The Secret Language of Stones

Chapter 27

I wept as I placed part of each of the five locks of hair into the recess. I’d brought the finest crystal egg I’d ever found with me. I unfolded and smoothed out the list I’d drawn up of the Dowager’s grandchildren and checked the eldest’s information.

Olga, November 15, 1895, Scorpio

Tatiana, June 10, 1897, Gemini

Maria, June 26, 1899, Cancer

Anastasia, June 18, 1901, Gemini

Alexei, August 12, 1904, Leo

Once I’d carved the names, birthdates, and astrological signs, I added my tokens. The Ouroboros. The crescent moon. The single star. These, the symbols I’d chosen as my mantra when I’d made my first piece. Even without being trained, I’d chosen the symbolic sentence all Daughters of La Lune were taught. The crescent moon that marks our skin and brands us. The star-shine to shed light on the mysteries we encounter. And the Ouroboros to open magical doors for us.

I never received messages while I worked. When I made the talismans, I was a jeweler. Nothing else. Not the daughter of a witch. Not a mystic who could divine messages from stones. Not someone who could speak to the dead but an artisan practicing her craft. Designing and building a charm to give its wearer pleasure and comfort. Just a jeweler continuing a time-honored tradition of making mourning jewelry to commemorate and immortalize the love that tied one person to another.

As I worked that afternoon, rain pelted the window, and wind rattled the frame. Newspapers reported the summer of 1918 had been the rainiest season England and France had suffered in years. For us it was only gloomy and wet-for the men at the front it brought misery. There was no shelter on the battlefields, and trenches turned to mud. With soaked clothes, soldiers who were worn down and in already compromised states became ill.

At three o’clock, Grigori came to check on my progress and ask me to tea. I said I’d prefer a tray in my room so as to not waste time. He surprised me when, a half hour later, he arrived with it himself and set it on the desk.

I removed my jeweler’s glasses and joined him for finger sandwiches, scones, clotted cream with jam, and a large pot of very fragrant black tea. All despite the war rations in England, which were similar to ours in France.

“How is your work progressing?” he asked.

“It’s painstaking, but going well.”

“And you haven’t experienced any… you call them messages, correct?”

“No, I haven’t. I usually don’t at this stage. The only thing that happens sometimes is I get ill while I’m putting the talisman together.” I took a bite of a salmon sandwich and chewed. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.

“But you don’t feel ill?”

I shook my head.

“Do you think that means anything?”

I took another bite of my sandwich. “No, probably not.”

“What’s wrong, Opaline?”

“Nothing, why?”

“When you’re upset, you purse your lips, like this.” He showed me.

“I do?” I said, surprised. Not so much that I made the same expression my mother made when she was upset. Rather, I was astonished Grigori knew my face so well.

“You do. So what’s bothering you?”

“There’s danger here. I can hear it, Grigori, like a low-level hum coming from the house itself.”

“You’re probably picking up on the castle’s history. Briggs told me about its bloody past as he was arranging the tray. He said he would never have chosen to serve here had the royal family not requested it of him.”

“That may be, but not what I’m sensing. Distant tragedies feel a certain way. Like wood worn smooth. But when I touch the crystals in the lamps in this house, or the marble on the fireplace, I hear a tense sound. High-pitched and jarring. As if the house is bracing for a new crisis. Something is going to happen while we are here. The Dowager must be in danger.”

“Of course traveling during wartime is always dangerous.”

“I don’t think that’s what I’m sensing. This feels like specific danger. Do you think the Bolsheviks found out she is here?”

Grigori stood up and came to sit beside me on the settee. He put his arm around me and held me close. When he spoke, he measured each word carefully. “I don’t think they could know she is here, no. And I don’t want you to be alarmed.”

“But isn’t she one of the symbols of the politics they’ve overthrown?”

“Yes. And for the same reason, she is precious to the tsarists and those who want to restore the monarchy.” He took my hand in his, reassuring me. “And that’s why this trip was arranged in such secrecy. But I don’t want you to be concerned. The Dowager is here anonymously as Madame Silvestrov. Only her own staff, the king, and his mother know who their guest is.”

