The Book of Shadows

by James Reese

  “The right hand only,” said Father Louis to me. “Use your right hand, the moon-blessed hand only! Push it down into the dirt as a fist,” he said, “open it in the dirt and close it again; draw it up and scatter the dirt, scatter it over…over her…. Take care, witch, to do it the same, exactly the same each time.” He, I noticed, did not do it this way: he used two hands and worked hurriedly, sloppily, covering the upper body of the succubus as fast as he could. But I did as I was told.

  Though the priest slowed, I kept the pace he’d set. Twenty, thirty, forty times I dipped my fist into the dirt, drew it up to scatter it over the body of the…the girl, the succubus, over the spirit, the eudemon…over Madeleine. My hand ached. Neither I nor the incubus spoke. I wonder, could Madeleine have spoken? I believe that yes, she could have. I believe she did not speak because there were no words but good-bye; and that she did not wish to say.

  In time we’d emptied the two bags. It seemed too that I’d done all that was expected of me as regarded the moon and the reverse-ritual. Soon I knew I’d done my duty. Freed from action, I was a simple witness to what happened then.

  Seeing that Father Louis had nearly emptied his bag, I’d hurried to empty mine, careful to work with only my “moon-blessed” hand. Madeleine, still well-fleshed, still full, was coated in consecrated soil. All through this bewitched burial, I focused my efforts on Madeleine’s lower half: I scattered my bag of earth over her feet and legs, over her lower body. In this I was fortunate for I could never have done what Father Louis had then to do: scatter the consecrated earth over Madeleine’s wide-eyed stare and beatific smile. She did not blink as the dirt fell onto her face. I very nearly turned from this, for her welcoming of the dirt disturbed me. But it was then Father Louis finally spoke his good-bye: “Sit tibi terra levis, my Madeleine.” He said it again and again, said it each time he lowered a fistful of the Church’s earth onto her face. May this earth lie lightly upon you. Again and again he said it. May this earth lie lightly upon you.

  Finally, Madeleine lay covered in consecrated earth. I thought then that it was over. I thought we’d replace the casket’s lid, perhaps read a second rite, utter some inconceivable good-bye. But no.

  How to describe what I witnessed then? See, I haven’t much time, for above me I hear trunks being dragged to and fro, the captain is shouting orders, and all is being readied for our entrance into the harbor, not an hour from now. (Richmond is our port. Richmond, in the state of Virginia.)…So then: ordinary words to take us to the extraordinary end of this tale:

  I saw Madeleine move beneath her blanket of earth. While we’d scattered the consecrated earth over her she’d stared unblinkingly up at us—at the priest, really—and she’d not moved other than to turn from that fetal position. She lay prone and perfectly still while we worked. But now it seemed she was…yes, she was returning to that fetal curl. Slowly, and with absolute grace…like the coursing of water, the easy rise of fire, a breath of wind…And there she lay: curled like a nascent being in the womb. It was then I knew we’d succeeded. And as that position speaks so eloquently of immortality, I could not help but wonder if Madeleine would return to live in another shape. I wonder still. If she will, if she does…if she lives, I hope she does so peaceably.

  If only we’d replaced the casket’s lid right then, but no…. Instead, we sat in silence on either side of the grave. Finally, the priest reached down to take up Madeleine’s hand; her right hand, for she faced him, curled on her left side. I was surprised to see him withdraw his hand so suddenly, but surprise ceded to revulsion when I saw that he’d not withdrawn his hand at all. Rather, Madeleine’s arm had fallen from her shoulder, and the hand had fallen from the wrist. Father Louis sat holding the succubus’s hand in his, cupping it, for the hand had fast broken into a hundred tiny bones.

  It was then I saw Madeleine’s hair grow fuller, too full; soon it was the dark and writhing mass we’d first unearthed. Strands of hair turned with the worms in the soil, nearly obscuring Madeleine’s face; and would that the hair had obscured that once-beautiful face, now thinning fast, for what I saw…. I’ll say it fast and straight: I saw the pearlescent jelly of her eyes run from their sockets and dribble down over her face, the brown irises like broken yolks. The down-flow of the right eye took with it the flesh of the nose; there remained then but a jagged socket in the skull. The cheeks and the lips fell away. The nails of the toes grew too, fast as the hair; they seemed like silver-blue shards of moon, growing backward into the soft flesh of the foot till that too fell away.

