Chapter 34 #2
“At least tell me again what he said to you. So that I may know if it was worth it.”
“What would you have me tell you that you don’t already know?” élisabeth’s voice was hoarse from howling.
“I want to hear all of it,” Hélène demanded. “From the start.”
élisabeth tore her eyes away from the river. She was weary but she knew her neighbour would not leave until she was satisfied. She took a breath. “Father de Sancy told us that the witch queen—”
“I don’t care about the damned priest!” Hélène cried. She took a step closer. “I want to know about Michel. Tell me again what he said about coming to look for me. How he hoped to find me widowed.”
élisabeth blinked. Hélène meant the sailor on the Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The one who had saved her when she jumped overboard.
“Tell me about Michel, and how he calls me his mermaid still.” Hélène let out a deep sigh and collapsed onto the stump, putting her head in her hands.
élisabeth recognized that sigh. It was the sound of exquisite longing. She thought of what she had once done to be reunited with Rémy. The lunacy that came of longing.
A wave of understanding came crashing over her.
“Hélène, did you lock your husband in our cowshed?”
The neighbour lifted her head from her hands. Her shoulders were hunched, her meekness returning at the mention of Dufossé. “I will never own it,” she whispered.
“You shut him in, to freeze to death?”
Hélène said nothing.
“How?” élisabeth persisted. “How did you do it?”
“It was a simple enough thing,” Hélène said in a small voice.
“He’d been stealing your wood all winter, ever since Francoeur left for Québec.
Dufossé was in and out of your shed every few days.
I only needed to fill him up with brandy and follow him.
Then I shut the door and barred it. At first he was angry to be trapped, but I convinced him the door was accidentally stuck.
I counselled him not to break it down lest you realize he’d been thieving.
I bid him to sit quietly on the woodpile while I dug him out.
Then I sang him a song. The same lullaby I sang to our child, before my husband shook him to death for crying for his mother in the night.
” Hélène’s voice was bitter as she rose from the stump and brushed down her skirts.
“With the brandy’s help it did not take long for Dufossé to fall asleep. He felt no pain as he died. More’s the pity.”
élisabeth felt sick, as bilious as she had ever been on the sea-tossed ship.
She stared at Hélène. Jeanne Roy had not caused her husband to die.
The witch had not bewitched the neighbour into awaiting his own death.
It was the work of a mermaid caught flailing in a cruel man’s net, luring him with her siren song.
Consider, consider. Witchcraft does not exist.
What had she done? Suddenly élisabeth felt the urge to run, to flee the monstrous mistake she had made. She stood and turned towards the forest.
“Where are you going?” Hélène called after her. “You will not tell anyone, will you? I will not own it! I will never confess!”
élisabeth felt her heart pound as she ran past the house Francoeur had built with his bare hands.
She reached the path at the edge of the woods.
It had not been trodden for weeks and there was still snow in the shadows where the sun did not penetrate.
Still she pressed on, not stopping when she slipped and branches tore at her face.
She reached the witch’s hut and pushed open the door.
A native woman was inside.
élisabeth blinked to adjust to the gloomy light. The woman wore a blanket coat pulled snug around her waist with a bright scarf. élisabeth had seen her before, at the H?tel Dieu chapel, talking to Jeanne Roy.
“It’s—it’s you,” élisabeth said, her breath coming in sharp pants.
The woman gave her a disinterested look. “I’m Angélique’s friend, Wari.”
“Angélique is her real name?”
“You must be the neighbour.”
élisabeth realized the entire village must know that she had been the one to accuse Jeanne Roy of witchcraft. “I am, yes.”
“The one with the demon spirit.”
élisabeth was stunned to hear the truth from this stranger’s lips.
She looked away, her eyes sweeping across the hut.
Jeanne Roy had clearly spread her story, even as she refused to help.
élisabeth could not bear the stranger’s gaze.
