by C H Chelser
From that moment onward, she had lost the fight. The cards had been the first nails in her coffin. The laudanum and her dishevelled appearance had only served as hammers.
Her cold, tense fingers picked up the deck and counted the cards. The almost hypnotic sequence of numbers resembled the imaginary steps to come away from her body. The decision to cart her off to a distant asylum was final, and it would not be more than a few days before she was forced to board a carriage. By then, crossing the threshold would be her only means of going anywhere else. The temptation to attempt once more to cross unaided was strong, but her weary body testified that Jean’s warning had not been unfounded. So she kept her eyes open as thirty-five cards passed through her fingers.
Thirty-five. The deck consisted of thirty-six.
She looked under the desk, in her sewing kit and wherever else a small card might have gone unnoticed. Only when she extended her search to the whole of room did she spot a piece of smudgy paper half-hidden under the cabinet in the far corner.
Her stomach knotted as she went to retrieve it. The card couldn’t have made it this far from the desk by falling off. It must have been carried by a breeze. Perhaps Amélie had opened the windows while cleaning, admitting a gush of wind. Although a furious sweep of Eric’s arm was a more likely cause.
As she sat crouched by the cabinet, her legs folded and she sagged to her knees, petticoats pooling around her. Overcome and exhausted, she leaned against the woodwork to keep upright. A stray thought echoing Anne’s voice reminded her that fallen cards had special significance in a reading. Mechanically, she dusted off the fallen card and turned it face-up.
The Sun. The card she had come to associate with Jean.
But the guide was troubled, his bright light obscured. He had dismissed her, her demonic ally had abandoned her, and now Eric had discarded her, too. Like a broken toy. Only Anne cared, but locked away in the countryside, Mercedes knew she would never see her friend again.
Her eyes slipped shut, worn out by despair.
Please understand that in dismissing our agreement, I did not dismiss you.
An intangible warmth stroked the side of her face. Without opening her eyes, she focused on the presence manifesting behind her shoulder.
“Mere semantics, Jean.”
For your safety, it must be done.
The guide’s mental caress carried a multitude of sympathies, all of them sincere but nevertheless misdirected. She made no secret of that opinion.
“M’sieur has every reason to despise me,” she added, keeping her voice down. “I proved useless to him, so he will not approach me again. But the other…”
She repeated the last word – l’autre; ‘the other’ – several times, until it became a name in its own right. What remained nameless inspired fear, and she was fed up with being afraid.
“Tell me,” she whispered, “if I cannot stop l’Autre, what will happen to Danielle?”
The sanctuary will keep her safe.
She silently tested his resolve. It was strong, but frayed. “We both know you cannot keep that promise,” she concluded. “The sanctuary is difficult to maintain, you said, and l’Autre will continue to pose a threat until it is satisfied. Which it may never be.”
In her mind, she saw a grand château amidst the green fields of northern France. Luscious gardens with trees and fragrant flowers, but also vacant, listless husks that had once been people. Her destiny.
“A princess endures being locked up in her tower, because she hopes that one day the dragon that keeps her there will be slain. Without that prospect, that hope of freedom, even the most beautiful castle becomes a prison.”
Jean’s energy pulsated in discomfort. Everything inside a prison yearns to be free, but existence is not always better outside. Sometimes the walls are… necessary.
“Any partition protects,” Mercedes muttered, glancing at the closed door of the crafts room. “Doors, walls, barriers of energy. They all shelter those within their bounds from that which is without, and protect what is without from that which lurks within. Sometimes walls are necessary, yes, but who decides the definition of ‘necessary’?”
Our gaoler, Jean answered amidst a flurry of other thoughts. What Mercedes sensed of his shape gave the impression of an emaciated old man. The concept of imprisonment bothered him deeply. Mercedes sympathised. A married woman was never truly free, but her immediate future contained stone walls to imprison her body as well as chains to tether her mind. Imposed madness, until she went genuinely insane.
From that perspective, the murderous rampage of l’Autre made a disturbing amount of sense.
