The Secret Language of Stones

Chapter 22

In the end, it was my memory of Timur that influenced my decision. I owed the Orloffs for not giving their son what he had deserved, what he’d wanted, before he died.

There was not a lot of time to prepare for the trip. We would be leaving in three days to travel by car to Le Havre, where Grigori and I would ferry across the channel to Portsmouth and then be driven to the rendezvous in a town whose name I’d not yet been told.

Anna suggested she help me practice trying to read the locks of hair without turning them into talismans in case I cracked the crystals or broke the solder machine. I wouldn’t have backups, only what I brought with me.

“I’ve tried, I can’t. I need the crystal and the engravings and elements to work together to open the portal.”

“Maybe simply because you don’t know how,” she said.

“That’s certainly possible,” I answered.

“Have you been studying the grimoire Sandrine gave you? Has it shed any light on the notes you took about the triptych painting?”

Since agreeing to this mission, I’d been actively studying, trying to find something in the book about soothsaying-about telling the present or future without the use of stones-but hadn’t been able to discover anything.

“Why don’t I try to help,” she said and suggested I retrieve my book of spells and bring it to her secret reading room.

She was waiting for me in her monde enchanté. Thick votives, perfuming the air with their sweet scented wax, burned softly, illuminating the crystal orbs and jeweled Russian icons. A beatific Madonna seemed to be looking down at me with a knowing glance.

Today Anna’s worktable was decorated with a bright red-and-navy silk cloth, in its center a pentagram embroidered with silver thread.

I handed her the grimoire, somewhat reluctantly. My reaction surprised me. It was only a book-what harm could come to it by letting Anna read it?

As she took it from me, I wondered if she might find more there than I had. Would she discover the secret of the voices? And if she did, would she finally be able to teach me to control them?

What I’d read so far had at least explained a bit about my preoccupation with Jean Luc. Daughters of La Lune, it seemed, were cursed when it came to matters of the heart. Each only was allowed one absolute love per lifetime. And that love, once given, never waned. Even if the man was untrue or died, she was destined to pine for him and never find another mate.

Many generations tried without luck to find an antidote to love. And I didn’t wonder at their effort. If there was a potion I could swallow to rid my heart of Jean Luc, I would have gulped it down. If the curse was true, I was in love with an ephemeral spirit not just for now but for always.

I’d read how my ancestor, the first La Lune, lost her lover, Cherubino, and did everything in her power, including selling her soul, to try to regain his love. She’d failed, but even after his death, she never stopped loving him.

And now, over three hundred years later, there I was, also in love with someone who was dead. Who was trapped in that netherworld. Had a cosmic mistake been made? Had what was meant to be been thwarted? Had the war interfered in our meeting? There was nothing in the book about the strange process that made it possible for him to hear me. To speak to me. To touch me with his warm wind.

In searching for an answer, I’d read a warning about necromancy in the pages of my book. The darkest art, it was fraught with dangers. Mistakes created monsters. Preventing an imminent death didn’t test the laws that governed us. That was allowed. But raising the dead did. Still, if I could bring Jean Luc back…

Anna closed the book and handed it back to me. “I’m sorry,” she said, with a sad, defeated expression in her eyes.

“There’s nothing?” I asked.

“There could be everything, but I can’t see it. There’s nothing written in the book, Opaline, it’s all blank pages.”

“That’s impossible. What do you mean? I’ve been reading the stories about-”

Anna interrupted. “So you can read it?”

I nodded.

“Then it must be guarded so no one but you and the person who wrote it can read it.”

“That’s possible?”

“Yes. Rare, but possible.”

And then I remembered. “My mother said it was protected when she gave it to me, but I didn’t understand what she meant.”

“Well, no matter,” Anna said, and stood. “I can still try to help. Here, look at this-” She pulled a book off her shelf and opened it to a yellowed vellum page. I stared at the illustration of a compass and notations that appeared to be written by hand, in Latin.

“This is the Ars Notoria, believed written in the thirteenth century. This drawing is of a ‘megnetick experiment’ which allows people to communicate through telepathy using a lodestone and two compass needles. The theory was that when the two needles were rubbed against the same lodestone, they would become entangled with each other. Linked. And whenever one needle moved, the other needle would move the same way. So if someone placed a needle in a circle made of letters and spelled out a word, wherever the other needle was, it would move accordingly.”

“And you think that’s similar to what happens to me? I’ve become entangled with a cosmic needle?”

“It’s possible the talisman functions as the needle. So if the goal is for you to access the voices without creating the amulet, you need to become the needle yourself.”

“Yes. Do you think that’s possible?”

“I’m not sure, but we can try.”

Anna opened her armoire and began pulling out bottles and jars.

Finished with her apothecary, she placed two beakers in front of me, one on either side of the bowl. The left looked like oil, golden with a hint of green. The other appeared to be rich ruby wine. Into a crystal glass that reflected the votives in all its facets, she poured first some of the oil, and then the other liquid.

I’d read dozens of my great-grandmother’s books on witchcraft and the occult. I knew what some ceremonies and spells required. And the grimoire my mother gave me provided me with more proof.

“That’s wine, isn’t it?” I asked.

She laughed. “Yes. What else could it be?”

“Blood?” I asked.

“Heavens no, Opaline.” She picked up a small paring knife I hadn’t noticed. “Now, for your personals. Can I take a nail clipping?”

I offered her my hand, and she sliced off a tiny sliver of the nail from my ring finger.

“And a lock of your hair.” She clipped a curl. “Now the most difficult part. I need to collect one of your tears.”

“How can I-”

“Close your eyes and try to remember something that made you sad.” She handed me a glass spoon. “Use this to capture the tears.”

“Couldn’t you let me cut up an onion?”

She laughed. “They have to be tears of emotion. I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes.” Anna rose, leaned down, and kissed me on the top of my head. “You’re a brave one, Opaline. I’m proud of you.”

I’d worried how I’d manage to cry on purpose, but her words got me started and then I pushed myself to think, with a sinking heart, about my futile, impossible feelings for Jean Luc.

When Anna returned, she put the nail clipping and lock of hair in the depression of a large amethyst crystal geode. Then she lit a tall buttery-colored candle and intoned what sounded like a prayer.

“The powers present are strong, but we ask for them to be stronger still. We ask that they intensify for all of the right reasons and none of the wrong.”

Then, using the tip of the candle, she set fire to my hair and nail shaving. A noxious odor filled the room, and I leaned back, away from it. Picking up the spoon, she dripped my tears over the tip of the candle to put out its flame.

Once the concoction in the geode stopped smoking, she anointed it with six drops from the oil-and-wine mixture. Then she wrapped the mess up in a piece of parchment and placed it in a crimson-colored silk pouch with black drawstrings. She held the small bag close to her heart for a moment and then held it out to me.

“Wear this for three days, and then see if you can pull a message from a lock of a soldier’s hair without encasing it in crystals and gold. Without the man’s wife or mother or sister there. Hopefully, you’ll be able to do it.”

“I’ll try.” I took the pouch from her and held it in my right hand.

Anna put her hand over mine. “You’ve been gifted with a rare power, and despite how it’s pained you, you’ve used it graciously and selflessly. But never more so than now. No matter the outcome, I want you to know we are grateful for your willingness to help. All of us, myself, Pavel, Grigori, Serge, Madame Tichtelew, the rest of the émigrés, and even those who are no longer here to say it themselves. From all of us, Opaline, thank you.”

It was almost a shame Anna didn’t need any more of my tears, because of how freely they flowed then.