The Vine Witch

by Smith, Luanne G.

  The snap of handcuffs followed.

  Matron had been waiting in the hallway. She clapped a restraint on Gerda’s right wrist the moment the bierhexe got caught between her and the inspector. The left wrist evaded her, however.

  “What is this?” Gerda yanked and twisted, trying to get free. She screamed like a fox with its foot caught in a trap. “What are you doing, you fools? She’s the murderer. Arrest her. I am Madame Du Monde. You’re making a terrible mistake.” She hissed and tried to sink her teeth into Matron’s arm. The inspector pinned her against the wall with his body and finished handcuffing her other wrist. The blue light of the runes glowed to life, sapping the witch’s magic. Both Matron and the inspector exhaled in relief.

  “How much did you hear?” Elena asked once they had their prisoner under control.

  The inspector held up his seashell listening charm. “I caught the confession. Your man upstairs showed us the demon and the summoning circle. Hell of a mess this whole thing, but you ought to be granted bail while it gets sorted out in court.” She thanked him, and he gave her a grudging nod, adding, “We’ll discuss the disappearance of your cohorts later.”

  She remained silent and dutifully followed as they frog-marched Gerda through the narrow corridor to return to the main barrel room. They’d walked only a few feet when Gerda stumbled, writhing in pain, her back arching as if caught in a spasm. It appeared a trick. A stalling measure to buy time or sympathy. A way to slither free through a feint of injury. Elena braced herself for a confrontation.

  “I didn’t do it.” Gerda pleaded with Matron, tugging on the handcuffs. “Whatever deal she’s made with you, I can give you life. Immortality. We could live forever. You and me. Just take these damn things off!”

  Matron rolled her eyes and prodded Gerda forward again. But the witch’s outburst was more than prisoner dramatics. The aging metamorphosis had begun to reverse again, but at a freakishly fast pace.

  “The cuffs,” Elena said, remembering the sensation of having her magic severed by the restraints. “They’ve cut off the spell that’s been keeping her alive.”

  Gerda’s eyes widened in horrified realization of what was happening to her. In seconds her hair turned gray and fell out, her skin sagged, and the eyes clouded over. She’d transformed into the same old toothless woman she’d been before, but then her body recoiled even more violently. She cried out in agony, shriveling to an impossible thinness of bone and skin, like a twisted strip of leather withering in the sun. Seconds later, desiccated as an ancient mummy, the skull crumbled and the body disintegrated into a pile of dust and bone beneath a layer of black mourning lace.

  Time had finally come to collect the death it had been cheated for three hundred years.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  There’d been no midday fire in the stove. The grate was cool to the touch. No bread crumbs on the table, no plates drying on the dishcloth, and the delivery of eggs still sat on the back step beside the geranium pots. Madame had not returned home.

  “She’s not upstairs or in the sitting room,” Jean-Paul said, returning to the kitchen.

  Elena tried to hide her concern, but the way her eyes and fingertips checked for details beyond his vision told him the prolonged absence wasn’t normal.

  “She’s probably still upset over all that’s happened,” he said. “Perhaps she stayed in town to see a friend.”

  “She went to see Brother Anselm, but that was hours ago. I’ll get another message to her later.”

  Jean-Paul hung up his jacket and homburg on the rack near the back door. His button-up shirt was covered in blood and sweat, his and hers. He’d tried to hide it, but she noticed him flinch as he slipped his arms out of the jacket.

  “Come to my workroom. I need to put some salve on those wounds.”

  There was a pause as he bit his lip. He held back from saying what was on his mind, but she’d guessed anyway.

  “Yes, it’s magic. Good magic. You won’t feel a thing.”

  He doubted that. Nothing this woman did left him without feeling. He followed after a compliant nod. Regrettably the workroom was located in the cellar, a space neither wished to revisit so soon, but he propped the main door open to add air and light. He’d not entered her workroom before. The times he’d tried to get a look inside it had been locked, jammed, and seemingly blockaded from the other side. Now, as she held her hand over the lock and whispered a spell, he suspected it might also have been secured by an enchantment. The door swung open without so much as a squeak.

