The Vine Witch

by Smith, Luanne G.

  He’d grown up hearing the stories about the Chanceaux Valley, of course. Everyone did. Just stories, he’d thought. Superstition. Quaint country folklore. He’d even seen the witches plying their trade in the country villages as a boy, with their potions, palm readings, and tarot cards spread out on tables outside the bistros. Christ, he’d even had his fortune told to him once. A raven-haired woman with jeweled fingers whispered to a small dog on her lap, then flipped over three cards as he walked past. She’d locked eyes with his ten-year-old self and warned him about wearing other men’s shoes. He’d laughed at the woman, while his father, in a holiday mood, had chucked a small coin in her cup.

  That was before his introduction to the wine.

  A decade later, returning as a young man exploring the world available to a bon vivant on summer break from law school, he’d set about sampling the varied wines of the Chanceaux Valley. Even then he’d hoarded a case of Château Vermillion’s vintage ’99, impressed by its structure and the smooth inebriation it brought on after one glass. The first Du Monde reds he’d tried were bold yet immature, but he saw the promise and audacity and so collected those too. A bottle of Domain Da Silva was so good it got him into the bed of a foreign heiress visiting the valley on holiday. And later, when he better understood the seduction of wine, he’d courted his fiancée Madeleine with a bottle (or was it two?) of Mercier-LeGrande, ’02. He’d thought it the finest wine he’d ever had the pleasure to drink. The fruit, the alcohol, the residual influence of the terroir were in perfect balance in that particular vintage. He didn’t think he’d find anything to compare. Then a friend introduced him to Château Renard, a small vineyard at the base of the hills that had made a name for itself with its self-assured old vines. He’d tilted his first glass in front of the glow of an electric lamp, noting the warm ruby color as it stirred alive against the artificial light. He’d swirled the glass, then pressed his nose inside the rim to sample the bouquet of black currants, a hint of woodsmoke, and ripe figs. The wine itself flowed like velvet in his mouth. It aroused the smooth sensuality of being inside a woman in the midst of lovemaking, the confluence of pleasure and attraction, the taste of lust on the tongue.

  Magic. Yes, even then his instinct had called it that. The wine was hers. It had to be.

  Thinking of her brought back the image of the creature she’d shown him in the vineyard, the strange fog, and the eerie glow hovering over his fields. Torn, he glanced back at the threshold of the six-hundred-year-old abbey. He’d still been drunk when he’d shown up in the middle of the night and pounded on the door, demanding to speak to someone, anyone who could explain what the hell he’d witnessed. He didn’t see how it could be possible. There were laws of physics. Doctrines of religion. The empirical evidence of the senses. But they’d all been rendered useless by what he’d seen.

  The monk who answered the door, Brother Anselm, had patiently let him in and led him to the kitchen. It had smelled of bread and vinegar from a day’s labor of baking and scrubbing. The monk set out two mugs of strong tea and a plate of bread and cheese while Jean-Paul described what he’d seen. His hands had shaken as he recalled the gargoyle’s eyes opening to look directly at him.

  “Was it witchcraft?” he’d asked. “Is she . . . a witch?”

  Brother Anselm had tapped his lip thoughtfully with his finger. “We are privileged to have among our population a fair number of them, yes.”

  “Privileged?” Distressed, he’d pushed his chair away and paced the floor. “You’re not afraid? You’re not compelled to cast them out?”

  “That would be a mistake.”

  He’d lost control of his senses. There was no other explanation. “But this can’t be,” he said. “They can’t be real.”

  The monk observed him patiently. “Do you like cheese, Monsieur Martel?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What about yogurt and bread? I assume you’re fond of wine.”

  “What?” He’d begun to think he was sleepwalking in a drunken dream. “What does that have to do with the madness I saw tonight?”

  Brother Anselm motioned to the bowls of bread dough rising on the counter waiting to be baked into loaves in a few short hours. “My job at the abbey, aside from serving God, is to feed its inhabitants. All day I bake, I churn, I clean. It never ends.”

