The Book of Shadows

by James Reese

  Sebastiana stood in her ermine wrap. Roméo sat high on the driver’s box, reins in hand. The elementals? They had neared; I knew it somehow. And I know now that when Sebastiana, rather mysteriously, addressed…addressed the very air, saying, “Courage!” and offering a quite literal “Adieu”…I know now that she spoke to an unseen Madeleine.

  Sebastiana, taking my hands in hers, suggested I sleep at P——; she suggested too that I summon the elementals at dusk. For this purpose, said she, I’d find in the cab a brass bell, its tongue carved of mother-of-pearl. I’d find it, indeed, in its sheath of gold velvet, well worn and embroidered with three initials that remain unfamiliar to me. “Ring the bell as near to the shore, as near to a source of water as possible,” directed Sebastiana. Hearing it, the elementals would come. “They most easily take and hold their true shapes in the cooler hours of evening,” said she. And then, quickly, she explained to me something that had puzzled me regarding our route since first Father Louis had detailed it. Father Louis and Madeleine had much to tell me, said Sebastiana, and it was best they do so while fully-formed, that is corporeal, visible to me. To achieve this, the elementals required a store of water, salt or fresh—they are, after all, elementals. So, even though it would slow our progress considerably, we would keep as close to the “coast” as possible; that is, our route would be dictated by the meandering paths of rivers, lakes, and streams. The Coast Road. Madeleine was the first to call it that.

  I said good-bye that early morning to Sebastiana. I saw her for the last time by the light of the lantern she held. First light was coming. Golden waves had begun to break over the dark fields.

  I climbed into the berlin. Sebastiana handed me up her ermine wrap. She held my hand in hers. She kissed it, and whispered, “Go. I send you now across the sea.” It would be some time before the enormity of her command struck me.

  Settling into my seat, looking tearfully down at Sebastiana through the open door, I saw a shifting of the shadows in the tall elms that lined the drive, and then flocks of ravens flew up and away, with one, quite large, swooping down with a great cry, nearer, nearer, till it seemed it might fly into the berlin as it began to roll and…But no. The bird perched atop the cab: it—she, Maluenda—would accompany me.

  I watched Ravndal recede through the small oval window cut into the back of the berlin; its glass was thick and illblown, and so the scene was blurred. Certainly my tears played their part, too. Regardless, all I could discern was a mass of stone and timber and glass, Ravndal, aglow in the rising light. I saw too a waving figure clad in blue.

  Finally, I sat forward in the coach and drew down all the black shades. Then I closed my eyes to see the sun rising higher, higher in a new sky.

  Book Three

  The Coast Road

  Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,

  Though priest not bless’d nor marble

  deck’d the mound.

  —Byron, “Lara”

  30

  A Divining Dream

  THERE WERE many things I might have considered as we drove from Ravndal that morning. I might have wallowed in my anger at Asmodei; regardless of what I’d learned of the standing plan, it was he who’d deprived me of what surely would have been a long and happy life at Ravndal. I might have considered all that was called into question by my adoption of a manly guise. By deciding to dress as a man, had I not altered, markedly, my role in the world…whatever that was? I might have considered, with measures of worry, just what I would do when the southern road spilled into the sea—in Marseilles, most likely—and I had to secure passage, cross the sea as Sebastiana had commanded, quitting motherland and mother tongue. I might have considered la nature surnaturelle of my companions, and our mysterious mission. I considered none of this. Not then.

  Instead, I sought and found distraction in the landscape, in the history that would soon come alive all around me, in a world of which I’d only ever read. Now here it was. Too, the pure strangeness of events as they occurred would prove a sweet distraction from considered thought. And there was, of course, the Craft, and Sebastiana’s Book.

