Chapter 22 #2
A sharp sadness came over élisabeth as visions of that night flashed like lightning in a summer storm.
Rémy laughing as he returned to the table with a stone jug.
The bitter taste of the wine. élisabeth leaning closer to her lover, whispering to him what it felt like now that the child had quickened.
And once that word—quickened—had escaped her mouth, the door blowing open in one wintery breath.
She had turned, expecting to see Old Geneviève, whose hip troubled her more at night, limping in to join them.
Instead, an unsettling sight: a haggard crone with long grey hair, dressed in rags.
Cloudy eyes casting around the room, seeking something she could not find.
Then, the raised hand, the long bony finger pointed at élisabeth.
’Twas for you.
At first, élisabeth had covered her mouth to hide her titter, but Rémy leapt up and rushed towards the hag.
She saw a flash of silver and an ashen face.
Rémy came back to the table, his voice shaking as he told her what the Winter Witch had done.
She shook her head—that cannot be, I have eaten no fruit nor been touched by her hands, how can I be cursed?
—but the turmoil in his eyes told her the truth.
Her brow grew slick with sweat and her breathing shallow as the spell began its terrible work.
She stumbled back to her father’s house, whispering prayers to ward off the cramping.
But the holy words—grace, blessed, and the one she could barely utter without choking, sinners—rang with such sibilance that it sounded like she was hissing through a forked tongue.
That was when the child slipped from between her legs in a slick of dark blood, and the demon took its place in her belly.
“I cannot believe it.” Jeanne Roy sounded dismayed.
“It’s true,” élisabeth murmured through tears. “I cannot have another child until the Winter Witch is killed or the curse is lifted by a more powerful sorceress.”
The sound that broke from Jeanne Roy’s lips was as ragged as an animal being slaughtered. She placed her hands over her eyes and her knuckles grew white as she pressed her fingertips against her forehead.
“You are not barren… because an old woman… pointed her finger at you.” She spoke haltingly, struggling to form the words.
élisabeth did not understand. “But I saw what she did. Rémy explained it to me. I lost the baby that very night.”
Jeanne Roy rubbed her forehead, as if trying to smooth out the creases on her brow. She began to mutter in a way that made élisabeth uneasy.
“You stupid… ignorant… peasant.”
élisabeth flinched. Inside, the demon Marcosi began to growl.
Jeanne Roy’s voice rose. “Do you really believe that? You believe that a woman can simply point her finger at you and by her will alone do you harm?”
“Yes, of course.” élisabeth blinked. Jeanne Roy’s anger was startling.
“Such curses are near impossible to break. Rémy spent weeks searching the woods to find the hag and kill her. When he did not succeed, I came to this holy land at the edge of the world to lay myself down on its sacred soil. Yet that too has not worked.”
Jeanne Roy’s face twisted and her voice shook. “You sent your lover to kill her?”
élisabeth grew wary. She lowered her voice to prevent Marcosi from hearing what she said next, lest it stir the demon further. “The Winter Witch still lives. If she were dead, my demon would have disappeared.”
“Your demon?”
“He is called Marcosi. When the Winter Witch pointed her finger and cursed me, she must have caused him to grow inside my womb. It is why I am barren.”
Jeanne Roy groaned. She wrapped her hands around her own neck and kneaded the base of her skull.
She took a deep breath and gazed at élisabeth, shaking her head.
“It is the stupidity more than anything else that I cannot abide. Malice is comprehensible. One need only read the Bible to understand that men are greedy and hateful. It’s the ignorance—the wilful, lazy ignorance! —that is so… so reprehensible.”
élisabeth flinched. She had known that approaching a witch would be dangerous, that Jeanne Roy was bound to exact a heavy price. But she did not know she would have to bear insult as well.
“I am not stupid,” she said quietly.
“Are you certain?” Jeanne Roy taunted her. “Let us look at your story again. In the study of natural philosophy we are taught to include only what we know to be true—what we have proven—in our observations. Shall we try that and see what truth your story reveals?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course not, because you have no education. I presume you cannot read or even write your name. No? Of course not. So let us go over your tale of ‘witchcraft’ again. Let us see if there is another hypothesis we might consider.”
