Kneeling on the hard floor, Charlotte trembled as she held out her hand, palm up, as she had been instructed.
Madame Rolland grabbed it and Charlotte had to fight the urge to pull away and flee the cave. But the old woman, doubtless sensing her reluctance, gripped her ever tighter. Madame Rolland pursed her lips. She brushed Charlotte’s hand free of dirt, then took up a cloth from a bowl of water, wrung it out and washed Charlotte’s hand.
The reflection from the water in the bowl skittered on the cave ceiling, vanishing, reappearing. They said a witch might manufacture a storm in this manner, could bend the elements to her will; that her exhalations might cause great oaks to bend and snap. Charlotte turned her attention back to Madame Rolland, who was absorbed in her task, and she felt an inexplicable urge to weep. The old woman’s laboured breathing, her priestly devotion. Such tenderness. Long, long ago she’d had a mother who had cared for her in this manner. She wondered about Nicolas. Her poor son, terrified, trembling, crying out. It was an unbearable thought. The world was so cruel.
‘Now,’ Madame Rolland said, ‘pay close attention, for you will need to do this for another woman one day or the knowledge will be lost forever. It’s most important. You must swear to give this book – and the knife – to another woman when the time comes. It’s like a fire that must never be allowed to go out. The spell for this procedure is at the back. Here? Do you see it? It’s how the knowledge is absorbed. There is no other way. Even if someone else tries to use the book, it will not be of use to them. The book can be given only in this way. And remember – if you die with the book in your possession, then your soul will be lost. Now. Do you promise, Madame Picot?’
Charlotte peered at the scrawl on the page Madame Rolland displayed for her. It was tiny and seemed to be in a language unknown to her. ‘But I cannot read that.’
‘No matter, woman. You don’t need to read it. It will come to you. Did you learn your country’s language from reading it? No. Of course you didn’t. It came in your mother’s milk. This is the same. Soon it will be like your own tongue. You’ll understand it soon enough. Mostly, they are things you know already, but are unaware of. Everything I have learned, and what Vivianne learned – and the woman before her, and the woman before her – you will now know. What they call a witch is merely a woman with power. Now. Do you swear?’
Charlotte paused. ‘Yes. But I am afraid.’
Madame Rolland paused to look up at her. Her face softened slightly and she nodded. ‘As you should be. You will have something other people might want. This is not common for women like us, eh? Imagine it. But you no longer have to be afraid, madame. Instead, others will have cause to fear you. After I pass along the knowledge, you will sense the world as never before. See things, smell things, hear things you have never known. I am glad to be giving it to you.’
‘Is there not some other magic we might use? A spell to get my son back somehow?’
‘There is a limit to this magic, woman. If you live to be old, you might learn how to do all manner of things.’
‘But the spirit we wish to summon – is it not unruly? Dangerous?’
‘Oh yes,’ the old woman conceded. She picked up the book in one gnarled hand. ‘But it can also be controlled. It must be controlled.’
‘Where does it come from?’
Madame Rolland paused. ‘From places beyond. But when he arrives, you will be his only mistress. Don’t worry, I will help you to summon him.’
The old woman put the book aside. Then, from within the folds of her clothing, she produced a short knife with a bone handle. ‘This knife offers protection. It has been blessed by an angel. Guard it well. It can make a circle that cannot be penetrated by anything except God himself.’
Then, in a single movement, she drew the blade across Charlotte’s palm. Charlotte gasped with pain and surprise and tried to wrest her hand back, to no avail. Madame Rolland held her fast until the worst of the pain subsided. Blood bubbled on her palm and dripped to the cave’s dusty floor. Madame Rolland released Charlotte and made a similar incision in her own palm. Then she took Charlotte’s bleeding hand once more and pressed their two hands together, wound to wound, in a sort of handshake, like men did. Their blood mingled. Madame Rolland closed her eyes and muttered a few words under her breath.
Finally, when it was done, Madame Rolland got to her feet in stages, like an ancient horse.
Still kneeling, Charlotte gradually came back to herself. It felt as if much had happened. She feared she might swoon. Her hand was sticky. There was blood on her dress, drops of dark blood on the floor. She gazed around at the cave walls, at the candle sagging on its saucer, a broken axe in a dim corner. Her hand was sore, and her shoulder, where the arrow had lodged, also ached. She felt heartsick and weary.
‘I don’t feel any different,’ she murmured.
