Chapter 34
Not long after Francoeur had left, his snowshoes leaving heart-shaped marks in the path behind him, élisabeth followed him out of town.
When she could no longer see his tracks, she trudged the path she imagined her husband had travelled, and when she reached their house in C?te Saint-Francois, she let herself in.
He was not at home.
She took the holy water vessel down from the lintel and dropped to her knees in front of the crucifix.
She prayed for the Blessed Virgin to take pity on her and send her husband back to her.
She recited her rosary and begged God to forgive her sins.
She pleaded and bartered and beseeched until her knees ached and her head spun.
Only the demon Marcosi answered her prayers.
You heard what Francoeur said. You are a lost cause.
“His anger is misplaced,” she told the demon. “I did my duty by letting the village know about the witch.”
Your duty was to curb your tongue and to lay with your husband. Why did you never do your duty, wayward girl?
“And when he discovered I was barren, Marcosi? What then?”
The church cannot object to an annulment.
They argued like this for days, the demon and the wayward girl.
élisabeth threw herself into her chores to distract herself from the voice in her head, to prove that she was not without use.
She baked bread with what was left of their flour.
She swept the floors until the wispy branches of the broomstick threatened to score the pine.
She wiped every inch of the house free of cobwebs, running her cloth over the log beams that her husband had stripped of bark with his own hands, caressing the places his fingers had been.
Still, Marcosi was relentless.
Your fear of a lancet may have condemned a soul to death.
It was true. Not an hour after she had accused Jeanne Roy, Maman Poulin had scurried to the seminary to tattle to Father de Sancy.
Soon the bailiff and the executioner were sent to retrieve the witch.
She was found on the river path, heading east with Rose and Lou and their husbands.
The bailiff tied her by a rope to the back of a sleigh, like an animal brought to slaughter, making her march back to Ville-Marie on foot.
She was blue-lipped and shivering by the time they reached the village.
A mob gathered to gawk and jeer. When Father de Sancy declared that the most powerful sorceress in all of Europe stood before them, someone called out that though the witch’s hands were bound, she might yet have the means to summon her master, the Devil.
Another in the crowd cried out—beware!—he could smell brimstone.
élisabeth had looked at Jeanne Roy’s face, drawn white with terror, and took no satisfaction in her neighbour’s fate.
She had gazed blankly at Maman Poulin, gleeful in the centre of the mob, and turned to leave the village.
Alone at the farmhouse, élisabeth now stared across the length of their land, down to the river.
The snow that had once blanketed the landscape had started to shrink, and the land to thaw, turning to mud.
She wondered how long she had been locked in debate with her demon.
How many days? She did not mark the passage of time.
She wondered what was happening in town.
She wondered if the witch still lived.
What if Dufossé’s death was an accident, wayward girl? The cold in this country has its grip on all our throats.
She could stand no more of the demon’s poison tongue.
She would chop wood until it brought her some peace.
She strode outside and grabbed Francoeur’s axe.
The hem of her skirt dragged in the mud, but she did not move into the shade where the ground was cold and dry.
She raised the blade above her head and brought it crashing down upon the log in front of her.
The pine cried out as it split, two halves tumbling to the ground.
It felt good to punish the logs. She picked up one of the split halves and laid it on the oak stump, raised her axe above her head again, and tried to silence Marcosi’s voice.
Perhaps what the witch said is true. Perhaps I am merely black bile.
She slammed the axe down onto the stump and picked up another log. She tried to focus her attention on the wood before her, but her mind was not her servant.
“How can you say that you are naught but black bile, Marcosi?” She leaned on her axe as she addressed the beast. “I can feel your claws when you sharpen them against my insides. I can feel your tail knocking against my spine. Do you deny what I can feel? I can feel, therefore witchcraft is real.”
Two thoughts twisted together, the first not able to take root before the other weeded it out.
Witchcraft is real.
Witchcraft does not exist.
élisabeth made a sound as if she were trying to blow out a candle.
“Melancholy.” She raised the axe again. She did not want to admit to Marcosi that she did not know what Jeanne had meant by melancholy.
