Chapter 10 #2
“No! You are nothing like the possessed! Do you not remember the friar that came through Saint-Philbert when the boys were still alive? The one with the demoniac?”
élisabeth shook her head, wiping her face with her sleeve.
“Nicolas and I went to see them. Were you not with us?” Marthe waited for élisabeth to nod, to acknowledge the memory, for she could see the day clearly in her mind.
The friar had come from the south in late summer, walking with a gnarled cane, calling out for the villagers to gather.
When all the wives and children had poured from their homes, he began the exorcism.
The possessed woman, a filthy and shambling creature tied by the wrists to a cord around the friar’s waist, had rolled on the ground making impossible shapes with her body: her hips raised, her knees behind her ears, her head twisted near off her neck.
It was so grotesque that Nicolas had laughed out loud, and the village wives had to tell him to hush.
“Do you not remember? The demoniac had fits for nearly half an hour, barking and moaning and contorting all the time. She crawled around on her hands and knees, licking the cobblestones in the square. Then the friar sprinkled her with holy water and she screamed as if she had been scalded. Lili, you are nothing like that woman—why, you just took communion in the chapel! You cannot think you are afflicted with a demon.”
For a moment hope blossomed across élisabeth’s face, her blue eyes widening.
“That is true, I did not scream in the chapel.” Then she faltered and a sob caught in her throat.
“Even if there is no demon, I am still barren. I am still cursed. I lost my child, and I can never have another. Not until the curse is broken.”
Marthe gently stroked her sister’s back while her mind raced.
Of course élisabeth was not possessed—could not be!
—but a witch’s lesser curse was possible.
Everyone in Saint-Philbert sprinkled crushed eggshells outside their door to keep witches away, and traded information about signs of their craft, from mothers’ milk drying up to crops shrivelling and animals wasting away.
If poor élisabeth’s misfortune became widely known, she would have such a blot against her name.
Their name. Marthe stiffened at the thought that élisabeth’s shame—once again—might affect her own prospects.
“There must be a way to lift the curse,” she said, letting her hand drop to her side.
“There isn’t.” élisabeth sniffed. “I’ve tried everything.
I’ve eaten vervain and dill until I’ve retched.
I’ve drunk water that had a true relic of Saint Ignatius dipped in it.
I’ve walked backwards around the stone circle at the top of the Roche d’Oetre in the moonlight.
And I came here, to the holiest place on earth and laid on its sacred ground.
Nothing has worked. Nothing! I still feel such sharp movements in my gut.
I am cursed and I can never, ever have another child. ”
“There is something you could try.” Marthe waited until élisabeth looked up. “The Winter Witch is an old woman, yes? Barren herself.” Her sister nodded. “So could a younger, more powerful practitioner… break her curse?”
Marthe watched her sister’s face as her meaning dawned. élisabeth shook her head so vehemently the sides of her hood slapped her cheeks. “No. I would not dare—”
“Why ever not? Jeanne Roy is one of us! A sister of the sea. She saved us from the storm. There can be no mightier a sorceress in the whole world than her.”
élisabeth’s voice grew shrill. “It is unthinkable to beg a favour from a witch.”
Marthe took her hands. “She’s not a witch.
You do not know that she has made a pact with the Devil.
She is a mighty sorceress who can heal and mend and cure.
There is a difference. And if she is the leader of the banished coven the old priest seeks, she will certainly have the power to break the curse. ”
élisabeth pulled away. “If she leads a coven then she is a witch! And there is nothing more evil than a witch—”
“But magic is good!” Marthe insisted. “Magic is holy. Even priests have magic. If one has the power to help and to heal, how can that be evil?”
élisabeth began to gnaw on her thumbnail, her eyes darting left and right. “I cannot survive another witch.”
“You cannot survive as you are, Lili. If Jeanne is as powerful as Father de Sancy says she is, you must make an ally of her.”
élisabeth bit her nail down to the quick, her eyes still scanning the horizon.
Marthe felt a surge of frustration. Why could her sister never listen?
