I paid my driver and stood outside the church. I hadn’t a clue as to what I would do next, for I wasn’t sure where Louis and Rachel really were. I had no other alternative but to wait and see if I could prove his presence at Jeanne Elemont’s residence. I waited a terribly long time and realized that Ursula might not emerge until closer to the dinner hour, which I knew would be four o’clock. I decided that since I had an hour or more to wait, that I would explore this quaint Catholic church that appeared as rundown as any I had ever seen.
The door creaked as I pushed it open, and once inside it was so dark that it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I could hear voices raised in song but the sound was very strange to my ear. The doors into the chapel were to my right and they were partially opened. I wondered what Mass could possibly be in service on a Saturday afternoon. I looked around me and saw that the holy water vessel was empty and the cross that bore Jesus’ crucified body was hanging upside down.
How curious. I walked closer to the partially open doors.
The singing grew louder as I neared. I could not recognize the song, for it was in a language that was unfamiliar. It did not sound like a hymn; it seemed to resemble a chant. I saw fire flickering against the walls as I peeked through the dark opening of the door. To my horror, I saw people dressed in black capes, their faces hidden by hoods. They were kneeling before a leader or high priestess of some kind. She stood before them with her hands raised over her head. I could see that she held a sharp, long knife in the air. I stood back quickly. I knew what I was witnessing. This was far more diabolical than Tituba’s voodoo rituals. This was the devil’s Mass. Fear consumed me and I ran for the way out, but just as I was about to push myself into the waiting sunlight, I heard loud overbearing laughter and I could not move. It was Urbain. I knew it by the chill I felt in my bones; I knew it by the stench of his evil.
“God of the light. God of the dark. Come forth in the spirit of air and lift me to your kingdom. Come forth in the spirit of water and let me drink the blood of sacrifice. Prince of darkness. Almighty Lucifer, God of Earth. God of fire. In the name of Satan we hail thee, God of all beings. God of the dark wisdom. We sacrifice this child in your name, in your blood. God of all things. Hail Satan. Hail Satan. Hail Satan.”
I turned sharply. He stood in the corner, hooded and dark, his eyes like fire, his breath like smoke.
“Down!” he commanded. “On your knees before me!”
“No!” I screamed and turned from him.
He flew to me and spun me around. I spit in his face. He slapped me hard and lifted me as though I weighed no more than a feather.
He carried me into the chapel and wrapped me in a hooded cloak. I found myself on my knees, surrounded by men and women who huddled over me and chanted in whispers. Finally, I lifted my head. The high priestess still held the knife in her hand; its long steel blade pointed over the table in front of her, and on the table a child lay on her back covered by a white sheet. The child’s eyes were closed as if in a trance. It took only a moment more before I realized that it was Rachel. I looked around frantically. Urbain was holding me by the shoulders. His fingers pressed into my flesh and I writhed in pain. I looked back at the high priestess. Her hood fell behind her. Her blond hair curled almost to her waist. Her lips were full and her eyes so blue they appeared transparent.
“The child!”
The chanting drowned out my calls, and the people moved around a circle that was drawn in the middle of the floor. There was a five-pointed star at the top with both points pointed up toward the priestess.
“Ursula! Where are you? The child is in danger!”
I looked around frantically, searching for Ursula, but I did not see her until she stepped from the crowd and took the child in her arms.
“Ursula!” I screamed again but she never turned. She took the child and held her up toward the priestess who lowered her knife only inches from Rachel’s heart.
It was in that moment that I found my strength. Some miracle awakened my power, my power that is mightier than a coven of fools who practice nothing but evil and bring shame upon the souls of those whom God has honored as true witches.
I reached behind me and grabbed Urbain’s hands. I squeezed them so hard that my teeth began to grind and I knew my eyes were flames in their sockets that burned with a fire so deadly it could have brought down the church. I rose to my feet and tore off the black cape of darkness, and I held my hands out straight before me.
“Get back from the child!” I knew that my voice was reverberating off the walls. “Get back, or I will kill you all.”
Like moles or frightened rats, they scattered. The woman who had held the knife now cowered. The hooded demons now ran and Ursula stood naked under her cape and glared.
I faced the mighty Urbain. “Fall before God!” I commanded as I held my hands before me and pointed my fingers into his fiery eyes.
“God the Father.” He spit on the ground before me. “God the Father…Jesus the son…Jesus the son…Mary, Mary, quite contrary. God the Father.” He laughed and put his hands to my heart. “Idiot!” he shouted, and then he was gone. His priest’s robe and collar had fallen to the floor and a small puff of smoke, where he had stood, rose in a spiral and stunk as badly as an old carcass.
My chest ached where he had touched me but I ran for Rachel, who had remained in a deep trance. I took her up in my arms and flew as quickly as I could, in Malcolm’s wretched form, to the doors. But something made me turn just before pushing them open.
When I looked back at the priestess, I saw that the knife she held was aimed at my back.
“Is this your Jeanne Elemont?” I said to Ursula as she stood looking at me like some demonic monster that had risen from the dead.
