Angelique missed the sea so much she thought her body would break in two. The bite to her life was gone: the cold plunge in the morning, the sizzling sand at noon, the coral’s scrape, the sting of the jellyfish. She was shrouded in the thick dullness of gray walls and heavy air, hot and damp, inside the tower. Without the breeze from the sea to freshen it, the air was like flesh, so palpable and smothering that her skin was always clammy.
Months passed, and the loneliness of her life became suffocating, then deadening. She filled the long hours of the day staring out the three barred windows. Set deep within the walls, each of the narrow slits had a wide sill where she could crawl up and press her face against the grate.
One window looked out upon the road back to Saint-Pierre. She tortured herself with thoughts of the long journey and how she had fallen to sleep so trustingly on her father’s shoulder. She wondered if she could find her way home if she did somehow discover a way beyond the walls.
Another window looked over the cliffs that fell to the sea. She often thought of Barnabas and wondered whether he had sailed safely home. She could hear the waves crashing on the rocks, but she could not see the surf or shoreline, only the broad expanse of the great deep, with its changing shades of slate and indigo.
A third window framed a view of the inner courtyard, and it was here that she kept her vigil. If she rose early, she could see the slaves turned out of their quarters in groups of thirty or forty to toil in the cane, dragging their tired bodies over the hill before the overseer’s whip. The dog-drivers shouted and cursed so loudly that even from such a distance, she could hear their threats. Her father’s new cane fields lay spread out against the horizon, straggly and sparse, green in some plots, tasseled in others. She wondered if his crop would be a good one and whether this would make him any kinder to her.
Within the courtyard, she could watch the comings and goings of the slaves who cared for her, Thais and Suzette, and others who brought supplies, food, and flowers. The two women hung out wash, as her mother had done. They also fed and watered the animals used for the sacrifice: white chickens, goats, and sometimes a dog. From this window she could also see the broad lattice arms of the tattered windmill, groaning in its feeble efforts to spin. Below, scattered about the courtyard, were wooden troughs for the cane juice and a shed for the kettles, all abandoned. She thought it must have been many years since this was a fully working plantation.
Angelique had one occupation that consumed more and more of her thoughts. Each time a ceremony was held in the chapel, she was kept in the dark room behind the altar. Long frightened hours listening to the drums had given way to curiosity and then discovery. She was allowed a candle so that she could abide the darkness, and with that faint light she began to inspect the grimy shelves cluttered with amazing paraphernalia.
There were many clay pots tied and sealed with wax. There were also several large sacks of white powder, which seemed to be a mixture of cornmeal and ashes. She found enamel bowls, pitchers, and platters; an assortment of daggers, machetes, cane blades, and scalpels of several sizes; tins of powders, jars of salves, and boxes of herbs; little sacks of sea urchin needles, lobsters’ feelers, and octopus beaks; piles of grasshoppers, millipedes, and various insects she didn’t recognize; glass jars with rubbery pieces of flesh floating in water, trailing bits of limp skin; embryos of small animals; claws and pincers of giant beetles; dried toads, lizards, scorpions, and snakes. Some of the objects she had seen in her mother’s possession, but most were unfamiliar and fascinating, and she combed this macabre collection as though she were sorting through a queen’s treasure.
Inside a carved wooden box, she found, wrapped in silk, a beautiful kris, encrusted with bright-colored stones and jewels, its blade as sharp as a razor. She held it in her hand, turning it over in wonder, before she carefully wrapped it up again.
The most exciting discovery of all was a pile of books stacked in the corner. Most were moldy, thick with dust, the pages glued together from dankness. Some contained strange designs she could not decipher: odd circular pictures, crosses and curls drawn in fine calligraphy. Others were ledgers with lists of property bought and sold—slaves, kegs of rum, barrels of sugar—with all the numbers added and subtracted in columns. She amused herself by searching for mistakes in the addition.
But there was one book that was more precious than all the rest. It was leather-bound, gilt-edged and tied with a cord, and when she opened it she found long descriptions of ceremonies, chants, and songs.
The chants were written in numerous hands, so the whole must have been collected over time. Some were in Spanish, others in French, and a great many were in African dialects, with English words or Christian phrases tossed in here and there, all very difficult to decipher.