  He had to confront his privileged standards of normal when he saw the smallness of the space she’d been living in. The single bed, the trunk, the desk, and the shelves overflowing with bottles containing bits of leaf, fur, and animal bone—Madame had been closer to the truth when she’d called it an old storage closet full of brooms.

  She selected several bottles, shaking their contents and considering, before replacing them back on the shelf. Her finger paused at an empty space, a toothless hole in an otherwise full smile of apothecary jars. Her brow tightened. Her lips pressed together in concentration as she searched the desk.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Strange, there was a bottle here and now it’s gone.”

  “Madame was in here earlier.”

  Elena considered it and then shook her head as if setting the thought aside. She reached for her mortar and pestle, then began crushing a handful of dried leaves. “You’ll need to unbutton your shirt,” she said, adding the grindings to a jar of sweet-smelling cream.

  He obliged, ever more aware of the impropriety of the two of them being in her room alone together. He decided he didn’t care and opened his shirt to let her fingers probe his tender ribs. He sucked in a short breath at her touch.

  “Breathe,” she said and applied the cream, smoothing her hands over his side while she whispered soft words of healing and mending.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, feeling slightly dizzy from the nearness of her. “Before. To make you go away?”

  She looked up at him with those cat eyes of hers, only this time she didn’t turn away or change the subject. “Someone put a curse on me. A bad one. It took seven years to break it so I could free myself. That’s why I was gone so long.”

  “Someone? You don’t know who?”

  “I was convinced it was Bastien. But it wasn’t. Now I don’t know.”

  He wanted to put his arms around her. He wanted to protect her. It was absurd to think someone with her supposed powers might need his protection, but he remembered the desperate look in her eye as she’d faced Du Monde in the street. Trapped like a wild bird fighting to get out of a cage. Now he knew why. And now he understood that whoever cursed her was still out there.

  She handed him the jar of cream and turned her head so that her neck was exposed to him. “Just dab it on the worst of it.”

  “Do I say something?” She smiled and had him repeat the incantation. As he applied the salve and spoke the words, he felt the familiar static run over his skin. He didn’t think he’d done any real magic by saying the spell—he understood his place on the spectrum—but an enchanted energy seemed to envelop them just the same.

  In the luster of that magic he studied her face. Her golden eyes, which on another woman might advertise a sultry nature, held only warmth and wisdom. Her hair, her skin, her lips—he was bewitched by his need to caress the supple feel of her. He felt the pain in his ribs subside, only to be replaced by an even stronger ache to hold her. He lifted his hand to cup the soft edge of neck and cheek. She didn’t pull away. When the urge to press his lips to hers grew so strong his chest heaved from the craving, he stole his chance and kissed her. And when her body yielded, as hungry for the taste of him as he for her, he let passion guide his hands, pushing off the silver-beaded bodice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  She absorbed the weight of his bare arm draped over her hip and the warmth of his breath on her neck as he slept beside her on the be
d. Love magic, she was learning, could be a powerful curative. As it spread through her body, filling in the last tiny crevices left cold and empty from the curse, her instinct led her to ruminate on the melancholia infecting the vines. It was as if the roots had suffered an injury. Like a stone bruise or ulcer of the stomach. But that wasn’t quite right. It was more emotional. Like the pain of a broken heart. And yet the cause evaded her. In the morning she would pull out Grand-Mère’s old grimoire from the early planting days and see if there was anything to be gleaned on the emotional state of plants.

  Satisfied with her thoughts, she nestled in closer to Jean-Paul. She’d just settled into a dreamy state of happiness when a scratching at the door made her lift her head.

  Jean-Paul stirred awake and kissed her neck softly. “What is it?”

  “I think there’s someone at the door.”

  He sat up, listening. “Stay here—I’ll get it,” he said, grabbing his glasses. He tugged his trousers on and then opened the door a crack. His shoulders relaxed as he looked down. “It’s only a bird.”

