Seduction

Eleven

SEPTEMBER 15, 1855

JERSEY, CHANNEL ISLANDS, GREAT BRITAIN

As soon as dawn broke the next morning, dozens of men joined in the hunt for Lilly, the fishmonger’s missing child. There were no able-bodied men in St. Helier who didn’t come out to walk the beaches and forests, search in the caves and ruins. The plentiful rock temples and burial grounds on the island were old and many had crumbled in on themselves, creating perfect hiding places for a child. Or a child’s body.

The effort was made all the more difficult by a steady rain that started just as we set off and didn’t abate all morning. It cast a spell of gloom that wasn’t needed. We were already worried that the child had fallen off a cliff and been drowned. With so many rock shelves and such a voracious sea it was more likely than any other scenario. But no one wanted to give up hope and so we kept searching-fathers, sons and brothers-all secretly sharing a fear of dreaded discovery.

Trent and I were joined by six others who combed the shore, traipsing in and out of caves, exploring ancient rock formations and looking for somewhere she might have gotten trapped. Each time a large wave crashed we watched the beach to see what was deposited on the sand. None of us wanted to be the one to find her-hair matted with seaweed, cheeks scratched by sand.

Of all of us, I think I was most terrified by the idea of such a sight, for it would be the manifestation of the image I had been seeing in my mind for a decade of my drowned Didine.

“What would have made the child leave her bed?” one man asked another. “A barking dog should have scared her, not enticed her.”

It was a logical question, but I could picture a likely scenario. I saw the child going to bed in the room she shared with her sisters. Saw her close her eyes. Dark eyelashes a shadow on rosy skin. Saw the pale blue vein in her neck. Saw her little neck loll as she relaxed into the bedding. Watched the rise and fall of her chest slow. Heard her deep breaths. And then…

I saw the dog at the window. A dog with liquid topaz eyes that appeared almost human. A black creature, larger than most dogs, with a coat that gleamed in the moonlight. He probably looked hungry.

Children love animals. Lilly had grown up with dogs. This one’s barking could have concerned her. Why would she have been scared? There was a dog in her window with limpid eyes who looked like he was starving.

The tide was low and Trent suggested we walk out to Elizabeth Castle and search the ruin and its environs. While it was unlikely she was there, no area could be ignored. If she had been abducted, her captor could have taken her to the castle on a boat. If she was on her own and following the dog, she could have walked out across the sand bar last night when the tide was low and spent the night like us, camping out, sleeping, then waking and wandering around the castle. It was a favorite playground for island children. Exactly the kind of fairy-tale structure that excites their imagination. She might not even realize the havoc she was causing.

I’d meant to visit the cavernous ruin since I arrived in Jersey. Abandoned and unused for centuries, it was a tourist destination and nothing else. Finally seeing it, I was surprised by how truly desolate it was.

Four of us walked through the great carcass of a building that morning. To this day I’ve never discussed what occurred at the end of that visit, for I cannot explain it. After I escaped from the castle-and yes, I use the word knowingly-and stood gulping in the fresh sea air, I decided it would be prudent not to speak of it lest people think I had gone mad. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps I might have avoided some of what came to pass.

As soon as we walked through that first stone archway, the damp took hold of me like a vise. Gripping me and wrapping around me. In Jersey the humidity permeates everything, but this was concentrated. As if the castle’s rocks had sucked up years of moisture and it were all leaking out now.

The fortifications were a meter thick and cut with long narrow slots that let in light and ventilated the rooms. Outside the sun intermittently broke through the clouds, and as we crossed the floors we cast long shadows. Some of the walls were partially covered with the tattered remnants of tapestries. Once they must have been beautiful, but they were now so threadbare they looked as if you could blow them away with one good breath. I could see ghostly bodies visible in the weavings. Faces, arms and legs, partially eaten away by the elements and moths. Like decomposing corpses, I thought, as if I needed another metaphor for what happens in the grave.

The only words we spoke as we ventured deeper into the shadows of the citadel were those we used to call out to Lilly. Her name echoed as we explored the wreckage.

Some of the roof was intact, other sections had rotted out. The furniture was in a pitiful state of decay. Wood that must have once gleamed was now worm-eaten and destroyed by the damp. The giant dining table was covered in dust. Its chairs overturned, their guts hanging out, perfect nests for mice. The drawers were missing from a large breakfront, the gaping holes black and deep.

Nature had taken over in a way that I wasn’t used to. In Paris or Naples or other important cities, the paucity of space can’t allow for large structures to languish and rot. Needs require they be rehabilitated, or if it they are beyond help, torn down and something new put up in their place.

