The Vine Witch

by Smith, Luanne G.

  “He needs to know the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  She blew on the glass, then dropped the lens from the tongs into her hand. It should have burned her skin, but she didn’t even flinch. “If you are serious about wanting to make wine this good again,” she said, flipping the piece of glass in her palm, “follow me and I’ll show you.”

  There was a new assurance about her, as if she’d been hiding before and only now stepped into her true skin. Her confidence lured him outside as he followed her to the vine rows south of the house.

  She shrugged the tablecloth tighter around her shoulders and nudged her chin toward the field. “Look out there and tell me what you see.”

  Dew saturated the evening air, settling as glossy droplets on the budding vines. He sighed as he pulled his collar up against the mist. “I see vines starting to leaf out. Acres of work yet to be done. And potential. Always potential for the next harvest.”

  Her eyes relaxed, though she kept the rest of her face controlled. “Yes,” she said. “And yet there is so much more. Hold this to your eye and take my hand.”

  He checked over his shoulder to see if Madame was watching them. “Is this really necessary?”

  “It’s the only way I know how to show you.”

  “Show me what?”

  “Everything,” she answered and extended her hand.

  Reluctantly he locked his fingers with hers. Her cold skin repelled him at first, but she held on tight, as if she would not let this moment out of her grasp. With her other hand she gripped the ancient vine in front of her, then mumbled a few words of nonsense while pretending to go into a trance. He knew then he’d been a fool. He should never have followed her outside. Should never have come to the country to work with these backward, superstitious people in the first place. Maybe Du Monde was right. Maybe he did belong in the city with his books and ledgers and blessed logic. The admission sobered him. He held the woman’s hand, opting to appease her long enough to avoid further confrontation, but then he was going inside to get drunk and give serious consideration to an asking price for the vineyard.

  God, she really was beautiful, though. It was almost as if her skin shimmered in the mist.

  Her eyes opened. “Don’t watch me. Use the lens to look at the field.”

  He hadn’t realized he’d been staring. “What is it I’m supposed to see exactly?” But as he held the glass to his eye, the change became evident.

  An iridescent fog hovered over the vineyard, glimmering to rival the northern lights. On the hillside, moisture clung in a crisscross pattern like a giant net suspended above the vines, while blue sparks skittered along the ground. “What is this, some kind of trick?” He lowered the lens to examine it, wondering how she’d made a kaleidoscope out of a melted shard of glass.

  “The spectral cloud hanging over the acreage nearest the château is some sort of sun-blocking spell meant to promote mildew. I imagine you lost some grapes last fall to fungus, yes?”

  “We had to hand sort the entire acre to salvage what we could.”

  “I’m working on a counterspell, but a reverse curse is complicating things. Unfortunately it’s had years to morph without interference. I’m still tracing its origin.”

  “Reverse curse?”

  “Yes, and the other effects you see . . .” She nudged him to raise the glass to his eye again. “I still have to counter the jinx on the hill and the static in the soil. And then there’s that fellow. There, see him? Sitting on the stump in the middle of the row. We have a gargoyle living among the old vines, the ones Monsieur Gardin planted for Grand-Mère’s birthday. The wine you poured tonight came from those vines. It was the last vintage I brought into the world before I . . . went away.”

  He pressed his eye closer to the glass. “How are you doing this?”

  “I’m merely showing you what I see every day.”

  He tested the vision several times with and without the glass. A beast with leathery wings and pointed ears opened its eyes and shifted on its feet before yawning. “This can’t be happening.”

  “So disrespectful, I know. This one appears to be harmless at the moment. But I’m guessing as soon as the grapes are ready to be harvested, it’s his job to piss on the clusters as they go into the baskets so they’ll be sour for the press. That is, if I don’t find a way to banish him first. I’m sorry—he should have been dealt with years ago, but Grand-Mère hasn’t been able to keep up by herself.”

  The gargoyle twisted his face around to sneer at them before tucking his head under his wing to go back to sleep.

