Chapter 5
That night the sea rose up like the monster Leviathan, determined to toss the ship into Hell, severed from the grace of God.
As the Saint-Jean-Baptiste heaved and fell, élisabeth gripped the sides of her bunk until the splinters dug into her palms. The girls screamed and prayed, but the ferocity of the storm seemed even to have shocked the crew, for they could hear the sailors’ panicked cries on deck.
élisabeth thought of the priest’s warning about witch-conjured storms. There would be no hope of survival.
Father de Sancy knew this would happen. He had foretold it.
Why had she not confessed that the woman in the velvet dress had stolen her letter?
The priest could have thrown her overboard and they would have been safe.
The sea convulsed again and élisabeth clasped her hands together to pray.
Merciful Saint Anne, we cast ourselves at your feet and humbly beg you. Recommend us to your daughter, the Blessed Virgin, that she might serve as our passport and preserve us from peril.
The sound of thunder exploded like a battery of guns above their heads and Marthe shrieked. élisabeth wrapped her arms around her sister and buried her head against her back. She murmured her prayers as quickly as her tongue would allow.
Holy Virgin, mother of God, serve as our passport and preserve us from peril. Serve as our passport and preserve us from peril.
The ship was a drunken sailor, blindly careening and lurching with no care for those in its midst. élisabeth remembered when she was six and her older brother, Jean-Jacques, had pushed her backwards off a haystack.
Falling, falling, her stomach rising, waiting for the sound of her body hitting the earth.
She felt the same now. But here there was no hay to break her fall, only the filthy ship, and the next desperate reel and stagger.
Holy Virgin, mother of God, serve as our passport and preserve us from peril.
Merciful Saint Anne, we cast ourselves at your feet and humbly beg you.
Those girls not praying were retching. The ocean waves rolling over the main deck crashed down the light well and sluiced vomit across the floorboards. The girls were a desperate mixture of prayer and bile, helplessness and panic.
The Devil will come for you, wayward girl.
An echo of her mother’s long-ago warning rang in her ears, and she knew, even here, in the middle of the sea, the one with the black feather in his hat had found her. She had tried to run, but the Devil had been following her ever since the day she had succumbed to desire.
élisabeth put her hands over her ears to block out the sound of the ship’s groans.
She could not stop the memory of that day in the apple orchard more than a year ago: the blossoms trembling in the breeze, the wind shaking some of the petals loose, covering the ground in a blanket of pink.
It was springtime and the sun’s heat did not wither them; the days when the fruit would lie rotting on the ground surrounded by wasps were still ahead.
She had run outside to hide from the cook, whose hip hurt, making her more sharp-tongued than usual.
élisabeth had grabbed a trug and said she was going to weed the kitchen garden.
Once she was outside though, she had run to the back of the farm, pulling off her cap, loosening her hair, and letting her fingers rub the strain from her scalp.
She had thought she wanted to be alone, to fret over Papa’s worsening cough, and to give herself a moment to grieve for her brothers, but a figure strolling towards her turned her mind from sorrow to sweeter things.
Rémy approached like a cat with its tail flicking lazily behind him, his eyes catching hers and holding them firm.
She’d said good morning and lowered her gaze.
But with a cocksure smile, he’d put his hand on her forearm and she’d felt a surge of longing so powerful it felt as if she were an apple tree ripped up by her roots, toppled in a storm.
The ship listed to its side and she screamed.
Take more care, or the Devil will come for you, wayward girl!
She should not have let it go any further than the apple orchard.
She should not have agreed to walk with him up to the top of the cliff, where the great rock jutted out over the ravine like a gargoyle guarding a cathedral.
She had been warned. She knew what would happen: the Devil comes for wayward girls.
But after months of his tender promises, she had relented.
When Rémy whispered his secret plan and tied a stem of yarrow around her ring finger, she’d believed him.
He said that they could lay amid the gorse and red sorrel and bell heather as man and wife—and none but the hillside gnomes would be the wiser.
Even then, even after they’d made the climb up to the Roche d’Oetre—handfasted, secretly pledged to marry—she might have changed her mind.
When she gazed out across the valley, past leagues of oaks and ash, to where the river wound past the chapel in neighbouring Bréel, on its way out of Normandy towards places forever out of her reach, there was a moment when it might not have happened.
From the top of the cliff, the world had seemed so wide.
élisabeth took a step out onto the ledge and called out her name.
éli-sa-beth.
éli-éli.
Li-li.
That was when Rémy Delaunay had pulled her back from the world below and into his arms.
“I saved you,” he had said, though she had not been in danger of falling. “Come. We are as good as married in God’s eyes already.”
It was enough, this promise, to convince her that their pleasure was no sin. So she’d let him pull her off the rock and into the spiky heather.
Michel the cabin boy ran through the lower deck. “Any maid good with a needle, come help us mend the sails!” he yelled.
Marthe moved as if to answer his call but élisabeth grabbed her arm to hold her back.