It was élisabeth’s pigheaded refusal to consider the counsel of anyone but Rémy that had brought them across the sea.
The day the village priest had signed the letters of good conduct—the testament to their chastity and piety—Marthe had lashed out and told élisabeth she would be found out on her wedding night; she would be known for a whore and whipped.
Marthe had cursed her sister for her sins and the priest for his lies.
Only a knock on the cottage door had stopped her tirade. It was the Delaunays’ wrinkled cook, Old Geneviève, who seemed to know the moment she walked through the door the cause of the sisters’ quarrel.
“I told you to stay away from that boy,” Old Geneviève said, shifting her weight heavily on her cane. “He’s just like his father.”
“Rémy loves me—”
Old Geneviève cut élisabeth off. “Go. Go and forget him. I see you’ve got them letters.
Good. I told the curé that all that gossip was nowt but spite and if it were true, why was there no child to account for?
I said you were born unlucky, as sure as you were born with those blue eyes, and if he could talk so much about God’s mercy without laying some of it down on you and your poor sister… well.”
“So you are the cause of our misfortune.” Marthe glared at the old cook. “You lied to that fool priest so the parish could be rid of us.”
Old Geneviève sighed and rubbed her hip.
“I am not the cause of your woes. I am sorry for you, Marthe, for you are blameless. But consider, a spirited girl such as yourself might do better in New France than in this tired old village.” She turned and spoke more gently to élisabeth.
“And you. Listen to me. Go on that bride ship and start again. Find a better man than Rémy.”
“I will go to seek my salvation,” élisabeth said stiffly. “But I won’t be anyone else’s bride. I love Rémy, I love him and I always—”
The cook had held up her hand. Her eyes were small and dark, smaller still when she narrowed them. “I know it’s not easy to listen to folks when you don’t like what they have to say. But you must try, élisabeth Jossard, for your own sake.”
On that night, as Old Geneviève had limped out of the cottage and back up the hill, Marthe had wondered why, if élisabeth and Rémy loved each other so much, they had not fought harder to stay together.
Now that she knew the truth about the witch’s curse, she wondered why élisabeth was still so unwilling to heed anyone’s advice but his.
She tried again. “Please appeal to Jeanne Roy, Lili. It may be your only hope.”
élisabeth stared at the ground, spitting out a jagged nail. “I suppose she might look on me with favour.”
Marthe tried to hide her surprise. She held her breath, waiting.
“It was my letter of good conduct that Jeanne stole to escape Father de Sancy’s suspicion. And I gave her my best petticoat this morning because she does not have a trunk.”
Marthe exhaled. “Good. All you must do is ask her.” She linked her arm with élisabeth’s, urging her forward. “It is a good plan. I know she can help you lift the curse. None of us realized what she truly was until she fell into the river. Then we all saw her magic.”
élisabeth slowed, stubborn against Marthe’s enthusiasm. “But she is high-and-mighty. She might refuse me.”
Marthe dismissed her sister’s doubts. “Then you must choose your time and your words carefully. You will only get one chance to seek her favour.”
They walked quickly, Marthe squeezing her arm, wordlessly imploring her to act.
“Yes,” élisabeth said slowly. “Yes, I should choose my time and words wisely.”
Marthe felt she might melt with relief. There was a curse, but there was also hope. For every coming dusk, there would also be a dawn. “And you must start with the deepest curtsey and praise her goodness and charity.”
“Should I remind her of all that I have done for her?” They walked arm in arm, the wind whipping at the hems of their skirts.
“No. You must be humble in her presence.”
“You are right, of course.” élisabeth smiled, a tremulous stretch across her wan face. “I am glad that I told you the truth. And I am sorry that I kept it from you for so long.”
“A burden shared is a burden halved.” Marthe gave élisabeth a quick squeeze. She could not help herself from skipping a little as she walked.
“I confess I was overcome with despair when my prayers did not work,” élisabeth continued, her tone becoming lighter.