  Jean-Paul dropped the lens and crossed himself. “This isn’t possible. I’m drunk on spoiled wine. Or . . . or out of my mind with fever.”

  “I assure you you’re not. It’s merely magic. Or, if you prefer one of your scientific terms, you’re getting a glimpse of what’s found at the end of the spectrum, outside the range of what your mortal eye can see.”

  “No, this can’t be happening.” He jerked his hand loose of hers, and the vineyard appeared as it always had. He rubbed his eyes and looked again to make sure. But still he doubted his sanity.

  “I’m a vine witch, Monsieur Martel. Château Renard’s vine witch specifically. And while you’ve been operating under the impression that bad weather and worse luck have been conspiring to hurt your vintages, I’m sorry to say it’s mostly been ignorance combined with an abundance of sabotage due to my prolonged absence. Grand-Mère’s spectral vision just isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Madame is . . . ?” Jean-Paul’s thoughts swam in drunken circles inside his skull. “No, it’s all just superstition. How can any of this be real?”

  She gestured to the sky with eyes cast up. “How can it not?”

  His feet seemed to float beneath him. He worried his knees might buckle in front of this woman. He needed a drink. He needed a priest. God almighty, he had to be rid of her. Without another word he turned on his heel and returned to the house, slamming the door and shutting out the world behind him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The cellar felt tolerably warm after standing outside in the cold spring air for so long. Elena threw off the ridiculous tablecloth and lit three fat candles, enough to give her strong light to read by. She hadn’t followed him to the house. He was angry. Scared. He needed time alone to wrestle with his doubt. She’d expected that. What she hadn’t anticipated was her own need to huddle in a safe space. The spell to alter the broken wine bottle in the fire had depleted her energy, yes, but at the same time something fervent swam in her humors.

  His hand.

  The heat from his skin still tingled on her palm. She’d felt a tiny flame of magic ignite inside her at his touch. Her heart ticked faster thinking about the spark. Her blood was still more water than fire, but for the first time since she’d awoken from the curse her power flowed toward healing. Despite her doubt, a full recovery might be possible. But how was it possible?

  She flipped through her grimoire, ignoring the book’s incessant sighs and riffling pages suggesting she read up on love potions. Instead, she stopped on a passage explaining the static transfer of electricity from one body to another. Could that truly be all it took to revive a cursed soul? A little body heat? And what about the change she’d noticed in the vine itself? The deep melancholia she’d discovered the night she returned had felt like an anchor tugging her to the bottom of a black sea. But moments ago, with the first leaves ready to unfold, she’d detected a subtle shift, its mood no longer cloaked in gloom. More than the normal tilt toward spring that always swung on the hinge of hope, this change had coincided with the one inside her. But what particle of unseen fate had brought the change?

  Lacking any clear answer, Elena turned again to the study of poison. A paragraph on the slow and painful death caused by ingesting castor beans proved so fascinating, she almost didn’t register the clattering of horse hooves across the cobblestones. So he’d left. At a gallop. He was more frightened by the revelat
ion than she’d realized, but she’d best not intervene. He’d have to come out of it on his own terms. Closing him out of her thoughts, she turned her full focus on the spell book. If her strength truly was returning, she could begin distilling the poison. Eyes skimming over the complicated steps she would have to perform, she studied every ingredient and subtlety of the concoction until ribbons of misshapen candle wax pooled on the workbench.

  And still he hadn’t returned.

  She stared again at her palm. The sensation of his touch hadn’t subsided. If anything, it grew as she thought about Jean-Paul again. He was stubborn and prideful, but not so much that it closed him off from accepting the truth about her. He’d circle around in time. But where could he be? She cared more than she wished to admit, but knowing he’d come home when he was ready, she snuffed the wicks and went to bed, as startled by what had transpired between them as he must be.

