The Book of Shadows

by James Reese

  And clinging to Sebastiana, eyes closed, I listened with intent to the fast-receding screams spiraling flame-like from the stony casements of C——.

  Book Two

  Ravndal

  She was aferde of hym for cause

  he was a devyls son.

  —Mallory, Morte d’Arthur

  15

  Meeting in the Roseraie

  I WOKE SLOWLY, into perfect darkness.

  When I calmed myself enough to lift my hand and reach out I…I touched wood. Carved wood. I was surrounded on every side by walls. Walled in. I began to breathe with difficulty. I came to the heart-stopping conclusion that I’d been interred. Buried alive!

  …Mais non, ce n’est pas possible: so large a coffin, one with walls so intricately, so carefully carved? With effort I slowed my breath. Steady, steady…

  I reached out with first one hand, then the other. I lifted my hands up, up and out, reached forward till both hands were flat on one of the carved walls. Still I could see nothing. I felt all around. A handle! And its twin. I slid two panels back and…light! Blinding light!

  I squinted against the sudden strong light. I waited for the return of sight. Breathe, I reminded myself; breathe…

  Ah, yes, of course: the carved mahogany walls of the large box into which I’d been laid—by whom, I’d no idea—formed what is called a lit clos: a traditional Breton bed; a tiny room, really, often tucked into the corners of bedchambers to assure privacy. I had never slept in one, but I knew them well enough by sight. I ran my fingers over the skillful carving, its smooth ridges, its flatter forms. I was reminded of a fire screen belonging to Mother Marie-des-Anges, a gift, she’d said, from some prince of the Levant. That quick recollection, that sudden and unsolicited memory, was enough to flood my mind with questions, just as the lit clos, once opened, had flooded with light.

  Where was I? How had I arrived here? So many questions. I knew the answers to some of them, of course; but part of me resisted the truths I knew. After all, I’d seen such strange and inexplicable things.

  I insisted on the few simple facts I knew. I refused fear, refused confusion.

  The truth as I knew it was this: I was at this place—she called it Ravndal—rather, her distant, discreet, and, simply, scared neighbors in the low-lying fields around it had renamed the place thusly, owing to the birds so often seen circling its turrets and towers and tumbling chimneys. She, Sebastiana, adopted the name long ago, preferring it to one the pile bore when first it came into her possession—I say again, all I knew was that I’d been brought to this manor by its chatelaine, Sebastiana d’Azur.

  But as I sat thinking those first few moments, my eyes still adjusting to the sudden light, I came to understand a thing at once quite simple and quite complicated: I was alive, and unaccountably altered. Alive! I am alive! I think I may have said it aloud. What I meant of course was this: I had very nearly died. For I knew then, and believe still, that my accusers at C——would have killed me; killed me or in some subtler way allowed me to die. And I, having seen what I’d seen that final night at C——, well…I could only wonder what my new life would be like.

  So I was awake—alive—sitting on the edge of that boxed bed staring out through the carved panels at the most amazingly appointed room I had ever seen. It came into view slowly, as my eyes mastered the light.

  I rose, stepped through the window of wood. I turned around, full circle, to take in the room. Awed, I verily fell into a fauteuil covered in worn green velvet, beside which stood a three-legged filigreed table of mahogany and inlaid marble, with a smooth and golden-red veneer of tortoise-shell and brass. On its top was a note, “Join me, S.,” and a plate piled high with Chinese ginger, tangerines, and crystallized fruit. There was a tiny teapot of the palest faience, full of a steeping tea; betony leaves, I’d learn. I sat. I ate and I drank. Looking around the room, I forgot the note for a long moment.

  There, nestled in the corner, was the lit clos. Sunlight shafting down into the room through tall windows lit the uncarved wood of the bed’s outer walls, showed its grain and its age—oak, it seemed, inlaid with ebony; and veneered with tulipwood, perhaps kingwood. Soon I was wondering how long I’d been asleep. It might have been hours; it might have been days.

  Seated, quite comfortably, I realized, with some embarrassment, two things: I wore a long white nightshirt (and so I had been undressed by someone) and I was sore. In places I had never been sore before…. Thoughts then of Father Louis and Madeleine. Where were they? Would I see them again? And who…Alors, countless questions.