“I don’t know…” élisabeth saw the bottled fury in Jeanne Roy’s eyes and stopped. If the witch wanted her to start from the beginning, then so be it. She would have to explain herself more clearly.
“We lay together for many months. I told Rémy I was with child after I felt the quickening. He said he would tell his parents—”
“Stop. A question. Was he pleased to hear you were carrying his child?”
“Yes, of course he was.” élisabeth thought back to the moment she had felt the baby flutter inside of her and had run to tell Rémy that what they had suspected was for certain.
He was not in the house, and the old cook grumbled he was more likely than not in the tavern.
élisabeth had found him in his usual place by the window, a tankard of cider before him.
He was laughing with the innkeeper’s daughter.
The girl was wiping the table in such a way that made her breasts jiggle.
But nothing the pock-faced barmaid could flash at Rémy mattered now that élisabeth was with child—she had won.
She had whispered her news into his ear, letting her lips graze his lobe, and had pulled back, ablaze with triumph. He had smiled, slowly.
“It was his idea that we should lay together. He said, ‘I will tell my parents’ and then ‘we will be married before you start to show.’ So yes, he was very pleased.”
“And did he tell his parents?”
élisabeth faltered. “He did not have time to speak to them before… before the witch cursed me. I… I was not at that moment staying at the Rémy household because my father had taken a turn for the worse. I was at home, helping Marthe care for him. Before too long Rémy knocked at our door and said he wanted to step out with me to celebrate.”
“How long after you had told him did this occur?”
“I don’t know… It was February. A fortnight? Not more.”
“Thus he had known for two weeks about your condition and had not told his parents. Continue.”
élisabeth swallowed, the demon twisting furiously in her gut. “We sat down, we called for our drinks, the witch came in. It was as I said.”
“What did you eat before your miscarriage?”
“Nothing. Food had not been sitting easily in my stomach, as is normal before the quickening. We drank wine, too sour for my liking, but Rémy said it would do me good. The witch came in soon after.”
“I see.”
“You may think me a fool to drink to my own success before it was assured, but at that moment I believed myself to be the winner of a prize beyond all imagination, to be marrying my true love. Then I saw a movement at the window. A telltale sign of a witch. A shadow, something you see out of the corner of your eye, then when you look there’s nothing but a creeping feeling up your spine. ”
“That is why you believe the woman was a witch? That you didn’t turn your head in time to see her through a window?”
élisabeth forced herself not to scowl. She had not said it right. Jeanne Roy made it sound ridiculous, but Rémy had been definite. “Rémy told me she was a witch.”
“And did you believe everything your lover told you? Or did you gather any proof of this woman’s ability to perform magic?
” Jeanne Roy’s tone was so biting that élisabeth wanted to scream, but she knew if she did, that would be the end of her chance of a cure.
Still, she raised her chin as she continued.
“I had a feeling when I saw her. The tavern door opened and a gust of cold wind rushed into the room. There was the Winter Witch, the one Papa had always warned us about. The one who feasts on infants and has long sought to do our village harm. She noticed me and fixed her eyes on me with a… with a fiendish expression. I remember she had a witch’s mark on her cheek, under her eye.
She lifted her finger, and it was gnarled and bony with a long, black nail. ”
“You could see her fingernails from where you were sitting?”
élisabeth ignored the question. “ ‘’Twas for you,’ the Winter Witch called out, pointing at me, and Rémy jumped into the air with fright.
He understood right away what was happening.
He rushed at the old witch and pushed her out the door.
I could hear the hag screech as he did so, like glass shattering on a flagstone, loud and sharp.
Then I saw Rémy fling a silver coin at her, as you are supposed to do to keep the curse from sticking.
He came back to me and told me not to mind a thing, he would take care of me, and he wrapped my cloak around my shoulders, and told me to finish my drink.
He was very tender, very caring, and he said he would take me out the back so that the witch could not lay her eyes on me again.
I was terrified to see Rémy so affected, so I made him tell me who the woman was.
He said he didn’t want to frighten me further, but I insisted.
He started to weep as he told me the truth. That she was the Winter Witch.”
Jeanne Roy formed a steeple with her index fingers and tapped it against her frowning mouth. The slow, deliberate movement looked like she was casting a spell.
“And did Rémy explain how she came to pick on you of all people?”