  In the morning she retrieved the milk bottles off the back step and carried them inside to Grand-Mère. The kitchen, normally abuzz with prework bustle while Jean-Paul finished his breakfast and read his Le Temps, was quiet as a funeral. The man’s chair sat empty, and his work boots slouched unworn near the door. He hadn’t come home.

  “You knew he was a nonbeliever.” There was no accusation in Grand-Mère’s tone; she merely stated the obvious as she entered the kitchen still tying her apron. “It’s a lot to accept for a man with strong convictions of his own. How do you want your eggs?”

  “We might have lost the vineyard to Bastien if I hadn’t told him. Besides, we’re past bud break. The fruit will be setting on the vine soon. I have to be able to do my spells in the open if I’m ever going to rid the place of that woman’s hexwork.”

  Grand-Mère waved a hand, dismissing the idea. “That man wants to make wine. Good wine. He doesn’t want to sell. At least he didn’t before he learned the place was overrun with witches.” The old woman shrugged. “And anyway, it’s already lost to me. And you.”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  Elena puffed air out from her cheeks and pushed her empty plate aside. The vineyard couldn’t be lost. It just couldn’t.

  Hours later, with one eye constantly watching the road, she and Grand-Mère attended to the chores. She prodded the plow horse out between the vines to finish churning up the rocky soil and loosen the year’s compaction. The earth had to breathe again to encourage new growth. Were men any different?

  After a midday meal of broth and bread, she ducked into the cellar to top off what the angels had stolen for their share from the barrels over the week and to test the progression of last year’s wine. It was a chore she did not mind doing alone, though she’d grown accustomed to Jean-Paul’s company and his close observation of her as she swished the wine in her mouth, tasting, sensing, and deciding best how to counter his missteps. His absence echoed in the stillness when, certain the plum undertones would never mature in the barrel, she thought to ask him what moon phase he’d harvested in. He wouldn’t have known the answer, but she enjoyed watching his face struggle with the logic of her questions. Of course, now she could explain the importance of the moon’s tug on the grape skin for rounding out the full flavors just before picking. If only he were there.

  But by late afternoon, it was clear either the man’s fear or his ego wouldn’t allow him to come home. She went to the cellar and dug out the burlap sack she’d stuffed behind the back barrels. She thought she’d rid herself of any need for the goatherd’s clothes again, but now she was thankful she’d stashed them instead of burning the garments with the rest of the rubbish. Taking the bundle with her, she returned to her room and changed into the stiff woolen skirt and blouse. She slipped her feet into a pair of clumsy sabots and tied a red scarf on her head. She’d given the clothes a rinse in lavender water before tying them up in the burlap sack, but it only added a flowery stench to the lingering odor of dung.

  Pleased, however, with the effect of the clothes as a disguise, she retrieved her bolline—the work knife she used to cut herbs—and tucked it in the leather belt she’d added. She picked up the threadbare cloak and then tapped on the kitchen door.

  “I’m going to the village to find him,” she announced, slipping the cloak on over the ragged skirt. “He can’t stay afraid of the truth forever.”

  “You’d be surprised what a stubborn man is capable of.” Grand-Mère looked her up and down and frowned. “Why on earth have you put those rags on again?”

  “I don’t want anyone to recognize me yet.”

  “Well, I’ll wish you luck. Though, if you ask me, wearing that pretty blue dress of yours would be more potent than magic to lure the man back home.”

  An hour later Elena stood on the road overlooking the village, rubbing her sore foot where the wooden sabot pinched the nub of her missing toe. From where she stood the town looked much the same as it always had. The abbey’s bell tower rose above the tile roofs like a compass pointing at the sky, while at street level the cobbled stonework buildings bore the burnished patina of centuries of wear. But smaller changes disoriented her once she reached the main street. There had been a metalwork sign—a dragon with elaborate grape clusters draped about its neck—that hung over the door of the first shop after the bridge. A bit of whimsy, something from childhood she had always looked forward to seeing on her trips to the village. When very young she’d imagined the dragon winked back when she said hello, and once she mastered her magic, it actually did. But the sign was no longer there. Nor were the Aucoins who ran the shop inside.

