Chapter 11
Once, when élisabeth was a girl, a fox made off with three of the Jossards’ chickens in a single night.
Like every family in Saint-Philbert, they had kept a coop beside their vegetable garden for a ready supply of eggs.
Marthe’s temper often reminded élisabeth of the squawks of the birds as they died: outraged fluster followed by a crunch of bones, and then silence.
As Marthe’s foul mood set in, élisabeth wondered if she wouldn’t be clearing up blood and scattered feathers until long after the wedding.
A fortnight after she had attacked the men in the alley, élisabeth tried once again to make amends by offering to dress her sister’s hair for the ceremony.
The girls were in the dormitory, burbling with nerves.
Marthe sniffed and declined élisabeth’s offer without a glance, saying that Rose was up to the task and she wouldn’t bend her ear with fantasies about returning to France while working her plaits.
“I promise I won’t speak of it,” élisabeth said. “But please slow down. Even if we can’t go home, you have only just met Verger. Take some time to consider your choices.”
“You know what the intendant said.” Marthe leaned her head to the right to allow Rose to pin up her braids. “Everyone is to be married by the first of September.”
“Yes, but Sister Gagnon says that won’t stick. The law can’t rule man’s heart.”
“My marriage has nothing to do with my heart. As such, it hardly matters which stranger I wed. Remember that our purpose in coming to New France was to marry. At least mine was, though you appear to have come halfway across the world on a fool’s errand.”
Marthe cried out and grabbed her head. Rose blushed and removed the pin from Marthe’s scalp. “Sorry,” Rose said, sending a sympathetic glance in élisabeth’s direction as well.
No matter how much élisabeth tried to sweep the feathers from the floor, Marthe would not listen to her pleas.
As she made her way along the dirt path from the congregation to the little chapel in Ville-Marie, a familiar sensation churned élisabeth’s stomach.
She knew it well by now. It had been with her from the moment she had lost her child all those months ago, the night of the Winter Witch’s curse.
She clung to Marthe’s words—that she was nothing like the touring demoniac, barking mad for all the village to see—but the thought of the woman’s public exorcism made her doubt.
Marthe’s description of the strange twists and thrusts of the woman’s limbs mirrored what she felt inside her own body.
She had to be possessed like the nuns of Louviers, for what else could it be?
With growing dread, she imagined the horror on the Saint-Jean-Baptiste girls’ faces as a demon hatched from inside her, unfurling sticky, leathery wings like a newborn foal from a mare’s womb.
She imagined the brides’ screams as the demon soared high, high above the farmhouse, sloughing off élisabeth’s snakeskin body and letting it fall back to earth.
She saw Father de Sancy’s watery eyes fixed on her, whip in hand, as he demanded to know if she were addicted to the carnal act.
She clasped her hands tightly together and did three rounds of the squeeze and prayer.
When they arrived in the village, the people of Ville-Marie were milling around outside the chapel, waiting for a glimpse of the first of the new brides to be married.
There was a handful of women with grey aprons and mended brown skirts, and five times as many men in the same drab colours.
Their doublets hung loose and their stockings wilted round their ankles, such was the heat.
When the governor swept through in red and blue silk the contrast was so vibrant he looked like a peacock strolling through a flock of sparrows.
“Stay here,” he commanded a pair of native children who trailed after him. The younger girl had a missing tooth; she could not have been more than seven or eight years old. She looked bewildered as the older child put out a hand to stop her advance.
“Are those the governor’s… children?” Marthe looked flushed. élisabeth wondered if it was the heat, or the beginnings of regret.
“Of course not,” Sister Gagnon tutted. “Those are his Panis slaves.”
The governor turned and tipped his hat to Marthe, a smile spreading across his face. Marthe faltered. élisabeth stepped forward to catch her but when Marthe saw her outstretched arms, her face hardened. She turned away, taking Rose and Lou by the hands.
“I must not leave Ma?tre Verger waiting.”
Her friends kissed her cheeks, wishing her luck and a dozen sons and reminding her she’d never know a day’s hunger by marrying a baker.
élisabeth faded back into the crowd, wincing as if she’d been stung.
There was no way to clean up this fit of temper, this mess of feather and bone. Marthe would not bend.
élisabeth dawdled outside, hanging back by the tree in the H?tel Dieu yard.
The air was muggy, and her chemise stuck to her chest. She watched the native children use a stick to draw a pattern in the dust. She wondered what they were saying to each other, and who the Panis were, and how two of their children had ended up slaves while other natives walked freely down the streets of Ville-Marie.
There was so much she did not understand about New France.
Presently a pair of women came up the path, walking slowly and talking as old friends do, not waiting for the other to finish before the next words were spoken.
One was a native woman, a woven basket of herbs on her back.
élisabeth gaped when she realized that the other was Jeanne Roy.
She stepped behind the tree so as not to be seen.
“I learned all I know from some of the greatest men of our age,” Jeanne Roy said, the sin of pride heavy on her tongue.
The pair stopped by the slave children. élisabeth saw Jeanne Roy’s companion take an apple out of a beaded bag and offer it to the little girls.
The children skipped up and down as they took turns biting into the red fruit.
The native woman looked at Jeanne Roy. “I learned all I know at my grandmother’s knee.”
The witch paused, considering this. Finally, she nodded her head. “I do not doubt that you had the better education.”
The native woman smiled. “Then I will share with you the knowledge of the Haudenosaunee.”
élisabeth peeked her head around the tree.
She saw the stranger take a bundle of herbs from her bag and press them into Jeanne Roy’s hand.
Maybe they were both witches? With a start, élisabeth realized this was the moment to ask Jeanne Roy for help.
She would fall to her knees in the hospital courtyard and beg her to lift the curse.
élisabeth stepped out from behind the tree, just as Jeanne Roy spoke again.
“I have nothing so valuable to share in return. Nothing except the story of how I came to be here. I have never told a soul, but it is a lesson I would gladly teach you, should it one day spare you my pain.”
“élisabeth Jossard!” Sister Gagnon’s voice rang out from the chapel door. “Hurry, or you will miss your sister’s wedding.”
The witch turned and saw élisabeth by the tree, eavesdropping on her confession. Her face turned red with fury.
“I’m coming,” élisabeth called back. She thrust her hand in her pocket and clutched her rosary, slinking past the two women towards the chapel.
She wondered what tale Jeanne Roy would tell the native woman about her journey.
Would she describe how she had used magic to convince the king to set her coven free?
How she had cast a glamour on him from far away?
How did a convicted witch evade the pyre?
All she knew was that she had ruined her chance to speak to Jeanne Roy and she did not know if she would get another.
élisabeth felt a shiver up her spine and wondered if the witch were casting the evil eye on her, even now.