Seduction

Seventeen

OCTOBER 6, 1855

JERSEY, CHANNEL ISLANDS, GREAT BRITAIN

The candles flickered in their glass globes, casting shadows upon the six of us seated around the table. To date we’d had one hundred and thirty séances and met more than twenty-two different personages including Dante, Shakespeare and Jesus. But I’d only had one full-length conversation with my darling.

We began our expedition that October night no differently from any other by asking who was present.

Silently I prayed my daughter would answer.

A few moments passed, and then the legs of the little stool began to tap out a response. François-Victor recorded each hollow sound. But I didn’t need to wait for him to translate them into the letters of the alphabet. I could hear the voice so clearly in my mind.

I am here. The Shadow, it said as the tapping continued to spell out the name I dreaded. The Shadow of the Sepulcher.

My heart hurried, my breath caught. This spirit hadn’t visited for weeks, since the night when the child named Lilly had gone missing.

“What have you come to tell us?” my son Charles asked.

No response. We waited, but for me the waiting was too long. “What do you want?” I blurted out.

Temptation… is my… forte.

François-Victor was busy writing, but I heard.

Education… is my… gift.

My daughter and wife looked bored, my sons only slightly more engaged. I was surprised that my own family was becoming blasé to these astonishing revelations that came from the magic blackness of infinity. Our guests that night, who had only been to one séance before, were curious and quite affected by what they were witnessing.

Being an individual in a world of conformity…

I closed my eyes, which made it easier to hear the voice in my head.

… is no easy task with the clergy destroying goodness. Destroying me and my teachings. But you want to learn, don’t you?

“Yes,” I whispered, certain the spirit was speaking directly to me.

And so you shall. I impart my wisdom to you.

“What wisdom?” I asked.

There was no answer.

“Are you still with us?” my son asked after thirty seconds of silence had passed without any more tapping.

The table’s legs didn’t move.

“Are you here?” he asked again.

A vase resting on the mantel tottered and then fell, shattering on the tiles in front of the hearth. Water spilled, flowers scattered. A strange, almost sulfurous odor infiltrated the room.

“What a putrid smell,” my wife said, as she hurried out to get rags and call the maid. “That water cannot have been changed all week.”

But I didn’t think it was the water. I sniffed. And sniffed again. The malodorous sulfur was lifting, and beneath it I smelled smoke and incense. And beneath that the familiar sweetness of garden flowers.

“Why do these spirits come?” my daughter Adele asked as we put away the accoutrements of the game. “What do they want of us?”

She was a sensitive and sweet child, a bit more nervous than pleased me. My wife worried the séances might be worsening her already stressed constitution. But when my wife had tried to convince her not to join, Adele insisted she be allowed to witness the visitations.

Now she was demanding an answer. “Why, Papa?”

“I believe they want me to write down their wisdom.”

“I think it’s more than that. That there is some other purpose.” Her brown eyes searched mine. “Make them tell you what it is.”

Being the children of Victor Hugo had not been easy when we lived in France and in some ways was even more difficult now that we were in exile. Away from friends and relations and all that they had grown up with and were familiar with, they were now alone with each other. I had brought my family here. I felt responsible for their isolation. Seeing my daughter’s distress and consternation, my guilt did not sit well on me that night. And instead of going to my room to record the session, I decided to walk and clear my head of the noxious odor. The sea air would take care of it.

The gibbous moon offered more than enough light to guide me on the short walk to the shore. I strode down the slipway and headed north. I’d been walking for about fifteen minutes when a bank of heavy clouds drifted by and shrouded my heavenly lantern, casting me in a deeper darkness.

As I passed by the rocky promontory where I often sat to look out at the sea and gaze at France, I could make out a young man sitting on my usual perch.

He saw me too, for he called down. May I join you, Monsieur Hugo? He spoke French in a voice that was familiar though I couldn’t place him.

“Yes, of course,” I answered. Even if I hadn’t wanted company-which I didn’t-there was little I could do to stop a stranger from walking with me on the public beach.

Moments later he emerged from the shadows just as the moon did the same and shone down on him. Not tall but slim, he was dressed in a well-cut dark suit. His hair was black and thick and wavy and curled on the back of his neck. His almond-shaped eyes were a very light brown, almost golden, unblinking and mysterious. His strong cheekbones and refined nose were perfectly proportioned. His mouth was full and red. His beauty was almost feminine and mesmerizing.

“Do we know each other?” I asked.

We do. But then instead of giving me his name, he said, You may have what you want, you know. It’s yours for the asking.

I was put off by the cryptic comment and toyed with saying so. But that would have been rude, and I was, I admit, curious, so I played along. To this day I wish I hadn’t. If I had paid attention the kernel of suspicion in my belly…

“What do you mean, I may have what I want? Pertaining to what?”

You may have all that you seek. I can create the reality you crave so very much.

“But you are a stranger to me-why would you help me?”

I’m not a stranger. I am known to you.