She went to the woman and embraced her from behind.
“Yes it is, Annabel.” She smiled.
I felt a power that I did not realize I had. It came from some capacious level of consciousness. Somehow I knew that all I had to do was think of what I wanted and I could manifest it. So I turned, and with just the power of my thoughts, threw both women fifteen feet back until they landed against the altar with a hard thud. It did not take long before the knife Jeanne Elemont was holding flew quickly and landed in the door, just as I closed it behind me.
My fear was gone. I felt oddly vindicated. I smiled as I picked up the crucifix and gently replaced it right side up. My Meredith Mae would surely reject the demon when she learned of this.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
How inauspicious it was to recognize this extraordinary power to will my mind and exert my soul to self-preservation in the face of danger, to even conquer the devil and send him back to the fires of his infinite limbo. Why, the bastard feared me. To fear is to recognize the existence of God. Then could the devil have a soul as well?
I was not to have my answer so easily. No, I was not to know Urbain Grandier’s relationship to God for several centuries, but I did know that I had the power to send him scurrying back to his infernal damnation. I had the power to protect myself against his insidious little plots to hurt me and those I cared for. But, I was soon to lose the ability to exercise my power. You see, I was about to fall prey, once more, to this angel of malicious intent, this devil whom my great-aunt revealed to God as the priest of the unholy. I, Annabel Horton, lost witch of Salem, would soon forget my identity and I would walk on the earth as if I had never walked in infinity, as if I had never known the devil’s touch or received God’s wisdom. Read on and I will tell you what came to be.
* * * *
I quickly put the child to bed once we were back at the house on Montague Street. She had slowly come out of her trance and I was able to question her about her suspicious excursions into Manhattan with Louis.
“We go there often,” she told me.
“Do you always go to the church?” I asked her.
“Oh yes, and we play games.” She giggled.
“What games?” I softly pinched her che
ek as I inquired.
“Games to the devil.” She laughed, wide-eyed and quite innocently.
“Uh, uh,” I whispered. “Games to the devil? And what might that mean?”
She yawned and closed her eyes as she continued.
“I pretend to call forth the devil and he comes and lights candles all around me.”
“Does the devil ever hurt you?” I asked.
“It is making believe,” she answered, but I pressed her further.
“Does he ever hurt you?”
“No, not ever.”
She glared at me, and I assumed that she remembered that it was Malcolm that had hurt her and not any make-believe demon.
I kissed her good night and quietly left the room. How could I convince her that Louis was bad and meant to harm her when, in fact, he had only made her laugh? How could I make her understand that Malcolm was now the good man, when, in fact, it was Malcolm that had violated her innocence?
I sat downstairs in our parlor and waited several hours for Meredith Mae to return home. I was relieved when she finally walked in around ten o’clock that evening. I wondered what lies the vicious woman had relayed to my granddaughter in order to protect herself from the truth, a truth that I would now reveal.
Meredith Mae came through the door breathless, and I could tell by her smile that Ursula had no doubt convinced her that nothing unusual had happened that evening.
“Grandmamma,” she said when she saw me. “Were you spying on us? Louis told me that you followed him and insisted on taking Rachel home. Is she upstairs?”
“Meredith Mae, you must listen to me. I have something unpleasant to reveal to you. Please sit down.”
I watched as her smile faded, and she sat down, rather self-consciously, on the couch. I noticed a blush to her face and she did not look at me but stared at the hands that were folded together in her lap.
“My dear,” I began. “I regret to inform you that I discovered your Louis in a devil’s Mass. He practices the dark magic and may even be a master of it.”
She looked at me strangely for a moment before she answered.
“He is a student of the occult,” she said softly and raised her eyes to me. “He is interested in all metaphysics. It’s a hobby.”
“I see,” I said. “He had the child in the Mass. He was sacrificing Rachel to the devil,” I told her slowly.
She laughed, as if I had told her something amusing, and small tears came to the corners of her eyes. I watched as she brushed them away.
I waited before I began again. I sat forward on the edge of my chair.
“I believe that Louis is a disciple of our own Urbain,” I told her.
She brought her hands to her face as I waited for the information to take hold. I wished I could read her thoughts, but I could not. Finally, she spoke.
“How do you know that he sits more on the side of Urbain than he does of God?” she asked me. “Perhaps he is a good witch, like us.”
“He lies to you,” I whispered.
“What lies?” she asked.
“There is a woman, a Jeanne Elemont. I have a letter.”
I reached in my vest pocket and handed her the folded piece of paper.
She read it and then crumbled it up and threw it on the floor.
“It is I Louis loves.” She turned to face me. “The letter is dated months before we met. Did you notice that?”
“No.” I stammered a bit and knew that I had no choice; I had to reveal this creature’s real identity. “Ursula and Louis…you see, they…”
She cut me off and put her fingers to my lips.
“No more,” she whispered. “He has asked me to marry him.”
“You cannot!” I screamed. “He is not a man!”
“He is all the man for me,” she answered.
