CHAPTER 97
The chill, heavy air rushed to meet her.
Slowly Léonie let her eyes become accustomed to the gloom. She pulled the box of matches from her pocket, opened the glass door of the lamp and held a flame to the wick until it caught.
The blue eyes of Asmodeus fixed themselves upon her. Léonie stepped further into the nave. The paintings on the wall seemed to pulsate and sway and move towards her as she walked slowly up towards the altar. The dust and grit on the flagstones scratched beneath the soles of her boots, loud in the silence of the tomb.
She was unsure what she should do first. Her hand stole to the cards in her pocket. In the other the leather wallet containing the pieces of folded paper, the paintings she had attempted – of herself, of Anatole, of Isolde – from which she had not wished to be parted.
She had, at last, admitted to Monsieur Baillard that after seeing the cards with her own eyes, she had returned to her uncle’s volume on several occasions, poring over the handwritten text, until she was word perfect. But still, despite this, a doubt remained over Monsieur Baillard’s explanation of how the vivid life contained within the cards, and the music carried on the wind, might work one upon the other to summon the ghosts who inhabited these ancient places.
Could it be so?
Léonie understood that it was not the cards alone, not the music, nor only the place, but the combination of all three within the boundaries of the sepulchre.
And if the myths were the literal truth, then she knew, even in the midst of her doubts, that there would be no way back. The spirits would claim her. They had tried once before – and failed – but tonight she would willingly let them take her if they would take Constant too.
And Louis-Anatole will be safe.
Suddenly a scratching sound, a tapping, made her jump. She cast her eyes round, looking for the source of the noise, then with a sigh of relief realised it was only the bare branches of a tree outside knocking against the window.
Putting the lamp on the ground, Léonie struck a second match, then several more, lighting the old tallow candles set in metal sconces on the wall. Drops of grease began to slide down the dead wicks, solidifying on the cold metal, but gradually each took and the sepulchre was filled with yellow, flickering light.
Léonie moved forward, feeling as if the eight tableaux within the apse were watching her every move. She found the space before the altar where, a generation and more before, Jules Lascombe had spelled out the name of the Domaine in letters upon the stone floor. C-A-D-E.
Without knowing if she was doing the right thing or the wrong, she took the Tarot cards from her pocket, unwrapped them and placed the whole deck in the centre of the square, her late uncle’s words reverberating in her head. Her leather wallet she placed beside the deck, undoing the ties but not taking the paintings out.
Through the power of which I would walk in another dimension.
Léonie raised her head. There was a moment of stillness then. Outside the chamber, she heard the wind moving through the trees. She listened harder. The smoke still rose undisturbed from the candles, but she thought she could almost discern the sound of music, thin notes, a high-pitched whistling as the wind threaded itself through the branches of beech woods and the avenue of yew trees. Then it came, slippery, in under the door, through the gaps between the lead and the stained glass of the windows.
There was a rushing of air and the sensation that I was not alone.
Léonie smiled, remembering the words on the page. She was not frightened, now, she was curious. And for a fleeting moment, as she looked up to the octagonal apse, she thought perhaps that she saw the face of La Force move. The faintest smile had come across the painted face. And for an instant, the girl looked precisely like her – like her own face she had painted into her copies of the Tarot images. The same copper hair, the same green eyes, the same direct gaze.
My self and my other selves, both past and yet to come, were equally present.
Around her now, Léonie was aware of movement. Spirits, or the cards come to life, she could not say. The Lovers, to her hopeful and willing eyes, so clearly taking on the beloved features of Anatole and Isolde. For a fleeting moment, Léonie thought she could recognise the features of Louis-Anatole shimmering behind the image of La Justice, sitting with her scales and a run of notes around the rim of her long skirts, the boy she knew contained within the outline of the woman on the card. Then, out of the corner of her eye, only for a second, the features of Audric Baillard – Sajhë – seemed to imprint themselves upon the young face of Le Pagad.
Léonie stood completely still, letting the music wash over her. The faces and the costumes and the landscapes seemed to move, to shift and shimmer like stars, revolving in the silver air as if held by the invisible current of music. She lost any sense of herself. Dimension, space, time, mass, all vanished now to insignificance.
The vibrations, the rustling of the air, the ghosts, she supposed, brushed against her shoulders and neck, skimmed her forehead, surrounded her, gentle, kind, but without ever really touching. A silent chaos was growing, a cacophony of noiseless whispering and sighing.
Léonie reached her arms out in front of her. She felt herself weightless, transparent, as if floating in the water, although her dress still hung red around her, the cloak black on her shoulders. They were waiting for her to join them. She turned over her outstretched hands and saw, quite clearly, the infinity symbol appear on the pale skin of her palms. Like a figure of eight.
‘Aïci lo tems s’en, va res l’eternitat.’
The words fell silver from her lips. Now, after waiting so long, there was no mistaking their meaning.
Here, in this place, time moves away towards eternity.
Léonie smiled and – with the thought of Louis-Anatole behind her, her mother and brother and aunt before her – she stepped forward into the light.
The jolting over the rough ground had caused him great discomfort, opening several of the sores on his hands and on his back. He could feel the pus seeping through the bandages.
Constant descended from the carriage.
He poked the ground with his walking stick. Two horses had stood here – and recently. The wheel ruts suggested only one carriage and appeared to lead away from, rather than towards, the sepulchre.
‘Wait here,’ he instructed.
