A Spell in Provence

by Marie Laval

  She skimmed through the table of contents and found three entries about Bonnieux: ‘Will-o’-the-wisp in Bonnieux’; ‘The devil’s mouth’; and ‘The forgotten virgins’.

  She was just about to turn to the first story when the librarian came over.

  ‘I am sorry to trouble you, Mademoiselle, but I’ve just been told that we are closing for lunch until two.’

  ‘I’ve barely had time take a look at the book,’ Amy said. ‘Can I not take it into the main library downstairs and read it there?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. All books from the service de documentation must stay here,’ the librarian answered. ‘We are short staffed today, that’s why we have to close the reference section for a couple of hours.’

  Amy had no choice but to pick up her bag and leave. Once outside, she switched her mobile back on. She had two missed calls from Fabien and a text from Adèle. Her friend reminded her that she was in Apt today, visiting Brice at the hospital with Stéphane.

  She called her voicemail, listened to Fabien’s first message.

  ‘I hope you’re feeling better this morning. Would you like to come over for lunch? Or maybe I could come and see you at Bellefontaine and bring a picnic. Please call me when you get this.’

  He had left the second half an hour earlier, and his voice was noticeably colder.

  ‘It’s me. I hope you're better. Please call.’

  She deleted both messages. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not just yet. Not until she had more facts about the goddess and her cult – and she had found out whether or not he was involved.

  On an impulse, she decided to meet Adèle and Stéphane at the hospital, which was only a short walk away. The receptionist directed her to the third floor but said she wouldn't be allowed into Brice’s room since it was closely monitored by police.

  As she walked across the atrium to get to the lift, Amy saw a familiar figure come her way. Serena Chevalier.

  She steeled herself for another hostile confrontation. When their paths crossed, however, Serena hardly glanced towards her as she made her way to the exit, her feet shuffling on the floor like an old woman. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her face deeply lined, her skin ashen. She seemed to have aged twenty years since the last time they had met on the terrace of Manoir Coste.

  The gendarme on the third floor refused point blank to let her into Brice’s room.

  ‘You can’t come in without Capitaine Ferri’s clearance. All I can do is tell your friends that you’re here.’

  He disappeared into a room and came back almost immediately, followed by Adèle.

  ‘Brice is doing well, considering what he’s been through,’ she said. ‘Actually, we were just about to leave. Do you want to have lunch?’

  ‘Good idea.’

  Amy sat in the waiting room while Adèle and Stéphane said goodbye to Brice. To pass the time she flicked absent-mindedly through a magazine. As she turned a glossy page, her heart felt like it had stopped.

  A photo of Fabien stared out at her. Just looking at him now made her tremble, every inch of her body remembering his touch, his kisses and the fevered words he whispered against her skin.

  Her fingers lingered on the photo, on the line at the side of his mouth that she had kissed again and again. If only she knew for sure, if only she could trust him …

  She read the caption.

  ‘Monsieur le Duc de Coste at the cocktail party of the Luberon Chamber of Commerce’.

  Of course, these were photos of the party at Manoir Coste!

  There were other photos too. Claudine with various guests, including Monsieur Garnier, the Tourist Board inspector. Perhaps the person who had drugged her drink had been photographed too. Would she ever find out who they were they and why they wanted to harm her?

  A terrible thought entered her mind. What if Fabien himself had drugged her? After all he had been on the terrace with her too.

  ‘We’re ready.’

  Adèle, popping her head through the doorway, interrupted her dark mood. Stéphane’s hands were shoved deep into his jeans pocket, shoulders stooped, and a sullen expression on his face.

  ‘How are you?’ Amy asked him.

  Avoiding eye contact, he let out a grunt for all answer.

  ‘Teenagers!’ Adèle forced a laugh. ‘I’m lucky if I get three words out of him in a day and then it’s only to ask for food.’