“Thank you. I feel better. Now I should get back to work. I have a lot to get done and not a lot of time.”

Grigori leaned forward and kissed me. Not a chaste embrace, but not an invitation either.

“Don’t let me bother you. But if you don’t mind I’d like to stay.”

I preferred him to leave, but it wasn’t really a hardship to let him stay. So I went back to my makeshift workstation and the talisman while behind me Grigori stood and began to pace. The sound of his footsteps on the carpet, because of his limp, had an unnerving, uneven rhythm. And the longer he kept it up, the more it disturbed me and added to my growing unease.

If all was well, why was I so nervous? Why was he?

“What is this?” he asked.

I turned. He’d picked up the Dowager’s jewel box. “Is it Fabergé?”

“I don’t know. The empress brought it with her and it has-”

He’d opened it.

“No, don’t, it’s-”

He stared at me. My tone had been too harsh. What was wrong with me that I was so anxious? Grigori was a fine arts and antiques dealer-he knew how to handle precious objects. Was it just that I always worked alone and found his presence distracting? Or was I sensing something about the tsar’s children I didn’t want to face yet and felt uneasy because of them?

Grigori inspected the contents, taking them out and putting each on the desk blotter. First the locks of hair, four of them tied with lavender ribbon, one with navy. Next the tooth. Then the grosgrain ribbon.

His face gave away nothing, and he remained silent as he continued searching through the contents.

“Grigori, please don’t. If something has happened to the children, what you’re doing is like rifling through their coffins.”

“What a strange thing to say.” His eyes softened. “How hard this must be for you. Spending so much time working the remains of the soldiers. Hearing their voices. I’m sorry I’ve never really asked you about it before. Does it seep into your dreams?”

Twice in one day now, someone had asked me almost the same question.

I nodded.

“Tell me.”

“No, not now.”

“Imagine the value you could place on your service if you could ask them questions and they could answer you. Have you ever tried that?”

I couldn’t tell if he was teasing or serious.

“No, I haven’t. I just accept the messages. It’s not the same as having a conversation,” I said. Or at least it hadn’t been, I thought, until I’d met Jean Luc.

“You should at least get paid for what you do.”

“We charge for the piece of jewelry.”

“You should get a fee for the readings as well.”

Grigori was a good salesman. I’d been in the shop when he’d charmed clients into paying high sums for a candelabra or an armoire. Several times, I’d heard Monsieur admonish Grigori for being too greedy, but I’d written that off to the friction between them. Was I wrong? Since we’d arrived at the castle, Grigori didn’t seem the same to me. Was he more himself on his own, out of his father’s orbit, and I was seeing it for the first time?

“Are you uncomfortable being here?” I asked.

“Uncomfortable?” he asked. “No, the accommodations are fine. Aren’t yours?”

“No, I meant being away from Paris, here in the country, at this castle, on this mission. You seem anxious and perhaps a little angry.”

Grigori frowned, and then, like the sun rising, one of his sparkling smiles transformed his pensive face. “I’m sorry. And yes, I am anxious. I am worried about what you will discover when you finish that charm.” He pointed to my work. “I suppose I’m finding it intimidating to be around the Dowager, to be in the same house as her. And I’m concerned she has traveled all this way and you will have to give her bad news. And then we will have to witness her grief. And somehow my father will find a way to make even that my fault.”

It all made sense, but as he said it, his eyes kept returning to the ruby enamel egg necklace I wore.

Without meaning to, before I realized what I’d done, I’d put my hand up, protectively covering the piece, and examined yet again the subterfuge of wearing this necklace over the other. Of the request to give them to the Dowager, but only when we were alone.

“Is that a new piece of jewelry?” Grigori asked.

“It is. Your father gave it to me for luck.”

And the greatest question: Why hadn’t Monsieur wanted his son to know about the real gift? I’d accepted his logical answer, but I wasn’t sure I believed it.

Inadvertently, I shook my head.

“What is it, Opaline?”