  In addition to those entries I have copied from Sebastiana’s Book of Shadows into my own book, this Book, there were many other, far simpler entries, journal-like, relating to events of the day—chiefly, the years of Revolution and Terror. Many of those entries were political, and this surprised me. Sebastiana, it seemed, had long ago disavowed all things political. Surprising, then, to read of her early admiration of Robespierre; of course, in an entry dated not one month later, she dismisses “the Incorruptible” as a slight, sere, exceedingly proper man, heartless, his every move coldly calculated. She seems always to have been amused—yes, amused is the word—by the beast Danton, with his outsized nature and vulgar ways. Variously, she envied and pitied Madame Roland, whose ambitions had by necessity to be channeled through her husband, the on-again off-again Minister, and whose salon was the center of so much, including debates of which Madame, the sole woman, missed not a word, sitting as she did at a smaller table beside the larger, hurrying her pen along. Sadly, as though she lacked the strength to record the deed in words of her own, Sebastiana had slipped into her Book that edition of Gravures Historiques, which, through engravings and eight pages of inflated text, tells of Madame Roland’s execution.

  But what interested me most in Sebastiana’s Book were not those entries regarding the Revolution, but rather the accounts of her earliest experimentation with the Craft. Those entries—little more than recipes, really, the results of which were not always recorded—served as my primary distraction at the beginning of our journey south.

  And I had ample time to read, for as we rode out of Brittany, from Ravndal and the coast, toward Rennes, the elementals rarely showed themselves. Roméo, who’d helped me find and hire a driver before leaving P——, had returned home. Our farewell? It was chaste: shy, wordless, with simple kisses, the kisses of siblings. There was…there is much I wished I’d said; but I lacked the vocabulary for any good-bye but the most abrupt. (How I longed then to summon the succubus so that she might lead us through a dance like the Dance of the Bath!)…He, Roméo, with unexpected guile, had told the driver, Michel, that I was French by birth but Italian by residence; and that it was to Firenze I was returning to settle some family business…. Yes, save for Michel—unquestioning, petit Michel, so wonderfully willing to drive through the night; and save for Maluenda, who dipped and dove and sang a discordant song overhead—I was alone for long stretches. And solitude, I found, made it more difficult to master my anger. Yes, I was angry. At Asmodei. Perhaps at Sebastiana, too, for why couldn’t she master Asmodei, control him so that I might have remained in safety? Anger colored my reason, and my thought was this: if he had deprived me of what might have been, she had shown me a way to see what would be. I would work the Craft. I would divine my future, my true future.

  So it was that, in the quiet of the rocking carriage, troubled by every pebble half-buried in the road, I read of the Craft. I grew eager, the more I read; eager to practice the Craft myself. I was ready, ripe; or so I thought. I would have been wise to remind myself just how quickly ripeness turns to rot; but my actions then were fired by anger and, yes, a measure of blinding fear.

  I hadn’t much at hand: no charms, no amulets, no tools; nothing but fragmentary recipes and disparate spells, and a trunk of dandified clothing that I’d soon discover I was far too shy to wear. And so, I’d soon scratched out a shopping list; and here and there, at Rennes, at Angers, and at places in between, I “went to market.” I’d have Michel stop at farms, or alongside streams whose banks were dense with herbs that I tried to identify from sketches in Sebastiana’s Book, all the while reminding myself that a mistaken herb could mean the difference between a successful spell and death.

  …I’d been staring down at the road, which ended an arm’s length from the carriage wheels, dropping precipitously down to a rock-strewn strand, when I felt that chill that heralds Father L
ouis’s coming. Convinced that the slightest move on my part would set the whole box to tipping and tumbling to the beach below, I remained still. Was the succubus seated across the cab as well, beside the priest? I saw just a hint of their shapes, for the sun was high, the day hot. I drew the blinds; in the darkness they grew dense, and spoke:

  “Have you any idea where we’re headed?” smiled the priest.

  “Vaguely,” said I. “I heard our route discussed last night, but…”

  You’ll need to direct the driver, interrupted Madeleine.

  “I can do that,” said I, too assuredly; in fact, I didn’t relish the thought. I would rather have stayed sealed like some delicate herb or fruit in the crate of the carriage, exiting only as necessary. “I can do that,” I said again, speaking to myself this time.