  Flesh. And bone. Flesh and bone.

  Yes, beneath that thin coat of consecrated earth I saw Madeleine’s flesh putrefy and fall like stewed meat from the bone. Her breasts slid from her chest. Then fell the flanks of her thighs. She collapsed, right side onto left; it seemed the curled corpse settled again and again, shifted over the scraps of scarlet satin that remained to line the coffin. The ribs broke from their barrel-like curve. As for her innards? They devolved to ash, ash just barely discernible from the dark earth of the Church. Blood? There was none.

  Madeleine was no more. Father Louis spilled the cup of his hands: the bones of Madeleine’s hand fell into the dark dirt whitely, like stars; and then the priest cradled his crying face in hands dark with ash. I reached to his cold, shuddering shoulder and sought words that might comfort him. None came. But soon he lifted his face to me; as he licked the ash from his lips they curved into a smile that seemed at first perverse, and then, somehow, complete. Yes, complete. It was then he took up a pinch of tear-heavy ash, took it up between forefinger and thumb, and, wordlessly, let it fall into the tiny kettle at his side, whispering of the river Lethe in Hades, on whose waters one sailed toward Oblivion.

  What had I done? I sat back, graveside. What had I done? I fairly folded in two, cradling my face in my filthy hands. Tears fell and turned to mud. What had I done? I must have asked the question aloud, for Father Louis offered this in response: “You drew down the moon. You worked the Craft as only a new witch can. For this, I thank you. We thank you.” Then the priest said he needed my help still.

  He raised high the kettle. Its dull iron shone beneath the starlight, the meager moonlight. “Take this,” he said; and I did. It was warm, quite warm, though the hands from which it came were as cold as ever. Though I knew the hideous stew he’d made in it, from the kettle there came the sweetest aroma, and so I did not hesitate…rather I did not hesitate overlong when he directed me to drink its contents, saying, “I take her from my Church, and I give her over to the Church within you.”…And while the incubus wept I drank down the mix, which was inexplicably soothing and smooth. “Contain her for all time,” came the priest’s choked words, “contain her as I could not.”

  Father Louis moved too fast for me to follow him. When next I saw him he stood again beside the grave. Beside me he placed a round wicker basket lined with black satin; it showed a sort of cowl that could be drawn up over it by means of a black ribbon. Wordlessly, he sat beside me. He leaned forward. He smoothed the earth and ash in the coffin. Sifted it, mixed it. And then, bone by bone, he took Madeleine up from where she lay. He placed the larger bones in the basket first. And—though it seemed to me a sad perversion of a child’s game, skittles or jacks—I joined him, and soon the grave was empty of all but earth and ash.

  42

  South to the Sea

  FATHER LOUIS and I walked from the grave. We did not take great pains to hide it, though we did shovel the graveside dirt back into it, of course; and I did take pains—literally!—to rearrange the stiff and prickly bouquet of catbrier. It was early morning, perhaps three or four hours past midnight, three or four hours before sunrise, and what little light there was at that hour—starlight, or the faint light of the new and shy moon—lit the grave a ghostly blue. It was but a slit in the surface of the earth. Walking from the grave, I did not look back. I looked only at the berlin; caked with mud, still it glistened in that scarce light like some wheeled and painted pe
arl, or some other impossible thing. It shone with a light all its own, as did the incubus, still.

  Father Louis ascended to the berlin’s box, quick as a cat. I entered the cab. I don’t know if the priest held to his shape up there or if he merely guided the horses and let the berlin roll on, no driver visible to any mortal we might have met on the road. As I did not see, I cannot say. But at that hour, as we drove up out of the desolate valley, it didn’t seem to matter.

  We did not return to Avignon, as I’ve said. We drove on, and by break of day we were in Arles.

