her stubborn self.
I approached Henriette. “Thank you for coming,” I said for my grandmother.
“We would not miss it.” Henriette’s smile didn’t waver. Apparently, nothing could disturb it, not even a snub from a hostess holding on to ancient grudges.
“Yes, we would do anything for our Sveta,” said Klara.
“Anything,” Mila and Mary echoed, their smiles wistful.
The room fell into an uneasy silence, amplifying the bubbling of the pot. “Well,” I spoke, vindicated, ready for the expulsion’s next phase to begin, “should we say the spell now the brew is ready and the rest of our party has arrived?”
My grandmother grunted in answer, but I knew by her softened features that she was coming around, glad in her own way for Mama’s friends.
She and Sergei grabbed the towels then. They dipped them into the potion and held them, dripping, over the pot.
Baba Valya gave Sergei a nod to proceed, and he said, in his detached spirit medium voice, “Now, ladies, it is time. Please repeat each and every word after us.”
Thistle, break the curse of this spiritual infestation.
Rosemary, drive the darkness and evil from our home.
Salt and Saint-John’s-wort, ward off the Grand Duke’s spirit.
Sage and chamomile, aid us with the spiritual expulsion to come.
Baba Valya continued the spell:
Banish the dark evil spirit, the nechistaya sila, this philanderer and murderer of my daughter.
Force the Grand Duke back where he belongs, into the ground, into the earth, into his grave among the dead. The nechistaya sila has no place in this house, in anybody living in or visiting this house. It has no life, no existence. Only death, emptiness, nothing.
The gathered women repeated the spell dutifully, solemnly, with their entire hearts.
I knew because I felt their energy. Regardless of why they were there, they vibrated with a fiercely red righteousness, a belief in the words and our cause, that quite moved me.
I felt something else, too—an added power, a strong energy of conviction and faith in the spell and its working that could only radiate from true believers: the 40 rue de Paradis party.
We stood like this for a moment, silent, our heads bowed reverently.
Then Sergei and Baba Valya let go of the towels—they squished heavily, wetly, into the other ingredients—and pushed the pot away from the heat.
Baba Valya met my gaze, hers determined. “Are you ready, Zina?”
It was time for the séance—probably the most important one I would ever hold.
Olga and Alec had not showed; we would need to proceed without them.
“Please follow me to the consulting room, ladies.” I infused my voice with a serene knowing. It came out bold and strong. I was ready. On my way, I grabbed a couple of pryaniki and a glass of champagne—not for me, but for the spirits.
They filed in with the rustle and swish of their skirts and robes, buzzing with a focused anticipation that fused with the room’s witchy, herbal aromas.
The Grand Duke’s eyes followed me from the photograph I had placed beside his dagger and a vase of white clover and hawthorn. Though his presence was dampened by the wards, I felt the spirit prowling the consulting room like a wild wolf out for blood.
I sat and added my offerings to the shrine by the photograph.
Before I was even done, I heard the scraping of the other chairs as the sitters also took their seats.
I glanced around the table, at the faces of the women I had known all my life and those I was just coming to know.
I realized that though they were old and out of touch and too Russian for Paris, they were there for my grandmother and me in the worst of times.
I wanted to say some inadequate words of thanks, but the candle flames dimmed, and a loud knock resounded through the tearoom.
Zefir hissed from her habitual place at my feet.
Katya rose quietly and made her way out of the room. My sitters glanced at one another.
“Two more sitters will be joining us,” I said, earning a questioning, suspicious look from Baba Valya. I twisted Mama’s ring on my finger nervously.
I heard the bell’s broken chime, the door being pulled open and shut, footsteps, and there they were. My shoulders lowered in relief; Gabriel had come through.
Olga was entirely unlike the lovely, friendly creature I had first met on rue Daru.
Her chin was raised imperiously, her features seemingly carved of ice.
Haughtiness exuded from her every pore. That, and a frigid darkness, very like her father’s.
Meanwhile, Alec leered at me, more slimy and amphibian than ever.
Katya ushered the brother and sister to two empty chairs across from me despite Zefir’s continued hissing.
Olga sat down without hesitation, meeting my gaze boldly, with challenge.
Her brother was less certain, and she snapped her fingers toward the empty chair beside her to move him along. They said not a word.
“What are you doing, Zinaida?” Baba Valya mouthed at me.
Some sitters, like Madame Sherbatskaya and Karina, peered at the newcomers with apparent curiosity, maybe having met them or their relatives back in the old country; others were too focused on me.
But it was Katya and Agnès, with their support and steadiness, who eased the tension from my shoulders and reminded me of who I was.
A woman, a fortune teller, a daughter, a granddaughter, a soon-to-be mother.
This gave me the strength to write the Grand Duke’s name on a scrap of paper, his real name that I will never repeat, not even in these pages.
When I glanced at Baba Valya last, her look on me had softened. This time, she mouthed, “You can do this.” And maybe “I love you.” I mouthed back, “I love you,” anyway before whispering my silent invitation to the spirit. Come out of the shadows, you bastard. Show yourself. Face me.
A very cold, salt-tinged wind blasted through the room. The haunting buzzed and swarmed in spite of the wards, the air instantly turning dark and porous.
I touched Mama’s ring and slipped on my protective shield as we joined hands and closed our eyes.
I felt our collective connection straightaway—a real force that rushed through the length of me.
It energized me, infusing my mind and body with intense power.
I turned to my affinity, already awake, and felt the push into the beyond.
It was cool and restless there, filled with voices, touches, and flickers of spirits that I had to wade through in my search for the Grand Duke. I felt and smelled his darkness all around, reminding me of fungi decaying trees, black mold blooming into walls. Still, he eluded me.
Where are you?
Another push, a burst of negative energy from Olga and Alec, and I was thrust into the black bubble from the first séance. Two eyes blazed to life in front of me. So you have come to die willingly. The spirit towered over me with a wolfish smile.
“Not to die, no,” I said, and swung at him with all my might.