  Amy could sense the tension between Adèle and her son as they walked to the restaurant and tried to lighten the mood by chatting about the heat and the dangers posed by scooters whizzing past with no regard for pedestrians or road safety.

  They soon reached a traditional brasserie near the market square, where red and white parasols provided welcome shade in the midday sun, and terracotta pots filled with oleander bushes screened the terrace from the busy street. They ordered salads, sandwiches and cold drinks.

  Amy turned to Stéphane.

  ‘How did Brice seem to you today?’

  The teenager stared away in the distance.

  ‘All right, I suppose, but he doesn’t want to talk.'

  ‘Give him time. He needs to recover … I’m sure he’ll be fine in the end.’

  He stood up so suddenly his chair fell back.

  ‘And how would you know? You’re just like my mum. You don’t understand anything!’

  His face was red, his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I'm going home. I’ll take the bus.’

  And he strode away, hands in his jeans pocket.

  Adèle’s looked strained.

  ‘He’s been like that ever since finding Brice. Paul’s disappearing act didn’t help, of course. Please don’t take it personally. You know he really likes you.’

  ‘It must be hard for him to see his best friend so ill and not being able to help.’

  ‘The thing is, I think they fell out,’ Adèle said. ‘Stéphane took a few football magazines for Brice. I left them on their own for a while to get a coffee from the cafeteria and give them a chance to talk about boys’ stuff … but when I came back they weren’t talking at all, they weren’t even looking at each other.’

  ‘Maybe Brice is embarrassed to have given Stéphane so much worry, and to have been so gullible about having a brother. Has Capitaine Ferri found out any more about Alain?’

  Adèle said that she’d heard nothing about it. The waiter brought their food, and the conversation veered onto more mundane matters.

  After coffee, Adèle suggested a spot of shopping but Amy declined.

  ‘I have work to do in the library.’

  ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘Research. I found an old book about Bonnieux. To cut a long story short, I need to find out more these ancient rituals, about the goddess and her curse. I need to know what is real and what is fantasy,’ she lowered her voice, ‘and if I am safe at Bellefontaine.’

  ‘Are you afraid the burglars will come back?’

  ‘I am, but there’s something else too.’

  Amy hesitated, then decided it was time to tell her friend about her dream and the terrible story Sophie Dessange had told her in Avignon.

  In a shaky voice she described the underground temple, the men and women in long white robes, and especially the man with the gold and blue ring.

  ‘I found a trap door in the cellar. I can’t help thinking that’s the way people can get in and out of the bastide.’

  Adèle frowned.

  ‘I thought Paul resurfaced the floor in the cellar when he renovated Bellefontaine.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Then he must have found that trap door - if indeed it is one. I’ll ask him about it tonight.’

  She paused, put her hand on Amy’s, and gave a light squeeze.

  ‘As for your dream, it does remind me of my Aunt Lily’s stories – people in robes, strange music, an underground chamber.’

  ‘You think my subconscious made it all up?’

  Adèle shrugged.

  ‘I’m sorry to so
und so dismissive but it’s the only rational explanation, isn’t it? The woman you met in Avignon might be mentally unstable, or have invented the whole thing. If the stories about the cult murders and rapes were true, why did the culprits go unpunished for so long? Surely the ring leaders would have been found out and apprehended at some point.’

  ‘May be they are important people – people with connections in high places, like …’

  Like Fabien, she finished silently. As the head of the region’s leading aristocratic family, powerful landowner and businessman, he would be practically untouchable. As if she heard what she was thinking, Adèle smiled and shook her head.

  ‘You don’t seriously believe Fabien Coste is mixed up with any of this, do you? If anything, I think he’s in as much danger as you are.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in the goddess and her curse on Coste men.’

  Adèle shook her head.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about the curse, more about human passions. There's another explanation to the premature death of the ducs de Coste, you see. A more rational, down-to-earth one.’

  She leaned closer to Amy.

  ‘I’m not the only one around here who thinks that the legend of the curse provided a convenient explanation for the cover up of deliberate killings.’