  Jean-Paul slumped back down in his chair. He’d come to the wrong place. He was going to get a lecture on how expensive it was to run an abbey purely on donations and could the monsieur please see it in his heart to add a few coins to the coffers to help them out. In exchange he’d be given a benediction, a blessing, and a promise to look into the witch business.

  To his great surprise, he was instead given a science lesson.

  “When I first came to the abbey I asked many of the same questions. Who are these witches? Is their magic dangerous? How could something exist if I can’t see it? That, I believe, is the essence of what you’re wrestling with, monsieur. And the answer is in the cheese.”

  He’d begun to question if the old man’s mind was gone, but the monk waved off his look of doubt and begged Jean-Paul to hear him out.

  Brother Anselm broke open the chunk of yellow cheese he’d set out. “Do you smell that? The ripeness? Nutty almost. A little sour, a little salty. Les pieds de Dieu. Do not tell my superior, but the smell of God’s feet is heaven to me.” The monk smiled. Threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Eight months ago I added milk, rennet, and a little salt together in a wooden vat. Pressed it, shaped it, and put it on the shelf to age. Today I have a delicious cheese to share with a guest. But the flavor, monsieur, that grows from something I did not add.”

  “You refer to the bacteria.” Jean-Paul sat forward, surprised to find himself in the company of a man who’d followed the latest discoveries. “You’ve read the science?”

  “We live a humble life at the abbey, but we do not close ourselves off to the world. Yes, those unseen microbes are what create the rich texture and flavor of the cheese.” The monk kissed his thumb and fingertips in exclamation, signifying the magnificent result. “But, of course, now we know how these small wonders occur—miracles in my humble estimation—because men can look through a microscope and see them, track them, but for all the centuries before that, the mysterious process must have seemed like—”

  “Magic.” And he’d begun to see.

  “Precisely. Fairies, elves, gnomes, witches—they’ve all been credited or blamed. What the eye couldn’t see, the imagination filled in. We put names to the unexplained. Cast it as something to either fear or worship. And yet just because a thing can’t be seen doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” The monk lifted his palms skyward. “In truth, you could say almost everything I do here at the abbey relies on a belief in the unseen. In my profession we use faith to see; in science it’s the microscope. With magic, we don’t yet know how to quantify that range of unseen energy. We lack the proper tool. But not so for the witch.”

  “So you’re saying the witches, this magic they do, it’s conceivable it’s merely a part of the natural world, only we don’t yet have the means to measure how it works?” He rubbed his hand through his hair, trying to make sense of it all. “She told me as much. She said she was showing me things that occurred outside the normal spectrum of human vision.”

  “Ah. Yes. Like ultraviolet light. This, too, I have read about.”

  Jean-Paul nodded, though not yet entirely convinced. “As you say, these bacteria in cheese are of the beneficial type. But where there is good there is also bad. Like cholera or flu. Also unseen, yet dangerous. What if this witchcraft works the same way? There might be benefit, but could there also be something to fear?”

  Brother Anselm steepled his fingers. “The locals won’t admit it, won’t say a bad word against the vine witches, but malefaction does happen. You’ve no doubt heard of the devastation that swept through the valley’s vineyards half a century ago.”

  “The phylloxera? Nearly every vine was kille
d because of the infestation.”

  “Terrible times by all accounts. But despite official reports, it was no insect that was to blame. It was Celestine, the last witch to be burned in the Chanceaux Valley.”

  Skeptical, Jean-Paul leaned forward as the monk relayed the story of a young witch who once worked the vines at Château Vermillion. One day she’d found herself with child, the result of an affair with the village mayor. Instead of marrying the woman and claiming the child as he should have done, he claimed he’d been spellbound. Hexed. Spurned, the witch cursed the entire valley. Not every witch can do that, explained the monk. But this one had broken the rules of the covenants and summoned a disastrous, forbidden magic. She nearly devastated the entire valley to smite one man. “So, yes,” the monk said. “As with the bacteria, the valley mostly benefits from the witches and their magic. Though it’s just as possible for their power to turn deadly under the right, or perhaps I should say wrong, conditions. Bear in mind, however, all witches born after the 1745 Covenant Laws were ratified are absolutely bound by its decree. The consequences of stepping outside the law are quite severe.”