  Elena raised the hood on her cloak over her head and turned her face toward the empty shop glass as a man approached on the sidewalk. She didn’t yet know what to expect from the village and its inhabitants. Would they recognize her? Would they wonder where she’d been? Would they even remember? The man, a banker as she recalled, didn’t even tip his hat as he passed, presumably taking her for the goatherd she pretended to be. Confident of her disguise, she limped past him to the place where the road split—one fork bending uphill toward the respectable shops and businesses, the other descending to the more unsavory end of the village, where there were no streetlamps to chase away the shadows.

  At the top of the hill she spied a gentleman’s tavern. A man wanting to hide from the truth might spend a night and a day drinking in a place like that, she reasoned. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and peered inside at the half-filled room ripe with the aroma of onions and garlic and sour beer. A handful of men in patch-worn corduroy jackets and dingy white shirts with tab collars loitered at the bar, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and lifting warm glasses of beer to their mustached mouths. A few cocked their heads in her direction, but none let their eye linger for long. Not seeing Jean-Paul among them, she was forced to try the bistro, the general store, and the one small hotel, where she asked for him by name. But all shook their heads, saying he had not been in town for a week or more and, anyway, it was no business of a goatherd’s what a gentleman like Jean-Paul Martel did with his time.

  She had never felt more like a stranger. The disguise had done its job, but she’d had little need for the charade. So many faces were unfamiliar to her. Three new houses had been built on the hillside, a perfumery had opened where a flower shop used to be, and a wine merchant on the corner sold bottles from Domaine du Monde that advertised “tastings.”

  And then there was Pâtisserie d’Amour. She knew without entering that Tilda still ran the shop as its secret magic wafted out the door.

  The smell of fresh-baked pain au chocolat hit her full in the face. The scent intoxicated, filling her with the same warmth she’d felt the night before. Temptation drifted under her nose, stirring a craving inside her like she’d never known. She yearned to taste the buttery sweetness in her mouth, feel the warm chocolate melt on her tongue, and lick the flaky crumbs from her lips. It frightened her how much she wanted to give in because she understood how the magic worked. Tilda’s mag
ic wasn’t a love spell exactly, but if you caught a whiff of one of her confections and found the lure impossible to resist, it meant she’d tapped into your tastes and desires. But the craving only took hold if there was someone in your thoughts. Someone you were falling in love with. Someone basic and good and reliable, yet filled with surprising stubbornness.

  Elena began to cross the street toward the shop, her will not her own, when a horse and wagon thundered past, forcing her to step back. That moment of disruption wrenched her loose from the spell, and she backed away from the pâtisserie. Covering her nose and mouth with the end of her cloak, she darted off the street and into the nearest refuge.

  Elena shut the door to the post office behind her, thankful for the mundane scents of polished wood and paper dust. As she regained her bearings, she decided to question the postmaster. Perhaps Jean-Paul had stopped to check on his mail, and maybe he even mentioned where he was off to next. Two women stood in line to collect their letters, so she perused the notices on the wall while she waited. Curiously, she found it filled with several pleas for information on missing pets.

  “There’s been another one,” the clerk said after the other women exited.

  She turned, still holding her cloak over half her face. “Another?”

  “Killing, that is. This one out near the Lambert place.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  The man looked up from his work to study her over the tops of his glasses. He straightened and blinked twice in sober appreciation. “Ah, you’re not from around here.” He removed his glasses and gestured broadly with them toward the notices on the wall. “The animal killings. Cats, dogs, rabbits, sometimes a fox turns up. Blood drained right out of them. Puts people on edge the way it’s been escalating lately. People are starting to say they’re ritual killings.”

  Horrified, Elena glanced at the notices on the wall with new appreciation. As she read, a shadow crossed her vision, nudging a dormant memory to the forefront. Gooseflesh rose on her skin as she recalled another of Grand-Mère’s rhymes from childhood.