Chapter 18
It was a full fortnight before élisabeth came back to Ville-Marie to visit the priest, shortly after Lou’s and Rose’s wedding ceremonies had taken place.
The Parisian girls married at the same time, to men whose plots of land lay next to each other, just as they had promised.
Lou stumbled over her vows—for she only knew Jambon by his regimental nickname and balked when she was asked to take someone called Jean Dupuis as her husband.
Her laughter upon realizing her mistake rang out like morning church bells.
Rose spoke little before—or after—her marriage to his friend Laurent Lajeunesse.
élisabeth waited outside the chapel for Maman Poulin.
She had barely taken note of the weddings.
She was still agonizing over her decision to seek out Father de Sancy—she alone knew how he extracted his knowledge, and she could not loosen the fear that he might discover her secret and call for her to be stripped naked and pricked with a needle—but she could no longer live with the uncertainty of the feelings inside her.
Besides, Maman Poulin seemed so sure of the righteousness of the enquiry and élisabeth liked the plain-spoken widow.
With Maman Poulin by her side, élisabeth felt she no longer had to carry her burdens alone.
As they walked from the H?tel Dieu to the Sulpicians’ seminary though, the spirit inside her seemed to snake into her legs, trying to hide in her knees.
She set her mind to putting one foot in front of the other, surprised at how difficult the task was.
When they reached the front door of the stone seminary, a servant answered, and the widow took charge.
They were soon shown along an unlit corridor into a room with large windows.
élisabeth had never seen so many books—the church in Saint-Philbert counted itself lucky enough to have a single missal—and yet here in Ville-Marie there was an entire case of prayer books.
Father de Sancy sat behind a small table in the corner, a quill in his hand.
Maman Poulin cleared her throat. “Father?”
“Do not speak,” the priest said, not looking up as the feather scratched across the paper.
élisabeth felt a rush of heat race up her spine and wondered if the demon were blowing smoke from its nostrils inside her. She swayed from foot to foot to try to lull the creature to sleep. The priest paused and placed his quill down on the table.
“Men may read the words I am writing today for centuries to come. But I cannot think when a female is dancing around the room before me.”
élisabeth flushed and crossed her arms over her chest protectively.
“Father, we are sorry to disturb you,” Maman Poulin tried again. “We asked to speak with you today because my young friend has an important question that we know only you can answer, for you are a great man with much knowledge.”
“Yes, yes,” the priest dismissed her flattery crossly. “I remember our appointment.”
“This is élisabeth Jossard, newly arrived from Normandy,” Maman Poulin said.
From his blank stare élisabeth realized that the priest did not recognize her from the inquisition on the ship.
“She is the guardian of a frightful secret, for she met a woman in France who is possessed of a demon. And the matter is so terrifying to her—indeed the description of the turmoil the poor soul faces fills us all with such horror—that we wanted to ask you about it so that you may soothe our nightmares.”
The priest leaned forward, his eyes glinting. “Normandy, you say?” élisabeth could only nod. “Were the authorities in your village aware of this demonic possession?”
The widow looked at her expectantly. élisabeth dropped her eyes to the ground, evading the priest’s gaze. “I… I do not know, Father.”
The priest sat back in his chair, wheezing.
“It would hardly matter if they were. The courts in Rouen are struggling to prosecute even the most heinous crimes, now that the king has turned soft. It is left to witch hunters like myself to deal with all the heretics, witches, and demons—no matter how many cases there are. The amount of work to be done is almost insurmountable.”
“You are a champion,” the widow said quickly. “Your reputation is widely known. It’s all the talk of Ville-Marie, how well-versed you are in the fight against witches and demons and the like. We are lucky to have you amongst us.”
Father de Sancy waved his hand to dispel Maman Poulin’s words. “What is it you want to know?”
All the questions élisabeth had wrestled with since the day she was cursed started to churn inside her.
Did the sharp jabs in her womb mean that she was still barren?
Or did a demon account for all the strangeness inside her?
And if so, could the magic of one witch defeat the curse of another?
Might she drink a potion or beg Jeanne Roy for an enchantment, rather than suffer being beaten, pricked, or God knows what other violence in search of a cure?
