“If you didn’t know I’d be here, why did you have the book with you? Why are you here?”
“I was Satie’s friend. All of us here were. We are also all friends of Emma. We all meet often for dinner and to enjoy one another’s company and explore our shared interests. Emma commissioned the book and asked me to bring it along. She didn’t divulge her guest list.”
He was annoyed, and I felt the chill coming off him. I’d accomplished my goal. He shifted in his seat and turned to the Ballets Russes dancer on his right.
As much as it pained me to be aloof with Mathieu, to annoy him, to have him turn his back on me, I was also relieved. I had no intention of reopening my wounds. They’d finally scarred over, if not entirely healed. I’d convinced myself that it was for the best that I’d left. To save him. To keep him safe. Nothing had changed.
Or had it?
My mother said she believed in the fluidity of time. That everything was in flux in every dimension and that we could not know for sure that the things we perceived in one moment would still be true in the next. One butterfly wing flapping in India, she always said, could have an effect continents away.
I thought of Nicky and his butterfly book. All those wings. All those marvelous colors and patterns. What changes did he conjure when he captured those creatures for those minutes, before he set them free again?
Maybe what I’d seen when I painted Mathieu had changed. Perhaps by leaving Paris when I did, I’d altered the trajectory of his future. And mine.
Could I dare believe such a thing? Should I put on the blindfold and sketch him again? What if the scene were different this time? Or what if it were the same? Then I would have to endure all the feelings of loss again. The truth did not change. And the truth was that I was Mathieu’s destruction.
“And so we begin.” Madame Calvé’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “We are here to say good-bye to our brilliant friend Satie. A sad night for us but not for him. Our poet is finally at peace. He’s been released to enjoy the next phase of his journey.” Her voice was luscious and rich, like syrup set to music. Her dramatic sense so powerful she had everyone at the table in her thrall.
“Now, Anna, dear, I turn it over to you.”
Throughout dinner, whenever I’d heard a snippet of Anna’s conversation, I’d thought her flighty and inconsequential. Perfectly in keeping with her blond marcel curls and bright pink bow-shaped lips. But now, commanding the table, she took on an entirely different persona. For one, the flounces were gone. She’d slipped on a navy velvet robe, embroidered with silver stars and moons. Its hood hid her curls, so instead of looking like a young jazz singer, she now appeared as a timeless sage. My fingers itched. I couldn’t help but imagine what secrets I’d see if I put the blindfold on and tried to draw her.
She poured a few drops of a golden oil into a brass dish. On top of that, she laid a tightly wound bundle of sage leaves. Then she lit a match and set fire to the dried plant. Immediately, I smelled the aromatic odor of the herb and frankincense. The oil was a sacred scent that, as I knew from studying my grimoire, helped the mind travel out of the earthly realm and reach beyond. The incense opened our sensors, enabling us to be more receptive.
While I hadn’t seen the proof of Anna’s gift when I first met her, I saw it now surrounding her in a silvery aura. My mother had a similar aura around her when she was engaged with other realms. So did my sisters. The air waved in a subtle but visible pattern, comparable to the way heat escaping from an oven caused a visible disturbance if the light was just right. And the color of the air took on the moon’s shimmer.
“I’d like to request that you lower the lights, Madame. And everyone, please close your eyes,” Anna said, in a voice that was quite deeper and more serious than the one she’d used to chatter during dinner.
There was a difference in the sound and tenor and timbre in the intonation of someone who believed in the dark arts and the beyond. I’d heard it all my life. I heard it now from Anna.
“Everyone take the hand of the person beside you,” she instructed.
On my left, Jules offered me his hand, which was cool to the touch. Not yet old but no longer young, the skin was firm but not smooth. On my right, Mathieu’s hand reached for and took mine. My breath caught in my throat. His grip tightened. I tried to focus on the objective differences between his hand and Jules’s. Mathieu’s hand was much more muscled and the skin rougher because of his binding work. And his touch communicated so much more.
My true gift was drawing what was beneath the surface, in the present or the past mostly, sometimes in the future. But if I made a great effort, I could sometimes learn about someone by touching him or her. A talent that usually lay dormant. Especially because I’d never learned how to easily access it or fine-tune it.
When Gaspard had first shaken my hand, I’d been surprised by how easily I was able to gather information about him, or at least a sense of his inner being. Now surprise came yet again. A hot energy from Mathieu surged through me. Heating me inside, deep down in my womb. A part of me that had been asleep for so long fluttered, stretched, and flickered. Reminding me of what I’d once known, what I’d once had . . . and what I’d lost.
Anna was speaking again, but I was hardly listening. Mathieu’s hand in mine was all I could think about.
“Madame Calvé, you’ve invited us all here tonight, so perhaps you’ll begin?”
“We’ve come together to say good night to you, Erik,” Madame said, in her powerfully rich voice.
“Erik? Are you here?” Anna called.
Madame must have turned on a gramophone, because one of Satie’s most haunting melodies filled the eerie silence.
I realized suddenly how astonishing it was that I, a daughter of La Lune, had actually managed to get to the age of twenty-six without ever having attended a séance. I didn’t know what to expect and became anxious. Other than my mother and my sisters, I’d managed to avoid others who had gifts. Spiritualists of every kind had become wildly popular after the war. But I’d been in art school, and Sebastian had encouraged me to concentrate on my painting. He had plans for us and didn’t want my gift corrupted in any way.
Even though Anna had asked us all to close our eyes, I opened mine. Unless I was wearing the blindfold, I couldn’t bear being awake and having my eyes shut. The sensation was too much like being blind, and it scared me.
“Erik? Are you here?” Anna asked again.
The music grew a little louder. I smelled tobacco. Other than that, there were no effects. No flickering lights or objects moving across the room. Anna’s body didn’t collapse; her face did not contort. None of the silly dramatics the newspapers were always reporting.