She stared at the cabin walls, still hung with furs and bunches of dried herbs, then shifted her eyes to the wooden table, where a goose feather lay next to a pile of stones and a pot of ink.
Small glass bottles half filled with liquid were clustered nearby.
The cabin was so thick with magic the air nearly shimmered with spells.
It was absurd to deny it. élisabeth turned back to the witch’s friend.
“What did she tell you about my demon, then? She who claims that demons and witches do not exist.”
Wari sat down on a stool by Jeanne Roy’s small fire pit. She pulled off one of her boots and wiggled her toes, then felt inside and pulled out a pine needle. Only when she put her boot back on did she turn to face élisabeth.
“It is true that Angélique does not believe in demons. But I am curious about how you manage to live with one inside you. What is that like? Does it cause you to suffer greatly?”
élisabeth gawped at the woman. “No one has ever asked me that before.” It was true. Marthe was embarrassed by her. Jeanne Roy had ridiculed her. Francoeur tried to fix her. But no one had ever asked her to merely describe her affliction. She sat down next to Wari.
“I do suffer,” élisabeth confessed. “More than anyone could imagine.” élisabeth gazed at the goose feather on the table at the back of the hut. “Although… although I expect it is what I deserve.”
“You deserve to suffer?”
“Yes. I was wayward, in France. I led a wayward life. I did not do as my mother taught me.”
“I’m sorry, my French is not perfect…” Wari wrinkled her nose. “What does it mean, wayward?”
élisabeth considered this for a moment. “I suppose it means that I turned away from the right path. And so the Devil sent the Winter Witch to curse me.”
“You chose your own path? I would call that freedom.”
élisabeth was so shocked she laughed out loud. “No, no, this is not freedom. This suffering—snakes in my knees and wings in my belly—this is not freedom, this is… this is fear.”
Wari nodded. “I suppose it is frightening to travel an unknown road.”
élisabeth was struck dumb by the woman’s words. Once again two ideas twisted together: She was wayward, she deserved the demon’s torment. Or she was wayward, travelling an exhilarating new path.
Wari stood up, appearing tired of their conversation. “Perhaps your demon has given you new strength. I wish you luck.”
élisabeth mirrored her, leaping to her feet. “What do you mean by strength? Can I be rid of this demon? Can I… can I bear children? For I fear that the feeling of the spirit lunging and growling inside me means that I am still barren. That I am still cursed.”
The stranger pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders. She looked past élisabeth to the door. “Why did you not accept the cure that Angélique offered you?”
“She was going to bleed me! Opening my vein cannot cure a demon. Magic is what is needed. Jeanne could have broken the spell, but she kept her magic to herself.”
The woman looked at her. “If you believe Angélique has magic, then why would the cure she offered you not also be magical?”
élisabeth faltered again. She had not considered this.
She knew there was always a price to pay when seeking a witch’s help.
That blood sometimes had to be spilled. Perhaps Jeanne Roy’s talk of bloodletting was merely the price of the magic she meant to perform.
If only the witch had explained that, rather than making élisabeth feel so stupid and small.
“I… I thought she would give me a potion. Something to drink.”
The woman adjusted the strap of the bag against her shoulder. She made for the door.
“Wait,” élisabeth said. “Do you think witchcraft is real? Is Jeanne Roy truly a witch who could cure me of my demon?”
Wari relaxed her grip on the strap of the beaded bag. “These words—witch, witchcraft—are French words. I would call Angélique a medicine woman. Is that the same as witch?”
“I-I don’t know,” élisabeth said. “I think one is born with magic, but medicine must be learned.”
“Angélique learned her medicine.” Wari stopped and studied élisabeth’s face. Then she sighed. “I want to tell you something about Angélique. Something that I hope will bring balance to how you see her. Will you listen?”
“Yes,” élisabeth said in a small voice.
“Angélique had a teacher who showed her many wondrous things. But when her skill surpassed his own, he accused her of stealing his knowledge—as if knowledge is something that can be owned by one man alone. He sought to stop her rise. He told the church that she was a dangerous witch. The innocent women she cared for were also accused.”
