The Witch of Painted Sorrows

Chapter 35

My husband looked directly at me but didn’t recognize me. His eyes barely rested on my face. He was too busy looking first at Heloise and then Stephanie.

Of course he didn’t recognize me. I was wearing a man’s jacket, shirt and cravat, and hat. I was sitting with half-nude models and bohemian artists. No New York society matron was at our table. The woman he knew wasn’t there.

What was he doing in the restaurant? Had he tracked me to Paris, or was his being here a coincidence? Certainly, now that my father was dead and Benjamin was running the bank, he would have reason to be in Paris. The branch in New York was still tied to the French branch.

“Sandrine.” Heloise squeezed my arm. “Where did you go? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I did,” I said, trying for levity but not sure I’d managed to keep my voice light enough.

“But there are no such thing as ghosts,” she said. “Am I right, Gaston? Serge? Are there such things as ghosts?” she called out.

“Of course there are.” Gaston laughed. “Let’s go to Hell. You can see ghosts and more there! Everyone in agreement then? Hell will be our next stop?”

The facade of Cabaret de l’Enfer screamed at us from across the street, trying to terrify and attract us at the same time. Sandwiched between ordinary buildings, the monstrous dark gray plaster face with wild eyes and Medusa-like hair opened its mouth wide and invited us in. The frightening face’s lines were sinuous and artful, and reminded me of-yes! This was the club Monsieur Dujols and his friends owned and that Julien had designed. Although he’d told me about it and promised to bring me here, he never had.

And as soon as I walked through the open mouth and over the threshold, I understood why Julien hadn’t wanted me to see this. The darkened rooms were cooler than they should have been. The lights were red and orange. It was a tour de force of horror. The walls were sculpted bas-reliefs of guillotines in action, skulls and bones, winged dragons fighting with devils, and snakes wrapped about skeletons. I felt as if I’d stepped into one of Hieronymus Bosch’s visions of hell. Dark corners dripped with stalactites; there were coffins instead of couches.

“Enter and be damned. The Evil One awaits you!” the maître d’ snarled as he welcomed us.

Music from the opera Faust emanated from a giant cauldron hanging over a fire. The mammoth brass container was filled with male and female musicians all dressed as devils and playing various stringed instruments painted red. Incense burned coal-red inside of brass censers. The club smelled like a Roman Catholic church.

It was a magical, terrifying atmosphere, at once dangerous and tempting. The end of the world, the end of a century, and a vision of what awaited us in the next.

“I don’t I like it,” Heloise said. “It’s full of ghouls. It’s scary.”

“It’s all make-believe,” I said, and laughed.

“Don’t you mind the smell?”

I sniffed again, taking more of it in. “No, it’s wonderful.”

Heloise looked at me strangely. “It’s blasphemous.”

“To you perhaps, but I’m not a Christian. To me it’s exotic and foreign.”

We all sat down on a long coffin couch. The tables were tombstones. Everywhere you looked you were reminded of death and carnage, from the murals to the black hangings painted with sayings about mortality. An imp somersaulted across the floor. Another approached to take our orders. Serge and Gaston ordered absinthe again, and I followed now, craving its soothing warmth.

Our drinks came, and we sipped the green liquor and watched the ever-moving, ever-changing hellish scene around us. The corners of the room were sculpted into caverns lit by fires issuing thick, acrid smoke. Bursts of thunder erupted at intervals. Flames darted out from crevices in rocks.

Gaston asked Heloise to dance. Serge asked me. I refused at first, but he took my hands and pulled me up. “You’re too serious for your own good. You need to have some fun.”

The surprise of how his body moved against mine in time to the music exhilarated me. His hostility and familiarity confused me and excited me. The drink-the whole night of drinks-was catching up with me. I was dizzy with wild thoughts. When he leaned down and kissed me, I kissed him back, hard. He pulled me closer, reached down, and wildly, blatantly, stroked me between the legs. For a moment I forgot everything but the sensation, and then I jumped back, shocked.