The African words would be repeated many times, naming the loa who was to perform the magic. The ceremonies were endlessly fascinating, and she silently read the words over and over, listening to the sounds in her mind. She also found quill pens and ink in jars, still usable. Since the book was heavy and the pages large and stained, she began to copy certain spells in her journal, mostly for amusement, the better to read them over in her room.
Thais always slept in the tower with Angelique, on a wooden bench beside the wall, but after a time the slave became more trusting, or perhaps less vigilant, and the door to the room was sometimes left unlocked for part of the day. When the slaves were off on errands and the castle deserted, Thais would allow Angelique to come down the stairway as long as she remained within the inner courtyard. Like a caged cat, she began to explore the perimeter of her prison.
The outer door to the chapel was always bolted, and the grounds were surrounded by the wall and the moat. One entire side of the castle rose high above cliffs, with sheer walls that fell away to the sea. Angelique easily rediscovered the underground tunnel to the chapel where she had gone the first day. There was a narrow ledge beside the water, and she was able to climb in secretly, staying dry, and read from the book or copy more pages. Finally, she smuggled the heavy volume up to her room and kept it hidden under her bed. After that, when she studied the book or wrote in her journal, she kept watch at the window facing the courtyard.
One day when she was sitting at the window, she saw a new slave girl come out of the kitchen. She was about the same age as Angelique, slender as a palm shoot, and she had glowing copper skin. She appeared with a large bucket and drew water from the well. Then she poured the water over one courtyard flagstone, got down on her knees, and began to scour it with crushed cane stalks, singing a simple African song in a high, thin voice.
Angelique watched the slave girl intently, her narrow back leaning over her task, her sharp elbows sticking out of her ragged dress, and her rounded pink heels turned to the sky. After a few moments, the girl lifted her head and watched a frigate bird flying under the clouds until it was a tiny speck and disappeared from view. Then she sat back on her haunches with a sigh, and made the print of her hand on the stone as the water dried. She began to slap the stone in quick little rhythms as though the paver were a drum. This occupied her for several minutes until a butterfly circled her head and she leapt up and chased it around the yard, an action that led her to dance. She began to skip and twirl, her small arms over her head, and her perfect limbs burnished with gold.
“Chloe!”
The shout from Suzette returned the girl to her flat-footed, gawky self, and she crouched and began to scrub once more, but not for long. The next bucket she raised from the well spilled over her feet, and she splashed in the puddle until it spread under the bread oven scaring out a green lizard. At once she was down on her hands and knees, creeping up on it, and poking it with a finger until it skittered away. Angelique’s heart ached to become her friend.
Angelique realized that Chloe must be sleeping in the kitchen. Early in the morning she would be there, drawing water, singing her monotonous little song. Then she would spend the day washing the stones, or scrubbing pots from the fire. Some days she stayed inside, perhaps helping with the food, but she almost always appeared in the evening to sit on a step, eat her bowl of soup, bat mosquitoes from her eyes, and watch the sun go down over the edge of the sea.
One morning when the girl was at the well, Angelique took a bun from her breakfast tray and, stretching her arm as far as she could through the bars, tossed it to the ground. It landed at Chloe’s feet, and she dropped the bucket chain, jumped back, and looked up quickly, squinting.
“What’s that! Is the sky fallin’?” she cried. Then, glancing back at the kitchen to make sure no one saw her, she ran and retrieved the cake, brushed it off, and took a bite. A smile spread across her face, and she squinted again, this time toward Angelique’s window. Lifting her hand, she gave a quick little wave.
That evening Angelique decided she would wait until Thais was asleep and slip down to the kitchen. She hid a good part of her dinner in a cloth. Then she lay awake far into the night, until the stars were as bright as millions of fireflies, and Thais was snoring. The windmill was creaking more than ever, blurring all other sounds, even the pounding of her heart, when Angelique lifted the latch to her door and slipped into the stairway. She was glad there was no moon.
The girl was curled up on a pallet under a huge chopping block in the dark kitchen. The minute Angelique appeared at the door, she woke, sat up, rubbed her eyes, and stared, knowing better than to move or make a sound.
“Chloe . . .” Angelique whispered. The girl shrank back against the wall and pulled her legs up to her chest. “Don’t be afraid. I only—”
“Esprit!” Chloe whispered.
“What? No. I am not a spirit.”
“Mystère . . . ! Mystère!” Chloe hissed, her eyes wide with fear.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Angelique softly. “I won’t hurt you. Look at me. I’m real.” Chloe only pulled herself more into a ball and whispered harshly.
