The Witch of Painted Sorrows (24 page)

Cautiously, I stepped off the last step, walked forward. In the distance I saw a glimmer of water. I had reached the lake. It was just as Garnier said. A lantern hung from a hook drilled into the stone. Blankets were stacked in a niche in a rock wall.

Garnier had told me to wait for him, and I had every intention of obeying him. Venturing deeper into this underground maze without a guide would be suicidal. There was a very small boat tied up to a stake in the lake. It appeared to be silver and black, but I couldn’t be sure since my candle gave off only a meager beacon. Where would it take me? I was too frightened to find out. Instead I found a rock that could function as a bench and sat. How long would it be before Garnier returned? And what if he didn’t? What if the fire got worse and worse and everyone was—

Becoming alarmed would not help me. I’d brought a small tin of crystallized violets with me and fished inside my reticule to find it. To do so, I had to first take out the opera glasses that I had been holding when the fire broke out.

As I removed them, I noticed something strange.

I had been nowhere near the blaze, and yet the pearls were blackened and soot covered the rubies. A film of it lay over the lenses. As I examined the small binoculars, I saw that the fingertips of my gloves were singed.

Do you understand now?

The echo slid across the lake and was lost in the gloom.

Who had said that? Had Garnier come back so soon? I turned, but no one was there.

I can help you.

It was a woman’s voice. Not a man’s. And perhaps the saddest voice I’d ever heard, as if tears had been turned into sound.

I searched the darkness but couldn’t see anyone, not by the shore, not in the shadows. There really was no one there. I knew there wouldn’t be. Just as I knew the last several weeks in Paris had been leading to this moment. What was happening? I got up and ran for the stairs. Halfway, I remembered that the door at the top of the last staircase would be locked. I turned around.

Back at ground level, I ran toward the boat. I would get away from her by way of the water.

Don’t run from me. I’m here to help. We both want the same thing, for you to be with Julien.

I took what I thought was my first step into madness. I responded to the voice.

“The soot on the glasses, the burn marks on my gloves . . . You used me to start the fire?”

I thought this would work . . .
The voice was fainter now, and I had to strain to hear her.
But the fire didn’t spread fast enough. She got away. Now we have to find another way to be rid of her . . .

I spun around and around. Searching for the trickster. There was no one in that cavern with me. But there was
something
there with me. And I saw her ghostly image in a glint of moonlight on the lake as she finished her whispered promise.

. . . We will find another way.

Moonlight? It was impossible. We were hundreds of feet underground.

Chapter 24

The morning newspapers were full of the story from the night before. There had been a fire at the opera house, but it was extinguished without incident and little damage except to some curtains and stage props. No one had perished. No one was even hurt.

I was relieved that Charlotte had survived, I thought as I walked to school. The evening had been terrifying and confusing. My mind was swimming with unanswered questions. Painting class with Monsieur Moreau would be a welcome diversion.

Inside, I greeted my fellow students and set up my easel. The model took her position. Monsieur Moreau walked around, tilting his head, asking her to move a little this way and a little that way until he was happy with her pose.

I looked from her to the empty canvas. Taking up my brush, I daubed it into the cobalt swirl, the most magical color on my palette. I changed the white robe slipping down the model’s back to a lovely deep-azure shawl. For a moment I closed my eyes and, as if in a dream, saw the depths of the sky in the folds of the fabric, saw the moon and stars shining through its very blueness.

“Yes,” Monsieur Moreau said as he looked over my shoulder at my canvas. “You are right to think through color, use it with imagination. If you don’t have imagination, your color will never be beautiful. Color must be dreamed.”

It was not the first time my teacher had spoken to me as if he could look inside my mind and hear what I was thinking.

“I would like you to stay for a short time after the session. Would that be all right, Mademoiselle?” Moreau asked me.

We were at his atelier at 14 rue de la Rochefoucauld, where he also lived. It was perhaps my favorite place in all of Paris. On the second floor, in the grand parlor, was a nautilus iron staircase. At the top was the painter’s rich universe. His stunning paintings, drawings, and watercolors crowded every wall, crammed tightly together, giving the eye no respite. His love of colors was displayed in the gem-like canvases, each sparkling with ruby, vermilion, royal purple, emerald, and gold. His visionary illustrations of tales from the Bible and mythology were inundated with fantastical winged creatures from angels to dragons. Imagery rife with magic and crowded with symbolism.

