She paused for dramatic effect.
“Having become wealthy, thanks to the ability to change metals to gold, Flamel then turned to philanthropy and was well known for his good deeds. Sometime during 1410, when he was in his eighties, he designed his own tombstone, decorated with carvings of esoteric symbols and signs, a code that’s never been cracked. Eight years later, in 1418, he staged his and his wife’s deaths, even going so far as to have elaborate ceremonies performed in order to convince everyone they had passed on. But it was only a ruse set up to allow them to escape their notoriety, take their secrets with them, and live in peace.”
Her stagecraft was superb, and it made her a riveting storyteller. When she spoke, I could see all the scenes playing out, like in a film. But a familiar one. Where had I heard this story? And then I realized. The scene in the bedroom, in the mirror, of the pilgrims on the road—Flamel had been one of them. He’d been on his journey to Spain to find someone to help him translate the book.
“When Cardinal Richelieu first became obsessed with discovering all of Flamel’s secrets, he hired a grave robber to dig up Flamel’s coffin and discovered it was empty. Without a trace of the mystic. His wife’s coffin was equally barren. Some say Flamel and his wife survived another hundred years after their supposed deaths, some say three hundred. Others claim they are still alive. No one knows.”
Madame finished her tale with a flourish. I was surprised not to hear an orchestra add a few telling notes.
“You haven’t eaten a bite,” she said to me.
“I was so caught up in your story I forgot.” I laughed and obediently picked up my fork. The salad was fresh and delicious in the simplest way. Like so much of the food from the south. But as good as it was, eating was an odd accompaniment to the discussion of sexual magick. My older sister and I had scoured my mother’s library for books about it so we could read the “dirty” parts. My friends had their mothers’ risqué novels by Colette and her contemporaries, but we giggled over the orgiastic rituals described in books written by Aleister Crowley, who created the Golden Dawn society, or Maria de Naglowska. And then we gagged reading about the disturbing black masses that used human waste, sperm, and menstrual blood as sacraments.
“And the formula for the Great Work is contained in the book we’re searching for?” Sebastian asked.
Madame nodded. “I believe so.”
My twin turned to me. “Hasn’t Maman talked about an elixir like that? Something that La Lune handed down?”
Once again, Sebastian was breaking our family’s unspoken rules. Yes, my mother had told us about the potion. From La Lune’s grimoire, the formula had been passed down through the centuries. My mother used it for the first and last time in 1894 to save my father’s life shortly before they married.
“Your mother told me and Pierre Dujols about her elixir,” Madame said, surprising both of us. “Years ago, during her transition. We think there are similarities, but your family’s version is weak and unstable and can only be used by a daughter of La Lune.”
“Do you have a physical description of the Book of Abraham?” I asked Madame, wanting to change the subject.
“Varying descriptions. Some say it was made of gold or vellum or parchment. Some sources have it at seven pages, others at twenty-one. But everyone agrees that on every page there are secrets.” Madame’s eyes shone.
A lemon mousse, light and tart, was served for dessert, along with espresso. Once I’d drained my cup, I announced that I was going to my studio to set to work and earn my keep. I’d wanted to start sketching. The sooner I could solve Madame’s mystery for her, the sooner Sebastian and I could leave. I wanted to be gone before the party Madame had mentioned. Especially after seeing Gaspard’s son’s journal and being reminded of the relationship between La Diva and the bookshop. I didn’t want to take any chances that she’d invited Mathieu.
In the studio, I arranged my tools on the table by the easel. A drawing pad, my silver pencil, an assortment of softer leaded pencils, and my blindfold. Just touching it, my fingers tingled. For a moment, I sat, holding it, a portal to so many secrets. My gateway to hidden mysteries of the soul. A light illuminating shadows. For good and for ill.
But not this time. I was using it to see hidden corners of the castle. To look behind its walls and passageways. Under its floors.
I let out a long breath. After five months of trepidation, I put it on quickly. Like diving into the cold sea on a chilly morning. I adjusted the elastic behind my head.
I could no longer see what was in front of me. Everything inside my eyes was dark. I waited for what was hiding to be revealed.
I began sketching the rooms I’d walked through. Drawing scenes frozen in time, rapidly capturing them on paper. Vaguely aware that there were people in the rooms and that their clothes suggested I was getting images from different time periods.
A scullery maid in a kitchen, stirring a cauldron over an open fire. Behind the bricks was a hidden room. I could smell the dust. A storage area of some kind, abandoned. But footprints through the dust suggested someone had been there recently.
The library with its book-filled shelves. A gentleman in a cutaway taking leather volumes off one particular shelf. He reached behind it and pulled a lever. The shelves opened like a door. Inside, I could see the corner of a couch.
A bedroom, dark rose and lavender. A lady’s boudoir. Perfume bottles on the vanity. Their scent overwhelming. Her back was to me, and I could see her in the mirror as she lifted a gold necklace over her head, an old key dangling from it, and tucked it inside her corset.
For room after room, I sketched scenes that revealed secrets about the inhabitants of the chateau over the years. None obviously about an ancient book. But all of them revealed or suggested hiding places.
The last drawing I did was the most strange. I sketched a dungeon. Stone walls and floor. Moisture dripping into a pool. The stones were uneven, pitted with dark recesses. And in one, I saw something glitter. Was it gold? A gemstone? I tried to step closer, but I couldn’t walk any deeper into the grotto. An invisible force held me back. I pushed against it, but it didn’t give. I heard music, far off. I knew the music was playing expressly for me, trying to tell me something that the stones couldn’t. I struggled to listen and catch more of it, but it remained elusive. I was certain there was a clue in that music, if I could just hear it more clearly.