  “Très bien,” said the priest. “You’ll begin now.” And so it was he launched into the route I was to relay to the first of my hired drivers.

  Of course, I had never traveled; the very notion was new to me. As were the cities, villages, and places—some seemingly too tiny to support a name—through which we’d pass. Along the way, I would acquire a store of guidebooks, pamphlets, and maps, of course; for here finally was the world. I would know it!

  Our route, then, would be as follows:

  South off the Breton coast, past Rennes to Nantes and into Angers: our goal was to gain the mouth of the Loire as quickly as possible. Thereafter, we’d follow the flow of that and other rivers, making our way to the southern crossroads.

  From Angers we’d follow the Loire into Tours. Then into the Sologne, where it would seem we drove château to château through the valleys of various rivers till we took to the Cher. Bourges would be next. Then Nevers. Moulins, and Roanne. Thereabouts, we’d first learn of the flooding—somewhat out of season—farther south. Indeed, as far north as Mâcon, the Saône was already expansive. At Lyon, it was said that the waters of the Saône and the Rhône—which would gain our allegiance after the Loire—were already risen to heights rarely achieved. (It was some time before I would let myself wonder why the flooding was the worst in generations, why the waters rose behind us as though we’d somehow harnessed the strength of the moon and caused the rivers’ seasons to turn from their cycle…. Was this the work—conscious or otherwise—of my companions? The half-answer I arrived at would unsettle me, deeply.)

  The Rhône would lead us down through Lyon, Vienne, Valence, and Montélimar. Orange, said Father Louis, would be our gateway to the South. Then it would be Avignon and Arles. And finally, at a place I will not name, a place no longer on any map, beyond Les Baux, north of Arles, we’d discover Madeleine’s crossroads and our mission would end.

  “Tell him,” said the priest; he referred of course to the boy, Michel, who sat atop the box; and with that the elementals faded away—as morning mist, as steam or smoke will—and Father Louis was but a faint voice, repeating, “Tell him,” and adding, “Instruct him to drive through the night, south past Rennes, on to Nantes and Angers. To the waters of the Loire.” I screwed up my nerve, certain the boy—who was, perhaps, two years younger than I—would question directives given by a girl. Ah, but I was no longer a girl, or was I? Was it as simple as that, as simple as swapping hair ribbons for waistcoats, corsets for cravats? I rapped at the embossed leather lining the berlin’s roof with the Jambee cane Sebastiana had foisted upon me; it was a rod of Sumatran bamboo, with a gold pommel, which until that very moment had seemed utterly purposeless in my possession. Immediately, the berlin slowed. “Oui, Monsieur?” asked Michel, opening the door to the cab; and “Oui, Monsieur,” said he shortly thereafter, having received my directions with respect and intent.

  I knew that we were too far from strong water now, for we’d driven sharply inland from C——; it was then I surmised, rightly, that I’d not see the elementals again until we gained the river Loire, near Nantes.

  We reached Rennes by sunset; and in that charming light the city would not scare me as others soon would.

  Outfitted as I was, Sebastiana had been unable to provide me with suitable footwear. I wore slippers. And so I waited in the berlin while Michel went in search of a tanner who’d open his atelier at that late hour. He found one; and among that man and his family—all of whom suffered stained hands, which I attributed not to working with skins but to some rare and pitiable disease—I chose a pair of boots. Or tried to. Whenever had I made such a choice? Never. And I found it bewildering. Michel spoke persuasively of a pair of plain brown boots, slightly worn at the heel, that rose to the knee. But I was not sure. Soon I sat staring at the boots strewn all around me, like severed limbs on a battlefield. I must have tried the traded-away shoes of ten or twenty men. Finally, the tanner’s wife threw open the door of the family atelier and stood before it, hands on her broad hips, and Michel whispered that it was time to choose and leave. As unaccustomed to coin as to the act of choice, I left the tanner’s with far fewer bills—I know now that I was overcharged when Michel took his leave to fetch the berlin. Retaking the road that night, having spilled the remaining contents of the purse in my lap, I wondered how much money I had; and I wondered what Sebastiana was thinking, sending me the length of France dressed as a boy-doll from the last century, and in a carriage that outshone every roadside cottage.