We climbed a still-intact stone staircase. It was in the second upstairs room I visited, that I guessed had been a nursery because of the two small-sized bed frames and wooden cradle, where I first became aware of the scent. The smell of the briny sea air that filled the castle was suddenly replaced by the aroma of smoke and sweet incense. Had someone come in? I turned around. No, I was alone.

I looked at the fireplace, half expecting to see a fire burning. But there was nothing except dust in the hearth. There was simply no explanation at all for the perfume.

In my exasperation, I called out to the connétable.

Trent and one of his men came running.

“Did you find something?” Trent asked.

I shook my head. “Do you smell that scent? Someone has been here recently.”

The men sniffed the air. Nodded. “I smell flowers,” Trent said.

The other said, “Smells like a fire,” then sniffed again.

But there were no flowers and no blaze. So where was the aroma coming from? The room was an ordinary rectangle with but a single door and two long casement windows. The walls were empty save for a large tapestry that had slipped and hung at an awkward angle.

This one was as decrepit as those we’d seen downstairs.

Could something be behind it? A child hiding?

I pushed it aside. Fabric disintegrated at my touch and fell at my feet. There was in fact something behind it. Not a child but a doorway.

Holding my breath, I opened it.

It was a simple closet. And it was empty.

Carefully I ran my hands over the walls, examining them, searching for hidden panels.

“Is anything there?” Trent asked.

“Nothing,” I said. As I turned to go, I happened to glance down and notice the trapdoor incised in the wooden planks. A metal ring nestled in a depression made to hold it. I tried to pull it up, but it appeared too rusted to move.

“Give me a hand,” I said to Trent.

Using his knife, he was able to pry the ring up. I held my breath as he pulled the door open. Together we peered in. There was nothing but dust and the bones of some vermin inside. Rats, I thought from their size.

“We might as well move on,” Trent said, after the disappointing revelation. “There’s nothing here.”

He and the other policeman walked out, but I remained behind. I was still confounded by that scent. Where was it coming from?

I walked around the perimeter of the room once more, examining the stone wall, pressing here and there and trying to find a second hiding place. I didn’t find anything. When I got to the fireplace I stopped and sniffed once more.

Was it my imagination or was the scent slightly stronger here?

It must have taken huge fires to warm these rooms and chase away the damp, so it was no wonder the hearths in the castle were oversize compared to those we had at Marine Terrace or in Le Havre. I actually was able to walk inside the fireplace opening without stooping. Bending down, I touched the iron cradle positioned over the ash box. It was covered with cinders and cold.

How long ago had the last fire burned here? Who had lit it? Had it been decades or centuries? Or was my romanticism getting the best of me? It might have been last week when boys camping out here had roasted themselves some dinner.

Looking up the long chute, I glimpsed a sliver of sky so blue and vibrant compared to the gloomy rooms, it cheered me for an instant. That’s when I realized the scent of smoke and incense was in fact more pronounced here than it had been anywhere else in the room.

The stones inside the fireplace rose straight up for a meter and then stepped back. It was a curious design, and I didn’t understand why it would have been built like that. As I walked around the ash box to better examine the back wall, I dislodged the dregs of that last fire. Puffs of black dust caught the draft and swam in the air. I coughed and rubbed the dust out of my eyes. Able to see again, I shone my torch on the right wall. Then the left.

What I saw wasn’t visible when you stood outside and looked in. Like the back and the right wall, this one rose a meter and then stepped back. Beyond it was a riser and then another tread. It was a stone staircase leading down, presumably to the ground floor and then perhaps deep into the castle’s underbelly.

I did not hesitate and descended, following the scent, ten steps, then twenty, then forty and sixty until at eighty-five I reached the bottom and found myself opposite a heavy wooden door that opened with only a modicum of difficulty.

Inside was a surprisingly uncorrupted room almost untouched by the rot and damp that had ruined so much of the furnishings in the rest of the castle. The tapestries on these walls were still intact, unharmed by moths or mice. Each of the four was a different view of the same garden with animals, including unicorns and phoenix, frolicking with a group of young children. The foregrounds were filled with plants and flowers, many of which I’d never seen before. These tapestries were fine pieces of art, as well made as any I’d seen in Paris museums.

So taken was I with the sight of them, it took me a moment to realize that I’d found the source of the smell I’d been following. The scent emanated from these fabric blossoms and blooms.

Impossible, but true.

I was inhaling smoke and incense, roses and hyacinth and jasmine and something else I couldn’t catch hold of. How was this possible? The longer I stood there, the more confused I became, until I began to wonder if I was getting drunk on the aroma.

