The Vine Witch

by Smith, Luanne G.

  “Demands?”

  Elena buried her face in her hands. “He said as his wife I’d be obligated to serve him. That it wasn’t my place to refuse.”

  “Marriage is always a compromise. Often more for the woman, I admit, but—”

  “He understood nothing about me. He knew I was a vine witch, that I had obligations of my own to uphold, that I couldn’t just fulfill his every whim. I’d finally mastered my first exceptional vintage, and he expected me to set all that aside to serve his dreams. The ambition and greed in that man! How could I have been so wrong about him?”

  Grand-Mère shrugged diplomatically. “He always did have grand plans.”

  “I told him I’d rather be a happy spinster than his miserable wife and threw his ring back at him.”

  Grand-Mère bent her ear forward, as if she hadn’t heard correctly. “You broke off the engagement?”

  “I had no choice,” she said, reaching for the glass of wine. It had been seven years since she’d held a glass in her hand or sniffed the silky bouquet of Château Renard’s pinot noir. She gave the wine a swirl and held it to her nose, needing its cleansing power more than ever. “He doesn’t like being told no, even when he’s wrong. And he cannot abide being made to look like a fool. Not by a woman. I’m convinced it’s why he paid some fly-by-night Fay to spellbind me and keep me silent. He must have.” She exhaled at the weight of the implication. “Whoever the witch was, she blindsided me in the road just before I reached home. I’d stopped to slip into the shadow world to see how he was faring. She attacked while my sight was focused elsewhere for the briefest of moments. That ‘no’ cost me everything.”

  The old woman massaged her temples, as if she suffered from the sudden onset of a headache. “Could have been one of the Charlatan clan. They usually stay north in the city, but they’ll do work for hire. Crude lot they are, too, and more cunning than one might give them credit for,” she added, rubbing her eyes to be free of the pain. “And not the sort to study how a curse might be weakened by ingesting one’s own toxic skin. Which toads are naturally wont to do.”

  Elena shuddered at the thought of the warty, poisonous skin sliding down the back of her throat. She took a sip of the wine to chase the memory from her mouth, but if she was looking for relief she was vividly disappointed. None of the musky hues of spice and rose petals the Renard vineyard was famous for hit her palate. It was all chalk and mushrooms. An off bottle?

  Then a worse thought hit her as she swallowed. What if there was nothing wrong with the wine? What if her senses had been permanently disfigured by the curse? She’d kill him twice.

  She lifted her glass in silent panic to study the wine’s opacity against the light. She was still forming her fear into words when the back door opened and the worker whose brouette she’d shared walked inside. A wet wind followed, billowing the curtains and spitting snowflakes onto the floor tiles. The man shut the door and brushed his wet cap against his trousers before hanging it on the peg on the wall. His brusque entrance had her set aside the sour wine as well as her growing alarm.

  The worker halted and apologized for interrupting as he dried the snow off his glasses using his shirttail. He snuck a glance at her while he polished the lenses, and she couldn’t help but notice the fine features of his face—the proud brow that tightened in thought, the geometric planes of the cheeks, and a jawline taut from firm self-confidence.

  Grand-Mère hastily stood. “This is Elena Boureanu. I’m sure I’ve mentioned her before.” She hurried back to her mixing bowl at the counter and began measuring more flour. “Elena, this is Monsieur Jean-Paul Martel. He’s—”

  “Yes, we spoke briefly in the field. You must be the new foreman.”

  “Something like that.” He slipped his glasses back on and then pressed his fist under his nose. His less than discreet gesture suggested he’d picked up on the scent of goat dung saturating the hem of her coat. “A pleasure to meet you, Mademoiselle Boureanu,” he said curtly, then in a more polite tone added, “I’ll let you return to entertaining your guest, Ariella. Let me know when supper is ready.”

  Once he left, Elena watched Grand-Mère fret over having no more milk in the icebox. With the taste of bad wine still souring her thoughts, she asked, “Have you grown so desperate for good help that workers now have the run of the main house?”