“I imagined that just by setting foot on this island, that would be enough. What a fool I was. This is a better plot. Why, if Jeanne Roy cures me tomorrow, we could even sail back to France with the Saint-Jean-Baptiste on its return voyage this week!”
Marthe halted. “Sail back to France?”
élisabeth looked sheepish. “Yes. Once the curse is lifted, we can go back to Saint-Philbert. I can marry Rémy and… and you… well, wasn’t there that boy from Pont-d’Ouilly who took your fancy? Once I marry Rémy there will be money for a dowry for you.”
Marthe dropped élisabeth’s arm. “You want to go back to France to marry Rémy?”
“Of course. He only broke with me because of the witch’s curse. If I can fall pregnant again, his parents would have to agree to our marriage. That was always our intention, to force his mother’s hand. But with the curse upon me I cannot bear a child, Rémy says.”
“You intended to fall pregnant?” Marthe’s voice rose. “It was no accident?”
“Many brides go to the altar already with child. You know what the Delaunays are like. Determined to squeeze the largest dowry out of whoever marries their son, no matter which plain-faced ogre it’s attached to.
Rémy wanted so much to marry me. We knew that if I was with child, they would have to agree to let us wed. ”
The leaves on the trees were shaking in the wind. There would be a storm soon, but nothing like the squall that brewed in Marthe’s breast. “After the way he treated you, you would still go back to France to marry him?”
“It was not his choice to break with me. It was because of the Winter Witch.”
Marthe’s temper flashed. “And what about me, Lili? Why drag me all the way here if you never intended to stay?” She saw the footbridge over the little creek just ahead and started to stride towards it.
“I am sorry, Marthe. Honestly, I don’t… I don’t even know how we would return to France. I doubt the king would pay our passage back, and the cost of the voyage would cripple us. But we must try. I must return for… for true love.”
“True love?” Marthe spat the words over her shoulder.
“What about me? What am I returning to? You sold me a story about a king’s dowry and a second chance in the New World.
And now you want me to risk another deadly sea voyage to return home to…
to be known as the sister of a girl who spreads her legs to win a husband? ”
élisabeth howled and ran, catching Marthe’s arm. “I was a handfasted bride! That means we are as good as married in God’s eyes.”
“Does it? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Did Rémy tell you that?”
“I… it… Rémy loves me!” élisabeth spluttered, her eyes looking this way and that, before hardening and turning on Marthe. “Listen, I have been looking after you since you were four years old. You will do as I say. And I say we are going home to Saint-Philbert.”
“Married in God’s eyes? You are such a fool!
” Marthe sneered and wriggled free from élisabeth’s grasp.
She could not see straight, so blinding was the rage inside her.
She grabbed for the first anchor she could think of to stop her drift.
“No, I am not going back with you. I am staying here. For I am to be mistress of the best bakery on this island.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Verger has asked me to marry him. And I will accept him. I will be married—in God’s eyes, and in church.”
“Who asked you?”
“Ma?tre Verger! The man who helped you just now.”
“Him? You can’t have known him for more than a quarter of an hour.” élisabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s absurd.”
“I’ve known him for half an hour,” Marthe retorted. “And he’s already a master baker, with his own shop.”
“Master baker, what nonsense! He’s no older than I am.”
“He’ll be twenty next month.”
élisabeth threw her hands in the air. “He’s lying to you, Marthe, he can’t be anything more than a journeyman. He cannot own his own shop. Best bakery, what a boast. It is likely the only bakery.”
“The baker he was apprenticed to has died, and so the business has fallen to him. I like the look of it—and him, I suppose—so if you are going back to Saint-Philbert to marry your devoted Rémy, it will be without me.”
Marthe turned and ran towards the nuns’ farmhouse.
Heavy drops of rain fell on her face as the storm finally shed its tears of frustration.
Damn élisabeth, with her lies and her lovesickness.
Her false piety. Marthe would tie herself to this island with a marriage knot so tight that her sister could never undo it.
She ran faster, her skirts flapping, plunging headlong into her fate.