  Amy’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘You think the ducs were murdered? Who would have killed them?’

  ‘Think about it for a minute,’ Adèle started, her voice almost a whisper. ‘Someone had to look after the estate after the duke’s death, at least until the Coste heir was born and came of age, and who was better placed to do so than another Coste – a cousin from the poor branch of the family - the branch which were never going to inherit?’

  ‘Frédéric’s side.’

  Adèle nodded.

  ‘Exactly. They must have profited from their position as estate managers.’

  ‘Surely that’s all in the past. You don’t think Frédéric would harm Fabien to inherit Manoir Coste, do you?’

  But as she spoke Frédéric’s spiteful words on the evening of the cocktail party came back to her. How hateful he had sounded when he said Manoir Coste belonged to him, and that it would be his again one day.

  Adèle shrugged again.

  ‘Probably not. You’re right. Paul would say I'm being fanciful, like my auntie Lily.’

  She took her handbag and stood up.

  ‘I tell you what … Let’s forget the shopping. I’ll come with you to the library and help you with that book you found, shall I? I fancy a bit of research too.’

  The two women linked arms and walked across the square. The bells of Saint Anne Cathedral chimed half past two as they climbed the library steps to the top floor, only to be greeted by a closed door on which a handwritten sign was pinned. ‘ Le service de documentation est fermé cet après-midi’.

  The librarian did say they were understaffed today,’ Amy remarked, disappointed. ‘I hope they keep Piquot’s book for me.’

  So that their afternoon wouldn’t be entirely wasted, they decided to go into the main library to check old newspapers. With any luck they would find references to the rebuilding of the village fountains Philippe Coste had drawn.

  ‘Your best chance is to look at the local newspapers,’ the librarian told her. ‘The first one was founded in 1832 in Aix-en-Provence. It was called Le Petit Journal. We have most issues here on microfiches.’

  She directed Amy and Adèle to a microfiche reading machine at the back of the library and said it would take her about half an hour to locate the microfiches in the archives.

  Adèle sat down behind a machine which looked like a large computer.

  ‘What exactly are we looking for?’

  ‘Anything about the Brunis or the Costes and the rebuilding of fountains around Bonnieux.’

  They didn’t have to wait too long. The librarian held out a plastic tray with dozens of card-shaped pieces of photographic film, explained how to insert them into the machine, and wished them good luck.

  A four-page publication, Le Petit Journal consisted mainly of local news about markets and fairs, and court judgements. It was interesting at first to read all about life in the area, but after a while Amy realised it could take hours, days even, before she found anything about the fountains and her enthusiasm started to wane.

  ‘The print is just so tiny, it’s making me cross-eyed,’ Adèle complained as she inserted yet another new microfiche in the reader. ‘Wait a minute! I think I have something here.’

  She pointed her index finger onto the screen and started reading.

  ‘This is dated 23rd March 1835.

  “ Monsieur Louis de Coste generously offered to commission new fountains in the villages of Saignon, Lourmarin, Ménerbes, and Buoux which are still without public fountains after last January’s devastating earthquake. Gaston Bruni, a reputed stone mason from Bonnieux, was appointed to carry out the works. It is hoped that the fountains will be completed by the summer. ”’

  Gaston Bruni was Magali’s husband, Amy thought, and Louis must be Renaud’s son – the son he’d never met since he died at Waterloo. She would have to check the Coste and Bruni family trees. The two families were linked, generation after generation.

  ‘Is there any mention of Gaston’s wife Magali or their daughter Béatrice?’ Amy asked.

  ‘I’ll check the paper for the following summer. There might have been some kind of ceremony to inaugurate the fountain.’

  She gave Amy a curious glance.

  ‘You seem to know an awful lot about the Brunis … How come?’

  Amy told her friend about Renaud Coste’s diary and the tumultuous liaison between him and Magali Bruni.