“Don’t you come near me! Suzette said I must never, ever, talk to you, or . . . you will eat me!”
“No! I won’t eat you. I only want to . . . to . . .”
“Erzulie! If you touch me, I will die!”
Angelique hesitated, then sat down beside the chopping block a little apart from Chloe. She waited a minute or two, listening to their breathing, then, opening her cloth, took out a piece of roasted pork and began to nibble it. She could feel Chloe’s eyes on her.
After she had chewed for several minutes, she slid a piece of the meat over to the other girl. “I brought you something,” she said. Chloe hesitated, then snatched it up. Both of them ate without speaking, sucking on the fatty bones, and making little slurping noises, until each became aware of her vulgar sounds and began to giggle. Angelique, afraid they would be discovered, put her hand over the girl’s mouth and bit on her own fingers to stop herself, but they shook with sputtering and choking, until they both ached from trying to stifle their laughter.
“Your name is Chloe, isn’t it?” Angelique whispered. The girl hesitated a moment, then nodded.
“Mine is Angelique.”
“I know you. You lives in the tower.” They sat in silence for another moment.
“How old are you?” Angelique asked.
“I dunno. Ten, maybe.”
“Stand up.”
Chloe rose warily, and they stood back to back. Angelique reached up and patted their two heads. “I think you’re only nine,” she decided, feeling superior. “But that’s good.”
“What you mean, good?”
“We can be friends. Even though I am almost eleven.”
“Oh, no, I can’t be your friend. I can’t play with you at all!” Chloe’s eyes grew wide with fear.
“Don’t be silly. We’ll meet at night when everyone is asleep. Don’t you see? I have no one to talk to, and I have been here more than a year.”
“Wha’ for you pick me?”
“Oh, Chloe, I wished for a friend. I’ve been so lonely, and now you’ve come, and I’m so glad.”
Chloe smiled a little to herself. “I likes the meat a whole lots,” she said softly.
“Good. I have to go back before Thais wakes up.”
“Oh, Lord. Go. Go now. Hurry!”
“But I’ll come again tomorrow. I’ll bring you some more dinner. And you can bring me . . . some mud.”
“Some what?”
“Some mud. So we can make something.” Angelique gave her a little hug, and dashed back across the dark courtyard.
The next night Angelique and Chloe crept quietly through the underground passageway to the little room behind the altar. Chloe brought clay from the riverbed. They lit a candle, and they whispered and laughed together for hours, making tiny lizards and turtles, cows and chickens and goats.
After that night, the room became their secret chamber. They created the whole plantation out of clay, with huts for the slaves made from tiny sticks and grass for roofs. They fashioned the tower and the great house and the castle walls. Soon there were small slave figures set at tasks, planting cane or pounding the stalks.
Every night, Chloe brought more clay as well as seeds and shells, leaves and berries, to enhance the village. Angelique fished through the drawers of her wardrobe and found bits of fabric and leather, wisps of lace or pieces of embroidery to decorate their little people. They made up stories and portrayed all the roles—overseer and planter, slave and child—moving the figures around and bouncing them up and down when they spoke.
Chloe seemed to carry none of the weight of her slave’s existence. She was lively and lighthearted, and her enthusiasm for doll play was boundless; she sometimes took over the game.
“Get that slave outta here!” she would holler in the cruel voice of the overseer.
“No, no, Massa, don’t put him in the ground!” she would cry for the slave.
“Dig the hole, you bassards, and stick ’im in it!” she would growl, and she would bury her shaking little figure up to his neck in dirt, all the time crying, “Oh, no. OH, NO! Don’t put me in the hole!”
“Leave his head stick out, and bring me the honey!” the master would snarl.
“Oh, no, Massa, not the honey! Please not the honey!”
“Pour it on his head and bring me the bucket o’ ants!”
“Oh, no, Massa, not the ants!”
“Pour on the ants so’s they bites him good, bite his eyes an’ his ears an’ his neck an’ his nose!” Chloe would become possessed and screw her face into a cruel mask when she pretended to be the overseer. And Angelique would join in, becoming the helpless slave.
“NO! NO! The ants be bitin’ me! They be eatin’ me all up!” she would cry, thrilled with a mixture of horror and fascination. She could not imagine such cruel tortures. She thought Chloe invented these dramas, and she was in awe of the girl’s imagination.