“Nothing, I should get back to work or I won’t finish.”

“I will leave you then. When do you think you’ll be done?”

“By dinnertime as promised.”

I wished I didn’t need to read the talisman until the next day. If it was bad news, I preferred giving it to the empress in daylight, when she wouldn’t have a long lonely night ahead of her. But time, I knew, was of the essence. No one was aware the empress had left Yalta. For her to be away for more than a few days invited danger.

Monsieur had said it over and over again: the Bolsheviks’ hate knew no bounds. The world feared for every member of the tsar’s family. And I for this strong, lovely woman most of all.

Once Grigori left, I put down my tools and stood to stretch. His presence had affected me, almost as if the storm clouds from the outside had come in. I rubbed my forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. There must be aspirin powder in the house. That would help. Unless of course this was the first harbinger of the fate of the children.

I closed the door, locked it, pocketed the key, and took off for the kitchens. But the castle stretched out too far and the hallways twisted too many times and there were too few lamps lit for me to easily find my way. As I wandered, the shadows danced in macabre patterns, portraits on the walls sang to me, and objets d’art buzzed or murmured.

Maybe Grigori was right and I’d spent too much time invested in the dead. But hadn’t everyone in France? In England? In every country in Europe? The four-year-long war had claimed an unfathomable number of men. Not just unimaginable to me, but to all of us. You could picture a room with a dozen people in it. A theater with a thousand people in it. But enough men to fill a thousand theaters?

I’d managed to reach the main floor of the castle but wound up lost, following a darkened, narrow hallway that seemed to go on interminably. Retracing my steps, I tried to get back to the main staircase. From there, I would try again to find the path to the kitchens. After five more minutes of wandering, I found myself in a gallery.

The room was as long as a half dozen normal rooms and twice as wide as one. The walls were hung with portraits. As I made my way down its length, every ten feet or so I passed under another elaborate crystal chandelier. None of them lit, none of them glittering, but all of them emitting a high-pitched crystalline keening. As if the very crystals were weeping with grief.

With only gloomy daylight filtering in through the occasional windows, I peered into the faces of these noblemen and women, some going back to the fourteenth century. All of these people, I thought, were dead. Like all the souls in Père-Lachaise were dead. Like all the soldiers were dead. Like Jean Luc was dead.

Darling, you are becoming morose.

Jean Luc! I smiled despite myself.

I can go wherever you go, but I’m not happy about being here.

“Why is that?”

Because you aren’t happy here. Something is bothering you.

“How can you know?”

I think sometimes I can hear things you are thinking before you acknowledge them.

“Is that possible?”

Is any of this possible?

I smiled again. “It shouldn’t be, but it is. I still wonder sometimes if I invented you. The way children invent imaginary friends.”

Haven’t I proven myself to you?

“I would have thought so. But you’re hard to believe in-even with everything you’ve shown me and all that my mother and Anna have explained, a part of me still believes reading the stones, getting the messages, could be some manifestation of madness. The mind is more powerful than scientists and doctors know and-”

Please stop.

His voice sounded terribly sad, with much angst in just those two words.

“What is it?”

My presence is making life more difficult for you, and I can’t bear that. I don’t want you to miss me and long for me. I didn’t come this far to find you in order to hurt you. All my men dead and my mother suffering and now you are questioning your own sanity.

“No, no. Jean Luc, even if I spend the rest of my life missing you, I’m not sorry. Do you know why pearls are so rare? Each one begins as an accident when a microscopic grain of sand becomes trapped within an oyster’s mantle folds. Perceiving the sand an irritant, the oyster then manufactures layers of nacre to soften the irritation. Hundreds of very thin layers covering one another, building up a metallic, mirrorlike luster. Of the millions of oysters, how many contain pearls? Very few. We know to find just one luminous pearl, thousands of oysters must be killed, opened, and searched. And when one is discovered, what a treasure. What value it has. The incandescent glow of a pearl is like nothing else. The colors that play on its silky surface are one of nature’s most unique and striking rainbows. I don’t have any pearls, Jean Luc. But I have you. And forever I will be able to take out the memory of you and look at it, like the glorious rainbow on a pearl, and remember what it was like to be with you. Would I regret being able to wear a queen’s pearls for a day? No. Not even for an hour.”