“To be cast aside by all of existence, thrown into the deepest darkness and left to wither until you cease to exist.” Her thoughts dwelled on the gaping wounds behind M’sieur’s stoic mask and on the utter despondency of l’Autre’s hunger. “Devourers are meant to eat souls. Only not any soul. Their own! They are sentenced to consume their own soul.” She grimaced in anger. “What crime would justify such punishment? What gaoler has the audacity to claim that such a fate is necessary?”
Our gaoler is not always another. Our most dangerous adversary is often ourselves.
Between her clenched fingers and white knuckles, the Sun folded.
“Then the demons are not criminals deserving punishment, but rather… victims?”
Jean’s turbulent aura flared. It is not that simple! he exclaimed. To my shame I, too, held that conviction. A grievous misjudgement for which you almost paid the ultimate price. His energy dulled fast, its golden shine reduced to a faded beige that suggested a bedraggled version of his suit. Do not make the same mistake as I did. Devourers have become what they are for a reason, and by their nature, they are invariably destructive. All of them are.
Mercedes released the crumpled card. The guide’s rapid switch between restlessness and apathy confirmed the emotional under-current she had sensed at the sanctuary. At the time, she had been too preoccupied to identify it, but now guilt and anguish were etched in his aura, clear as day.
“Is that the mistake you mentioned before? The one you had hoped I could rectify?”
No. Jean withdrew a fraction. Or perhaps it is. If so, I have made the same misjudgement on several occasions, with pernicious consequences.
—a pistol fired; a bullet of lead that saved a life by missing its target. Yet a bullet of light struck that target in the head; its piercing light wounded. Even killed—
Mercedes exhaled to separate herself from the unexpected vision. Self-deprecation, in equal measures tangible and foreign, coated her tongue. The taste was not nearly as vile as the acid dripping from M’sieur’s jowls, but strong enough to untangle the images and notions behind it. The memory made little sense, like a distorted dream. Until she realised that the first part of the memory had been Jean’s, which had triggered the second part in her mind.
In her hand, the edges of Anne’s card pressed into her flesh, but it was not the Sun that stood at the forefront of her mind.
“The Cross to the Man,” she whispered. “In that card reading, you warned me of M’sieur’s torment. You knew exactly what pain lay beyond his indomitable attitude, long before you came to me.”
How could I ignore his suffering, when at least to some extent, my actions caused it? His shame was palpable, his grief real. I strove to right those wrongs, by proxy if necessary. But, some damage is too great to be amended. Some wounds cannot be healed. Never…
Among his unguarded thoughts, she saw the scenes she had witnessed herself. “You could see inside his shield when he transformed?” she asked.
His shield is nigh on impenetrable. You breached it, but all I witnessed were your nightmares afterwards. You may not recall them in detail, but your memories of his true form were… enlightening. A dejected frown. Do not seek him again, or you may be caught in the turmoil of his soul.
“His torment grieves you.” She steered her energy to gently comb his unruly white mane. Jean shied a
way, appreciative of her kindness but uneasy about accepting it. She whispered softly. “It grieves you that I will not be able to help him any more than you. Was he your friend?”
Hardly, but even so I owe him reparations. Alas, that debt will never be settled now. He is already lost in the torturous whirlpool of his agony. This hunt for his rampant kin is his last hope of escaping. Should he fail, if only in his own perception, it will consume him.
“And he his own soul,” Mercedes sighed. “Are you certain you wish to dismiss me as your proxy?”
I must, Jean grunted in defeat. For your sake. His whirlpool will drown all within its grasp.
“Drown,” she mused. “Unless I’m much mistaken, he already drowned. In the Seine?”
A leaden silence ensued.
He has always been abstruse, said the guide, only partially addressing Mercedes. An effective hunter, but inexorable in his principles.
“A religious man?”
Jean shook his head in regret. Alas. Perhaps if he had been, none of this would have happened.