It was Chloe’s idea to make the dolls. Both were brown because the clay was brown, but one had Angelique’s blond hair, and one had Chloe’s little black braid. The hair was cut from their own heads. The clothing, as well, was ripped from their own dresses, and sewn in place, to make them more authentic. Eyes were tiny stones and mouths were slivers of seed, and they argued over who was to use the seed with the most perfect curve for a mouth. They pretended the dolls were sisters and made them beds with pillows and covers so that they could sleep side by side. Then they made a tent of silken scarves and cotton pareus and they would lie down beside the dolls and croon to them, songs their own mothers had sung, until they knew one another’s songs and could sing them all by heart.
During the day, Angelique read from the book. She remembered many things from her mother’s teachings and from the prayers of the nuns at school, but she wanted to know so much more. She asked Chloe if she knew about loas.
“Loas? There be many, many loas!”
“Oh, please, tell me all their names.”
“All them? Well, there’s Brava Guede, who’s the best loa; he care for the chillen. An’ Guede Ratalon. He digs the graves!”
“Who is Legba?” asked Angelique.
“Papa Legba be Maître Ka-Fu. He open the gate so’s all the other loas come in!” Chloe spread her delicate arms when she said “O-o-o-o-open!” then she bowed down to the ground. “But when they call the Keeper of the Gate in this chapel, they say “Kalfu . . .” and she tried very hard to pronounce the word, Carrefour.
“Yes! I’ve heard them say that!” cried Angelique. “Why is it different here?”
“’Cause the voodoo be bad here . . . it be angajan!”
“What do you mean . . . angajan?”
“Baka, here . . . duppy . . . evil spirit . . . take ti-bon-ang, the soul! Like Cochon Gris—eat the pig, and drink his blood!”
Chloe’s imagination ran to the fantastic. Angelique would listen to her and think of the little red crabs scuttling in and out of their holes, so hard to see and even harder to catch.
Angelique decided to try something from the book, but there were many things she needed she did not have. One night she said to Chloe, “Can you get me a toad, or a little frog, a coqui?”
“Why you want a toad?”
“To make a spell.”
“What you mean—spell?”
“It has to be alive.”
When Chloe brought the toad, Angelique turned it on its back and stroked it until it was hypnotized. Then she took one of the smallest knives and opened its stomach.
“See,” she said, “there’s the heart.”
“That the heart? Oh, yeah! I sees it beatin’ like a little drum.”
“And which part do you think is the liver?”
“The what?”
“We need the liver. We need to eat them both,” Angelique said.
“What you want to eat it for?” Chloe cried.
“For courage and cunning.”
“Well, I ain’t eatin’ no frog’s liver, I don’ care what.”
“You must,” said Angelique, poking in the frog’s insides. “I think this must be it.” She pulled out a tiny slick organ and offered it to Chloe, whose eyes grew wide with disgust as she shook her head vehemently. Then Angelique cut out the heart, and holding the two bloody bits and slicing them into two small pieces, she recited the African words she remembered from the book. With a grimace, she placed her portion in her mouth and swallowed. Chloe watched, her face squeezed like a dried-up papaya. Angelique offered Chloe her share, but she refused.
Angelique tried to force it in her mouth, but she wiggled away, shrieking, “I don’ want none o’ that! Stay away from me! You got the blood and the slime all over your fingers!”
“We’re going to do the spell now,” Angelique said, “but yours won’t work because you didn’t eat the heart.”
“I don’ want to eat no heart.”
“Then take up my doll and let’s begin.” Angelique reached for Chloe’s doll and blew, then breathed on its face. “You are Chloe,” she said softly, “and you are alive.” She looked over at Chloe. “Do the same with mine.” Chloe grabbed the doll with the yellow hair.
“You is Angelique, an’ you is alive,” she said without much enthusiasm. Still, she loved to pretend, so she tried to believe it. Angelique handed her a piece of black string.
“Tie it around the throat,” she said.
“Why?”
“It’s the spell. Do it.”
Chloe fumbled with the string and managed to make a slipknot.
“Now say, ‘Carefore tinginding oo-oo. Me hot me bas-e.’ ”
“Say what?”
“Just ‘Ting-in-ding-goo . . .’ ”
“Ting-a-ding-goo . . .”