  I set myself the simple task of taking in the room, one object at a time.

  Two of the walls were muraled, amazingly detailed. I could not be sure, having not traveled at all, but weren’t these scenes of the great cities? Yes. For there was Venice, with all its decrepit beauty; and that scene’s title confirmed it: “The Doge Marries the Sea and Saves the City.” There was Naples (I knew Vesuvius). Rome (the Coliseum). Russia (the gilded onion-domes, the deep drifts of snow). And scattered among these murals were portraits, in varying degrees of completion. Interesting: I noticed that all, or almost all the Parisian scenes were unfinished, the horses and men of the street scenes outlined in lead or pastel, then abandoned, midstroke.

  A carpet from the Far East covered the whole floor; over it were strewn smaller carpets from la Savonnerie or some such place.

  The furniture was impossibly grand, almost gaudy. In a corner I saw a full set in miniature—chairs, tables…These were the child-sized models that were sent to the wealthy, from which they made their choices, ordering full-sized replicas. (Clearly there was, or at least had been, great wealth at this place, Ravndal.) Though I’ve never much cared for dolls or their trappings, I found these pieces irresistible. Approaching, I picked up the sofa with one hand. It bore the imprint of a Parisian upholsterer, Daguere. The name meant nothing to me, though no doubt his had been the atelier of choice in the Paris of the past. Looking up from these toys, I realized with a smile that the full-sized set of furniture was arranged before me. These larger pieces were upholstered in green damask, wonderfully worn, smooth as skin, while the tiny set showed a dainty printed silk. I sat on a wide chaise and resumed my inventory.

  Armoires, full of who knew what. I didn’t dare look. Not just yet. Neither did I approach the tall mirror that stood between two lace-draped windows.

  In another corner were piled some bricks—rather incongruously, I thought; they seemed mere rubble. Intrigued, I crossed the room to take up a brick; doing so, I saw that it bore the seal of the Bastille: souvenirs.

  There was a small escritoire, and on it a stack of stationery, each sheet weighty and crisp. There was a jewel-set inkwell—in the shape of a cock, whose head tilted back by the comb—and an assortment of freshly cut pens. The desk itself, I knew, was deceptively simple; surely it contained some secret compartments. Here again I was informed by the many novels I’d read;…nevertheless, I promised myself I’d look the desk over later.

  As for the rest of the room, which I surveyed as I stood at its center, it was rather cluttered: stacks of yellowed, once-fine linen; books piled flat on footstools and shelves; a chess set carved of wood, each piece representing some Revolutionary personage. The commode, I saw, was from Sèvres; in it had been painted a careful likeness of Benjamin Franklin, who, throughout the pre-Revolutionary mania for things American, had been revered in Paris; but this vogue passed, of course, and nowhere was this more evident than in the porcelain bowl before me.

  I noticed frames (so obvious I’d overlooked them), scattered all about the room. Some stood nearly twice my height; some hung crookedly on one nail, while others were propped up against the walls. Each frame was empty. Nothing but cobwebs in their gilded and carved corners. Smaller ones, I saw, had been broken; stacks of golden kindling flanked the fireplace.

  Near a set of open doors, over which hung bolts of Alençon lace, billowing sail-like on the breeze, there sat an artist’s e
asel. In its gentle vise sat a yellowed canvas, gone slack over its frame; beside the easel stood a tall table littered with pigments, tiny spatulas, palettes, and other tools. Brittle brushes stuck up from a cut-glass vase like so many dead flowers. So this was, or had been a studio of sorts. But whose?

  I sat again in that green fauteuil, nibbled at a piece of ginger, and rediscovered that note. “Join me, S.” Sebastiana, of course.

  But where would I find her? Looking around for other doors leading from the room, I startled myself: there I was, far across the room, reflected in a free-standing, gilt-edged oval. Entranced, I walked toward the mirror. Toward myself.

  How many times had I shunned such mirrors? For how long had I hidden from myself?…But now I looked, long and hard, and happily.

  My hair hung loose, tussled from my long sleep. I ran my fingers through it, a rough comb, and admired (yes, admired!) the golden play of light as it settled down over my shoulders. Back-lit, dressed in that simple white shift, I appeared—dare I say it?—seraphic. At this I had to smile. I moved closer to the mirror. Closer still, till I stood mere steps from my reflected self, which I was seeing for the first time as…as beautiful.

