We all sat down on a long coffin couch. The tables were tombstones. Everywhere you looked you were reminded of death and carnage, from the murals to the black hangings painted with sayings about mortality. An imp somersaulted across the floor. Another approached to take our orders. Serge and Gaston ordered absinthe again, and I followed now, craving its soothing warmth.
Our drinks came, and we sipped the green liquor and watched the ever-moving, ever-changing hellish scene around us. The corners of the room were sculpted into caverns lit by fires issuing thick, acrid smoke. Bursts of thunder erupted at intervals. Flames darted out from crevices in rocks.
Gaston asked Heloise to dance. Serge asked me. I refused at first, but he took my hands and pulled me up. “You’re too serious for your own good. You need to have some fun.”
The surprise of how his body moved against mine in time to the music exhilarated me. His hostility and familiarity confused me and excited me. The drink—the whole night of drinks—was catching up with me. I was dizzy with wild thoughts. When he leaned down and kissed me, I kissed him back, hard. He pulled me closer, reached down, and wildly, blatantly, stroked me between the legs. For a moment I forgot everything but the sensation, and then I jumped back, shocked.
“I have to find a lavatory,” I said, and ran from the dance floor.
It wasn’t just a convenient response. I had thought I was going to be sick. How could I have let Serge touch me? Even worse, what part of me was so corrupt that I had responded?
What happened next remains clear in my mind, even though I’d had a lot to drink, including that devil’s water, absinthe. But I don’t believe that my being inebriated contributed to what I remember.
I found a waiter and asked for directions to the lavatory and listened carefully to his instructions to turn this way and then that way. They were just long enough for me to get confused, and I probably made a left when I should have made a right. Or made two lefts in a row instead of two rights. But I found myself in a hallway that seemed to go on for a long time. When I reached the end, there was no visible door or exit of any kind that I could see.
I turned in a slow circle.
On my second rotation I saw a faint outline on the wall. I must have missed it before. There was an indentation suggesting a door but no handle or obvious way to open it. So I pushed on it and found myself peering into a closet. Devil, imp, and ghoul costumes hung from hooks. Horns and tails were piled on top of a long shelf. A storage room for Satan’s followers.
I could hear distant singing. Was it coming from the cabaret? It didn’t seem to be coming from behind me but from below me.
I got down on my knees and put my ear to the wooden floor. The song was amplified. There were revelers down below. As I knelt, I felt chilled air on my face. Coming from the floor? I felt around with my finger and found a crack. Following its circular contour, I came to an iron handle.
I lifted it. A large trap door opened up, and with it a gust of cool, perfumed air. I peered down.
Like at the opera house, a staircase cut out of rough-hewn stone descended into the earth. It was dark and impossible to see past a certain point, but I could hear, even more distinctly now, human voices chanting.
I remembered what Monsieur Dujols had told me: “If you ever decide that you want us to help you, you can find us in hell.”
I had assumed he’d been speaking metaphorically. But now I realize he hadn’t been. This must be the very spot that he had been telling me about.
These were the people who could help me. People who had the answers. Who knew what La Lune was and how I could control her—or rid myself of her, perhaps, without losing the powers she had imbued in me. Because I knew now, if I wanted Julien back, I had no other choice.
And so I descended into the depths of hell.
A half dozen men and women, all wearing dark robes with hoods that obscured their faces, sat on the ground, encircling a pentagram drawn in the dirt. In its center, a small fire burned, the smoke emitting a rich, resinous, and salty fragrance. Torches in iron holders flickered on the stone walls and cast shadows over the complex drawing. I recognized symbols, numbers, and creatures I’d seen in the grimoire in the bell tower and in the etchings in Dujols’s library.
There were white candles arranged in a circle around the pentagram. To the right and left of the circle were deer or antelope antlers, at least four feet wide. Propped against the wall was a tall mirror with the outline of a circle painted on it, framed with a border of Jewish stars and alchemical symbols. Some I recognized; others I didn’t.
One of the men threw something into the fire. It was the color of rubies and the size of a fist. The scent of pepper, musk, and saffron filled the air, and as the object burned, they chanted:
“We evoke and conjure thee, O spirit Vauael, by the Supreme Majesty, the true God who is known by the names of Yod Heh Vav Heh Adonai, Eheieh, and Agla, to appear before us in this mirror in a fair and comely shape. We evoke and conjure thee . . .”
One of the members of the group noticed me and held up his hand to stop the others from chanting. He pointed at me. Everyone looked. Then the whispering began again, and while I couldn’t make out the words, I could tell I wasn’t welcome.
“Who are you?” one of the hooded figures asked. “How did you find us? Who told you to come?”
“I did,” a male voice rang out. The speaker pushed his hood back, and Monsieur Dujols revealed himself. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mademoiselle Verlaine.”
Murmurs of approval now.
A woman with long, white wavy hair came up to me and took my hand. She must have been in her seventies, but her skin had a youthful glow. She smiled. “I’m Alexandra. Thank you for coming, and for bringing her with you.”
“I’m alone.”
“No, the woman known as the Secret Witch is with you,” Alexandra said.
She was the first person other than my grandmother who could see La Lune.
“Would you like to see her?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“Come look.” She took me by the hand and led me to the mirror leaning against the wall. They all had stood and now crowded around me. Alexandra pointed. I stared into the mirror.
I shook my head. “I don’t see her.”
“You’re not ready,” Alexandra said. “How can we help you?”
I undid the top button of my shirt and showed her the rubies. The fragrance of violets seemed to be filling the dank air. I braced myself for the nausea that followed and then forced myself to ignore it.
“I can’t take the necklace off.”
“May I try?” Alexandra asked.
I nodded.
She went behind me and tried, as Julien had, to work the clasp. When her fingers touched my skin, they were cool and soothing. After a few moments, she gave up.
Alexandra turned to Dujols. “It’s attached. La Lune is melded to her.”
“Is she harming you?” The man who asked was wearing a long purple robe with the zodiac embroidered all over it.
“Not me, no. Others.”
“Who has she harmed?” Dujols asked.
I clasped my hands together, my fingernails digging into the skin of my palms. It took enormous effort not to scream out at the pain I was causing. The effort it took to answer Dujols’s question was even greater. “My grandmother,” I whispered.
“What did you say?” Alexandra asked.
I tried to speak more loudly, but my voice wouldn’t comply. They all had to lean closer.
“My grandmother. A rabbi. An opera singer who was affianced to a man I know.”
“She’s very powerful. She had to be to survive this long,” Alexandra said.
“Who are you?” I asked her. “Who are all of you?”
“We study and try and decipher the past and uncover the secrets that have been lost over time,” she said.
I remembered what Julien had told me about Dujols and his followers.
“Is this black magick?”
“We don’t use terms like that,” said Alexandra. “We are students of ancient traditions and hidden knowledge. You can help us.”
“And we can help you,” said Dujols.
“How?”