“Me hot me bas-e.”
“Me hot. Me bas-eh?”
“Now pull the string tight. See if it chokes me.”
“Chokes you? Why you want it t’choke you?”
“To see if the spell works, of course.”
Chloe tightened the string, watching Angelique’s face for any sign of choking.
“Tighter,” said Angelique, frowning.
“If I pull it any tighter, it’ll pull off your head!”
“Do it! And say the words!”
Chloe tried her hardest, she chanted and pulled the knot tighter, and just as she had predicted, the clay head of Angelique’s doll popped off and toppled to the floor. Angelique sighed with frustration. “It doesn’t work,” she said. “I’m doing something wrong.”
“What you want to do spells for anyway? That’s for the houngan to do. Spells is dangerous. Besides, you need to make the vévé.”
“What’s a vévé?” Angelique asked.
“It’s the picture of the loa, made with the white flour. An’ you di’n’t ask Papa Legba to open the gate.”
“Let me try it on your doll.”
“I don’ want to try it. Let’s play sumpin’ else. Let’s dance!” She threw down the doll and, rising to her feet, began to spin. But Angelique was determined, and she took the string and wrapped it around the neck of Chloe’s doll.
She placed the doll on her knees and blew on it again. “You are Chloe. You are alive,” she said. Then she began to chant the spell softly. “Carrrrey Forrrrrey. Ting-gin-din-goo. Me hot. Me bassssey.”
Her hands were still sticky from the frog’s entrails, and she wrapped the string around her fingers to get a better grip. Chloe was still humming and twirling, and Angelique began to pull very slowly, staring down at the little doll, which looked up at her with its pebble eyes and kinky braid. Her hands felt stiff and her mouth was dry, but she said the spell again, pouring all the force of her breath toward the little neck.
Suddenly she felt a sizzling spasm, like the tremor when she touched a certain kind of jellyfish, and then a ripple of heat at her shoulder bones, which seared her back to her buttocks. A flicker of fire curled like a snake in her belly, writhing and then thickening, and her throat burned as a bitter taste soured her mouth.
Chloe stopped still. “It workin’!” she cried. “It workin’ now!” Her eyes flew wide and she reached for her neck and screamed. “It hurts! It hurts my t’roat!”
Angelique froze in disbelief, staring at Chloe, who was truly in pain, holding her neck with her hands and coughing.
“Stop it! Stop the spell! Pleeeese! I can’t breeeeeathe!”
Angelique tried to pull her hands away but her fingers were tangled in the string, and jerking and tugging made the knot go tighter. Chloe made a thin screeching sound, and gagged, tearing at her throat and clawing at the air.
“Ow-h-h-h-h, Papa Guede! It . . . hur-r-r-rrrts!!!!” she gasped, barely able to make a sound. “Papa Guede . . . save me . . .” she whispered. Then she bent over and coughed, a raw, hacking cough, as though she would vomit, but nothing came from her mouth.
Angelique dug frantically at the loop of the string, but it refused to come loose. Chloe moaned and rocked her body back and forth, clawing at her neck, tears popping from her eyes.
Angelique crawled to her knees, scratching the ground for the knife she had used on the frog. Her fingers found the blade and she grabbed the doll. Her hands shaking, her nails digging into the hard clay, she eased the point of the knife under the string and jerked. The first time it slipped, but the second it cut! Chloe fell over in a small quivering heap, and stared up at Angelique with anguished eyes that slowly glassed over as she lost consciousness.
Angelique dragged Chloe into her arms and held her close. She could feel her small bones collapsed beneath her skin and smell her warm, spicy odor.
“I’m so sorry, Chloe. Oh, Chloe, please don’t die,” she sobbed, convulsed with spasms of dread. “I didn’t know it would work. It worked so fast! Please, Chloe, wake up!”
But Chloe lay still and unbreathing, her neck loose, and her body as limp as kelp. Angelique grew frantic, and she looked helplessly at the shelves of bottles and vials as she searched through her mind. The spell! Another spell! There had to be one! Something, there was something, what was it? “To revive a strangling beast.” That was it!
She struggled to remember the words. Different words. Christian words. They came to her in part, and then she remembered more, and she began to pray over Chloe’s still form.