  At last Jean-Paul had found firm ground to stand on. If there was a covenant agreement, a lawful decree, then there were books and documents he could study. Laws he could test and weigh against the magic he’d seen. Rules and punishments. Finally he could get his bearings and find his way forward in the midst of uncertainty and fear.

  As if reading his mind, Brother Anselm waved him forward. “Come, let me show you to our library. There are some books there I think you might find useful.”

  And that was where Jean-Paul had stayed until the strain of reading by candlelight put unending pressure on the tender nerve above his right eye, as well as his heart.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A thousand blackbirds swooped into the narrow lane. Wings dipped and flapped, ugly squawks rattled out of feathered throats, and claws spread open to strike. Or at least the illusion of a thousand blackbirds descending on the inspector filled the darkened space. If Elena had been forced to summon the birds on the main road above, where the setting sun was unobstructed by spells, the translucent nature of their true form would have shown through. But in the dingy lane on the outer edge of the village, her illusion thrived in shadow. The inspector dived for cover, his voice of alarm drowned out by the incessant screeching of the fabricated birds. In the days before her curse she could have conjured real birds and had the man pecked a thousand times. Still, the display was enough. While the inspector ducked with his arms covering his head, she escaped inside the nearest building.

  The acid tang of soap and lye filled her lungs as she darted across the launderette. Dodging wet trousers and limp bedsheets hung on a line, she ran for the rectangle of light at the back of the room, where an open door led to an alley. Much to the surprise of the worker scrubbing shirts against a washboard, she dipped under his clothesline and through the exit, shutting the door behind her.

  A Bureau man would use every tool at his disposal to sniff out the truth of who she was after the stunt she’d just pulled. And then the entire village would know she was back, including Bastien and his bierhexe. In her weakened state, they’d destroy her.

  Her feet fought for traction in the alley as she struggled to return to the upper end of the village, but it was as if her legs trudged through mud. The spell had depleted her last ounce of energy. She’d only made it halfway through the alley when her heart pounded hard enough she had to stop and catch her breath. She leaned against a wooden door under an arched alcove. She needed a plan, yet logic seemed to fly out of her head the moment she formed an idea. If only she could rest.

  The inspector burst through the back door of the laundry shop, casting threats into the open alley. He pushed over wooden crates and kicked at abandoned barrels in his way, shouting for her to show herself. He couldn’t have been more than a block behind her.

  Why had she come to the village? She should never have taken the risk. But then she thought of Jean-Paul, and her resolve returned. She pulled the work knife from her belt. Blood raced to her temples, throbbing in sync with her panicked heart. The inspector taunted her to come out in the open as he rattled door handles and pounded on doorjambs. A boot sole thudded against a wooden plank. The sound of frustration. But it was not followed by a stomp up the alley in her direction. Not yet. She pushed her back flat against the door and calmed her breathing until her heartbeat normalized again. Stupid man. Why couldn’t he have minded his own business instead of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations?

  Two quick breaths later, desperation incited her to act. Gripping the knife, she jiggled the door handle, forcing the lock with the tip of her blade. The door gave way and she squeezed inside, clicking it silently closed behind her. She didn’t need to look up at the brick oven and copper mixing bowls to know where she was. The intoxicating aroma of butter, chocolate, and sugar hit her full in the face.

  Of all the shops in the village, she’d broken into the kitchen of Pâtisserie d’Amour.

  Her head reeled at the scents, her mouth watered with want, but fear overrode her craving. With her cloak pulled over her nose and mouth, she staggered through the curtain into the main shop, skirting past the glass case full of macarons, custard tarts, and freshly baked croissants. Tilda, her head wrapped in a blue silk scarf, looked up from a tray of pain au chocolat fresh from the oven. Elena gave a heartbreaking sigh at the sight and averted her eyes as she stumbled for the front door, narrowly avoiding the seduction.

  “Thief!”