Once everyone had left, we ventured downstairs for tea. Sitting in a formal and old-fashioned dusty room, we were served by a middle-aged maid who didn’t linger or say very much.

“Is it possible you are holding back, Mademoiselle?”

I was surprised by his question. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I’ve watched how quickly you pick up on my suggestions and, at the same time, noticed a hesitancy that implies you know exactly what to do but are reluctant to do it. Does this make any sense to you?”

What to tell him? What to admit? Of course I was doing exactly that, afraid that if he saw how fast I was capable of progressing he would become suspicious. It even frightened me. I was making leaps overnight that would take anyone else weeks or months. Perhaps years.

Wouldn’t he think I was mad if I told him? I was already considered strange enough for my costume and commitment, but he was interested in the esoteric. Hadn’t Gaston told me he’d belonged to a society that summoned angels to help artists? Maybe he was the one person who would understand, who could help me.

“What is it, Mademoiselle Verlaine?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Some artists are concerned with expressing the words of the soul. That’s all fine, but I’m more interested in rendering visible, so to speak, the inner flashes of intuition. Those have something divine in their apparent insignificance. And transposed by the marvelous effects of pure visual art, they reveal truly magical, I would say even sublime, horizons.”

He waited for a moment. I remained silent. Then he stood.

“Wait there. I should like to show you something.”

Moreau left the room, and while he was gone, I studied the paintings on the walls. Each of a series of small paintings had a brass plaque on its lower arm naming its subject: Andromeda, Diana, Leda, Cleopatra, Salome, and Bathsheba. Each woman shone like a piece of jewelry encrusted with lapis, emeralds, gold, turquoise, sapphires, and rubies. Each solemn and soulful woman looked secretive, contemplating the murder or sacrilege or sacrifice or torture she had inflicted or endured. The extravagant plant life in each painting was as alive as the women; thin tendrils wove around strong verdant leaves; fanning palms shadowed flowers that suggested religious vessels.

I thought of a passage in
À Rebours
, a decade-old book that all of Moreau’s students had read and quoted by heart, which was considered the bible of decadents. The main character spoke of Moreau’s art as “despairing erudite works, which emanate a singular spell, a fascination that is deeply, intimately disturbing.” These paintings were prime examples of those spells.

Moreau returned several moments later, holding a maroon leather sketchbook.

“People say I am a
peintre d’histoire
because of my subject matter. But I believe neither in that which I touch nor in that which I see. I believe only in that which I do
not
see. I believe uniquely in that which I
sense
, Mademoiselle.”

He opened the book to a fantastical drawing of a whole bevy of
angels with elaborate wings of different shapes and sizes. Was the story true? Did he call on angels to help him?

Turning the page, he showed me a Salome dancing before the head of John the Baptist. And the next page, another version of the same tale.

“This is where I record my dreams of kings and queens, witches, unicorns, and strange jewels with unearthly powers. My dreams, you see, are mythical gates that allow me to meet with gods and goddesses and creatures of other realms. The critics write I have
poetic hallucinations
 . . .” He paused. “It is a good description of what comes over me. I hesitate to discuss it even with my closest companions, even more so with a student, but something compelled me to share this with you. And I never deny such strong impulse. Have you ever experienced anything like my
poetic hallucinations
, Mademoiselle?”

I nodded, afraid to speak, to admit to him what I hadn’t even told Julien.

“You see visions? Hear voices?”

“I have once heard a voice, yes.”

“Don’t be afraid, Mademoiselle. You are gifted, and such talent comes with manifestations we don’t always understand. They say demons are not real, but we know differently, don’t we?”

“Aren’t demons evil?”

“In our sphere, the way we are taught, they could be classified as evil, but is our way of seeing things always correct? We are viewing it from inside our circle. What if we stepped into the spirit’s sphere and looked at us from that same distance. Perhaps we would be evil and they would be goodness. Don’t judge, Mademoiselle. Live to paint. Paint to live. It may be the only path open to you.”