“God who was born. God who died. God who came to life again. God who was crucified. God who was in the cave. God who was pierced with the dagger! Save her. Save her!” She sobbed the words over and over, kissing Chloe’s face, wet with her own tears, and breathing into her mouth. “You are Chloe. You are alive.”
There was a faint moan, and Chloe opened her eyes. With a cry Angelique clasped her to her breast and wept hot tears of relief.
“Oh, Chloe. I’m so sorry. Please tell me you forgive me!”
“Them . . . spells is . . . evil . . .” whispered Chloe. And Angelique kissed her again.
“I love you, Chloe,” she said. “I love you!”
Angelique held Chloe while she slept, watching her small breast rise and fall. Her thoughts were spinning. The spell had worked, so easily, and the force had entered her and ignited her energy. What was that power? “Charge,” Chloe called it. Those simple words? Pushing the column of her breath? The book! Some of the rules in the book were correct. The doll with the clothing that had touched Chloe’s skin; the hair was Chloe’s hair. But Chloe hadn’t succeeded with her spell. Why had she?
Her thoughts confused and frightened her. There was something else: Chloe had died, and she had brought her back to life? No. That couldn’t be possible. And yet . . . She felt exhilarated, astonished by a skill she knew she must possess, but which she did not in any way understand. This was the “something” her father had spoken of. But what did he really know about her? And what did she know of herself?
It was dawn when the two girls crept back through the underground passageway, and morning birdsong was in the air. Chloe clung to Angelique, recovered but still frightened and unable to speak, her throat painfully sore. They emerged from the tunnel, and they were ready to cross the courtyard when they heard horses approaching at a gallop toward the gate to the main road. Angelique grabbed Chloe’s hand.
“Hide! Back here!”
The two girls ducked behind the side of the chapel just as the great iron gate whined open and Angelique’s father and another gentleman planter rode into the central courtyard. She remembered his name. It was Luis Desalles. He had been there the day she had been chosen.
The air was still, without a breath of wind, and even the long arms of the windmill hung silent. The hooves of the restless horses rang on the stones, and the men spoke in low voices, their voices thick with drink.
“You’re Satan’s whore, Bouchard! The whip is the music of the Negro! The whip alone will make him work. Hell’s brutes!”
“No, you are wrong! They must have their dancing. The Negro is naturally superstitious. They are beasts, obsessed with her. I can barely keep their hands off her.”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“They forget that I am there! And sometimes I must pull out the sword! But they know in their cunning brains what is coming, and they will wait.” He laughed bitterly.
Angelique and Chloe hovered in the shadow of the wall. The sun was rising, and a long shaft of light crossed the courtyard. They were afraid to move and could only cower against the stones. All the courtyard lay between them and the kitchen. The planter Desalles continued in slurred words.
“They are all morally and temperamentally unfit. Last week, Valentin threw himself into the big vat, just as it came to a boil—ghastly sight. And, just yesterday, Bence, my new boy who seemed so promising, climbed a breadfruit tree and jumped. Broke his neck, the bloody fool—”
“—And they use any means to take vengeance! I—I was flogging a slave and the madman swallowed his own tongue! Choked himself to death!”
Chloe coughed, then covered her mouth, but neither man seemed to notice as Desalles droned on.
“Villainous women—absorb their unborn children like herd antelope. One of my females, about to give birth—one day I see her, full with her baby, and the next—poof! Her big belly disappeared!”
Bouchard’s horse clipped toward the chapel, and the girls hugged the wall. Chloe stared at Angelique with frightened eyes.
“My worst nightmare,” Bouchard was saying, “I have to rerig the blasted windmill here. The new grinders haven’t arrived yet from France. If the cane comes in early, I shall lose it all.” The horse’s hooves came nearer. “See what a pissing bind I’m in. That’s why, on Sunday, I give them their damned ceremony and then . . .” His voice was syrupy with rum. “. . . Erzulie . . . my little treasure, hidden away. What would I do without her, Luis?”
Angelique felt Chloe tugging at her sleeve. She turned to see the face of her friend contorted in a grimace as she motioned to her throat. Angelique instantly seized her by the head and buried it in her skirt, but Chloe exploded in a spasm of muffled coughs.
Bouchard barked in their direction, “Who’s there?” Angelique and Chloe shrank farther back into the shadow, then quickly scurried around the back of the building. Hooves rang on the stones as the animal approached, stopped, and clipped again, more slowly. There was an agonizing wait until Angelique’s father was staring down at the two quivering girls.