  “Jean-Paul isn’t just a worker.” Grand-Mère’s elbows moved up and down as she worked water into the dough for biscuits. “He likes to eat promptly at five o’clock so he can go out and walk the fields one more time before dark.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him who I am?”

  The old woman paused to glance at the swirling snow as a gust of wind whipped against the window. Her shoulders fell and her body stilled, as if she could no longer bear to hold them up. “I’ve made a terrible mess of everything.”

  She looked to the sky as if it might offer absolution and then confessed all that had gone wrong. The last five seasons at the vineyard had been failures. Either the grapes had been pinched from searing drought or the rain delayed the pickers so the crop spoiled with mold. In the last harvest, dark speckles marred the grape skins, tainting the wine with the taste of burnt cork. And there was nothing Grand-Mère could do, because her mind and magic had begun to fail.

  It was little things at first. Forgetting to add a bit of bone to the soil on the full moon, neglecting to hang the bell-charms inside the vine canopy to warn of searing wind, or whispering the wrong words of protection when the cool air dipped toward freezing, leaving the grapes to fend for themselves. Grand-Mère waved it all away as she spoke, as if thoughts of growing old pained her. It bruised her ego to admit her vulnerability, but she knew the vineyard had suffered because of her failing powers. It wasn’t long before successive poor vintages caused sales to drop, and people began to whisper that Château Renard had lost its way.

  Failure to protect the vineyard alone was a disgrace to a vine witch as renowned as Madame Gardin. But the worst thing she’d done to bring ruin to Château Renard was neglecting to pay her taxes. Nature could bend and accommodate a flaw, but the government would have its due. Château Renard, one of the original houses to produce wine in the valley, had found itself three years behind in taxes with no money in the coffer to pay it.

  “They threatened to seize the property,” Grand-Mère said with a sigh. “Suggested I sell and save what I could of the Renard reputation.”

  The news was as bitter as the wine. And none of it made any sense. The vineyard had been passed down from one generation to the next for more than two hundred years. Its reputation was built on a history of excellence, a blessed rich terroir, and the steady fostering of dedicated vine witches. “It must be some kind of mistake. A misunderstanding,” Elena said, unwilling to believe. “Grand-Père set plenty of money aside to weather a bad year or two.”

  “I don’t like admitting how badly I mismanaged things without your help. I thought I still had the touch, but it seems my brain is as withered as a dried-up old apple.”

  “Surely you must have been sent notices about the taxes?”

  “Well, yes. And I know I paid some money. But it was never enough, according to the statements. The whole thing had the smell of rot to it,” she said, shaking her head. “Especially when Bastien came around to present an offer on the property.”

  “He showed his face here? After what he did?” Elena nearly drew blood as her clenched fingers dug into her palms. “He tried to buy Château Renard?”

  “He’s been buying failed vineyards all over the valley the past couple of years. It wasn’t long before he showed up here with cash in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. His wine.” Grand-Mère snorted. “It was a very short meeting.”

  Elena could do nothing but shake her head. Everything that man did led to greed and betrayal. And now he’d tried to buy the very place where her heart, blood, and soul were sewn to the soil. If there was one piece of hope she could hold on to, it was that he’d f
ailed to steal Château Renard.

  Elena slid her arm around Grand-Mère’s shoulders to comfort her. “It’s not too late. Now that I’m home again we can fix this. We’ll raise the money somehow.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I sold Château Renard.”

  “Sold? But that’s not possible. To whom?”

  “To me,” said Jean-Paul as he stood in the doorway holding a bottle of wine and two extra glasses.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Elena stood outside among the vines, snow falling gently on her shoulders. An unnatural chill had settled in her skin after the curse, and the last place she wanted to be was caught out in the cold, but there was nowhere else to go. That man had bought the only home she knew. He’d even claimed her old bedroom overlooking the eastern fields for his own. Lamplight glowed in the upstairs window, mocking her while she shivered in her stolen, stinking clothes with nowhere to go, no place to call home.

  Oh, he was a sly one, letting Grand-Mère stay on at the house after he’d paid her debts. Clever him, arranging it so he owned everything yet still benefitted from the prestige of her family name and perceived blessing. Mortal men. What flaw was it in their ape brains that convinced them their schemes were paramount to everyone else’s?