No, I didn’t know these features. Not the nose, chin, forehead and lips, all so finely sculpted. Not the long, black curls, or dark eyelashes that fringed the topaz eyes. His attitude, attire, vocabulary and the timbre of his voice suggested he’d been raised in the upper echelons of society, attended the finest schools and been taught by the most learned of men. But I did not recognize him.

Don’t gaze upon my visage to know me. He waved his arm in a graceful, almost royal gesture. Just listen to my voice, Hugo. We were just together an hour ago and yet you do not recognize me?

“Confound you! What is your name?”

I am the Shadow of the Sepulcher.

I stopped midstep. “The waves are loud,” I suggested. “I believe I have misunderstood your name.”

No, Monsieur Hugo, you heard me. The Shadow of the Sepulcher. The archangel Lucifer.

“A spirit cannot be made flesh.” Emboldened by my anger at whichever member of my family or friends had decided to play this game with me, I reached out for the man’s lapel, to pull him toward me, to insist he reveal his true identity. But he was quicker than I, and stepped back so my hand merely waved through the air. Touching nothing.

He laughed and the ghostly sound traveled out to the sea and was lost in the roar of the waves. You cannot touch me, sir. I am not flesh but a manifestation of your desire. Even so, I can deliver that which you want more than your life itself.

“And what is that?”

To bring your daughter back from the dead.

“That is not possible. You speak blasphemy.”

I told you when first we communicated: for a price all things are possible.

“A bargain with the devil? Is this not a cliché? You expect me to believe such foolishness? Indeed this is a joke. Well played, young man.” I relaxed as I realized the folly of it all. “But somewhat in poor taste, I must say. And nothing I find funny. Whoever put you up to this has a perverted sense of humor.”

I turned on my heel and walked away from him in the direction from which I had come.

With some trick of speed and using the darkness to his advantage, he was now suddenly in front of me.

I beseech you, do not squander this opportunity, Hugo. The window during which we can accomplish this goal is narrow.

Up ahead on the beach, I saw a speck of someone walking my way. I took out my watch. Nine o’clock. The time your duties with my mistress were completed.

This is the hour she takes her own nightly walk with the dead. She is so lovely, the man beside me said. But very sad. She seems not to have the strength to distract herself as most mortals do.

“Do you know her?” I asked.

I can help her, he said, not answering my question.

“How can you do that?”

I can provide her with what she wants.

“More of this game?”

It is not a game. I implore you to believe me.

“Well, then, how can you give her what she wants?”

Until I know you have accepted my offer, I cannot share that.

“No surprise there, since this is nothing but an elaborate ruse.”

I think you will come to regret your dismissal of me.

“What an impertinent position to take,” I said.

I made you this offer already once, and you rejected me. Pray be careful.

We were still walking, getting closer to you, and I wanted to be done with this joker before we reached you.

“I am not aware of what offer you are referring to.”

I put the child you found in the castle. You wound up a hero but still bereft. If you’d done what I suggested, you would have been a happier one.

“This is all ridiculous.”

O ye of little faith.

“Clichés you give me again? Your words are less than inspired.”

You wound me, monsieur.

“Then forgive me for appreciating more sophisticated writing.”

Perhaps you might write me some words, he suggested.

I laughed at the preposterous idea. “You could not afford me.”

Ah, but I could. His golden eyes bored deep into mine, and I was suffused with a sense of hope that was unlike anything I had known.

You’re feeling something, aren’t you? he asked.

I didn’t trust him. I didn’t respond.

Do you believe what occurs during the séances you attend? he asked.

“I do not not believe. Absence of proof is proof of nothing.”

But you have proof. He gestured to you-only a few meters away now-up the beach. You’d stopped and were watching us, waiting for us to reach you.

You will walk with Fantine now? he asked.

I was startled he knew your name but then realized whoever had asked him to play this prank would have schooled him well, and you were, after all, my mistress’s maid.

“Perhaps,” I said.

Be kind to her.

“How impertinent of you. What do you know of her?”

I know how torn her soul is. Even more ripped apart than yours, Hugo. Even than yours, he said and turned away from me toward an outcropping of rocks.

“There’s no exit that way,” I called out. “You need to go right or left.” But he kept walking. In the impossible direction, as if he were walking right into the rock face. I waited and watched, but he didn’t come back out.

“Who were you calling out to?”

I turned. You had walked up behind me. But I hadn’t heard you approach.

“That young man. Didn’t you see him?”

“A man?”

“Yes. I’ve been talking to him for the last half hour. I walked down this whole stretch of beach with him.”

“Monsieur Hugo, I’ve been watching you for at least the last five minutes as you walked this way. There was no one with you.”

“It must have been a trick of light that cast him in shadow,” I said, and shivered at the word I’d chosen to use. “It was an unpleasant and annoying conversation, but it was a conversation.”

“Look.” You were pointing down at the sand in the direction from which I’d just approached. “Look,” you repeated. “There is only one set of footprints. No one was with you. You were quite alone.”