“Because of the instances where it’s turned up.”
“So there are alchemists who have tried out this formula?” I asked.
“Yes, but what’s survived is incomplete. We only have the first step in what must have been a long and complicated set of steps.”
“And what does all this have to do with La Lune?” I asked, even though I was sure I already knew the answer.
“It’s believed La Lune is the witch who was given the formula, who painted this.”
“Believed? Doesn’t anyone know?”
“No, no, not for sure. It’s an ancient legend that dates back to the 1600s. Just one grain of sand in a search for hidden knowledge that goes back to the beginning of time. It is a labyrinthine journey, Mademoiselle Verlaine. Sometimes we are searching in the dark; other times we have but a single candle to shine on the walls of the caves as we crawl through them, hunting for clues.”
For a moment neither of us spoke. I was glad I hadn’t told Dujols the symbols I’d written down came from paintings in our house. But had showing him even this much put me in jeopardy? How insatiable was Dujols’s hunger for more information?
“Well, it’s very fascinating,” I said, “but like all legends, I’m certain it’s become more fantastical over time.” I waved my hand as if dismissing the possibility that it had any basis in reality.
“Perhaps or perhaps not,” he said in a voice that sounded as if he were still wandering those dark passages in his mind. “Certainly your grandmother has told you how the legend was passed down to her? Surely she’s given you details.”
I shook my head and lied again. “Nothing like what you told me, no. I know of La Lune of course, but only that she was a courtesan and an artist’s muse. Bewitching for sure but not a witch.”
Dujols smiled.
“That’s odd. Your grandmother and I have talked about it at length. She discussed you with me, too, a long time ago, before I met you. She told me how much she feared for you.”
I was stunned.
“You didn’t tell me that before. Not when you met me. Not when I came back and you offered to set up the séance. Why?”
“She’s always been so concerned that La Lune would one day try to possess you, I assumed it was she who had sent you back here.”
I was angry that my grandmother had talked to a stranger about me and confided her fears in him. But anger now was a wasted emotion. We were far past that. There was still more information I needed, and I couldn’t afford to alienate Dujols. He was my only ally now, even if it was an uneasy alliance. We both wanted the same thing. The question was, how far would he go to get it? How much did I have to fear him?
“So these symbols”—I pointed to the edge of the page ripped from the book—“what exactly do they stand for? Do you know?”
“Yes. The first is the symbol for blood. This second is for salt, and the third is for night.”
“Blood?”
“Blood, herbs and flowers, chemicals, human hair, excrement, skin, parts of animals . . . they were all used by alchemists.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I believe that there are more mysteries that we will never solve than those that we will.”
Dujols picked up the paper I’d brought and placed it next to the ripped page. “But to return to your question and what brought you here today, the symbols and letters are out of order in the painting you saw. The way they are written there, they spell out nothing . . . but if you rearrange them to go backward, not forward, they say . . . ‘Make of the blood, a stone. Make of a stone, a powder. Make of a powder, life everlasting.’ ”
“That phrase. You know the first time you said it, I was sure I’d heard it before.”
“And had you?”
“I didn’t think so, but now . . . I think I might have dreamed it.”
I was remembering. Yes, these were the words I’d heard in the recurring dream I’d had as a child. I was certain of it.
“A stone? Powder? What do you think it means?” I asked.
“It’s the first part of the formula, Mademoiselle Verlaine.”
He looked from me to the page he had shown me and then back to me again.
“When you are ready to tell me where you really found those letters and symbols, I will be here to help you. In the meantime, it’s best to be careful. It’s called darkness because there is no light. And without light it is easy to trip and fall.”
He was scaring me. Hadn’t Julien warned me that the men involved and invested in the search for hidden knowledge were determined? I felt something shudder under my feet. Almost as if the earth was warning me as well.
I got up.
“There is so much to explore . . . and I can help you. But you have to let me help you.” Dujols took my hand, bent over it, and kissed it. When he straightened up, he looked right into my eyes. “You do resemble her, you know. In fact the likeness is extraordinary.”
“Resemble who?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
But he didn’t answer; he just walked to the door and opened it for me.
I stepped out into the evening. The temperature had dropped, and it was chilly again. I pulled my coat around me and looked for a carriage. There was none in sight. No matter, it was only a few blocks and the fresh air would invigorate me. Blow away the miasma that had settled over me.
I’d gone several blocks, preoccupied by the phrase at the heart of the mystery.
Make of the blood, a stone. Make of a stone, a powder. Make of a powder, life everlasting.
What did it mean?
I’d come to a corner. Crossed the street. Walked half a block more and then, in a shop window’s reflection, glimpsed a figure that I thought I’d seen before. I had been so preoccupied since I left Dujols that I hadn’t stopped to check to see if I was being followed. How could I have been so careless? Continuing on, I willed myself not to turn around and give myself away.
A few yards farther on, I glanced in another window and saw the same man reflected there. He was small, hunched slightly; he wore a tall hat and a long coat. And he didn’t walk as much as he crept.
Did this man work for Benjamin, or was he just a passerby going in the same direction I was?
I hailed a carriage and had the driver follow a circuitous route across the Seine, through the Tuileries, and then, when I was one hundred percent certain no one was following us, had him take me to rue des Saints-Pères. All I could do was pray Benjamin’s men hadn’t found me and vow to be ever more vigilant.
Chapter 31
Make of the blood, a stone. Make of a stone, a powder. Make of a powder, life everlasting.
It meant nothing to me, and yet it stayed with me, a recurring thought I ruminated on that night and all the next day, even at the école. There was no question it was what the woman in my dream had said to me so long ago. The same words she’d said to my father.
I was trying to do what Moreau had taught me and use my consternation and fear as I painted the female model. She was lying on the podium on a chaise longue in need of new springs, but I had placed her in my bell tower, on the daybed, surrounded by ornate pillows, cast in shadows, lit by candles. Moonlight from the windows illuminating her eyes.
“This style of yours intrigues me, Mademoiselle,” he said when he came up to me. “The loving way you render the skin so that I can almost touch it, the ability that you have to caress it with your brush and make it come alive . . . it’s almost alchemical.”