“Wait!” I reached out for her arm as she started for the stairs. “You don’t understand.”
“Forgive me, Grandmamma, but I will hear no more against him,” she said to me with tears in her eyes.
“You are in danger!”
She put her arms around me and held me to her.
“All who love are in danger,” she said.
I cried openly then, for I knew I could not penetrate her innocence. Soon enough, she would learn of the deception.
“All right,” I said and stood back to stare at her. “I see that I cannot convince you otherwise about Louis.”
She shook her head and looked at me.
“Do you trust me, Meredith Mae?” I asked.
She nodded a simple “yes.”
“Then know this. Louis Boussidan is a sham. Louis Boussidan would kill you for a dime. You must always be one step ahead of him. Do you hear me?” I asked her and again she nodded.
“Do not turn your back on him. Protect yourself. Protect Rachel. Will you promise me that?”
“Yes, Grandmamma,” she whispered.
“Your soul will see the light, as well as your eyes. Of that I am certain.”
I went up the stairs to my room and turned just once to watch as she opened the door to her bedroom and entered. If I had only known at that moment, as she looked back to smile at me reassuringly, that it would be centuries before I would ever see her blessed face again. Had I of known, I would have never closed my eyes to sleep that night. I would never have left her side to fall exhaustingly and effortlessly to dreams.
* * * *
My granddaughter and Louis Boussidan eloped the following evening. My despair was overwhelming, but I had not the power to prevent the events from happening as they occurred. However, I made a plan to follow them to France when a distraught Catherine revealed their destination.
“Where else do you think they would go?” She scowled at me.
* * * *
Several days following this news I was returning home from a visit with Silas when I found the authorities at my home. They had been waiting for my return and looked rather somber and austere as I approached. One man, in particular, put an arm around me and brought me aside.
“We must speak with you, Mr. Northrup,” he said softly.
I opened the door and stepped inside. I motioned for them to enter.
“What is it, gentlemen?” I asked as they gathered in my parlor.
The man who had placed his arm around me stood back and looked into my eyes before glancing at the floor.
“Your daughter, sir…Catherine Northrup.”
I somehow knew what he was going to say, though it still gave me a shock to hear it.
“She has taken the very gun that killed William Davenport and placed it to her temple. I’m sorry,” he said.
I fell into a chair and wiped my brow. She was obviously so distraught from Louis’s elopement that she saw no reason to go on with life.
“She’s left a note, sir,” I heard him say.
“May I see it?” I asked as the officer reached in his breast pocket and held it over to me.
I read the note quickly. Of course, Catherine took her revenge. She indicated that it was Louis Boussidan that had masterminded the plot to kill William Davenport. She went on to say that it was she who pulled the trigger and she only wished she had aimed it at Louis, as well. I handed the note back to the officer and smiled sadly.
A few weeks later, Silas was released from prison and vindicated for the crime. I was overjoyed to see him regain his freedom and resume his practice, but I shed few tears for Catherine Northrup.
* * * *
I knew that Louis would not return to Brooklyn for many years. I feared for Meredith Mae’s safety, particularly now that she must certainly be aware of his real gender. I was planning to move Rachel and myself abroad as quickly as possible so that I might reunite with Meredith Mae. I had received several letters from her that were postmarked from a village not far from the Spanish border, and I was hoping to find them there. Curiously enough, she wrote that she was quite happy and mentioned nothing of what I would have presumed would have caused her a good deal of
shock and disappointment. I was perplexed and wondered if the diabolical Ursula was forcing her to write such happy, frivolous letters.
I had just booked passage on the Queen Victoria and had made arrangements to close the house and take up residence in France, when the police showed up at Montague Street to question Malcolm on allegations of child abuse, a charge that was revealed in another letter that Catherine had mailed to the authorities on the day before she took her life. These allegations were mailed, I assume, because she wanted her confession to be a separate issue, or perhaps, she decided to kill herself after she mailed the letter. But the police were not taking the matter at all seriously because Catherine’s sanity was now under consideration. It seems that she had also declared that Louis and Ursula Boussidan were one and the same person. This revelation struck the police as bizarre and ridiculous, so they dismissed the charges against me on the basis of malicious rumor uttered by a distraught and unstable female. Unfortunately, there were those who took the matter to heart.
* * * *
On the evening of Silas’s release we celebrated at a steak house not far from his residence on Hick Street. I was on my way home, mellowed from several glasses of lager that, though I could not taste, still gave me a delightful buzz. I was just crossing Joralemon Street and making my way east toward Remsen when I was jumped from behind. There were several men who grabbed me and forced me into an alleyway.
“Child-raping bastard!” one yelled as he caught my jaw with his fist.
“Rotten scum,” yelled the other as he hit me in the stomach and caused me to fall back. I was knocked in the head from behind by another and kicked to the ground. But it was not this violence that killed poor Malcolm. It was his ticker that gave way. I felt the awful burn in his chest and the tight spasms cutting off his air as they continued to thrash him. I fought for breath but it was if a giant foot was standing on my chest.
Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem Page 21