“She describes a creature so strange and fearful that it does not sound like anything I have heard of in all my life,” Maman Poulin started.
“She feels jabs in her belly,” élisabeth said.
“It is far worse than that,” the widow interrupted. “She describes a mangled beast from Hell.”
élisabeth listened as Maman Poulin began to weave a tale of a wolf with horns, talons, wings, and a serpent’s forked tongue—a nightmare so colourful and intricate they would wear it for the rest of their lives, a garment to be handed down for generations.
The longer she spoke, the more élisabeth could feel such a creature moving inside her.
“What do you think, Father de Sancy? Have you ever heard of such a demon?”
Father de Sancy leaned back in his chair and rubbed his considerable stomach. “Of course I have.”
élisabeth’s hand flew to her mouth. The priest knew which devil dwelled inside of her! She put her thumb in her mouth and began to chew on her nail as the priest spoke.
“We’ve made great progress in our understanding of Hell’s creatures. I myself assisted with the Greek translation of the works of the inquisitor Michaelis.”
“And what does this Michael say about getting rid of demons?” élisabeth asked. She found it hard to look the priest in the eye, only glancing at him when his gaze was not fixed upon her.
“Michael-isss,” the priest hissed. “And while his work was significant, my own treatise is not without acclaim. Though of course I have built upon the work of giants.”
“Giants!”
The priest gave élisabeth a severe look. “Great thinkers. Men you would never have heard of.”
She put a knuckle into her mouth and continued to gnaw, finding some respite from her fear in the pain. “Are you famous because you helped those nuns?”
“Ah, my reputation does precede me. You are referring to my work on the demonic possessions at Louviers?”
Maman Poulin, astonished, turned to élisabeth, who managed a meek shrug. “Yes, I mean those nuns. Though I cannot understand why the most pious of women could be possessed,” élisabeth said.
“Perhaps they were not as pious as they pretended,” the priest replied. “It is well known that the female is a slave to her filthy lusts.”
élisabeth looked up at the priest and flinched when she saw that his eyes were bearing down on her.
Father de Sancy inhaled sharply and continued. “We exorcised more than a dozen demons from those nuns and burned the witches who cursed them.”
“What sorts of demons were they?” Maman Poulin was almost breathless.
“Terrifying legions from Hell,” the priest said, though he did not seem frightened.
He extended his legs and placed his hands behind his head, his elbows pointing out to the sides of the room.
“Did you know, I spoke to the demon Leviathan himself at Louviers?” Father de Sancy’s eyes grew misty and his voice softened.
“He was right there in the room, communicating with me through that poor Sister. The audacity of his words… it was remarkable. If I live another seventy years, I will never see such wonders again.”
“How did you know it was Leviathan?” Maman Poulin asked.
The question pierced his thoughts. He remembered their presence and sat up straight in his chair. “We learned through time and experience to recognize the different demons through the behaviour of their victims.”
“What sort of behaviour? What do you mean?”
“Sinful behaviour, of course. For instance, if your village girl is lustful, it could be the demon Rosier who inhabits her. Should she whisper during Mass, it is very likely Belias, a fallen prince of virtues. I do not think a demon as great as Leviathan or Beelzebub would bother with a peasant girl, but they have scores of lesser demons under their command. In one of the most celebrated cases, a demoniac had as many as thirty devils inside of her! Including Beelzebub the lion, Cerberus the dog, and Astaroth the pig. Without meeting your girl to examine her, I cannot tell you which demon afflicts her.”
élisabeth swayed. Should she own up to her tyranny of symptoms and let the priest examine her?
Should she risk being shaved and beaten until her skin turned blue?
No, no. She could not survive the shame of it.
It would be better to do as Marthe suggested and entreat Jeanne Roy to help her with a potion. If Jeanne Roy could be found.
“Father, could it be something simpler than a demon?” Maman Poulin asked. “What about a werewolf?”
The priest snorted. “Nothing but folklore. Creatures of fantasy.”
“Could a demon be a wolf and a serpent at the same time?” the widow persisted. “The girl Lili met had snakes and a wolf inside her.”
The priest reached for a book and opened it. élisabeth dared to take a step closer. On each page were loops of black writing, as well as sketches of stars and crosses and circles—all manner of magical shapes.