  My escorts were unseen all that long night. I was on guard now as I read, and as I took in those sites lit first by the moon and then by the rising, brazen sun. I tried to sleep, but could not: I was anxious and eager, so very eager, to practice the Craft. Which, unfortunately, I did, that very night.

  We were traveling slowly on a bad stretch of road. I’d directed Michel to drive until dawn; we’d speak again then. I’d rap at the roof of the cab with my cane if I needed him; otherwise, he was to drive on without disturbing me. It was time to practice my plan, and the execution of the Craft, its success or failure, was to be witnessed by no one.

  Divination. In first reading Sebastiana’s Book, I was intrigued by the notion of foretelling, the inducement of dreams of divination. It was an aspect of the Craft that seemed to me quite practicable. That is, I thought I could do it. At that first supper at Ravndal, Sebastiana had spoken of the ways in which sisters have long foreseen the future: by reading tea leaves, the spilled entrails of birds, and so on. But of greater interest was something I’d later read in her account of the Greek Supper; and it was to those pages I now returned.

  I read again the recipe presented by that Parisian hag, that recipe allegedly passed down from the great Catherine Monvoisin, the ill-famed La Voisin, and involving burial and blood and mutilated male genitalia. Now, truth to tell, as grotesque as that spell was, is, I might have tried it had I the means and time; but, as the casting of that spell was to be effected over the course of many weeks or so, I simply hadn’t the time. (Neither was I inclined to conjure some magical phallus!) So I resorted to a truncated version of that recipe, adding bits of another; and over it all I cast a quite simple spell. (Whatever was I thinking?)

  I’d already set about stocking up on those ingredients mentioned time and again in the Book. At the market in Rennes, newly shod, I had procured a measure of what’s known as the Greek bean. From its seller I received the strangest of looks, which made sense when he said, staring down at the payment I blindly proffered, “Monsieur, that is the coin of Portugal.” “Ah,” said I, in a lowered voice, “so it is. The coinage of my Italy is so much more manageable.” That very evening in Rennes I had Michel detail for me the attributes of each species of coin and bill in my possession; not all of which he knew, for into the hurried mix Sebastiana had thrown the money of other nations—Portugal among them, yes—and other times…Alors, I invited the seller of the Greek bean to pick from my purse, and this he happily did.

  I needed a few other things besides, all of them fairly easily come by. I harvested a certain berry roadside, Michel looking on, inquisitive but still. Finally, there remained but one problem: I hadn’t a single blue candle.

&
nbsp; Blue candles, I’d read, increase the efficacy of all divining spells; they clarify the vision, sharpen it. Then I remembered a lesson learned that last night at C——: blessed candles burn blue in the presence of spirits. Now spirits I had; as for blessed candles…Well, let me say they were easily had from a small church in a village whose name I never knew; and that church’s priest or sexton, if he even noticed the theft, was surely distracted by the quantity of coin discovered in the collection box beside the door.

  I wondered when I should summon the elementals, when I should burn the white candles in their presence. How would I answer the questions they’d ask? Or did they already know what it was I was up to? After all, weren’t they always watching and…ah, then it dawned on me: it seemed they were never far away, and so perhaps they were sufficiently present to render the blessed candles blue. I was right: lighting the candles that very night, with everything else I’d need ranged about me in the berlin, I watched as first the flame and then the wax itself turned a powdery blue. Finally, I was ready.

  Moonlight fell on the slow-going berlin. By my calculations, we were far from any place of distinction. I locked the doors of the cab. I drew the blinds lest the breeze disturb the burning candles, but they held to their ever-deepening blue. Indeed, they’d soon burned from sky- to sea-blue. I secured them, settled them into niches carved into the wall of the berlin.