  She shouldn’t have yelled those insults at him before storming out perhaps, but without the house, the fields, the harvest, how would she ever start over? She’d been pledged to the Renard vineyard since she was five years old. She was Château Renard’s vine witch. The terroir and she were one. If she no longer had that to depend on, how would she ever reclaim the life Bastien had stolen from her?

  Elena stared up at the house in tears. She couldn’t tolerate the thought of that imbecile man buying the vineyard and allowing wine to age in spoiled barrels. Couldn’t he taste the moldering mushrooms in every sip of that swill he’d made? Grand-Mère might have lost her touch, but it was hard to understand how things had gotten so bad. Even if he didn’t know how to sterilize a barrel properly with burning sulfur, Grand-Mère did. No, something more was at work. It wasn’t just the barrels. The grapes themselves were tainted too. She could still taste the corruption on her tongue.

  But the problems of the vineyard weren’t hers to worry about anymore.

  Unable to stare at the void of her uncertain future any longer, Elena instead did what she always did. She leaned into her intuition. Walking a little farther down the vine row, she placed her hand on one of the oldest canes, one planted by Grand-Père when he was still a young man with a new wife. The vine, black and gnarled with age, had already hardened off in anticipation of winter, but she knew the vitality that ran dormant in its veins. She closed her eyes and held on, concentrating as she tapped into the life source inside the vine and inside herself.

  Though her magic wavered at first, their energy mingled deep in the vascular system flowing under the hardwood. After a few slow breaths, she located the plant’s pulse. The vine was worn out, no question. Not from neglect or deficiency, but . . . something else. She leaned in, barely breathing, her senses heightening as she slipped into the shadow world. Following her third-eye vision, she detected a black thread of energy running from root to cane. Lifting her gaze, she spied a pattern of spells and hexes interwoven over the vines. Yet none of them were strong enough to account for the melancholia she sensed deep in the roots. This was a profound grievance, a lament that echoed within a hollow space inside her. She yearned to understand its pain, but the feeling pulled back, vanishing under her touch. She let go, and her energy disconnected from the vine.

  She was still recovering from the experience when Grand-Mère approached from the house, carrying a woolen shawl. “I always wished I’d been born with shadow sight. Such a remarkable talent.”

  And a vulnerability, Elena thought, remembering too well how she’d been ambushed while in her trance state. After her return home, she couldn’t help feeling she’d been blindsided yet again.

  Grand-Mère offered the shawl, then rubbed her thumb and fingers together, reading the air. “It’s bad, isn’t it, the spellwork? I can feel the electrical charge from the magic every time I step outside. I tried countering a few jinxes, but nothing I did ever seemed to make any difference.”

  Elena wrapped the shawl around her shoulders. “It isn’t just one. There’s an entire network of spells over the vineyard. But I don’t think the usual charms would work to stop them anyway. There’s a black aura running through the center. A reverse curse to thwart any attempt to fix it.”

  “Ingenious. Bastien warned me there’d be repercussions for not selling.”

  “It’s why we fought,” she said as her eyes scanned the vineyard for further evidence of spells. “He wanted me to sabotage his neighbors’ vineyards. And not just the usual mischief everyone does. He wanted hexes. Vicious magic that would do real damage. He had this grand plan to squeeze the weaker vignerons out so he could buy their land and double his holdings. I defied him by refusing. Threatened to expose his intentions. But apparently he found someone else to do it for him.”

  “Ah.” Grand-Mère absorbed the confession and glanced up at the snowflakes swirling above their heads. “I should warn you he’s come up in the world since you’ve been gone. His plan seems to have worked. He owns more property than anyone else in the valley now. He even brought on a bierhexe to oversee his place. She’d be the one behind the spellwork.”

  “A bierhexe from the Alps working a vineyard? I didn’t think they had any interest in our type of work. It explains the complexity of the magic, though. But it isn’t just the hexwork that has me concerned. There’s something else wrong with the vines. I can’t quite sort it out. A type of melancholia. Not a spell exactly, and not a disease.” She ran her finger over the nub of a freshly clipped branch, finding no further clues.