Mercedes was about to inquire why, when she heard a fast, slightly uneven step outside the room. Her legs now numb from kneeling so long, rising quickly would be an awkward business. Instead she shifted where she sat and pulled out a random drawer near the bottom of the cabinet. When Amélie came in with a tray mere seconds later, she assumed her mistress was looking for something and asked if she could be of service.
“I seem to be all out of red silk embroidery threads,” she said as she exaggerated staggering to her feet. “No matter, I will ask Monsieur Fabron to order some more.”
Behaviour, excuse, movements, reply. All plausible enough. She could ill afford another lie coming out.
The girl curtsied nervously. “Pardon me, madame, but I saw a fresh set in your sewing kit when I was cleaning yesterday.”
“Oh?” Mercedes turned away to hide a guilty blush. “Oh.”
“Your meal is ready, madame. With tea and water, as you requested.”
Mercedes managed to usher the maid out with a polite smile. As soon as she was alone again, she stumbled to her desk, snatched one of the croissants from the tray and took a bite even before sitting down. A plate of over-cooked vegetables and slightly singed pork chops, another croissant, some butter, a pot of lukewarm tea and pitcher of water. Not perfect, but good enough for her grumbling stomach and dry mouth.
Her mouth ate with fervour, but her mind was pondering other things. Among them the fact that Jean was still nearby.
“What happened, Jean?” she asked between bites, mentally tying her thought to the last answer he had given her. “What went wrong?”
You should not bother yourself with this matter. I told you, I will keep you daughter safe regardless.
Mercedes sighed, slowly chewing a mouthful of overdone meat as she shared her considerations of the futility of retreat. Courtesy of her sister-in-law, she was about to lose everything but Danielle’s soul and her own.
“My soul will be forfeited either way. L’Autre will come after me. When he does, either I find a means to stop him or I fail. If I fail, Danielle may well be his next target. For that, he will come for you, too, Jean.”
The guide didn’t contest her prediction.
“So I must not fail.” She poured half a glass of water down her parched throat. “I must not fail, but unless I seek out M’sieur and bargain for his support in that endeavour, I will fail.”
You said yourself that he will not approach you again.
“He will not come to me, of that I’m certain. Fortunately he is less elusive than l’Autre, and I think I have an idea of where to find him.” She skewered a dry piece of pork. “However, before I set out to confront him, I first need you to play an open hand. Without any reservation.”
Chapter XXIII
Mercedes pressed a fingertip on the crumbs still littering her plate. Her hand slowly rose to her mouth, her gaze fixed on the busy street below as she licked the croissant flakes from her finger.
Jean’s lament had divulged his reasons for asking her to approach M’sieur, as well as the hideous complexity of this request. The guide’s concern for her life and soul was justified. She now fully appreciated how long she had been balancing on a razor’s edge, and how thin it was.
Her window of opportunity was closing fast. Eric hadn’t come up to the flat since Carmen’s departure, but when he did, she would be trapped here.
She had to get away. Now.
Frantic fingers hurried to tie up the once more complete deck of divination cards with its string, while her mind was already three steps ahead: the laudanum. Contacting M’sieur would involve shifting from her body. If at any point she was required to explain her unconscious state, carrying the opiate on her person would provide a satisfactory answer. No one would think twice of it. After all, they already believed her to be suicidal.
Perhaps she was, considering what she was about to undertake.
A knock on the door interrupted her feverish contemplations. Mercedes bit her lip as the hinges squeaked, only to let go with a sigh when the unmistakeable figure of Amélie came in.
“May I take the dishes, Madame?” the maid whispered.
Mercedes nodded stiffly. As she continued to calculate her means of escape, the sight of the maid’s gnarled hands gripping the tray sparked an idea.
“That ointment is working well, I believe?”
Amélie shuddered and bowed her head. “Yes, madame,” she said, nervous and demure as she was only in Eric’s presence.
Ah.
“Monsieur Fabron interrogated you about our visit to that shop,” Mercedes concluded out loud.
