Chapter 6 #2
“Down the ropes?” élisabeth’s eyes darted to the swiftly flowing river. Upstream the water churned as if there might be rapids.
“Yes. Quickly,” the nun shouted from below.
“Do you need help, Lili?”
“No. I am well,” élisabeth said, her eyes fixed on some spot on the shore. “Today my luck shall change. Today the curse shall be lifted.”
She gripped the sides of the rope ladder in her fists and swung her leg over the side of the boat. The boatmen whistled at the sight of her pale ankle, but élisabeth did not turn back; her eyes were locked on the shore. Marthe scrambled after her sister, tumbling into the rowboat.
“It does not look at all as I was expecting,” Rose said when she joined them a moment later. The little boat rocked side to side as she boarded and Marthe gripped the gunwales to steady herself.
“We are upriver from Ville-Marie,” the nun said, lurching as Lou jumped into the boat with both feet.
“Why did the sailors say it wouldn’t be safe to land in the village?” Lou asked.
“Because of the fur fair,” the nun said, grunting.
“And will there be great lords and ladies there in their furs?” Marthe asked incredulously, for she could not fathom how anyone could wear fur in such heat; even at the end of the day the air around them was almost too thick to breathe.
But if the furs were as luxurious as she imagined, who could blame them? Perhaps one day she might do the same.
The nun gave her a look of amazement. “Do you know nothing of where you are?”
“Not really, no.”
“The fair is for trading furs, not showing them off. Fur drives all commerce here. The French and English want it, the Iroquois and the Algonquins and the other native tribes have it. That’s all you need to understand.”
Marthe’s heart skipped a beat. So it was true. If there was one thing she had gleaned from their village priest’s reading of the Jesuit tales, it was that a fortune could be made in fur. She smiled to herself as she tucked the information away.
Young Claire settled into the rowboat and crossed herself. The nun called back up to the captain. “Send one more down. I only want to make two trips to shore.”
The captain nodded at someone on deck and a moment later the woman in the velvet dress appeared. Marthe glanced at élisabeth who had grown very still.
The velvet lady backed down the rope ladder slowly, her buckled shoe feeling for the safety of the rowboat beneath her.
She crouched as she turned and climbed down into the boat, though she was hampered in her movements by trying to clutch an object to her chest. Marthe peered at the bundle but could only make out a thatch of black yarn.
The woman moved towards the bench where élisabeth sat.
Abruptly, élisabeth jumped to her feet, causing the packed rowboat to lurch from side to side. The woman in velvet lost her footing. She rocked backwards, throwing her hands out for balance. Her bundle of yarn dropped into the bottom of the boat and with a yelp, she tumbled into the river.
In the rowboat, the girls gasped, twisting left and right. The nun shouted at them to sit still while the brides left on the riverboat screamed and pointed. The man in the brown hat jabbed his oar into the river, as if he were trying to spear a fish.
“She’s gone!” Marthe cried, peering into the fast-moving water. “Blessed Virgin, the velvet lady is gone.” Beside her, élisabeth was quiet.
The nun trained her eyes on the water. “Pray to God, she will come up again.”
Just then, a dark head breached the waves and gasped, not for breath but in rapture. The woman in velvet bobbed up and down for a moment, her arms churning above her head, then disappeared under the water again.
“A sea monster has her!” Lou shouted. “It’s dragged her under!”
“Saint Adjutor, protect her!” Rose prayed.
After a long moment the woman reappeared again, closer to shore. She stood and turned back to face the rowboat, the water up to her chest. She waved her hand over her head.
“Go, go,” the nun barked at the man in the brown hat, and he drove his oars into the water, pulling them towards land and overtaking the woman in velvet. When the little boat scraped the sandy bottom of the shoreline, the girls leapt from the skiff.
Marthe tottered a little at the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet.
“Thank the Lord you are safe,” the nun said, exhaling deeply as she called out to the woman in velvet.
The woman said nothing in return. She had lost her cap in the river and proceeded to squeeze the water from her hair as she waded towards the shore.
The river shimmered as she moved through it; the dying sun briefly lit her pale face.
When she reached the beach, she put her hands on her hips and looked around her.
Then she arched her back and stretched her palms out, as if she were conjuring the rising moon.
At the sight of the pale orb in the darkening sky to the east, a tingling feeling started in Marthe’s fingers and toes.
élisabeth was right, the woman in velvet had to be a sorceress.
Or perhaps a mermaid. Whatever she was, there was so much magic dripping off her that Marthe longed to reach forward and catch some of it for herself. Three more steps would do it.
“Do not move from where you are,” the nun commanded them. “My heart can’t take another scare. We won’t be a moment; we are going back for the others.”
