“Why do you think something else happened?”
“I can see how nervous you are.” He picked up my hand. “Look at your fingernails. You’ve picked at them to the point that they are bleeding. There are deep circles beneath your eyes.”
“My grandmother is in a sanatorium!”
“Yes, but you told me that the doctor believes it is just a short stay and that she will be fine.”
Julien pulled me toward him and held me, whispering: “What aren’t you telling me? There’s no need to be afraid. What is it?”
I insisted there was nothing.
“Why don’t you get dressed? We can take a walk. The fresh air,” he said, “will be good for you.”
It was chilly out, but he was right. The bracing air did clear my head. We walked to Ladurée, where he procured a table for us, and we sat among the lush tropical murals, on scarlet and green cushioned seats and sipped strong tea. He ordered us macarons, but I wasn’t hungry, and the pastel-colored cookies sat on the china plate untouched while he held my hands and I recounted the story.
I told him how I’d met our cousin the rabbi and his reaction to me. Then about my grandmother’s efforts to have what she and Cousin Jacob believed was a demon exorcised. How my cousin died and how my grandmother had tricked me and locked me in the bedroom to keep me from going to his funeral, and how I’d occupied myself while she’d been gone. By the time I got to the description of the paintings I’d done on the walls, he was biting his bottom lip. I finished by telling him how my grandmother had reacted when she’d seen the mural.
“She was convinced I was being taken over by the ghost of a witch from the 1600s who had returned from the dead to claim my soul.”
“What made you paint that story on the wall? What were you thinking? Where did the images come from?”
“Ever since you and I found the paintings in the tower, I’ve been dreaming about La Lune and Cherubino Cellini. They’re in my head, Julien, that’s all. There’s nothing going on except that my imagination has been stirred.”
He nodded thoughtfully. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes.
“Does the house feel different to you?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, what if my grandmother is right? What if La Lune is in the house? What if she’d been waiting for me and is glad I’m back?” I whispered. “It would explain why the house seems happier now.”
Julien turned my hand over and looked down at my palm as if he was going to find the answers there.
“There’s no good to come of this line of thinking.”
“So you don’t believe it’s possible?”
“I most emphatically do not! I do not believe in ghosts or hauntings or any of that mystical nonsense.” The anger was bubbling out of him.
“Then why are you so scared of it?” I didn’t know how, but I knew that he was.
He shook his head. “I’m not. It can be seductive, but it’s not real, Sandrine. There’s too much of this talk going on in Paris. People are losing their reason. Taking you into Dujols’s store was a mistake. It put ideas in your head.”
I laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I knew all about those ideas from my father.” I took a breath. “I went back there, Julien. Monsieur Dujols is a wonderful teacher. He’s given me books to read and is helping me to understand.”
“That’s not wise.”
“Why are you reacting this way?”
He lifted my hand and kissed my palm. I reached out and smoothed down his hair with my other hand.
“I don’t want you to become entangled in that dark mess. So many of Dujols’s disciples start off like you, merely interested, but . . .”
“What?”
“It’s dangerous, Sandrine. That’s all. It just is.”
I wanted to argue but sensed that it wasn’t the right time. No one—not my grandmother and not Julien—could convince me that what was happening to me was something to be afraid of. I was painting. I was alive in a way I had never known before. Yes, I was terribly sad about my grandmother, but she was simply frightened. She’d come to understand that I was flourishing, not being taken over. And Julien? I smiled at him. He was just being caring and protective.
We walked back to the house, and he came inside with me. We sat on the sofa in the parlor.
“I have a favor to ask. Monsieur Dujols thinks we should have a séance and see if we can talk to La Lune. Find out what it is she wants. I need you to come with me. I need you to say yes.”
He opened his mouth to say no, but before he could answer, I put my finger across his lips. “Don’t answer yet. Just think about it. We don’t have to speak of it now.” I leaned into him and inhaled the scent of his skin mixed with his cologne. I smiled up at him. He seemed to relax a bit. What had I stirred? What secret did he hold so close and tight? “I have to go to class in a little while. We don’t have that much time together today to waste it arguing.”
“No? What should we waste our time doing?”
Since moving in, I examined the house and all of its rooms. And so I took him to my favorite of the “fantasy bedrooms,” as my grandmother called them. Each one uniquely decorated to evoke its own dream.
There was a boudoir that recalled a room in the palace of Marie Antoinette, in which all walls were mirrors; there was a monk’s chamber with a narrow bed and straw rug and religious frescoes on the wall; there was an Egyptian room as well as a Chinese pagoda; and there was a Persian garden room.
I chose the last, with its fanciful walls painted with trees and flowering bushes against a midnight blue sky, with stars and a perfect crescent moon and the onion-shaped minarets of the city in the distance. Expensive rugs in deep blues, reds, and greens were piled on one another. Tall vases of peacock feathers filled the corners. Red, turquoise, and gold silken curtains hung around the bed.
I pulled him onto the bed and then knelt before him.
“I’m your servant girl, your slave.” I shivered with excitement. I’d never been this bold before, and it was thrilling. “Here to do your bidding, to fulfill your desire. Would you like me to undress you and draw your bath?”
Not waiting for a response, I began, first taking off one boot and then another. His pants. His shirt. His stockings. I never took my eyes off of his, and in them I could see not only my own reflection but also his enjoyment.
“I never knew a man could be beautiful before, but you are. Because of how your collarbones come together here.” I touched the spot. “Because of these muscles in your arm.” I put my hand on his biceps. “When you finally let me paint you, this will be my favorite part to paint.” I put my hand on his broad chest. “Or maybe this will be.” I ran my fingers across his shoulders.
He closed his eyes. I felt a clench of intense pleasure inside me.
“When I paint you, this is one place where my brush will dwell.” I ran my finger down the thin line of dark hair that traveled from his belly button to his groin. “And here.” I moved my hand across his hip bone. “And here.” I put one hand on each of his thighs. “And here.” I continued down his calves and then back up them, up his hips, his chest, and found his hands pressing down on the bed, clenched.
“When I paint you,” I said, “you will be naked and hard and wanting like you are now . . .” I ran a single finger inside and out of each of his fingers, making his hand as sensitive to my touch as the rest of him. “And it will be so difficult for me to keep painting without stopping to touch you.”