Son of Secrets

by N. J. Simmonds

  ‘Because I was thinking of another man.’

  Luci laughed. Extracting dirty secrets was her favourite entertainment. Marisse was still in the basement. Luci could hear the clinking of bottles, so she had time to dig further.

  ‘Who’s this man you think of in your marital bed?’ she asked the girl.

  Elien’s cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red.

  ‘I don’t know him; we have only spoken briefly. He watches me. I think he’s a beggar; he’s always sitting in a doorway or under a tree. The day I had an argument with my husband’s cousin, I saw this boy in the woods. He told me his name, and he had eyes bluer than a summer sky. They shone so brightly I was both scared and excited. I felt like I knew him, like we had met before. He said he knew me from many other lifetimes.’

  Luci was cleaning her nails, hardly listening to the girl. Her secrets were clearly not going to get more riveting than this. She wished that Marisse would hurry up so they could get back to discussing the angelic information in the book.

  ‘So, you think of this man as you seduce your husband?’ she asked.

  ‘At first I didn’t, but after the healing I did. His face swims before me, and I get a fluttering in my stomach every time I walk past him in the street. How can you long for someone you do not even know? Tonight, while Anke and I made love, I felt the magic curling tighter and tighter inside of me as I thought of this man and his blue eyes. Then something exploded within me. It felt like I was possessed by a spirit. My husband called my reaction ungodly.’

  Luci laughed aloud and clapped her hands.

  ‘Well, I’m yet to find a man who makes me lose myself in the moment. My experience with sex has been, somewhat, perfunctory to date. But I’m glad you found a way for it to bring you joy.’

  ‘I have. Anke says it’s unnatural for women to want to make love. He says it should be a duty for us to tolerate. He doesn’t know about my lost babies and me coming to this house, let alone anything about the man that has been watching me—please don’t tell him any of this. I just need the herbs. Then I will go back to Anke and try and control myself and stop thinking about Zadkiel. I want a family, a baby of my own, and then all will be well.’

  Luci sat up.

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘I want a baby with my husband,’ she stammered.

  Elien was no longer in a trance. Her fingers were red and raw from biting the skin around her nails. Now that she had come to her senses, she was clearly terrified about having disclosed her most private of secrets.

  ‘No! Not the babies. You mentioned Zadkiel. This blue-eyed man you speak of, his name is Zadkiel?’

  Luci looked at the girl properly and took a sharp intake of breath. Her eyes. Of course! She’d seen those eyes before, staring down at her from the leafy branches of a tree in Fiesole.

  ‘The beggar?’ the girl asked.

  ‘Yes! This man who was watching you, what did he look like?’

  Elien shook her head in tiny motions and looked down at her feet. Her arms were folded over her stomach and her eyes darted to the small door in the wall, no doubt hoping the old woman would return quickly and save her from the interrogation.

  Luci sighed and stepped in front of the girl, crouching down until their eyes were level.

  ‘Tell me what he looked like,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘This is important.’

  At that moment, Marisse stepped out of the door, two glass bottles in her hand.

  ‘They were right at the back. I couldn’t find them. Oh my dear, what is going on? Luci, sit down, you’re scaring the child.’

  ‘She knows where Zadkiel is,’ the fallen angel cried, pointing at Elien, who now hunched on the stool.

  ‘I don’t know anything about this man, I promise you,’ she pleaded with the two women.

  ‘Just tell Luci who you saw,’ Marisse said calmly, giving Luci a warning look and placing her hand on the girl’s arm.

  ‘He’s a little older than me with dark, wavy hair that reaches his jawline. I think he is poor because he sits in the doorway opposite my house, just down the road from here. He always has his hood raised; sometimes all I can see are his bright blue eyes shining out from beneath it. His face is like something from a painting, a painting of a god or an angel.’

  Luci was now holding the girl’s face between her two hands, her own face inches from hers.

  ‘Is he here? Tell me!’

  ‘Luci, is this really necessary?’ Marisse scolded. ‘You’re scaring her. How on earth would Elien know anything about your son?’