  You are a woman. You are a man.

  I took the loose shift by the hem and slowly, slowly, began to pull it up. Higher. Higher. Over those long, long legs, so lean and muscled. I wanted to see. To look. At my body, at myself. As one looks at a lover. I wanted to savor the first-time sight of…

  Just then I heard singing, and I let the shift fall—embarrassed: the shame should I be discovered in such a pose!—and I turned from my mirrored self toward the sound. It wafted into the room like the very sound of sunlight. It came from beyond the door, beyond the billowing lace. A woman’s voice: soprano. An Italian aria, sung at half-voice, for the sole pleasure of the singer.

  The studio had been sunlit, but I’d no idea if it was nearer dusk or dawn until I stepped outside in pursuit of that song.

  Again, a blinding light. The light of a low-angled sun; and so I knew that I’d woken into late afternoon. As for the day or date, I’d no idea. The sunlight felt so fine on my face. My bare feet were warmed by the square of slate on which I stood. At noon (perhaps four, five, six hours ago?), the slate would have been too hot to stand on. But it was cooling now, and so too was the air. The sky was cloudless and deeply blue.

  I stood on that slate, my senses wonderfully keen. Soon I was able to open my eyes fully and take in all that was so perfectly sunlit. Yes: it was definitely late-day light. I heard sounds: that lilting soprano, but also the chorus of birds that backed it, and the lazy fall of water from a fountain, and beyond, the arrhythmic churning of the sea. Ah, I thought, this Ravndal is on the shore. I wondered then, fleetingly, how far the manor sat from C——. I remembered nothing of the ride—only our charging away, and my holding fast to Sebastiana.

  Sight. Sound…. Smell. The sea, of course; so familiar, that salted air. Stronger even than the salt air was the scent of…What was it? So familiar, yet…I remembered then the moment when Sebastiana had first held me close, comforted me in the library at C——. There’d been a single rose in her hair, woven into her braid. Of course, it was roses I smelled. But so strong a scent, as though from a million blooms. How could that be? This seemed the very essence of rose. Looking to either side of the shell path that sloped away from the studio door, I had my answer when I saw the first of those million blooms. Here was a garden in the grandest sense. There were buds tiny and tight, roses frilly and full. Petals the color of cream, of butter, of fruit, of meat from the knife…. Crimson. Blood-soaked scarlet.

  Only then, wide awake, every sense so keen, was I able to take in the entirety of what I discovered beyond the billowing white lace. A garden, indeed, with beds laid out in geometries of green, their angles formed of boxwood. The shell path, wide enough for two strolling side by side, glistened under the late sun; its oyster shells were ground and broken, and looked like teeth fallen from a beast. Many of the rosebushes and all the bordering hedges stood quite tall; still, as the garden sloped down and away from the manor, I could see beyond it to the strand and the blue-black sea.

  The singing had stopped. I realized this only when it began again. I could not see the singer. Neither could I see the fountain, which, judging from the loud play of water—so different from the sound of the sea—was large and near. I’d find both singer and fountain behind one of those tall hedges, no doubt. I moved toward the song, toward the trill of the falling water.

  The song—more exercise than aria—was, I knew, Italian. Ornate and rich as any rose in the garden. Scarlatti, I thought. (There’d been stacks of scores in Mother Marie-des-Anges’s chambers—she’d once studied that same violin I’d sawed upon—and I’d taught myself to read them passably well, imagining the sounds of unknown instruments and the preternatural voices of the castrati for whom the fanciest, most florid songs had been composed.)

  Moving toward the song, I stopped beside a rosebush identified, as were they all, by a thin band of ivory bearing both its French and botanical names, calligraphed with a penknife; these ivory tags were tied to a branch or stem by a blue ribbon. This particular bush, I recall, of pinkish double blooms, was called Borboniana, after our family of kings.

  I stopped at this Borboniana to savor its scent and, with a half-turn more, I discovered the fountain. Much larger than I’d guessed. Its waters rose overhead, arcs of silver glistening in the sun. It was old. Very old. The wide bowl of its base was lichen-covered, and the sculpted figures bore a deep patina. This was a narrative in stone and bronze, but its story was lost on me. All I saw were tens of toads, hideous things depicted at various hopped heights, some openmouthed, others pop-eyed and grossly fat. It was horrific! I must have stepped back from it, repulsed, for just then I heard:

  “Now, now…It’s not that bad.”