Amélie’s uneven shoulders cringed as she muttered something inaudible that could only be a confirmation. Mercedes needn’t ask any further. The girl had told Eric altogether too much, and they both knew it.
“You have always been a good handmaid to me. Obedient, able despite your physical misfortune, but above all loyal.” She lowered her voice. “I am in a dire situation, Amélie. May I count on your loyalty one last time?”
The girl hunched further, her brown eyes torn. “I’ve always liked serving you, madame. You’ve treated me well, far better than a simple maid could expect.” She flexed her fingers in demonstration. “I’d do anything for you if you asked me, but I—I can’t. Monsieur said that he—he said that he will turn me and François out if either of us lies at your request. If it were just me, I’d go with you, madame, I swear, but François has a family. I can’t betray him, or my niece and nephews. I’m sorry, madame. I’m so sorry.”
Overcome by an odd calm, Mercedes wiped the heartfelt tears from the girl’s face.
“You are right, Amélie. My question was unfair. Please take my advice as recompense. When you bring the tray to the kitchen, speak to no one but to complain of a headache. Go upstairs to your room and stay there. Whatever you hear and however long it takes, do not come out unless Monsieur Fabron orders your presence. Do you understand?”
The maid nodded as she dropped a low curtsey, but didn’t leave. Crooked fingers white around the tray grips, she curtsied again, slower this time.
“Adieu, madame,” she whispered between tense lips. “I will pray for you.”
“Thank you. Please be well.” She forced a weary smile at the retreating girl and she closed the door. Now Amélie would not have to lie when they asked her if she had seen her mistress leave her rooms.
Mercedes counted to ten before sneaking into the corridor. On her way to the bedroom, she caught a glimpse of Amélie heading out of the flat. Now more than ever, time was of the essence.
As she trod lightly across the bedroom to search for the phial of laudanum, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on her dresser. No sane woman would dare to go out in public looking as she did, but then she wasn’t supposed to be sane. All the more ironic that she found the phial in Eric’s nightstand, as usual. For all his worry about her abuse of it, he hadn’t bothered to keep it o
ut of her reach.
Both the phial and the card deck were too heavy to hide in the sleeves of this dress, so she snatched a reticule from her dresser – the one which still contained the pair of scissors as improvised weapon – and put them inside, the cards separating the glass phial from the metal blades of the scissors to keep them silent.
A sudden crack startled her. Mercedes stood stock-still, too tense to even breathe. Seconds passed before softer tinkling and shuffling followed, accompanied by Gagnon’s grumbling at some poor piece of crockery.
Mercedes exhaled slowly. Her stomach fluttered as she clutched the reticule. Now, all she needed was money.
Every fibre of her body trembled as she straightened her shoulders and strode through the rooms to the front door, pretending to be about her usual business. Only this wasn’t a casual pinch from the till or even a cup of forbidden tea. However unjust, by law Eric had every right to have his wife committed. That fact alone rendered her flight punishable.
But what could he do that was worse than what he had already planned for her?
At the hat stand, she lifted her augmented manteau from its peg, folded it over her arm and stopped to listen. Gagnon had engaged François in a hushed conversation, still loud enough to overhear.
“I heard it all. Letter from the police, the boy said. Supposedly ‘bout a break in, but when I asked, monsieur didn’t know what I was on about and that madame never told him anything ‘bout a letter.”
Mercedes wrung her reticule until the shears poked through the fabric and into her skin. Still, all the same, the hag and François were occupied, Amélie was upstairs, and she heard no footsteps in the stairwell.
She would not get a better chance.
With great care she opened the front door, stepped onto the landing and pulled the door shut behind her, producing no more than soft scuffling and a faint click of the lock. Through the wooden floor, she heard the shrill laughter of Carmen. The conniving wench was still in Eric’s office, apparently celebrating her victory. Mercedes tasted bile in the back of her mouth, but it only strengthened her resolve. As long as the siblings’ attention was on each other, they wouldn’t notice her slipping out under their noses.