She understood that it was a kind of sorrow, and the Blessed Virgin knew that she had many of those: the loss of her mother, then her brothers, her beloved child and the hope for a good marriage, and then finally Papa, the final fraying of the rope before it snapped.
But why then did she feel no sadness? Only the angry demon curling and unfurling in her body, leaving fear in its wake?
“Witchcraft is real, Marcosi, and Jeanne is its most powerful practitioner. I have seen her grimoire with my own eyes. I have seen her familiar! What other purpose does that terrible doll serve? Do you not remember what Maman Poulin said, about the power of familiar spirits—gargoyles that breathe through their mouths, and cats that speak Latin as clearly as I speak French?”
She raised her axe, bracing for the demon’s retort.
Cats that speak Latin? That is absurd.
élisabeth froze, axe above her head. Marcosi was right. That was absurd.
Then she imagined Jeanne Roy’s sneering face. How ignorant you are to believe that cats can speak at all.
She grunted and brought the blade down hard on the stump. She misjudged and the axe glanced off the wood, striking her knee. She dropped the axe to the ground and swore.
Once the curse left her lips, she could not stop. élisabeth flung her head back and let loose a savage moan. It filled the woods and echoed through the trees. It caused the crows to stop and stare at her wretchedness.
Francoeur was gone. She had been wayward, and the Devil had come for her. Everything her mother had once warned of had come to pass.
She howled until the birds grew frightened and took flight.
She howled until her throat hurt. She howled until she felt Marcosi stretch and grow until he thrust his wings into her arms, his horns into her skull.
The demon put her on as if she were a suit of fine cloth, and found it fit him very well.
You will never be rid of me. For now I am you. A she-wolf with wings. A warrior. A great marquis of Hell.
élisabeth sat down on the oak stump, her howls turning to sobs.
She buried her face in her hands. She could not go on.
She was cursed. Her husband had left her.
Her sister had turned against her. She had condemned a woman to death.
What was she if not one of Hell’s wolfhounds, living alone in the woods?
Alone in the woods, like the Winter Witch.
How long she stayed on that stump she did not know. She could hear the dripping of the melting icicles on the roof of the house. Her tears dried and left salt streaks on her face. It was only when she heard a twig snap that she looked up.
Her neighbour Hélène was at the edge of the woods, her eyes wary. élisabeth gave Dufossé’s widow a cold stare.
“I thought I heard… an animal. Are you well, neighbour?”
élisabeth considered the question. Was she well?
She was a demon. But if she were a she-wolf with wings, she could fly wherever she pleased.
She could dance at midnight by the light of the moon.
As a demon, she could walk into the forest, swishing her silken tail, her yellow eyes alert.
She did not have to be frightened of living alone.
She could leave her chicken-hearted dread behind.
“Yes, I am well.”
Hélène hesitated. “May I join you?”
élisabeth did not reply and Hélène approached cautiously, perching on a stump nearby. “Have you had any word from the village?” the neighbour asked.
élisabeth shook her head.
“I saw it all, you know. Jeanne had already reached my house when they caught up to her.” Hélène looked at her hands.
“I ran down to the river path. I tried to tell them it was not witchcraft that killed my husband, but liquor. They did not want to hear it. The executioner said that if I defended her, they would assume that I too… that I…” She could not finish her thought.
She rose suddenly and crossed her arms, glaring at élisabeth. “Why did you do it?”
élisabeth folded her hands in her lap. She wished her neighbour would leave.
She did not want to hear any more. She turned and stared out at the river, trying to ignore Hélène’s glare.
A handful of skiffs were already out on the open waters, hurrying firewood and other supplies across the river.
élisabeth saw a native woman in a canoe, paddling close to shore.
She squinted at her, watching her progress.
“You seem able to keep your counsel now,” Hélène said. Still élisabeth gazed at the river, wondering where the woman in the canoe was going. Hélène stepped in front of her to block her view of the Saint-Laurent.
“You did not have to cause us all such grief! It was a simple enough thing, and you ruined it.”
élisabeth stared at her neighbour’s pinched face, then glanced back to the water. The native woman was disappearing out of view, now hidden by a thicket of trees on the riverbank.