“I have to find a lavatory,” I said, and ran from the dance floor.

It wasn’t just a convenient response. I had thought I was going to be sick. How could I have let Serge touch me? Even worse, what part of me was so corrupt that I had responded?

What happened next remains clear in my mind, even though I’d had a lot to drink, including that devil’s water, absinthe. But I don’t believe that my being inebriated contributed to what I remember.

I found a waiter and asked for directions to the lavatory and listened carefully to his instructions to turn this way and then that way. They were just long enough for me to get confused, and I probably made a left when I should have made a right. Or made two lefts in a row instead of two rights. But I found myself in a hallway that seemed to go on for a long time. When I reached the end, there was no visible door or exit of any kind that I could see.

I turned in a slow circle.

On my second rotation I saw a faint outline on the wall. I must have missed it before. There was an indentation suggesting a door but no handle or obvious way to open it. So I pushed on it and found myself peering into a closet. Devil, imp, and ghoul costumes hung from hooks. Horns and tails were piled on top of a long shelf. A storage room for Satan’s followers.

I could hear distant singing. Was it coming from the cabaret? It didn’t seem to be coming from behind me but from below me.

I got down on my knees and put my ear to the wooden floor. The song was amplified. There were revelers down below. As I knelt, I felt chilled air on my face. Coming from the floor? I felt around with my finger and found a crack. Following its circular contour, I came to an iron handle.

I lifted it. A large trap door opened up, and with it a gust of cool, perfumed air. I peered down.

Like at the opera house, a staircase cut out of rough-hewn stone descended into the earth. It was dark and impossible to see past a certain point, but I could hear, even more distinctly now, human voices chanting.

I remembered what Monsieur Dujols had told me: “If you ever decide that you want us to help you, you can find us in hell.”

I had assumed he’d been speaking metaphorically. But now I realize he hadn’t been. This must be the very spot that he had been telling me about.

These were the people who could help me. People who had the answers. Who knew what La Lune was and how I could control her-or rid myself of her, perhaps, without losing the powers she had imbued in me. Because I knew now, if I wanted Julien back, I had no other choice.

And so I descended into the depths of hell.

A half dozen men and women, all wearing dark robes with hoods that obscured their faces, sat on the ground, encircling a pentagram drawn in the dirt. In its center, a small fire burned, the smoke emitting a rich, resinous, and salty fragrance. Torches in iron holders flickered on the stone walls and cast shadows over the complex drawing. I recognized symbols, numbers, and creatures I’d seen in the grimoire in the bell tower and in the etchings in Dujols’s library.

There were white candles arranged in a circle around the pentagram. To the right and left of the circle were deer or antelope antlers, at least four feet wide. Propped against the wall was a tall mirror with the outline of a circle painted on it, framed with a border of Jewish stars and alchemical symbols. Some I recognized; others I didn’t.

One of the men threw something into the fire. It was the color of rubies and the size of a fist. The scent of pepper, musk, and saffron filled the air, and as the object burned, they chanted:

“We evoke and conjure thee, O spirit Vauael, by the Supreme Majesty, the true God who is known by the names of Yod Heh Vav Heh Adonai, Eheieh, and Agla, to appear before us in this mirror in a fair and comely shape. We evoke and conjure thee…”

One of the members of the group noticed me and held up his hand to stop the others from chanting. He pointed at me. Everyone looked. Then the whispering began again, and while I couldn’t make out the words, I could tell I wasn’t welcome.

“Who are you?” one of the hooded figures asked. “How did you find us? Who told you to come?”

“I did,” a male voice rang out. The speaker pushed his hood back, and Monsieur Dujols revealed himself. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mademoiselle Verlaine.”

Murmurs of approval now.

A woman with long, white wavy hair came up to me and took my hand. She must have been in her seventies, but her skin had a youthful glow. She smiled. “I’m Alexandra. Thank you for coming, and for bringing her with you.”