  Seated in the cab that early morning, I was wide awake. The silence was broken only by the horses’ hooves, the turning of the berlin’s wheels, and the hard song sung by the basket of shifting bones beside me. It, that basket—of dark wicker, with its black satin lining—was what a woman of fashion might have used to transport a treasured hat; and it had that cowl, that excess of satin run through with ribbon, that one could draw to close the thing up, which, of course, I’d done. I went so far as to knot the ribbon. And finally I pushed the whole thing as far from me as possible, till it sat across the cab on the opposite banquette. With each turn in the road, with each dip of this wheel or that, it moved; and the least movement caused the skull—I was sure it was the skull—to roll within the basket and set the whole wicker mass to shifting, lurching like a thing alive.

  Ah, but it was no living thing. I sat across from it some while before coming to understand this: it was not Madeleine, indeed had little to do with Madeleine. It was a mere basket of bones. A simple skeleton. Or was it? I confess: I did talk to it, did address it as I would have the succubus. I did so to assuage my fears, or perhaps to check my hopes. But Madeleine was gone. I’d no idea where she’d gone, but I was certain she was gone from those bones. She, like a cloud, those pure formations of things elemental, had coalesced and clung to the blue, the Infinite Blue, only to dissipate, dissolve into that same background of blue, Oblivion.

  Soon the bones no longer disturbed me. Indeed, I gathered the basket to my side, quieted its contents by holding tightly to it.

  We rolled into Arles—a dusty little town graced with an extraordinary palette; which I haven’t the time to describe, for I am told that we are but a few hours from port (not one hour, as I’d heard earlier); yes, we are closing quickly on the American continent, its eastern seaboard; and I just heard someone shout that we are already in sight of land, but I dare not look, not yet…. We rolled into Arles under a rising sun and were, presumably, unseen. As was our habit, we secreted the berlin on as secluded, as dark and quiet a street as we could find. I’d already resolved to be rid of the thing by nightfall.

  Descending, with the berlin barely having rocked to a stop, I saw that Father Louis was gone. I worried that he was gone for good, now that our “work” was done. He stopped in Arles, I assume, because he knew I had things to do there, simple errands to see to before going on to Marseilles, before setting off to sea. Perhaps he had some spectral errands of his own, I don’t know. He would mourn, certainly; and though I pitied the unsuspecting women of Arles, I did not care to consider just how the incubus might mourn.

  I walked the streets of the city as the sun rose higher. I asked five people the name of their city’s best inn—ah, those slow accents of the South, the singsong elision of words!—and made my way to the place named by three of the five. I paid the innkeeper twice the standard rate for her best room, on the top floor of a whitewashed, narrow stand of stone, and for that price she evicted its present tenant, for whom I’d a fast-fading sympathy. For I was feeling…grand. Hadn’t I achieved a grand aspect of the Craft, something my Soror Mystica had been unable to do? Hadn’t I drawn down the moon…whatever that meant? Hadn’t I…in truth, I was newly taken with myself, indeed I was not acting like myself at all…. But who was I? That was a question I did not care to consider. Not just then.

  I paid yet again so that my room—actually two rooms, with gritty stone floors and a view of the ruins of the Roman theater, albeit seen through greasy windows—might be made up quickly. This same payment, which I suppose was rather generous, secured for me a sizable breakfast of three boiled eggs, some black bread smeared with apricot paste, and a bowl of coffee, delivered to my room by the innkeeper herself; I could not eat it all, but I was buoyed to see that this experienced woman—this I assumed based on the evidence of an ample bosom, proudly shown—took me to be a ravenous man of the roads.

  I instructed the innkeeper to wake me at two; and finally, as the Arlesiens rose that day, I sank, contentedly, into hours of uninterrupted, dreamless sleep.

  I walked around Arles a bit that afternoon, but so distracted was I by events of the night before, and by the imagined events of the days to come, well…I did not make much of a tourist. Indeed, and in truth, it was my Arlesienne I sought; and so my eyes were trained on every passing face, every distant figure, and I saw not much of the city. What comes first to mind when I recall the place are those sharp tiny stones in the streets, like tacks, which too often made their way through the soles of my boots. With each pinprick of pain, I grew more and more determined to rid myself of that wardrobe Sebastiana had sent me off with. Of course, those boots had nothing to do with the contents of the nécessaire; it was simply that their thin, impractical soles reminded me of the clothes’ greater impracticality.