‘Oh, you will. You will. Here.’ Madame Rolland held the book out to her. ‘Take this, woman. Take it if you want to see your son again.’
Charlotte did as she was told. The book was small, like some books of hours she had seen, and fitted snugly in her hand. The black leather cover was rough, its corners battered and torn. It gave no indication of what it might contain. Awkwardly, for she was loath to smear it with her blood, she opened it on her lap. The cover was almost as stiff and weighty as a church door. She sensed Madame Rolland observing her keenly. The sight of the book’s innards sent a chill through her. There were crosses, circles, pentagrams, a drawing of a nun, and many others of herbs and flowers. Sunflowers, ginger, lavender. Some of the drawings had been made with coloured inks – mainly green and red and brown – while others were only in black. Some entries appeared more recent than others, many more were difficult to discern in the low light. She turned the thin pages. There was a naked woman frolicking in a cane basket, a red flower, a mortar, two lions intertwined, smiling suns and moons, diagrams, arrows, various other heavenly bodies. Words, too, although she was faintly relieved to see that many of them were illegible, almost impossible for her to decipher, while other pages were in scripts utterly unknown to her. Lines of minuscule words, like those made by an insect having crawled through a dollop of ink. She thumbed further through the book and discovered several pages in the middle that were sealed with a small, metal clasp.
‘What are these?’ she asked, although she already suspected the answer.
‘That’s the magic you did not want to know, Madame Picot. The part of your heart you wished to keep hidden.’
‘Dark magic?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ever open these pages, madame?’
Madame Rolland paused, made a face. ‘They are hard to resist.’
‘I will resist.’
‘Of course. Now, turn to the last page.’
On the final page of the book were dozens of whorled fingerprints that resembled roughly severed heads gazing out mutely from the past.
‘They are the thumb prints of each of the women who have owned this book before you. Heloise, Jeanne, the Maid, Vivianne, myself. Now, dip your thumb in your blood and make a print alongside them.’
‘Are you sure, madame, that my soul will be unstained by this?’
‘Everything can be forgiven.’
‘Everything?’
‘Did God not make everything?’
‘Yes, madame.’
‘Then whatever is, is God.’
Aware of Madame Rolland’s stern gaze on her, Charlotte pressed her bloodied thumb to the paper and joined the serried ranks.
Madame Rolland handed her the knife. ‘The book and the knife belong to you now. The knife for protection, the book for its magic.’ Then, wheezing with effort and satisfaction, she began to move away. ‘But it’s time to go. Let’s find someone who might help you to rescue your son. Come now, chicken. Before it grows too late.’
Charlotte didn’t move. When she was a girl, there was a blind man in Saint-Gilles called Thomas who ran his hands over objects to identify them – faces, fruit, leaves, furniture – and many said his understanding of the world was greater than those people with eyes that functioned. She ran her fingers over the writing as Thomas might have done.
She felt the little indentations. The smell of the vellum, its dimpled texture. Her fingertips, rough as they were, grew sensitive to the myriad scratches and curls. And, gradually, she heard whispers, muttering, incantations – the individual words initially as difficult to comprehend as those of immured women – but, eventually, the clamour splintered into distinct voices, both old and young. The feather of a week-old sparrow, one of them said. A winter chestnut, summer moon. This one is for protection from sweating fevers and pox. Here are love charms, a cure for insomnia. There were directions for summoning spirits, for sending them back, as well as countless other things: for finding treasure; the health of a child; to keep a man hard in the night. Avaunt, avaunt, avaunt. Take mandrake, yarrow, a lock of hair. Belladonna, coriander, chicory. The Devil is as old as the world, you know. Female demons came first. Hellebore for madness, thistle for love. Birds live four times longer than a man, a deer four times longer than a bird and a crow five times longer than a deer. In Spain, healers are born with a mark on their bodies in the shape of half a wheel. The spells and charms and recipes were familiar somehow to Charlotte, as if she were being reminded of them rather than learning them for the first time. Mandragore, the noonday demon, appears as a small, dark man without a beard. The moon governs the brain but the kidney is governed by Venus. Astaroth, In Subito, Eloim. The teeth of a hanged man have great power. The blood of a freshly executed person is the only cure for epileptics. Petrica, Agora, Valentia.
And, beneath all these words, weighty as ballast, she detected the dull knock of her own heartbeat, itself like an ancient chant she had never before deciphered. Your blood, your blood, your blood.