“I’m alone.”

“No, the woman known as the Secret Witch is with you,” Alexandra said.

She was the first person other than my grandmother who could see La Lune.

“Would you like to see her?” she asked me.

I nodded.

“Come look.” She took me by the hand and led me to the mirror leaning against the wall. They all had stood and now crowded around me. Alexandra pointed. I stared into the mirror.

I shook my head. “I don’t see her.”

“You’re not ready,” Alexandra said. “How can we help you?”

I undid the top button of my shirt and showed her the rubies. The fragrance of violets seemed to be filling the dank air. I braced myself for the nausea that followed and then forced myself to ignore it.

“I can’t take the necklace off.”

“May I try?” Alexandra asked.

I nodded.

She went behind me and tried, as Julien had, to work the clasp. When her fingers touched my skin, they were cool and soothing. After a few moments, she gave up.

Alexandra turned to Dujols. “It’s attached. La Lune is melded to her.”

“Is she harming you?” The man who asked was wearing a long purple robe with the zodiac embroidered all over it.

“Not me, no. Others.”

“Who has she harmed?” Dujols asked.

I clasped my hands together, my fingernails digging into the skin of my palms. It took enormous effort not to scream out at the pain I was causing. The effort it took to answer Dujols’s question was even greater. “My grandmother,” I whispered.

“What did you say?” Alexandra asked.

I tried to speak more loudly, but my voice wouldn’t comply. They all had to lean closer.

“My grandmother. A rabbi. An opera singer who was affianced to a man I know.”

“She’s very powerful. She had to be to survive this long,” Alexandra said.

“Who are you?” I asked her. “Who are all of you?”

“We study and try and decipher the past and uncover the secrets that have been lost over time,” she said.

I remembered what Julien had told me about Dujols and his followers.

“Is this black magick?”

“We don’t use terms like that,” said Alexandra. “We are students of ancient traditions and hidden knowledge. You can help us.”

“And we can help you,” said Dujols.

“How?”

“The book, the grimoire you found, is important, Sandrine. We can learn from it. Not only to help you but to unlock mysteries we have been trying to uncover for decades… for centuries.”

“And if I give it to you, you’ll help me?”

“Yes, but in order for you to turn it over to us, for us to be able to accept it, you must be initiated,” Alexandra said.

“Then initiate me.” The stench of the violets intensified. So did my need to vomit. I swallowed.

She laughed. “It takes time. You’ll need to study and learn so you understand our goals and our efforts.”

“But I don’t have time. Julien has left me. Benjamin is here in Paris, and I’m afraid of what he can do to me. My grandmother goes mad when I come near her…”

I stopped explaining. I was distracted by something in the distance. The cellar was more beautiful now that my eyes had adjusted to it. Mica rocks shimmered in the firelight. Two crystal monoliths glowed as if lit from inside. They were what I had noticed. And they seemed to be pulling me. I walked to them. I found myself at the beginning of a labyrinth created with round black stones embedded in the dirt.

Alexandra pulled me back. “You can’t, not yet. It’s part of the rites and rituals, and you aren’t ready.”

“But she seems to know her way,” Dujols said.

“It’s too dangerous,” Alexandra argued.

Dujols put his hand on hers. “Let her go,” he said.

I had stopped listening to them. I was walking the path. Was making all the right turns. I could feel energy pulling me forward.

Soon their voices were far in the distance and no more intrusive than a bee’s buzzing. Reaching the center, I discovered a spiral staircase descending below.

I climbed down. The cavern was even darker. It smelled of earth. Of fungus and moss. Of fecund leaves rotting. The scent of violets followed me in.

A wooden slab with a brass handle was set into the floor. Lifting it, I looked down into a coffin-shaped hole in the ground, just big enough for a body. Dirt floor. Dirt sides.