I was tired-but shouldn’t I have been? I hadn’t slept the night before. And I was slightly dizzy. But I hadn’t eaten except for an apple Trent had given me that morning. And I’d just climbed down four flights of stairs.

A dog barked. The sound had come from the right. I turned. The tapestry featured a group of canine creatures romping near a waterfall. I heard the barking again. It seemed to be coming from a large black dog who was closer to the size of a goat. He was looking out at me with topaz eyes that seemed to glow. Not with malevolence but intelligence.

My exhaustion and desperation must be affecting my imagination, I thought. I could still feel the grit in my eyes. Maybe it was affecting my vision. I rubbed my eyes once more and then opened them and stared at the tapestry. Now there was a child with the large dog. A little girl with blond hair. She hadn’t been in the scene a moment ago. Or had she?

I shut my eyes. Counted to five. Opened them.

The child wasn’t playing anymore. Now she was crying in pain and reaching out to me. There was a wound on her arm that could have been a dog bite. It dripped blood. Twigs and leaves were tangled in the child’s hair. She had a nasty scratch across her cheek.

I didn’t stop to think. If I had I would have questioned my sanity. I simply raised my arms, reached out to the silken creature and offered her my hands.

Her fingers were not thread but flesh and felt warm in mine.

The dog barked again. Was he warning me? Saying good-bye to her?

“Hold on tight,” I said to the child and then pulled her out of the tapestry and into the room. The effort and release caused me to fall backward. I went sprawling and she fell on top of me.

Her blood was wet on my hands. I had to do something to stop her bleeding. She was pale and her breathing was shallow. The child was in serious danger.

Don’t interfere.

I didn’t hear the voice as much as sense it, almost the same way I did at the séances.

Let her go.

I recognized the voice but couldn’t stop now to question it. The child’s wound had to be tended to. Taking off my jacket, I made it into a pillow and put it under the girl’s head. Then I used my vest to apply pressure to her wound.

This is the chance I said I would give you. Let her go, Hugo. Let the child go.

I didn’t understand what he meant. All my energy was focused on saving Lilly.

Ego misplaced is an opportunity lost. You’re waging a war against the wrong angel.

I kept the pressure against the wound.

This is what I am offering you. Don’t you understand? Don’t you want your daughter back?

“Hugo? Are you there?” It was Trent calling from above.

“Yes, but I need help. Quickly. Down here.”

“We’re coming.”

The dog growled and kept growling until the men arrived.

“Oh my lord, is she all right?” Trent asked as he rushed over and knelt down beside us.

“I think she will be,” I said.

“Let me look.” He bent over her, taking charge. I was glad to be relieved of the responsibility. Surely the head of the police force would be better equipped to deal with a medical emergency than I was.

The shouts echoed up the stairs and beyond.

“She’s all right.”

“Hugo’s got her.”

“Hugo found Lilly.”

A roar went through the castle as the news reached all the men.

After a few long, long minutes, Lilly opened her eyes. She looked first at Trent and then at me. She appeared confused, unsure of where she was or what had happened to her. But not in very much pain. She was a stoic child and didn’t whimper or cry but let Trent inspect her wound, take her pulse and listen to her heart.

We were interrupted by heavy footsteps clattering on the steps as the fishmonger came rushing into the room. He uttered a short exclamation of joy and then knelt down by Lilly’s side. Looked at her, touched her hair gently, then gathered the little girl in his arms. He murmured to her, a string of questions that he probably didn’t expect her to answer.

“Are you all right, Lilly? What happened? How did you get here? We were so afraid.”

She buried her head in his chest and her little back shook as she wept, finally letting go now that she was safe in her father’s arms.

Once Trent had checked again and was sure that the bleeding had stopped, he told the fishmonger he could take Lilly home.

Both of us watched them leave.

“Well done, Monsieur Hugo,” Trent said. “We can go now too. I’m sure you want to be getting home.”

I let Trent start up the stairs, while I lingered for a moment. What had happened? I didn’t understand. I waved my torch back over the tapestries. The group of doglike creatures were back to romping near a waterfall. I inhaled, but the scent of smoke and sweet incense was gone. I took a last look around so that I would remember this place, knowing one day I was going to want to write about what had happened. Then I turned my back on the room and began the ascent up the stairs. It went slow because I was spent and dizzy again with the effort or confusion or hunger, or all of them combined. As I climbed, my footsteps echoed in the narrow stone stairwell. That was all I heard until I reached the final tread. And then I heard a distant barking.

Was it a farewell? A warning? I had no doubt which canine creature was trying to communicate with me. It was the beautiful black dog with the topaz eyes. I just didn’t know what he was trying to say.