“He needs us!” Marthe shouted above the storm.
Lou jumped down from the top bunk and Marthe wriggled free to join her.
élisabeth watched as they staggered towards the trunks and were immediately flung sideways when the ship was caught by a swell.
Rose leapt to rescue them. She crawled forward on her knees and guided them back to the bunks.
“What can we do?” Marthe panted, wet hair plastered to her face. Just then an almighty crack rent the air, louder and closer than the last thunderclap. The brides shrieked.
“Devil be damned,” Lou swore. “Was that the mast?”
No one knew. élisabeth grabbed Lou’s and Marthe’s hands and squeezed them tightly. Only faith or magic could save them, and she did not have any magic.
“Pray with me!” She started to chant the holy words over and over.
Holy Virgin, mother of God, serve as our passport and preserve us from peril. Merciful Saint Anne, we cast ourselves at your feet and humbly beg you.
The words were one long, urgent breath. Her stomach cramped, but she could not spare a moment’s worry for the torment inside her.
Serve-as-our-passport-and-preserve-us-from-peril.
Above their heads, sailors hollered for an axe to cut the rigging free.
Serve-as-our-passport-and-preserve-us-from-peril.
Hearing their cries, élisabeth opened her eyes.
Marthe’s head was swivelled round, her mouth agape.
“We’re going to drown,” she cried.
“Pray!” élisabeth shouted, jerking her attention back to their circle with a tug of her hands. They were lost and the Saint-Jean-Baptiste was beaten, no longer a match for the witch’s power and the sea’s rage. Only the Blessed Virgin could save them.
Michel ran through the cabin again, shouting, “The mizzenmast is down!”
Serve as our passport and preserve us from peril.
élisabeth was exhausted from terror. What would happen if she let go of the others’ hands?
Serve as our passport and preserve us from peril.
What would happen if she took a step closer to the edge of the ravine?
Serve as our passport and preserve us from peril.
The words swirled in her head as she turned her face upwards, ready for the end; her eyes lifted to God.
A figure stood next to their bunk.
It was the velvet witch, her dress soaked through, looking more dishevelled than when élisabeth had seen her last. Which was when? Weeks ago? She caught élisabeth’s eye and leaned towards her.
“Your prayers are no use,” she hissed.
“What…?” élisabeth was struck dumb with terror.
“I said—your prayers are no use!”
élisabeth grew cold as a terrible realization came over her. The witch had come to mock them as she sent them to their doom.
“What does she want?” Marthe cried, squeezing élisabeth’s hand.
“She said… she said our prayers are no use!” élisabeth wailed, horrified to hear the words that came out of her mouth. Their prayers had to work. It was the only hope they had. She squeezed Marthe’s and Rose’s hands, as if to jolt the girls back to their purpose.
The witch pushed past élisabeth, leaning into the bunk so the others could hear her. “No, I said: Have you a needle I can use?”
“I do!” Marthe cried and dropped élisabeth’s hand. “I tried to get to my trunk a moment ago, but I was thrown backwards.”
“Show me,” the witch commanded.
Marthe clambered out of the bottom bunk and braced herself against the violent motion of the ship.
Then, as if by magic, the ship paused in its dance, almost becalmed.
The rocking slowed until it became no worse than a mother tending to her nursling in his cradle.
élisabeth’s jaw fell open at the demonstration of the witch’s power.
“Quickly!” The velvet witch pulled Marthe towards the trunks. “We are in the eye of the storm. It will not last.”
They dropped to their knees and Marthe flipped open the lid of her trousseau.
Several dozen needles were stuck carefully into a slip of paper, all that she would ever need in her married life.
The witch gave Marthe a solemn nod of thanks and grabbed the needles.
Then she raced towards the ladder to the main deck and disappeared into the night.
Marthe jumped back into the bunk with the others, her eyes wild and fierce with determination.
“She’s going to save us,” Marthe said.
élisabeth gripped the frame of the bunk and stared at Marthe in disbelief.
The witch would not save them, she had called the Devil her master to take them all to Hell.
As if in answer, the ship began to heave and pitch.
Once again, the girls were tossed in their bunks. Their screams echoed all around.
The velvet witch had to be stopped. She had to be thrown into the sea.
élisabeth had to tell the priest what she knew about the letter, never mind that he might turn his gaze towards her.
She had to, if they were to survive the journey.
She placed a foot on the floor and gripped the bunk post as she pulled herself up.
“Where are you going?” Marthe shouted.
She turned to answer as the Saint-Jean-Baptiste listed on its side and every board groaned, as if the ship were being torn asunder.
élisabeth lost her grip on the post and was thrown forward.
Her head cracked on the wooden beam and she crumpled to the floor.
Pain exploded across her skull and at once a heavy fatigue fell upon her.
She tried to speak, but her words came out in strange tongues.
The last thing she saw before she fainted was an apparition of a nun, in a habit of velvet, dark as night, a crown of antlers rising from her head.