  ‘So the ducs de Coste have had affairs with the Bruni women for a long, long time,’ Adèle said when she finished. ‘This is getting really strange.’

  She wound the microfiche down, narrowed her eyes to peer at the screen, and let out a long breath.

  ‘You were right. There is something about a Béatrice Bruni attending the inauguration ceremony in July 1835.

  “ Today marked the formal inauguration of the newly restored Buoux public fountain … Monsieur Louis de Coste was in attendance, together with his mother the duchess, the mayor Monsieur Raymond and … ”’Adèle read a few more names, ‘“ and Monsieur Gaston Bruni, still in mourning after the passing of his wife last month. His charming daughter Béatrice did the honours and cut the ribbon. A reception at the town hall followed … etc … etc … ”

  ‘There’s something else.

  “ Unfortunately a distressing incident spoilt what should have been a convivial event. A mob gathered outside the town hall and hurled insults and rotten fruit at Monsieur Bruni and his daughter as they were leaving the reception. Monsieur Coste offered the pair the safety of his carriage for the ride back to Bonnieux. Several of the troublemakers were arrested by the gendarmes, and we understand they meant to protest against the building materials used by Monsieur Bruni which they claimed were cursed and would bring ill fortune to the village .”’

  That was exactly what the old man in the café had told her.

  Adèle turned to Amy.

  ‘What is all that about?’

  ‘Gaston Bruni used the stones from the temple to rebuild the fountains destroyed by the earthquake,’ Amy explained.

  She searched the paper for items in the autumn that same year. Scrolling down the screen, among headlines of local fairs and harvest festivals was a short article about the disappearance of a young man named Barnabé Dujean, who had come to Bonnieux as an apprentice and had not been seen for over a week after leaving the tavern where he’d spent the evening. In the following issue was a report about a young woman molested and left for dead in the forest. A group of hunters had stumbled upon her and taken her to the local dispensary. It was feared that shock had altered her mental faculties so much she would not be able to identify or name her attackers.

  Amy scrolled down the ne
xt few issues.

  ‘There it is …’ she whispered as she read the headline she had been expecting. “‘ Headless corpse found at the bottom of a pit.”’

  In a few lines, the journalist confirmed that the mutilated body of Barnabé Dujean had been found near the old village of bories.

  ‘“ In the absence of any clues leading to the perpetrators, the local magistrate recorded a verdict of unlawful killing by one or several persons unknown. This reporter, however, heard several disgruntled comments in the audience to the effect that it wasn’t the first time a young person was killed and savagely mutilated in Bonnieux, and that the culprits were known but that the gendarmes were too scared or too corrupt to investigate the case properly. ’”

  A young man and a girl … A murder and a rape. She was reminded at once of Sophie Dessange’s tale. She had to come back and read more old papers to search for similar incidents. Next to her, Adèle yawned and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘I think we’ll call it a day,’ Amy said.

  ‘Good idea. I’m getting a migraine,’ Adèle agreed.

  They handed the microfiches back to the librarian and walked out of the building.

  ‘Take care, Amy, and try not to worry about the cellar. I’m sure there's a simple explanation about that trap door you found … and about your nightmare.’

  Amy walked back to the town’s main car park where her car’s red-splattered bonnet stood out. At least I’ll never mistake it for another car, she thought.

  Questions swirled inside her mind as she drove back. She was even more confused now. Was Adèle right and she had indeed dreamt the ceremony? Was there even a secret cult or was it only the product of local gossip and legends? Adèle seemed pretty sure that the stories were pure fabrication, yet the newspaper reports about the young man disappearing and the girl being molested were troubling indeed. It reminded her a little too much about Sophie Dessange’s story. If there was indeed a cult, then was Fabien involved, or was he in danger – whether from the goddess’ curse or from his cousin’s greed and hatred?

  If only she could be sure. If only…

  She left the main road and turned into Bellefontaine’s courtyard to find herself face to face with the man she had sought to avoid all day, the man she couldn’t stop thinking about.