“Monsieur Dujols,” I said, “I’m hope you’re not busy, but—”
“Of course not, Mademoiselle Verlaine,” he interrupted as he capped his bottle of ink and rose to greet me. “I was so upset about how the séance ended and hoped you would return. The art of influencing events and using hidden forces is a temperamental one. I asked Julien if he would bring you back, and he said he would, but . . .” He shrugged and then gestured for me to have a seat in one of the alcoves. He sat down also.
I wondered why Julien had not told me about Monsieur Dujols’s request. How long would it be before I would even see him to ask? I pictured him and Cingal sitting sadly in a parlor, surrounded by friends and family.
“Did you have a specific reason for asking me to return? Other than wanting the grimoire, of course?” I asked.
“Did you bring it?”
“I’m not comfortable taking it out of the house in inclement weather.” The truth was I couldn’t actually move it out of the tower and didn’t want to admit it. Twice I’d picked it up and carried it to the door. Normally heavy and cumbersome, once I reached the bell tower threshold, it became suddenly and impossibly weighty. When I’d turned back to return it to its hiding place, it was manageable again.
“The Secret Witch of rue du Dragon is an enigma.” There was a long, low table in front of us covered with maps, and as Dujols spoke, he piled them up and moved them to one side. “I have studied her for years. Through you, we may be able to learn more about her secrets. Will you bring it soon?”
“Of course I will.” Another lie. “But how can you be sure she wasn’t just an ordinary seductress? Perhaps a bit more intuitive and sensitive to the people around her, but cast unfairly in the role of a witch?”
“Alchemy, witchcraft, casting spells, understanding the occult . . . captures our imagination. We sense that there are secrets beyond our grasp; we are sure there are powers greater than us, some benevolent, others malevolent. Religion has tried to explain the mysteries of the universe, but man does not just strive to understand; he needs to harness them. Through time, those of us who have had just a soup?on more of the ability to access the mysterious have been feared, revered, thwarted, maligned. Almost never elevated as deserved. No, I don’t think La Lune was an ordinary seductress.” Dujols studied my face. “And neither do you, so why do you suggest it?”
I was caught off guard by his forthrightness and for a moment wasn’t sure how to even respond. As it turned out, I didn’t have to.
“I’m sorry, that was quite rude,” he said. “I didn’t mean to challenge you. You came here to see me today, so how can I help you?”
I regained my composure and took the paper out of my silk reticule. “I was at the flea market last weekend and saw a painting that had some curious symbols on it. Some were a bit familiar and I thought they might intrigue you, so I copied them down. Since you know so much about symbols, you might know what they mean.”
I was pleased with my story. It made sense without suggesting that my interest was any more than curiosity or that the painting was something I owned or had access to.
“Yes, yes, this is quite interesting,” he said as he peered at the paper.
“Why is that?”
“Let me show you something.” He got up and walked over to a large, low file cabinet, the kind that oversize prints and drawings were kept in, and began to riffle through one of the drawers.
I was thinking about what he’d said about La Lune. I know he’d called her a witch before, but this time it terrified me to hear it. The word coming from his lips was harsh and ugly, and La Lune, while desperate and determined, was none of those things.
But what else was there to make of all the strange phenomena that had occurred?
A necklace with a clasp that sometimes refused to open? I knew it was not the result of an old hinge.
And the paintings I was creating? It was impossible they were only a latent talent blooming out of tragedy, stirred by my surroundings and nurtured by one of Paris’s best teachers.
The horrible accident at the Eiffel Tower? A woman who’d drunk too much champagne? An errant umbrella carried away by a gust of wind at just the right moment?
“Yes, yes. Here it is,” Dujols said as he withdrew a sheet the size of a frontispiece to a large book.
Gingerly, he placed it in front of me.
Judging by the ragged edge of the yellowed paper, the page had been ripped from an ancient book. The printing was not refined, and the quality of the ink was uneven in spots. The type was fairly small and hard to read, but I could make out enough to know it was archaic French.
Painted over the printing, in an oddly familiar style, was a woman scantily clad in a dress made of cobwebs. Bugs and insects nested inside her long reddish-brown hair. Around her was a laboratory with shelves of alembics and beakers. I recognized the position of the windows and beams—this was my bell tower.
And the painting was done in the same style as the illustrations I’d discovered in the grimoire in the ancient studio. La Lune’s paintings. La Lune’s grimoire.
“What is this?” I asked.
“A page from a book called the Malleus Maleficarum in Latin, which, translated, is The Witches’ Hammer. It was written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, a German Catholic clergyman. It’s a treatise on the prosecution of witches.”
I shivered, as if the door had opened and a frigid wind had blown in, embracing me in its chill.
“The goal of the manifesto was to prove that witchcraft existed and to educate other members of the church and government on how to hunt and prosecute them, since sorcery was condemned by religious and secular institutions. The papal bull instituting the first inquisition was included in the preface of this book. The rest is broken into three main sections. The first is an argument against critics who denied the existence of witches and the reality of witchcraft. The second lists and explains all the forms of witchcraft and what witches are capable of, including how they recruited other witches. Usually something would go awry in the life of a younger woman, causing her to seek out the wisdom and guidance and help of a witch.”
My shivering increased. I had painted that very scene in my bedroom on rue de la Chaise the morning my grandmother went mad. I’d painted La Lune going to the old crone in Prague for help in seducing Cherubino.
Dujols noticed my discomfort. “You are cold—let me throw some more coal into the heater.”
While he was gone, I examined the page. It appeared to be the very one that had been ripped out of the front of my book in the tower.
Dujols came back and picked up where he’d left off: “The book describes rituals and explains how witches cast spells. It includes remedies to prevent young women from falling victim to those spells.” He stopped. He was staring at me.
“And the last section?” I prompted.
“Yes, yes. The last section is for those who are given the power to judge and confront the witches and witchcraft. What to look for, how to determine if someone is a witch, how to test her. It’s quite horrific. The tests were set up so that no one could survive. For instance, a suspected witch was submerged in the water. If she drowned, she was not a witch, but she was dead. If she didn’t drown, she was a witch, but then she was killed.”
“What about the painting?” I asked in a voice that surprised me with its strength since I felt quite weak. “Why do the letters and symbols match the ones I’ve brought you?”
“The legend is that the woman who painted this was herself a witch, and it was said that she had a formula that not only gave a witch immunity from harm but also allowed her to keep herself alive forever.”
“The formula for immortality.”
“Yes.”
“And you think the symbols and letters I copied down are part of that formula?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that?”