The wooden slab had a handle on the inside, too.

“Sandrine?”

Startled, I turned.

The beautiful white-haired woman had followed me.

“You need to come back up with me.”

“What is this place?”

“Our initiation chamber.”

“What happens in the initiation?”

“You’re not ready. Before you even attempt it, we need to teach you how to manipulate your breathing so, like the ancients, you can slow your body down, gain power over your heart, your lungs, and the flow of your blood. It’s the first step to learning many forms of restraint.”

“So that I can control La Lune’s coming and going?”

“Yes.”

“What would happen down here once I’d learned to slow my body?”

“You would pass a certain amount of time in this chamber of illumination. Once you proved you could withstand that, we would know you were ready to learn the rest.”

I knew what I had to do. If I didn’t stop La Lune, I was going to lose everything that mattered to me. I had to banish her. Then Julien would return. There was no other choice.

I crawled into the earthen box and, before the woman could object, pulled the lid closed. Heavier than I thought, it slammed with a loud bang I hadn’t expected.

“No!”

Alexandra’s scream was followed by the sound of rain. But it couldn’t be raining, not down here. For what seemed like several minutes I listened to pings, chinks, and dings falling against the wooden lid.

When silence fell again, I took hold of the handle and pushed up. The lid did not budge. I put both hands against the plank and pushed.

Nothing.

“Can you hear me?” Alexandra’s voice was muffled.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to tell you how to slow your breath. And then I am going to get help.”

Her voice was too far away.

“What happened?”

“The wall partially caved in, and the door is covered with stones and dirt. Listen to me and don’t talk. You need to conserve your energy. Get control of your breath. Feel it. Breathe in to the count of four with me… one… two… three… four… Now hold it just as long… one… two… three… four… Now out… one… two… three… four… Now hold… counting two… three… four… Keep that rhythm. Breathe slowly. Slowly. Now give your breath a color. A light color that floats. Pale blue or rose… pastel green. Imagine that you can see each breath as you expel it and hold it and take more in. Now slow down even more. Count to ten as you take it in… five… six… seven… eight… nine… ten… and then count to ten as you let it out. Watch the breath. Watch it as you exhale it and as you hold it.

My panic abated as I followed her instructions and saw and counted the pastel green breaths.

“Now count to fifteen for each inhalation, each hold, and each exhalation. And then twenty. Allow the color to become lighter and lighter as you breathe more and more slowly.”

I focused. I saw Julien’s face in the green miasma. I didn’t want to leave him. I counted to twenty. Was I breathing slow enough? Something was going wrong. The air grew thinner. Too thin. I could feel La Lune in the coffin with me. Nervous, not for herself but for me. For her best chance in generations. I almost felt sorry for her. Lost, wandering, waiting. We wanted the same things, she and I, but they could not be taken by manipulation as she had done through all these years. She was going to lose. I would not go mad like Marguerite, Eugenie, Clothilde or Simone. My portrait would be added to the wall, but the story they would tell about me would not be of a woman who succumbed.

Until that moment, I’d thought I needed La Lune in order to be the woman whom Julien had fallen in love with. To be a painter. To be a sensualist. To be brave. But it wasn’t that way at all, was it? I didn’t need her. She needed me. Without me she was just vapor. Just wind. If La Lune wanted to feel love, she needed me.

I was going to die, here in a dirt coffin in hell. And she would continue her wait… searching for someone to infiltrate. Poor La Lune, forever restless, forever hungering for just one thing, to love again, to be loved and be set free.

But I didn’t want to die!

My breath was labored. As slow as it was, it wasn’t slow enough. I couldn’t see the pastel breaths anymore. Only a viscous oily blackness that seeped in through the cracks in the wood, dripping onto me. Skinny snakes of disgusting filthy air that I could not take in. Poisonous vapors. Overtaking me. And there then was a blinding long last burst, and I knew I could stop trying. That it was the end. That I had lost.