“Wait!” the witch called out. She rushed back towards the rowboat, the other brides scurrying away from her as she approached.
When she was alongside the craft she reached inside and fished out the cloth bundle she had dropped when she fell in the river.
It was too dark now for Marthe to see it clearly, but she could sense the relief with which the woman clutched it to her chest.
Marthe walked a few paces onto the shore, the sound of sand and pebbles crunching beneath her feet sweeter than angels’ song. She crossed herself and looked up to Heaven. Next to her, élisabeth fell to her knees. Rose and Lou followed and kissed the ground.
The moon had indeed started to rise, bathing the beach in a milky light.
The shadows of the trees were growing longer, making it hard to scan the woods for any sign of life.
Fireflies flickered for a moment, then vanished, reminding Marthe of summer evenings in Normandy when gleaners combed the fields, the women bent double searching for scraps of grain, the children chasing the tiny fairy bugs.
As she gazed up at the lonely majesty of this forest, so far away from home, she heard her sister’s feverish prayers—and the splatter of water on stones as the witch wrung the water out of her dress.
“How did you… do that?” she asked.
The woman looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how did you float like that?”
The woman stared back. “I was swimming. I had to, because that fool knocked me overboard.” She glared at élisabeth, who was still on her knees in the sand, clasping her hands.
“I’ve seen my brothers swim in the river Orne.” élisabeth’s voice trembled, her eyes widening. “What you did was not the same. You looked like a—like a sea serpent. Rising and plunging and breathing all at the same time, and with the weight of your wet dress—it is unnatural.”
The sorceress raised her chin, the moonlight revealing the haughty arch of her lips. “What do you mean, unnatural?”
élisabeth said no more and Marthe didn’t wonder that she’d lost her nerve. It was risky to challenge a magical creature at any time, let alone under a rising moon.
The woman gave the sisters a fierce look.
“Do you mean to stand and gawk at me?”
élisabeth stammered, “I-I’ve just never seen anything like that before.”
“That’s hardly a surprise. You’re a peasant. You’ve probably seen very little in your life.”
A rush of indignation bloomed in Marthe’s chest but élisabeth only pressed her lips tightly together and stared back. Then she turned and walked away. When she had gone ten paces, she kneeled, made the sign of the cross, and lay face down on the sand, stretching her arms wide in supplication.
“I confess to almighty God that have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”
Marthe rushed to her sister’s side. “Lili, you are taking it too much to heart. The boat was overfull. Just apologize and the lady will forgive you.”
“I will not apologize to her,” élisabeth mumbled into the sand.
“Then get up!” Marthe glanced around to see if the others had noticed élisabeth lying prostrate on the beach. This was too much piety.
“Leave me be, Marthe.”
“If you want to praise the Virgin for our safe arrival, then we shall gather the others and all give thanks together.”
“Holy Virgin, with the help of Thy grace, I resolve to sin no more.”
Marthe stared, helpless to stop her sister’s excessive display.
When something in the sand crawled across élisabeth’s chest, she jerked away from the ground and raised herself onto her elbows.
The look on her face was utterly forlorn.
“I feel the same. No better at all.” She nodded at the woman in velvet, now wringing water out of her petticoats.
“Perhaps that is why the cure to my suffering has not worked. I am beset by witches.”
“You broke your crown during the storm. The captain said it could take months to recover from such a blow.”
élisabeth ignored her and began to work her hands in the peculiar pattern she had developed. “Queen of Heaven, by the help of Thy grace, cleanse my body and my soul. Rid me of evil—”
“Lili! Stop, that woman will hear you.”
Though élisabeth fell silent her hands continued to twist. Marthe knew she should calm her sister and tell her that she believed what she said about the woman in the velvet dress—after all, Marthe could see she was sparkling with magic—but she felt suddenly weary.
She let her sister pray and stared back out at the river.
The rowboat was gliding back to shore carrying the rest of the women.
One of the brides had started singing, her voice clear and high, making it seem as if the craft was drifting forward on an eerie charm rather than the strength of the rower’s arms.
“Quand j’étais fille à marier j’étais belle et galante
Quand j’étais fille à marier j’étais belle et galante
Beaucoup d’amants venaient me voir à minuit dans ma chambre…”
The skiff scraped up on the rough sand and the remaining girls stepped out of the boat.
Their sisters of the sea rushed to join them, chattering and gazing at the New World around them.
The dark woods stared back, hiding whatever lay along the forest path: a warm hearth, a good man, healthy children? Or all their deepest fears come true?
One by one the Saint-Jean-Baptiste brides fell silent and drew closer to each other, sheep nervous before shearing.
All except one.