I took in his words, not sure I even understood them.

“And please don’t pretend anymore with me in class, at the Louvre or here. Even if we cannot explain how or why your talent is exploding, you must not dam it up. Mallarmé, the poet, wrote, ‘Let the window be the art, the mystical experience.’ I want you to show me
what you see through the window, Mademoiselle. You must be brave and you must be dark, or you will never be great.”

I left Moreau’s atelier in a fever. I’d been shown what few had seen and been taken into his confidence. If Moreau believed in the realm beyond this one, then there must be some others I could trust who might also. Would I find them that night at the séance that Monsieur Dujols had arranged for me?

Chapter 25

We were seated at a round wooden table in the Librairie du Merveilleux. The doors had been locked and the shades drawn. As usual, books were piled everywhere; maps were laid out on the floor; alembics and jars filled the shelves—nothing was actually different than when I’d visited before, but the atmosphere was almost sinister without the gas lamps turned on, and only the light from candles illuminating Dujols’s cave of wonders. In the dim atmosphere, the undulating wall looked like it might be moving. Or was I just a little drunk from breathing the resinous air rich with burning incense? Or was it the chalk drawing of a pentagram in the center of the table affecting me so?

Dujols shook out a large white cloth and placed it over the symbol. The alphabet was spelled out in four rows of block letters.

Next to the cloth he placed a glass cup, turned upside down.

“Let’s be seated,” he said.

The six of us, including Julien, who had kept his promise to me and come, took our places at the table. He was still wearing the grim expression he’d greeted me with at my house when he arrived to escort me here. During the carriage ride over he was quiet, and I chose not to press him. He was so against this experiment I’d been afraid he would refuse to accompany me. I didn’t want to chase him away by saying the wrong thing.

In addition to us and Dujols, the well-known avant-garde composer Debussy was present. He’d brought the opera singer Emma Calvé, who, while Dujols had been setting up, had talked incessantly of the château in the Aveyron region that she’d just purchased. The sixth person was a friend of hers.

“We should have had this event at my château,” she said. “There’s far more likelihood of summoning spirits there since it was built by the magician and alchemist Nicolas Flamel.”

I wondered if Julien’s black mood, which only intensified as the evening got started, was aggravated by someone from Charlotte’s world being present. Did Calvé know Julien’s fiancée? Was he worried that she might tell the young woman she’d run into him at a séance? Would that disturb Charlotte? My head ached with all these questions.

What happened next is not quite clear, even now.

Dujols began the event by giving instructions that we each were to put one finger on the top of the glass cup and not break contact with it no matter what happened.

He explained he would call the spirit forth and then ask her, or him, certain questions that pertained to my dilemma, which no one but he and Julien knew anything about. The secrecy was important, he said, so that the authenticity of the communication could be preserved.

“If a spirit does communicate, he or she will use us as conduits and push the cup around the cloth, spelling out an answer. I will record the letters since sometimes they move too fast to figure out in the moment. But first, I’d like us to take hands.”

We took one another’s hands. Dujols was seated to my right. His hand was dry, his pulse even. But Julien’s hand was moist with perspiration. I glanced at him, but he wouldn’t make eye contact. I thought he looked pale.

“Julien?” I whispered, trying to get his attention. “Are you all right?”

He nodded but didn’t say anything.

“And now we begin,” said Dujols, preventing me from asking Julien anything else. “Everyone please close your eyes and concentrate on welcoming the spirit into our midst.”

A surge of excitement mixed with anticipation pulsed through me. Maybe now I was finally going to find out what had been going on for the last few weeks. Discover if the spirit of La Lune really had survived and truly was connected to me in some way.

“Yes, yes, fingers on the glass, please, ladies and gentlemen,” Dujols said.

We all placed our forefingers on the small crystal tumbler. Mine trembled.

Dujols waited a moment and then asked: “Are you with us, dear spirit?”

The glass sped off to the corner of the cloth where
OUI
was spelled out on the board.