  Elena lifted her head to see a pigeon bobbing back and forth. “No, it’s a message. It must be from Grand-Mère.” She propped herself up on one elbow and called to the bird. It obediently flapped its wings, landing on her hip. “Odd she used a pigeon,” she said, looking over the dingy gray bird. “Grand-Mère swears by doves.”

  “Naturally,” he said. He picked up his dirty shirt and shook it out. “But where’s the message? I don’t see any note tied to its leg.”

  She gave him a pitying stare before coaxing the bird to speak by rubbing her finger under its beak. It cooed its message like a perfect gentleman, until Elena sat up so quickly she startled the bird into retreat. It dropped a pair of feathers as it flew back out the door.

  “The pigeon spoke to you?” He shook his head as though the exchange were just another bewilderment to add to an already rich pile. “Is something wrong? Is it from Madame?”

  “No, it’s from someone else.” But she hardly knew how to explain. She collected the feathers and kicked off the blanket. “It was from the barkeep at the tavern. I have to go,” Elena said as she dug through her trunk for something to wear.

  “Tavern?” Jean-Paul shrugged on his shirt. “You’re going out? Now?”

  She paused as she rolled up her stockings. “Yes. May I borrow your horse?”

  “May I come with you?”

  She clipped a stocking in place. “It would be better if you didn’t.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but she kissed him before he could speak. When she felt the argument go out of him, she pulled away, ready to acquiesce. “Very well,” she said, wondering how she would ever deny him anything he wanted again. “Get the horse.”

  The sun had faded to a gauzy pink over the hills as they stood outside Grimalkin & Paddock’s. Her heart fluttered with the intensity of a moth’s wing against a lantern, knowing what had brought her there.

  Jean-Paul tied the horse’s lead to a post with an iron frog for a finial. “How is it I’ve never seen this place before?” He looked around as if to get his bearings.

  “Did you feel spiderwebs against your face as we rode up?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Spellwork often feels like walking through a web for a mortal. This end of the road is protected by enchantments to make it less interesting to nonmagical passersby, but since you’re with me you’re seeing it as I do.”

  “The rats aren’t enough to keep the curious away?” He stomped his foot in the face of a large rodent that had come to inspect him from the alley.

  She nudged her chin at the rat and pointed, and it scurried away. “This is a witch’s tavern. I let you come this far, but it really would be best if you wait outside while I do this.”

  “I can’t let you go in there alone if it’s dangerous. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

  She tried to peer through the window, but the usual dingy, yellowed grime coated the glass, obscuring the view. “I’ll be all right,” she said, patting her pockets. “I’m prepared.” And she was. She’d brought every protective talisman, amulet, charm, and herb she possessed. This time she would not be blindsided.

  Jean-Paul began to protest, but in the end he had no choice but to trust her. He kissed her cheek and said he would wait with the horse. He was learning. Still, she was grateful to know he would be nearby as she opened the door to the seedy tavern.

  The main room, normally half-empty on a good night, bustled with customers. There wasn’t a seat to be had. Elena threaded her way through the crowd, ever more aware that it wasn’t the usual locals. A group of sorcerers who looked as if they’d just disembarked a train from the other side of the world shook their turbaned heads and blew smoke into the air as they debated the number and meaning of the dead cats. She gave a wide berth to the cloud of tobacco and gin hovering near them and emerged next to the table by the window, where a sagging cobweb hung precariously low over the patrons’ heads. Two young witches sat across from each other studying their tarot cards. The one with the city accent tapped her finger on the Empress and smugly noted she’d foretold the death of the demon-dancing witch a week earlier. The other pointed to the Wheel of Fortune and said it was pure luck. Elena stood on her toes to look for Madame Grimalkin and ended up bumping into a man whose face was tattooed with black swirls and dots that she was sure contained its own type of magic. He took her measure with a curious glance, one absent of attraction yet fully inquisitive, then inhaled. His eyes widened with excitement. “You’re a winemaker. Like the evil-hearted one,” he said. “Did you know this woman? Is it true she drank the blood of a mortal man?”