Constant felt the curious force of the wind insinuating itself between the tightly knit trunks of the avenue of yews that led to the door of the tomb. With his free hand, he held his greatcoat tight around his throat against the strengthening currents of air. He sniffed. His sense of smell was almost gone, but he could just pick out an unpleasant odour, a peculiar mixture of incense and the malodorous scent of rotting seaweed on the shore.
Though his eyes were watering with the cold, he could see there were lights burning inside. The thought that the boy might be hiding there powered him forward. He strode ahead, paying no attention to the rushing sound, almost like water, nor to the whistling, like wind chasing down the telegraph wires or the vibrating of the metal track as a train approaches.
It was almost like music.
He refused to be diverted by whatever tricks Léonie Vernier might or might not be attempting, with the light or smoke or sound.
Constant approached the heavy door, turned the handle. At first, it did not shift. Assuming it was bolted or furniture had been piled up as a barricade, he nonetheless tried again. This time, all at once, it opened. Constant almost lost his balance and half stepped, half fell into the sepulchre.
Straight away he saw her, standing with her back to him in front of a small altar set within an eight-sided apse. Indeed, she was making no attempt to conceal herself. Of the boy, there was no sign.
His chin jutting forward, his eyes darting to left and right, Constant processed up the nave, his stick tapping on the flagstones as his feet fell awkwardly from step to step. There was an empty plinth just inside the door, jagged on the top as if the statue had been torn from it. Familiar plaster saints, set around the walls behind the modest rows of empty pews, marked his passing as he drew nearer to the altar.
‘Mademoiselle Vernier,’ he said sharply, irritated by her inattention.
Still she did not move. Indeed, she seemed unaware of his presence.
Constant stopped and looked down at the pile of cards strewn on the stone floor before the altar. ‘What absurdity is this?’ he said, and stepped into the square.
Now Léonie turned to face him. The hood fell from her face. Constant threw up his diseased hands to shield his eyes from the light. The smile slipped from his lips. He did not understand. He could see the girl’s features, the same direct gaze, the hair now tumbling loose as it had been in the portrait he had stolen from the rue de Berlin, but she was transformed into something other.
As he stood there, captivated and blinded, she began to change. The bones, the sinews, the skull beneath the skin started to push through.
Constant screamed.
Something swooped down upon him and the silence he had not recognised as silence was broken in a cacophony of shrieking and howling. He clamped his hands over his ears, to stop the creatures from entering into his head, but his fingers were pulled away by talons and claws, even though not a mark was laid upon him.
It seemed as if the painted figures had stepped down from the wall, each now transformed into a dark version of their fairer selves. Nails turned to talons, fingers to claws, eyes to fire and ice. Constant buried his head in his chest, dropping his stick as he curled his arms over his face to protect himself. He fell to his knees, gasped for breath as his heart began to lose its rhythm. He tried to move forward, out of the square on the ground, but an invisible force, like an overwhelming wind, kept pushing him back. The howling, the vibrating of the music was getting louder. It seemed to come from outside as well as in, echoing inside his head. Splitting open his mind.
‘No!’ he shouted.
But the voices were increasing in volume and intensity. Uncomprehending, he looked for Léonie. He could no longer see her at all. The light was too bright, the air around shimmering with incandescent smoke.
Then, behind him, or rather from beneath the very surface of his skin, came a different noise. A scraping, like the claws of a wild animal, grating along the surface of his bones. He flinched and jerked, crying out in agony, then fell to the floor in a rushing of air.
And suddenly, crouched on his chest, with a reek of fish and pitch, was a demon, gaunt and twisted, with red leathery skin, a horned brow and strange, penetrating blue eyes. The demon that he knew could not exist. Did not exist. Yet the face of Asmodeus was looking down upon him.
‘No!’ His mouth opened in one final howl, before the devil took him.
Instantly, the air in the sepulchre was still. The whisperings and sighings of the spirits grew fainter until at last, there was silence. The cards lay scattered on the ground. The faces upon the wall became flat and two-dimensional once more, but their expressions and attitudes had shifted subtly. Each bore an unmistakable resemblance to those who had lived – and died – in the Domaine de la Cade. Like Léonie’s paintings.
Outside in the clearing, Constant’s manservant cowered from the wind, the smoke and the light. He heard his master scream, once, then again. The inhuman sound kept him too petrified to move.
Only now, when all had fallen quiet and the lights within the sepulchre had steadied, did he summon the courage to come out of his hiding place. Slowly, he approached the heavy door and found it slightly ajar. His tentative hand encountered no resistance.
‘Monsieur?’
He stepped inside. ‘Monsieur?’ he called again.
A draught, like an exhalation, emptied the sepulchre of smoke in a single, cool breath, leaving the place lit by the lamp on the wall.
He saw the body of his master immediately. He was lying face down on the ground, in front of the altar, a deck of playing cards scattered all about him. The servant rushed forward and rolled his master’s emaciated form on to its back, then recoiled. Across Constant’s face were three deep and red gashes, like the savage marks of a wild animal.
Like claws. Like the marks he had carved on the children they had killed.
The man crossed himself mechanically and leant forward to close his master’s wide, horrified eyes. Then his hand stopped as he noticed the rectangular card lying across Constant’s chest, over his heart. Le Diable.
Had it been there all along?
Uncomprehending, the servant’s hand went to his pocket where he could swear he had placed the card his master had instructed him to leave with the body of Curé Gélis in Coustaussa. The pocket was empty.
Had he dropped it? What other explanation could there be?
There was a moment of recognition, then the manservant staggered back from his master’s body and started to run down the nave, past the unseeing eyes of the statues, out of the sepulchre, away from the grimacing face on the card.
In the valley below, the midnight bell began to toll.