  ‘It’s her. I know her. This is Arabella, and all those that came after her…’

  ‘But my name is Elien not…’

  Luci lifted the girl up, stood her on a stool and pulled up her skirt to above her knees. Elien yelped in surprise.

  ‘Look! The crescent birthmark on her thigh. That’s the sign; every version of Arabella carries that mark.’

  ‘Let go of her at once!’ Marisse pulled Luci’s hand away and the fabric dropped back down to the dusty floor.

  Elien was crying silently now, but Luci didn’t care. ‘Marisse, this is the girl who will lead me to my son. He’s out there; my boy is out there. I need to find him.’

  She pushed past them both and ran out of the door, slamming it shut behind her. The bite of wind surprised her at first—she’d forgotten how cold it had turned over the last few days. Tiny flecks of snow swirled in the air like particles of dust in the sunlight. She considered returning to the house for her cloak, but she couldn’t waste any more time. He had to be here somewhere! Her son had been on these very same streets watching that pathetic creature when he could have been with his own mother. Where was he?

  She remembered seeing a man huddled in a doorway when she’d first arrived on Marisse’s doorstep, but that could have been anyone. The town was full of beggars.

  It was nearing the witching hour, and the streets were dark. The swollen moon was her only light, casting silvery shadows over the canal and making the snowflakes glitter. The streets were empty. The nearby church chimed its twelve dongs of midnight. Her son wasn’t there.

  Luci trudged her way back to the house, her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her feet shuffling along the icy cobbles.

  Why did her failure to find her son continue to surprise her? This wasn’t the first time she’d come close to seeing Zadkiel. How many more times must their paths cross before she got lucky and managed to reach him? All she wanted was to let him know she’d never left him, that every breath she’d taken over sixteen hundred years had been for him, to find him.

  She crossed the small bridge back to Marisse’s street and then stopped. A crowd had gathered outside the healer’s door. There were raised voices, and Luci could hear Elien crying out. She broke into a run until she reached the edge of the crowd.

  With a push and a shove she commanded her way through the throng of people, the crowd parting when she reached its centre. Three men dressed in black and wearing tall, dark hats were holding the top of Marisse and Elien’s arms, the front door of the house still ajar behind them. Luci recognised the uniform—witch hunters.

  ‘Luci! Help us!’ her friend cried.

  Nobody was looking at the fallen angel; instead, all eyes were on a portly, officious-looking man who had pushed his way to the front door and was now pointing at Elien.

  ‘That’s the girl! She works for me, and she’s married to my wife’s cousin, Anke. Her husband has been telling me about her wanton ways. Just half an hour ago, he ran to our home to report that his young wife, this girl right here, had run off in the dead of night. I knew she would be found at the home of witches. I’ve always suspected her wickedness, but after tonight, I know she has the Devil in her!’

  Luci nodded her head and his legs collapsed from under him. She winked at the girl, but Elien had gone paler than the moon itself. She did nothing but stare back at Luci in horror.

  ‘You see!’ the man cried
, struggling to stand but failing. ‘They are evil. They just threw me to the ground with one of their wicked spells. Arrest them both immediately.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Elien stuttered. ‘I don’t understand why you accuse me of such things, Mr Visser.’

  One of the men wrestled her arms behind her back and tied them with rope.

  ‘Get off her!’ Marisse cried, pulling at his sleeve. ‘You have no right to come into my home and make wild accusations. She hasn’t done anyone any harm.’

  Mr Visser scrambled to his feet and pointed a finger in Elien’s face. His eyes bulged, and his red cheeks trembled with indignation.

  ‘This…this…demon-child is a murderer!’

  There was an excited gasp from the crowd outside the House of Fire and Water. Neighbours, upon hearing the commotion, were leaving their houses and joining the throng. The mass of hysterical accusers was now five people deep.

  ‘My wife gave birth to a dead child this morning,’ Mr Visser continued. ‘Less than three days ago, after leaving this very house, the wretched demon-girl you see before you cursed my wife with an evil spell. She threw herbs at her pregnant stomach and said she hoped she would feel the pain of losing a child. Black arts are performed in this house! These women fornicate with Satan and his demons!’