Who was moving it? Not I, certainly. I was sure it was not Julien. Who here had any reason to prove a spirit was visiting? This séance was not being held for a price. This was a favor Dujols was granting me in exchange for me promising to show him the grimoire I’d found in the bell tower.

“Mademoiselle Verlaine would like to know what it is you need from her,” Dujols asked.

There was a hesitation, and I wondered if the previous answer had been an accident of the wind. Or one of the members of the assembly was playing a trick on us.

And then the cup spelled out one word.

Nothing.

“Then is there something you need to tell her?”

The cup moved and spelled out Julien’s name. Beside me, his body tensed.

“You are here for Julien?

Yes.

“What is it you want to tell Julien?”

The board spelled out:
My death not accident.

I heard Julien gasp.

Then there was a moment’s pause, and the cup continued.

Forgive yourself.

A pause.

She loosened wheels . . .

A pause

. . . for money.

Julien stood and pushed himself away from the table with such force that his chair fell backward.

“Enough of this.” He looked around at our faces as if he was searching for someone to accuse. His green eyes were clouded, his features set in an anguished expression. After a second he turned and ran to the door, unlocked it, pulled it open with great force, and rushed out into the street.

I ran after him, hurrying to keep up. He was on a tear and going faster than I could. He reached the corner but didn’t stop. From the opposite direction a carriage was coming, but he didn’t seem to see it. I screamed out: “Julien, stop!” For some reason he didn’t stop but just went barreling into the street straight into the oncoming horse and carriage.

He was going to be trampled, and I was not going to be able to get to him in time. I shouted again, but he kept going. Why wasn’t he stopping? It was almost as if he were throwing himself in front of the carriage on purpose. As if he
wanted
something terrible to happen to him.

There is no question about what happened next, though it seemed impossible then and impossible now as I recall this.

Everything became very quiet. The street noises abated. I sensed rather than heard a whoosh of words, almost like a breeze was speaking to me in a manner different than how we humans normally communicate. The air itself told me Julien would be all right. That I needn’t panic. As I was being given that strange but comforting
communiqué, just as the collision appeared inevitable, a wind came up out of nowhere, for it was not a rough-weathered night, picked up Julien—yes, picked him up like a mother lifting a babe—and blew him backward. He sailed two or three feet in the air, just enough to remove him from the path of the oncoming carriage, and landed in a heap on the sidewalk.

I ran to him.

He’d straightened himself out and was sitting on the curb, watching the carriage as it continued on down the street as if nothing strange had occurred at all. But it had. I had seen it.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” but he clearly wasn’t. His eyes were troubled, and his face was drawn.

“Julien, what just happened?”

“I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“But just now, it looked as if someone threw you backward.”

“Someone? There was no one here. I understood almost too late what was happening and jumped
backward.
”

I stared at him. That was not what had happened. Did he believe it or just want
me
to believe it? I was about to question him further, but he was standing, brushing himself off, speaking to me.

“It’s getting late. Let me walk you home.”

“What went on at Dujols’s? Why did you run out like that?” I asked.

“I told you I didn’t want to go. All that mumbo jumbo makes me nervous. I don’t believe it. Dujols probably was moving that glass himself.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To impress you so that you’ll give him what he wants.”

“You mean the grimoire?”

“Yes, the grimoire and anything else he can get you to share with him.”

“Julien, what was the spirit talking about when he or she said that about it not being your fault—”

Julien interrupted. “It wasn’t a spirit; it was Dujols.”

“Fine. What accident did he reference?”

“Nothing that matters anymore.”

Julien’s whole demeanor was different. He’d retreated. Around him was an aura darker than the night sky. When he started walking again, I had to hurry to keep up.

“Something is bothering you. I’d like to know what it is.”

“All right. Today of all days is the anniversary of my father’s death.”

“I’m sorry. So sorry. Do you think that was the accident the spirit referred to?”

“Yes, and I was responsible. I was responsible for my father’s death . . .” He had slowed down. His voice had softened. I could see his face, and the expression he wore was crushing. I couldn’t bear to hear the pain in his voice. And the longing. And the love.

