The Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  ‘A little hole?’

  ‘A little hole made by a little pen,’ Madeleine’s eyes sparkled as she mimicked digging and twisting a pen into the sofa, and Hazel found herself laughing. She could just see the girl tunneling away at her parents’ prized possession. Madeleine was fearless. While Hazel had been the school hall monitor, Madeleine had been the one trying to sneak into class late, after grabbing a smoke in the woods.

  Hazel looked down at the tiny white cylinder in her palm, unsullied by exposure to sunlight and life, swallowed by the sofa to be coughed up decades later.

  Then she opened it. And she knew she’d had reason to be afraid of the thing. For what it contained changed her life immediately and forever. Written in round, exuberant purple ink was a single simple sentence.

  I love you.

  Hazel couldn’t meet Madeleine’s eyes. Instead she looked up from the tiny note and noticed that her living room, which that morning had been so drab, was now warm and comfortable, the washed-out colors vibrant. By the time her eyes returned to Madeleine the miracle had happened. One had become two.

  Madeleine went back to Montreal to finish her treatments, but as soon as she could she returned to the cottage in the countryside, surrounded by rolling hills and forests and fields of spring flowers. Madeleine had found a home and so had Hazel.

  Now Hazel picked up her darning from the old horsehair sofa. She was worried. Worried about what was happening at the bistro.

  They’d done the runes, the ancient Nordic symbols of divination. According to the rune stones Clara was an ox, Myrna a pine torch, Gabri a birch, though Clara told him the rune said bitch.

  ‘Well, it got that right,’ said Gabri, impressed. ‘And God knows you’re an ox.’

  Monsieur Béliveau reached into the small wicker basket and withdrew a stone painted with a diamond symbol.

  ‘Marriage,’ suggested Monsieur Béliveau. Madeleine smiled but said nothing.

  ‘No,’ said Jeanne, taking the stone and examining it. ‘That’s the God Ing.’

  ‘Here, let me try.’ Gilles Sandon put his powerful, calloused hand into the delicate basket and withdrew it, his hand a fist. Opening it they saw a stone with the letter R. It looked to Clara a bit like the wooden eggs they’d hidden for the children. They too had been painted with symbols. But eggs were symbolic of life, while stones were symbolic of death.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Gilles asked.

  ‘It means riding. Adventure, a journey,’ said Jeanne, looking at Gilles. ‘Often accompanied by toil. Hard work.’

  ‘What else is new?’

  Odile laughed, as did Clara. Gilles was a hard worker and his forty-five-year-old body testified to years as a lumberjack. Strong and strapping and almost always bruised.

  ‘But,’ Jeanne reached out and placed her hand over the stone still sitting in the soft center of Gilles’s palm, surrounded by callus hills, ‘you picked it up upside down. The R is inverted.’

  Now there was silence. Gabri, who’d discovered by reading the small pamphlet on runes that his stone meant ‘birch’ not ‘bitch’, had been arguing with Clara and threatening to cut off her supply of pâté and red wine. Now the two of them joined the others and leaned in, the circle tight and tense.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Odile asked.

  ‘It means a difficult road ahead. It warns to be cautious.’

  ‘And what did his mean?’ Gilles pointed to Monsieur Béliveau.

  ‘The God Ing? It means fertility, masculinity.’ Jeanne smiled at the quiet, gentle grocer. ‘It’s also a powerful reminder to respect all that’s natural.’

  Gilles laughed, a petty, smug, mean little sound.

  ‘Do Madeleine,’ Myrna suggested, trying to break the tension.

  ‘Great.’ Mad reached in and withdrew a stone. ‘I’m sure mine will say I’m selfish and heartless. P.’ She smiled as she looked at the symbol. ‘That’s amazing, because I actually have to pee.’

  ‘The P symbol means joy,’ said Jeanne. ‘But you know what else?’

  Madeleine hesitated. As Clara watched the great energy that seemed to surround the woman appeared to dim, to diminish. It was as though she sagged for just an instant.

  ‘It’s upside down too,’ said Madeleine.

  Hazel’s hands darned the worn socks but her mind was elsewhere. She glanced at the clock. Ten thirty. Still early, she told herself.

  She wondered what was happening at the bistro over in Three Pines. Madeleine had suggested they go together, but Hazel had declined.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re scared,’ Madeleine had teased.

  ‘Of course not. It’s just nonsense, a waste of time.’

  ‘Not afraid of ghosts? So, would you move into a house next to a cemetery?’

  Hazel thought about it. ‘Probably not, but only because of resale.’

  ‘Ever practical,’ Madeleine laughed.

  ‘Do you believe this woman can contact the dead?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Mad. ‘I honestly haven’t thought about it. It just seems like fun.’

  ‘Lots of people believe in ghosts, in haunted houses,’ said Hazel. ‘I was reading about one just the other day. It was in Philadelphia. A monk keeps appearing, and visitors see human shadows on the stairs and there was something else, what was it? Gave me the willies. Oh, yes. A cold spot. Right by a big wing chair and apparently everyone who sits in it dies but not before seeing the ghost of an old woman.’

  ‘I thought you said you don’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘I don’t, but lots of people do.’

  ‘Lots of cultures talk about spirits,’ admitted Madeleine.

  ‘But we’re not talking about those, are we? I think there’s a difference. A ghost is somehow malevolent, wicked. There’s something vengeful and angry about a ghost. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to play around with that. And the building the bistro’s in has been there for hundreds of years. Heaven knows how many people died there. No. I’ll stay at home, watch a bit of TV, take a dinner next door to poor Madame Bellows. And avoid ghosts.’

  Now Hazel sat in the puddle of dim light thrown from a single lamp in the living room. Remembering the conversation had left her chilled, as though a ghost had perched by her seat, creating a cold spot. She rose and turned on all the lights. But the room remained dull. Without Madeleine it seemed to wither.

  The disadvantage of putting on all the lights was that she could no longer see out the window. All she saw was her own reflection. At least, she hoped it was her own reflection. There was a middle-aged woman sitting on a sofa wearing a sensible tweed skirt and an olive twinset. Around her neck was a modest set of pearls. It could have been her mother. And maybe it was.

  Peter Morrow stood at the threshold of Clara’s studio, peering into the darkness. He’d cleaned up the dishes, read in front of the living room fire and then, bored, had decided to go into his own studio to put in an hour or so on his latest painting. He’d walked through their kitchen to the other side of their small home, with every intention of opening his studio door and going inside.

  So why was he now standing at the open door to Clara’s studio?

  It was dark and very quiet in there. He could feel his heart in his chest. His hands were cold and he realized he was holding his breath.

  The act was so simple, mundane even.

  He reached out and flicked on the overhead lights. Then he stepped in.

  They sat in a circle on wooden chairs. Jeanne counted and seemed disconcerted.

  ‘Eight is a bad number. We shouldn’t be doing this.’

  ‘What do you mean, a “bad” number?’ Madeleine could feel her heart start to pound.

  ‘It comes right after seven,’ said Jeanne, as though that explained it. ‘Eight forms the infinity sign.’ She gestured in the air, her finger making the invisible sign. ‘The energy goes round and round. No outlet. It gets angry and frustrated, and very powerful.’ She’d sighed. ‘This doesn’t feel good at all.’