  Tears streamed down Elien’s cheeks. ‘I had no idea Flore’s baby died. I would never wish for anything so terrible to happen to any woman. I was just trying to explain to her that I had sought healing after miscarrying my own baby,’ she said, sobbing, looking at the faces surrounding her.

  Mr Visser pulled her out further into the street.

  ‘Those tears she cries are tears of shame!’ her boss shouted. ‘She is guilty of witchcraft.’

  ‘I did no such thing!’

  ‘Oh, yes you did! I saw it with my own eyes!’ One of Marisse’s neighbours was standing at her front door, a large wooden cross in her hand. ‘You wished that poor pregnant woman ill. You did!’

  ‘She’s right,’ another man in the crowd said. ‘I live on this street, and I’ve seen her come here three times just this week. Why else would two single women be taking in a young girl in the middle of the night? All of them are cavorting with the Devil himself.’

  ‘Two women?’ one of the men dressed in black said. ‘Where’s the other one?’

  Luci looked on, ignoring Marisse and Elien’s pleading stares. The old woman was strong enough to throw these men into the air by magic, but that would do her no good if she then had to escape Roermond. She wouldn’t make it out of the town alive if she proved herself to be more than human.

  Luci could step up to the men, look them in the eye, explain it was one big misunderstanding, and stop this ridiculous charade right then and there. She could probably tell each person in the crowd, the entire town if she really wanted to, that they were all innocent and everyone would live in peace. Or she could do something else, something remarkable that may just get her son back. She could use Elien as bait—because where Arabella’s troubled soul was, Zadkiel was never far behind.

  Luci stepped forward and raised her hand.

  ‘I believe you are looking for me.’

  One of the men in black stopped tying Marisse’s hands behind her back and grabbed Luci’s arm. She let him tie her up as well—she would save her power for later.

  ‘Witches. All of them. And I’ve just discovered their lair,’ a third man shouted, running out of the house with his arms full of jars. ‘There are satanic symbols drawn in chalk on the ground, candles, and all manner of things in bottles. They even have a couple of familiars down there; two cats hissed at me as I entered. Who knows what they have been doing in this house. I wouldn’t be surprised if the powder in this bottle was the ground bones of babies!’

  The crowd erupted with cries of ‘murderers!’ and ‘Devil lovers!’

  Luci laughed. ‘And so it begins,’ she said. ‘Those with nothing to live for look for someone to blame for their misery, and those with the most to lose always fear a strong woman. I’ve seen this played out time and time again throughout history.’

  ‘Only a truly evil person would laugh!’ the neighbour shouted, brandishing her cross at Luci. ‘This woman arrived the day the girl cursed poor Mr Visser’s wife. Look at her with her tits practically falling out of her dress, sparkling jewels at her throat, and her dark hair flying in the wind. She’s nothing but a wanton whore. She appeared out of thin air…on a broomstick, I’d wager.’

  ‘Anke!’

  Elien was shouting, her eyes frantically scanning the crowd. ‘Where’s my husband? Mr Visser, I’ve always worked hard for you. I have never done anything to hurt you or your family,’ she pleaded. ‘Fetch my husband.’

  He spat in her face and poked a crooked finger at her chest.

  ‘I took you on as a milkmaid just two months ago, Elien, but my milk hasn’t been right since you started. One of my farmhands caught the plague last week, and now my wife has given birth to a dead child. Are you telling me this isn’t your doing?’

  ‘Yes, of course it isn’t! Where’s my husband? He will explain that I am not a bad person.’

  ‘That isn’t quite true either,’ a deep voice at the back of the crowd said.

  The people parted to let him through.

  Luci surveyed the tall blond man before her. So, this was Elien’s husband—the man that thought it acceptable to marry a girl so young, control her, and then judge her for taking any pleasure out of life.

  ‘This isn’t the woman I married,’ he said quietly. ‘She has been possessed. And she has killed our children.’

  The crowd gasped. Elien was sobbing uncontrollably now, tears streaming down her face as she shook her head from side to side.