In answer, his warm wind blew against my cheeks. I wish I believed that. I don’t. I’ve seen grief. You’ve seen it.

“You are fixated on the raw, early grief. But think about what happens later. What happens when we build up our own protective layers of nacre and our very misery turns to something beautiful, a memory of love.”

He didn’t respond.

“Jean Luc?” My voice sounded panicked even to me.

Yes.

“What happened? Suddenly you weren’t there, were you?”

No, I wasn’t.

“Why?”

I’m not sure.

“Has it happened before?”

Only the last few days. I try to reach you, and it seems you’re just too far away. Or I’ll be listening to you and then suddenly I feel as if I’m being pulled back.

“Are you telling me it may be time for you to go?”

It might be. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to remain in this limbo for much longer.

I nodded, feeling tears springing to my eyes.

The warm wind wiped them away.

But not yet. And not here. Not until you are safely back in Paris. I promise.

What could I say? Was I meant to go to him? I stood beside the window and, hiding my tears, looked out at the sea. What if I just walked out onto the cliff and stepped over the edge? Then we could be together. There would be no separation between us. I could go be with him wherever he went. Life wouldn’t separate us.

No!

The word was so loud in my head I put my hands up to my ears. He’d shouted his admonition inside of my very soul.

There is a pattern to all of this, a method, a weaving. You cannot pull the threads out and control it yourself.

“Are you sure? How do you know? Do you believe in fate?”

Don’t you? You are a daughter of a witch, a Daughter of La Lune. Isn’t that fate? Isn’t there a pattern to whom you are born to and whom you become?

“I don’t know, I am not sure.”

And for what seemed the hundredth time, I cursed my mother and my history. This had been foisted on me. All of this. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the cool glass. My headache had worsened. I needed coffee and some headache powder. Resolving to find the kitchens, I walked to the end of the long corridor, alone now, without his voice in my head, and continued on.

Through a door, down a hallway. A stone staircase I hadn’t seen before. I smelled the scent of age, of undusted newel posts, of mice behind the walls and spiders that feasted on the neglect. Much older than the rest of the castle I’d seen-from the construction of the rough-hewn beams and cracked stone steps, I guessed this section dated from the Middle Ages.

As I followed the spiral down, the temperature continued to drop. The never-ending circle of steps went deeper than one flight, deeper than two or three. I thought about stopping, going back up. I really was lost. And then I heard a voice-indistinct and far off.

“Jean Luc?”

No response. In silence, I descended deeper, taking another step and then another. Suddenly I heard the voice again. More distinct. Two voices. Good, I could ask for help, get directions to the kitchens.

I hurried. The voices getting louder. I came around another spiral. Only a dozen steps now to the bottom.

Before me lay a darkened cavern. I peered into its depths to find the men, to call out, to tell them I was lost, to ask for help. I saw them. Opened my mouth to yell out-and then instead put my hand up to stop myself from screaming.

Two men stood with their backs to me: Grigori and Yasin. But they were not alone. The Dowager was with them. She was seated in a tall-backed wooden chair. Fury in her eyes as they bent over her, tying her arms to the chair with thick, rough rope.

In Russian, Grigori asked her a question.

And she answered him back, shaking her head no.

He asked the same question again, even more loudly.

She repeated her answer, this time without shaking her head.

Yasin yelled at her.

She only shook her head, no.

With a burst of anger, Yasin pulled a white handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it into the Dowager’s mouth.

Grigori went to work tying her ankles together with another length of rope. Her expression remained stoic.

And then she noticed me. She shook her head slightly-the regal movement, an order telling me not to try to help but to leave, to escape. Then her eyes met mine. I wasn’t looking anymore at the Imperial Dowager who’d ruled Russia alongside her husband. In her eyes she was nothing but a frightened elderly woman begging me to save her.