  “You belong here, Elena. It’s in your blood.” Grand-Mère rubbed her shoulder in a supportive gesture. “Even if the vineyard is no longer mine to give you.”

  Thinking again about how the vineyard had been lost, tears swam in Elena’s eyes. “I would have hawked love potions out of the back of a cart or done palm readings for tourists in the street ten hours a day rather than sell to a . . . a businessman from the city.”

  “It tore my heart out to sell this place.” The old woman looked out at the blackened vines rimmed in new snow. “But do you truly believe I’d hand over my life’s work to just anyone? I’ve been divining harvests and coaxing wine into the world with my magic longer than you’ve been alive. And reading men’s intentions. I can tell you he isn’t in it simply to make a profit. Even if he is a mortal who shuns witchwork as superstition, Jean-Paul’s heart is in the right place. He wants to make wine worthy of the Renard brand. He took your accusation about hijacking my reputation for gain rather hard back there, I think.” She rubbed her thumb against her fingers, as if testing the tension wire of his emotions once more. “You may have to apologize for that—he does have his pride—but otherwise he’s graciously allowed you to stay as my guest until you find your footing.”

  “And what will he say when he learns who I am? He doesn’t want a witch helping him. He’s an outsider who thinks bad wine can be fixed using science, of all things.”

  “True. He believes he’s a victim of bad weather and depleted soil.”

  She scoffed. “If only he were so lucky.”

  “Come,” said Grand-Mère, hooking her arm around Elena’s. “He wouldn’t be the first man to learn he’s wrong about something he’s certain about. But for now I have something to show you that might cheer you up.”

  They left a trail of snowy footprints behind as they walked to the barrel-aging room beside the main house. Elena stomped the snow off her shoes as Grand-Mère opened the cellar door with the key that hung from the chatelaine at her waist. The old woman retrieved an oil lamp from a shelf in the entryway and rubbed her fingers together until a small flame erupted. She remarked it was the only real magic she had left and then touched the fire to the wi
ck. Soft lamplight bloomed above a darkened ramp. “After you,” she said.

  The air grew heavy with the smell of damp earth, smoky oak, and a ribbon of vanilla sweetness as they descended inside the ancient corridor. The powerful combination of scent and memory mingled in Elena’s heart and lungs, feeding her spirit. Before curses and bad luck had got their hold on her, she’d vowed to anyone who would listen that the scent of a wine cellar was its own healing magic. She inhaled deeply, drawing in its power.

  The sound of their shoes scuffing against the flagstone floor echoed off the walls as they entered the main room of the cellar. Encased in yellow stone five hundred years earlier, the carved space formed a large rectangular room with a low-hanging arched ceiling. A hand-forged iron lamp hung from a chain in the center overhead, while plain white candles had been jammed into the mouths of empty wine bottles and placed atop several of the forty oak barrels lining the walls. A room untouched by time. The space soothed Elena’s uncertainty in a way she couldn’t have understood or anticipated the last time she had stood among the barrels.

  Grand-Mère blew air off the tips of her fingers, lighting the overhead lamp, then motioned for Elena to follow her to the back of the cellar. “I know you’re probably eager to open the barrels, but it’s not why I brought you down here.”

  Three small rooms had been added to the original corridor over the centuries. The largest housed select bottles of prime vintages the way a library showed off its books. It also doubled as a place where a wealthy patron might stand at a table and taste the merits of the latest pinot noir. The second room provided storage for the curved wands used for stirring the lees, a wine thief or two for suctioning samples of fermenting wine, and extra rakes, brooms, and baskets. But at the back end, tucked away behind the barrels, was a small room with a heavy oak door. She dared not get her hopes up.

  “Jean-Paul has inquired about it several times,” Grand-Mère said, “but I told him I lost the key years ago. Anyway, he thinks it’s just another storage closet with a few old plungers and some busted barrel rims.” She nodded at Elena. “Go ahead. Give it a try.”