  The voice startled me. Two paces to my right sat Sebastiana, on the rim of the fountain’s large pool. She was as I remembered her: beautiful, so pale, her features framed by her jet black hair, its braid falling down over her shoulder, her eyes a wondrous blue—they would amaze me each time I saw them; bluer still were the diaphanous robes she wore.

  She sat sketching in a large leather-bound book. She closed it at my approach.

  “Come,” she said. I took one step nearer and stopped. What if…

  Sebastiana addressed my ill-formed concerns: “Heart, tell me: Would I have saved you then only to hurt you now?”

  I took a seat on the edge of the fountain, too far from Sebastiana, apparently; she extended an open hand, saying, more to herself than me, “Ah, but I forget…. I was afraid once too.

  “This fountain, you know,” said she with a languorous wave of her hand, meant to take in the entire mechanism, “is an exact replica of one at Versailles. Hideous as it is, I had it built years ago as a reminder of…” She stopped with a sigh. Turning to me, she asked, “Surely you know the story it tells?”

  I said I did not. Rather, I shook my head. Speech seemed beyond me still.

  “Well then,” said she. “Welcome to the Fountain of Latona.”

  I stared down into the pool as though I’d find there—in the murky, thick, stagnant water—some clarification of her words. I saw only fish, large fish, sun-colored: shades of orange, red, white, and yellow. Several broke the scummed surface with the tense, greedy white Os of their mouths. Carp, they were, ranging like pulsing hearts through the body of the pool.

  Sebastiana went on:

  “There, at the center of the pool, stands Latona. In her arms is the infant Apollo.” She told the rest of the tale. How Latona had tried to flee from the wrath of Juno, whose husband, Jupiter, had openly desired Latona. Midflight, stopping to drink from a creek, Latona and her son were set upon by a horde of peasants doing the bidding of Juno. Just then Jupiter intervened and turned the peasants into toads, and that was the moment frozen in the fountain: toads, some of which retained the odd human feature—a hand or face—we
re crouched, poised to attack mother and child.

  “Of course, there were far prettier fountains at Versailles, but I always favored this one. I sat beside it often.”

  Sebastiana trailed her hand through the water, cutting its viscid skin; there rose up those wide-open white mouths. “They kiss me,” said she, smiling. “And they beg.” Reaching behind her head, she plucked a petal from the rose in her hair. She let it drop onto the water and then, striking fast, she scooped up the first carp that came. Thick as her wrist, rubicund and muscled, she held it up to the sun. Its gills pulsed. Its eyes were lightless and empty. She held it so tight! Would she let it die in her grasp?

  No. She returned it to the pool, held it underwater—I heard those horrible kisses breaking against the back of her hand, her forearm—and finally she released the fish. Only when she told me to sit did I realize I had stood and stepped back from the fountain, from her. I did sit. And again I moved nearer Sebastiana when she told me to.

  “You’ve looked into my eyes,” said she, flatly. I nodded that yes, I had. She referred, of course, to the strangeness I’d seen in them, those same twisting shapes I’d seen in the eyes of Maluenda. Thoughts then of the feline familiar. Where was she now? Would I see her again? What was she? Animal essence, as Father Louis and Madeleine were somehow human essence?

  Sebastiana spoke of her own eyes. I listened for the one word: witch. I wanted to hear it, wanted Sebastiana to tell me that she and I were one. Witches both. I wanted her to say it until I believed it. Say it till it seemed no more fantastical than those acts attributed to the Catholic saints I’d long worshiped…. But she did not say it, not directly. Instead, she told a quick story:

  “In the city of Ferrara,” said she, “in the sixteenth century, two orphaned sisters were tried for sorcery.

  “The older sister—eleven to her sister’s nine—told the Inquisitor that she would, if freed, tell him how to find all the witches he wanted. ‘How?’ he asked, all the while intending to burn both girls, as indeed he did. It was then the older sister told the Inquisitor about l’oeil de crapaud. The eye of the toad.