“The Normandy coven,” élisabeth said, barely above a whisper.
“Their torment lasted weeks. Terrible things were done to them, in the name of God. All those women, suffering for nothing more than having a little learning. So when you ask me if she is a witch, this is all I can tell you.”
Consider, consider. Witchcraft does not exist.
élisabeth felt a tug on her heart as she thought of the child she had lost. And all that she had lost since: Rémy, her home in Saint-Philbert, and now Francoeur. What if Jeanne was right? What if Rémy had wanted to be rid of her, and witchcraft was not the root of her misfortune?
“If witchcraft does not exist, then I have been sorely deceived,” élisabeth sniffed.
But who had deceived her but her own self?
She had taken Rémy’s hand and walked up to the clifftop.
She could have listened to the old cook’s warning and kept her distance.
She might never have fallen for his eel-tongued promises.
But she had not listened. She had wanted to lie with him at the top of the world.
She was wayward, after all. She had chosen her own path.
“What I mean is, I have been a fool. A wretched goosecap fool.” élisabeth took a deep breath.
“It is as Jeanne Roy said. I have been… ignorant.”
For the first time since she had entered the witch’s hut, the stranger’s face softened a little. She reached out and put her hand on élisabeth’s arm.
“You are young. Perhaps you are not ignorant, only innocent.” The woman’s words caused tears to prick at the corners of élisabeth’s eyes. She blinked them back as Wari continued. “The question is, what will you do to grow wise?”
élisabeth wished she could unravel the last six months. She might try the cure Jeanne Roy offered. She would consider Marthe’s happiness as much as her own. She would give herself the chance to fall in love with her husband.
Too late, too late.
As if Wari could read her thoughts, she rose. “It is late,” she said. “And I have far to travel.”
“Wait,” élisabeth said, blinking up at her. “You asked what I would do to grow wise. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”
Wari paused and then opened her beaded bag. She reached her hand into its depths, and then pulled out Jeanne Roy’s ragged doll.
élisabeth started to recoil from the dreadful poppet. Then she stopped.
She had once been afraid of the familiar spirit.
In truth, she had been afraid of everything: the doll, the Winter Witch, the native people she saw in the village, the demon inside her.
She had been frightened out of her wits.
Yet here she was, in a witch’s hut with an Iroquois woman, reconciled with her demon.
And she was safe. Perhaps she had no cause to fear any of the things that frightened her.
She reached for the ragdoll. She was surprised at the weight of it. It was heavy, like a sack of plums. She held it in her lap.
“Thank you for your kindness in calling my ignorance by a gentler name,” she said. “But you are right. If I have been innocent, then I must grow wise. I must undo what I have done. This doll… Jeanne prizes it above all other things. Do you think it has the power to save her?”
Wari gave élisabeth a mournful look. “I do not know.”
“We can take it to her. Perhaps she can use it…” élisabeth looked doubtfully at the cloth creature, its yarn eyes unravelling, its feet dirty and frayed. If Jeanne Roy wasn’t a witch, what good would a child’s plaything do? The impossibility of the task sat heavily on her.
“I need to convince the old priest that she is not a witch, while hoping that she truly is, so that she might have the power to escape. I don’t know how to undo this knot.”
Wari held her gaze. “Angélique is being held in a prison within the grounds of the old fort.”
élisabeth bit her lip. She had accused Jeanne Roy of causing Dufossé’s death by witchcraft.
What could she do to make Father de Sancy doubt her word?
How could she protect Hélène, who did not deserve to die for defending herself against a brutal man?
And how could she convince Francoeur to love her once more?
She sat with the witch’s familiar on her knees, feeling the weight of the doll pressing down on her. Jeanne Roy said she was an ignorant peasant. élisabeth knew that was not true. Now she had to prove it. She had to think. She had to figure out a way to save the witch and win her husband back.