  ‘Don’t deny it, Elien. Flore has only just told me how you killed our children. That your body has been rejecting our babies, which is why you cast a spell on her and she lost hers. Is that what those bloody rags in the fire were? Did you burn our offspring as a sacrifice to the Devil that you now worship?’

  Elien struggled to breathe through her tears.

  ‘No. That’s not how it was. I burnt the rags to hide my bleeding so I wouldn’t anger you.’

  ‘Our babies didn’t die?’

  ‘Yes, they did, but that wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘The Devil has taken you over, Elien!’ Mr Visser shouted in her face. ‘That is why disaster follows you. Everything you touch dies or is destroyed.’

  ‘No!’ she screamed, looking pleadingly at her husband. ‘Anke, I’m a loving wife. Tell them.’

  He turned away, unable to look at her.

  ‘She isn’t the same sweet girl I married,’ he said, addressing the men in black. His voice was barely audible. ‘Last Sunday, she didn’t go to church with me; she stayed in bed.’

  ‘I was unwell!’ Elien screamed, but no one was listening.

  ‘The last three nights, she has done things in the marital bed that no married woman should know about. She has renounced the Lord.’ He turned to the crowd that had now gone quiet, waiting to hear what the witch’s husband had to say. He held up his arms as if he were giving a sermon. ‘She only cares for Satan now. I can see it in her eyes. As soon as the sun goes down, it isn’t me she is thinking of.’

  The men in black shook their heads gravely, their faces painted with revulsion and fear.

  ‘When we make love, she shakes and writhes like a woman possessed. Her hunger for carnal pleasures is simply not becoming of a woman. Last night, she begged me to take her on all fours like a dog.’

  The people in the crowd gasped and looked at one another in horror. Cries of ‘whore’ and ‘demon-fucker’ ran out across the sharp night air. An elderly lady at the front of the throng staggered backwards, clutching a Bible to her chest as if it would shield her from the words she was hearing.

  ‘And did you?’ one of the officials asked Anke. ‘Did you succumb to her wild ways?’

  ‘Of course I did. She had me unde
r her spell. She urged me to do it faster and harder—and all the while she howled and shook like the Devil himself.’

  Blood was boiling in Luci’s veins. She could end this right now, set that vile man on fire and watch the crowd burn to ash. She could throw her captors and accusers into the canal beside them and hold them down until they were nothing but swollen, floating corpses. She could take Elien and Marisse far from here and show them places where women were revered, not hated. But she wanted her son back. Her son was watching Elien, and this was Elien’s fate. Luci would have to remain calm and smart.

  The young girl looked like she could no longer breathe and stood stock-still as if she were made of wood. Marisse was staring down at the ground, her eyes glassy with tears. They were both expecting Luci to save them. She would. But not yet.

  Anke wouldn’t look at Elien; instead, he was enjoying the attention of the crowd. He stepped forward and pointed at the three women.

  ‘These women are conducting a Witches’ Sabbath every night. They ride the Devil’s cock and fill themselves up with the spawn of his evil before cursing us innocent folk. That is why my sons have died inside her rotten body, why the cows she touches produce curdled milk, and why the people she works with die or give birth to death.’

  Jeers and shouts rose up from the throng.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Marisse shouted. ‘She is just a girl—a poor young girl who has lost her baby in the early stages. She isn’t evil!’

  ‘Shut up, you old hag!’

  A rock flew out of the crowd and hit Marisse in the face, cutting her forehead.

  ‘Luci, stop them! You said you would protect us!’ Marisse shouted to her friend over the cries of her neighbours.

  Luci, her arms pulled behind her back and her wrists tied with rope, simply smiled and shrugged. There was still time. If walking this earth for sixteen hundred years had taught her anything, it was that humans—especially men—were predictable. She had a plan, and so far they were playing straight into her hands.

  ‘Search her for the Devil’s mark!’ a woman shouted out, throwing a rock at Elien.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Elien screamed, but her voice was lost among the excited cheers of her audience as three men began pulling at her clothes. Removing a blade from his waist, one of the officials cut through the top of her dress and ripped it apart, revealing her breasts beneath. The crowd jeered louder.