  He was talking about Gerda. They all were. Everyone in the room, it seemed, had come to revel in the details of her crimes and death. How many doves had been busy flapping their wings over the countryside to spread the news?

  “No, I didn’t know her,” she lied, suddenly struck by the realization that any one of the strangers in the room could be the one who had cursed her. And then she saw them. The long ringlets of gold hair and the embroidered jacket with the faded flowers. The Charlatan sisters were there, raising their glasses with everyone else and cheering Gerda’s death. Or perhaps her accomplishments.

  She was about to confront them when a bony hand grabbed her by the arm. Before she could protest she was shuttled into a dark corner. Her hand went to her knife.

  “Thank the All Knowing you got my message.” Madame Grimalkin checked over her shoulder, then looked straight at her. “It was just like you said. A green dragon’s eye.”

  She released her grip on the knife. “You saw the watch?”

  Her gray head nodded. “It’s a gentleman that owns it.”

  “Gentleman?” She glanced again at the Charlatan sisters, laughing and dancing across the room. “Are you sure?”

  “Well, that’s how he presents himself, though I wouldn’t say it of a man who goes around cursing his own kind, if it’s him.”

  A man? Of all the times she’d fantasized about this moment, it had never occurred to her she’d be facing a male witch. But who? Why? She felt as if she’d drifted even further from the answers she’d been looking for.

  Grimalkin set her serving tray on top of the bar and held up two fingers to her husband as she shouted for beer. “So what are you going to do?” she asked. “I don’t want any trouble. No more than the usual anyway. We’ve got a good crowd tonight on account of that demon witch dying. People are hoping the authorities’ll sell off her bones and ash for talismans. Isn’t that right, Paddy?”

  Paddock set two frothing glasses of beer on Grimalkin’s tray. “If they don’t, I’ve a mind to sweep up the coals from the fire and sell ’em as witch bones myself. I’d make a fortune.” He laughed before waddling back to the tap to fill another glass. “About time we had a bit of good luck around here.”

  “That’s why I love you, Paddy.” Grimalkin picked up her tray. “So what’s it going
to be?”

  “I’m not looking for trouble. I just need to know why.”

  Grimalkin nodded, understanding in a way only someone living with the cursed could. “He showed up about an hour ago and ordered supper. We’re busier than usual tonight, so it’s taking longer to serve people. He kept pulling that watch out, checking the time, and giving me the evil eye. That’s when I recognized it. Tried to stall him best I could after that. Then the strangest thing happened. I was set to give him his check when a woman joined him. Older lady. Real proper. Came in a few minutes before you and ordered two glasses of wine. Can’t imagine what she wants with the likes of him, but they moved to a private booth at the back.”

  “Show me,” Elena said, her curiosity straining against the leash.

  Madame Grimalkin delivered the beers to a pair of conjurers spinning coins three inches above their palms. She snatched the coins out of the air for payment, then pointed Elena to the booth in the back with the curtains half drawn. A man’s elegant leg peeked out of the curtain—the trouser perfectly creased, the wing-tip shoe polished to a mirror shine. “That’s him,” she said. “Probably explaining his services to her right now. Bah. Sooner he’s gone, the better.”

  Elena felt a supportive hand on her back before she was left alone to stare at the half-open curtain. She’d been delivered to this moment on a seven-year tide of yearning. Revenge had been the sweet fruit she’d craved in her sleep, poison the elixir to deliver the dream. But Bastien’s death had turned the taste for vengeance to rot. Murder was no longer the salve she’d once sought for her injury. Yet as she gravitated right to see past the curtain and finally know the face of her assailant, she had to temper a rising impulse to strike.

  He was an ordinary-looking middle-aged man in a gray suit. Clean-shaven, balding, soft in the middle, and yet he possessed enough vanity to wear an enchanted tie that shimmered with a silver glow. A trick to make his eyes sparkle now that natural youth had slipped away. She tilted her head and looked again. There was something familiar about those eyes, yet not enough to trigger knowing.