  Tilda chased her to the door with her spatula held like a weapon, shouting her accusation into the street for everyone to hear. Shop owners, the postmaster, and even a pair of waiters stuck their heads outside to see what had happened. Elena dared a quick look over her shoulder before darting into the road to maneuver around a couple strolling arm in arm on the sidewalk.

  In her desperation to escape, she didn’t register the rumble of the engine rattling along the cobblestones. Didn’t see the headlights bearing down on her.

  The driver slammed on the brakes, locking up the wheels. The rubber tires skidded on the stones as a woman shrieked in warning. The horn sounded and the goose-nosed auto jolted to a stop a mere foot from Elena’s body. The hot gasp of the engine exhaled against her legs as she froze with her eyes dead set on the driver.

  A cloud of steam roiled up from the car’s engine. The man rose out of the driver’s seat, waving his hat to clear the air. Seeing how close he’d come to hitting her, he gripped the windshield and leaned forward to inspect the front of his car for damage. “Blast it, goat woman, what were you thinking running into the road like that? Didn’t you see me coming?”

  She’d already felt the rough chafe of his voice against her heart, having listened through the bricks, but she wasn’t prepared to meet him face-to-face in the street. To look into the same eyes that had once stared deep into hers and claimed everlasting love. Eyes that quickly betrayed her after a sideways glance toward his new lover: ambition. Eyes she now wanted to scratch out with her bare hands.

  He continued yelling at her, more worried about his confounded machine than whether he’d injured a pedestrian. Seven years he’d had her cursed and left for dead, and he couldn’t even be bothered to look up after nearly killing her a second time. But she thanked the All Knowing the man was such a self-centered ass. It might just give her the small chance she needed to escape. She wrapped the end of her cloak back over her face and turned for the opposite side of the street.

  “You there, stop! Someone stop that woman.”

  Nettles. The inspector sprang out of the pâtisserie, eyes on his prey. Despite the weakness in her legs, the doubt in her heart, and the closeness of the growing crowd, Elena ran from the car, away from the inspector, desperate for a way out. In her panic, her clumsy sabot caught on a cobblestone and she stumbled, tearing her skirt and scraping her knee. The postmaster beckoned her forward, showing her the open road behi
nd him. She got to her feet and lifted her hem, ready to run, when a firm hand grabbed her by the arm and spun her back around.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jean-Paul’s mind swayed over everything he’d read as he nudged his horse onto the village’s main road. As the sun went down he realized he’d been gone nearly twenty-four hours. Scratching at his new beard confirmed it. But she could have no quarrel with the way he’d reacted. The world had changed, not him. Though that wasn’t quite true. For good or bad, he would never be the same after the things he’d seen.

  He gave the horse a kick to hurry the beast along when he noticed a commotion on the street ahead. A crowd had gathered in a circle to gape at what he assumed was yet another traffic accident. He fancied the new automobiles and nearly bought one himself when he still lived in the city, but they were unquestionably a danger in these country villages. Twice now there had been a collision between a car coming down the main road at top speed and a horse-drawn cart stubbornly plugging along at last century’s pace.

  It occurred to him he’d been the cart most recently, nearly run over by the revelation that the witches of the Chanceaux Valley were no mere superstition invented to draw in tourists. They were real. Their magic was real. Even the thing he’d seen. To say he’d been blindsided by the revelation would be an understatement. And yet he’d walked away from the collision mostly unharmed.

  Twenty-four hours ago, in a rare moment of uncertainty, he’d considered selling Château Renard so he could be done chasing after some phantom vision of the perfect wine. He’d been ready to tell his mother the dream had withered. He’d return to the family law practice. No questions would be asked, and his days would go on as they had before, his life shrinking like a raisin until he died early like his father. But that was the difference, wasn’t it? He felt alive here. Expansive. Creative. His work meant something to him. He felt it in the exhaustion of his body, the clarity of his thoughts, the unexplained happiness he took from seeing a leaf unfurl fresh and green and full of potential. It fed his soul, his mind, and his heart. He didn’t make good wine yet, but he would. With her help, by God, he would.