“The accident was my fault. We were in the carriage. I had the reins—” He broke off.

“And it haunts you.”

“Of course, wouldn’t it haunt you, too, if you were responsible for someone you loved dying?” His voice was bitter.

“The spirit said it wasn’t an accident.”

“
Dujols
said. Believe me, I know what transpired. I was driving the carriage. We were arguing. I wanted to come to Paris and study architecture. He wanted me to stay in Nancy and work with him and his brother in the family firm. I loved my father. I loved making furniture, but . . .”

“You know that was your father tonight. He was telling you it wasn’t your fault.”

“Losing him was more pain than I’d ever known. I can’t even entertain what you are suggesting. My sister put us through all this already. Organizing séances, visiting charlatans who claimed to see visions in crystal balls . . . My brother and I had to stop her.”

“But what if it isn’t nonsense? What if it was your father’s spirit tonight? He said it wasn’t your fault. Was there someone
who benefitted? Who was the ‘she’ he referred to who loosened the wheels?”

Julien started walking faster again, as if he were racing to the answer. “The only ‘she’ would have been my stepmother.” He shook his head. “My brother and sister and I hated her. She was obsessed with money, with having the best dresses, the finest china, the biggest house . . .”

“Did she love your father?”

He stopped midstep. Turned to me. He was thinking, hard.

“Yes . . .”

“Did she inherit money upon his death?”

“Yes, there was a will that he’d made when we were young that he’d never changed. It left everything to his wife when his wife was my mother. He never actually named her in the document, just referenced
his wife
.”

“And your stepmother, what happened to her after your father died?

“Nothing unusual. She continued taking care of my brother and sister. I moved to Paris to study with Cingal.”

“Did she remarry?”

“About two years after my father’s death.”

“Is it possible she’d had the man she married as a lover when she was with your father? That they plotted the accident? That she didn’t love your father as much as you all thought?”

“I don’t know . . . I suppose so . . .”

He spoke slowly as he put it together in his mind. “You know . . . I did just remember something. I wasn’t supposed to be in the carriage with him that afternoon. He was going to meet with a client at the factory. At the last minute I asked him if I could get a ride into the city. I seem to remember my stepmother tried to get me to stay home with her and help her do something, and my father telling her it was fine . . . that I could come.”

“You never wondered about that?”

“I was just seventeen years old . . . None of us ever suspected it was anything but an accident . . . I’d been badly hurt . . . Everything about the incident was a blur.”

“Except your guilt. And these years later you still haven’t forgiven yourself.”

Julien had pulled out his watch fob and was fingering the ring that hung on the chain. I’d seen him do this many times but had never questioned him about it.

“What is that?”

He showed me. In the moonlight, I examined the heavy gold ring with the initials inscribed.

“ ‘AJD’?”

“My father, Alain Jerome Duplessi.”

I undid the chain and pulled off the ring. Then I took Julien’s right hand and put it on his finger.

“That’s where it belongs. He’d want you to wear his ring. He’d be proud.”

For a moment Julien didn’t speak.

“Thank you,” he said in a gruff voice as he tried to swallow his emotion.

We walked on for half a block in silence.

“I still don’t believe any so-called spirit sent me messages. Don’t you see that this was some kind of sham to impress you so that you would give Dujols the grimoire.”

Before I could argue, he continued.

“The accident was well reported in the newspapers. So, I’m sure, was her remarriage. Dujols could have done some research, put it all together, and come up with a theory. He is a publisher after all.”

“Perhaps,” I said. But I didn’t think it was a set up.

From what my grandmother had explained about the legend of La Lune, I was beginning to understand. Somehow Julien’s guilt had been keeping him from trusting his emotions. La Lune needed Julien to be free of guilt so that he would be able to love someone
again fully . . . love
me
, I thought. That was what she was waiting for, wasn’t it?

But would loving me be enough? What exactly did she require?—because there were still other obstacles. Charlotte here in Paris. My husband in New York. I shivered and pulled my coat tighter around me. La Lune had just hauled Julien out of the path of danger. Certainly, if she could do that, she could do the opposite, too.