  In Arles, and later in Marseilles, I augmented my wardrobe, choosing from shops and stalls that sold preworn clothes. (In exchange for what I chose, I left behind fripperies drawn from the nécessaire.) I chose my clothes carefully, not because I cared about them, their cut or color; rather, it seemed to me I’d a thin line to tread. Overdressed, I’d be out of place in the port and aboard whatever ship would have me. Underdressed, I’d perhaps find it difficult to secure any passage at all. Overdressed, I might be taken advantage of, even robbed. Underdressed, I might be expected to…Enfin, after a spot of shopping I had a wardrobe that suited me, literally.

  What clothes I could not trade—“Monsieur,” asked the shopkeeper, “who would wear such a thing?”—I later gave away at the port of Marseilles. Simply, I set a pile of clothes down on the quay and invited passersby to pick through them. I confess, it was jarring to see a man of Africa, bound home to Alexandria, via Messina, take up an embroidered blouse of white silk, only slightly yellow with age, and rip from it its full sleeves; said he—in French I could barely understand; indeed his meaning was better conveyed by his gestures—such sleeves would surely get caught up in his ship’s rigging and cause him all manner of grief, if not outright catastrophe.

  Seated streetside in a café, still hoping to see again Arlesienne, I met a man. Rather, he met me.

  Having carefully calculated the cost of two coffees, I was about to place coin enough on the marble table and take my leave when I was arrested by the corpulence of a man standing too close behind me. “Monsieur,” said I, pushing past him, “pardonnez-moi.” As if his stomach, girdled in a waistcoat of fine gray silk, stretched dangerously tight, its buttons about to bullet off at me, if not through me…as if his stomach were not obstacle enough, this man then extended his hand for me to take.

  “Théophile Libaudet,” said he, and, by dint of a social choreography I cannot describe, I soon found myself seated again at that same table, this stranger beside me.

  His hands, I recall, were horribly fat, with whisker-like hairs on the dimpled knuckles. (I, remembering Arlesienne’s admonition, had traded for a pair of men’s traveling gloves, which, too awkward to wear at table, sat in my lap like a pet.) So malodorous was he of tobacco, I half expected a whole rolled leaf to appear in the stead of his tongue; but no…he simply drew from his vest pocket a cigar. “Cuban,” said he, offering me a puff, which I declined. From another pocket came a silver flask. Emptying into their saucers the dregs of the coffees I’d had, and wiping out the cups with a silk kerchief, he poured from the flask. “The darkest of rums,” said he. “From Jamaica, don’t you know?” Smoke and drink arrayed, the fa
t man sat back; it seemed only then did he stop. Previously, he’d been a blur of motion, of bluster and pomp. “Now,” said he, spreading his wide hand flat on the table and drumming his gouty thumb—his intention, I saw, was to show me two rings, which were, indeed, impressive—“Now,” he resumed, “I stand at a loss: you know my name and I—”

  I made up a name. Rather, I offered the name of a former Minister of Finance; if my forceful friend knew it, perhaps he was not as…as self-involved and stupid as he seemed. He did not know it. Indeed, I might have introduced myself as Jean Racine and told him the tale of Phèdre. I might have said I was Mirabeau, or Pope Leo XII, for I saw that he’d forgotten my name as soon as I’d spoken it. Nevertheless, I had to shake his hand a second time: it was like squeezing a skinless rat, and perhaps I withdrew too fast, rudely fast.

  A waiter approached and Monsieur Libaudet, saying we had all we needed, gave him money enough to keep him away for the duration. Our cups he refilled with the pleasant, if strong, rum. “You are a traveler, mon ami?” he asked; in response, I turned the same question back on him, for I knew that to be his aim.

  “Ah, yes, indeed. Around the world, around the world…. A man’s duty, I always say. To see the world.” He puffed and sipped. A procession of children passed then, in fabulous costume, and were tossed sweets and flowers and coin as they made their way to some ceremony in the not too distant bullring. My companion paid them no mind. “Just back from six months out, you know. The African continent. Pains and pleasures, it was; pains and pleasures. And you, young sir?”