“What is this?” he growled at Angelique. “What in hell are you doing out here? Were you not forbidden to show yourself?” His tone was withering with contempt. “And to a slave!”
“Please, Father, don’t harm her. She is . . . my friend.”
“Friend? Don’t you know she will betray us—if she hasn’t already!”
“No! She would never do that.”
“Why are you here—together—at this time of morning? Did you steal away in the night?”
“Yes, but no one saw us. No one!”
“For what purpose did you run off?”
“Only to . . . to play—”
“Play? Play what? Where?”
“Games, Father, make-believe—in the little room beneath the chapel—”
Her father’s face turned purple with fury. He leaned from his horse and snatched Chloe up by the hair. She shrieked as he threw her across the saddle and, catching her around the waist, he galloped with her kicking figure across the flagstones and into the kitchen. Monsieur Desalles sat frozen upon his horse, gazing at the scene in stupefaction. He roused himself enough to call out.
“Here, here, Theodore. Don’t harm her belly. Remember, you want her to breed someday.”
Angelique ran to the kitchen door in time to see her father leap from his horse with Chloe still under his arm, her arms and legs flailing. He reached for a pair of coal tongs that hung on the wall above the sink.
Brandishing the iron tool, he called out, “Luis! Give me a hand here! Hold her head!”
Angelique grabbed at her father’s coat. “No! No! Father! Please don’t hurt her! Please, I beg you! She’s done nothing! I’ll die if you hurt her!”
Her father turned and glared at her, his eyes black hollows and his teeth clenched. “You’ll die if I don’t!” he hissed. “You heedless—reckless girl! Leave off those mewly tears! Don’t you know what you have done?”
She leapt upon him, clawing for the hand that held the tongs, but he flung her away. Desalles was at the door now, and Bouchard cried out to him. “Hold her back! Damn the fiend!” Chloe screeched at the top of her lungs and Angelique, her head reeling from the blow and hot tears blurring her eyes, scrambled to her feet only to feel Desalles’s hard grip on her arm.
“Thais!” her father yelled for the maidservant, trying in vain to hold Chloe who was scrambling and kicking. “Thais! Come down here, at once!” Then he muttered, “Blast your lazy black hide!” under his breath, vainly trying to still the wriggling girl.
Desalles had both Angelique’s arms fast in his wrenching grip. Her father set the pliers on the chopping block and, grasping Chloe by the hair, held her head flat against the scarred wood, prying at her mouth with his thumb and fingers as she mewled and struggled.
Thais appeared, groggy and witless with terror, at the door of the tower. “Thais! Help me here! I will pull out her tongue! I will! I’ll see that she never, never speaks again!” Staggering with drink, he cursed, “Bloody wretches, defy me, will you? I’ll bash both your heads in before I’m done!”
“Let me go!” Angelique found her captor’s crotch with a kick.
Doubling over in agony, he released her with an oath: “Damned slut!”
From the corner of her eye, she saw her father lift the dreaded pliers, and she flung herself on his arm again.
“Off me, you hellish creature, leave off!” he cried. But both she and Chloe, now like wild hyenas, bit down: Chloe on the fingers that pinched her slippery tongue, and Angelique on the side of the fist that held the tongs. Angelique felt her teeth sink in the flesh and the warm blood leak into her mouth, but like a rabid dog she held on even as blows smashed her head and she heard the pliers rattle to the ground.
Then her father, dragging both attackers like a bull beleaguered by lion cubs, raging with oaths, lumbered into the courtyard. He shook Angelique off with a curse and a kick, and she fell to the earth, rolled, and lifted her head to see him lurch for the well at the center of the courtyard, with Chloe still under his arm.
She knew what he was going to do.
“No!” she screamed. “NO-O-O-O-O-O-O!” Crawling and stumbling, desperate to stop him, she grabbed for his leg, his arm, but too late. He lifted the squirming, howling girl above his head and hurled her over the edge. Angelique slammed into the rocks of the well wall, reaching, screaming, “Chloe!” and stared agonizingly down into the gaping hole. She heard a thin wail and felt the chain vibrate as though struck, and she screamed “Chloe!” again, her cries resonating with the falling girl’s, bouncing, echoing in the cavern—like ravens’ fading caws when they sailed over the trees into the rain forest—and then silence.