The priests cowered, just as she said they would. The one with the poker brandished it at them. Élisabeth pushed on, hoping the girls could keep up.
“I am la Fille du Roy,” she declared. “I am the Warrior Maid. I am the Winter Witch.” The spell echoed around the room.The Winter Witch. The Winter Witch. The Winter Witch.
“It is just as I said it would be!” Father de Sancy exclaimed with a voice full of wonder as he lifted his candle to peer at them. “Why—the witch queen is controlling the coven. She… she is commanding the others to do her bidding. Just as I said!”
“They look like a gaggle of women in their shifts to me,” a young curé countered warily.
Élisabeth quivered with fear. If the priests doubted them, the witches would be lost. They would be rounded up, publicly whipped for their deception, and Marthe would die in childbirth. Her knees started to knock as badly as they ever had when Marcosi roamed free inside her.
Marcosi.The she-wolf with wings.
Élisabeth knew what to do. Drawing on the demon’s strength, she threw back her head and with all the force in her body let a howl rip from her throat.
The sound was so raw, so painful that one of the priests dropped his candle to cover his ears. After a moment’s hesitation, Lou also threw her head back and howled, then Rose and Françoise followed, and the rest. The priest with the poker flung the tool down and bolted back up the stairs.
“I am Angélique Aubert de Brétigny!” Élisabeth cried. “La Fille du Roy! The Warrior Maid! The Winter Witch!”
The Winter Witch. The Winter Witch.
“Begone, demon!” Father de Sancy wheezed, his voice high and panicked. He panted, struggling to catch his breath.
“Give me back my doll,” Élisabeth commanded, and the other women echoed her demand.
“No.” The priest lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm. His grip wasso fierce that Élisabeth thought she might cry out. Instead, she flopped forward at the waist as if she were the ragdoll they had come to find, leaving the priest holding on to an empty husk. He stared at Élisabeth’s limp body.
“You cannot stop me,” Rose said, picking up the lead, and the other brides repeated her words.Cannot stop me. Cannot stop me.“I can fly at will between the innocents. I am the witch queen. I inhabit whomever I please.”
Father de Sancy dropped Élisabeth’s arm and spun to face Rose. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. By the light of the candle she could see the sweat glisten on his reddened face. Élisabeth slowly raised herself back upright, as if she were a marionette being lifted from on high. She watched out of the corner of her deadened eye as the old priest glanced over his shoulder. The other Sulpicians had fled upstairs. He was alone. Still, he took a step towards Rose.
Suddenly Wari spoke from the other side of the room. “Give me back my doll.” The witches echoed her words.Give me back my doll. Give me back my doll.
De Sancy spun around, and seemed startled to find that there was a native woman among the coven. “I will not… will not… bend to evil.”
“Youare the Evil One,” Élisabeth cried.
The Evil One. The Evil One. The Evil One.
“Give me back my doll!”
“Never.” The priest lunged to one side of the room and grabbed Jeanne Roy’s ragdoll by the neck. It had been sitting in the shadows, unseen, on top of his books. “Is this what you seek, witch?”
Even by the dim candlelight she could see the strain on his face and the flush spreading up his neck as he brandished the doll at the group of women. The priest was sweating, trembling, an old man with hunched shoulders and shaking turkey jowls. He was weak.
She raised her right hand and pointed her finger at him. Straight and strong,like she had seen the old woman in the tavern do, that night so many months ago. The finger that had put so much terror into her own heart. One by one, faces blank, the other girls did the same. Soon the old priest was surrounded by a coven of witches ready to lay their curse.
“My hand shall drop, and you will writhe in agony!”
In agony. In agony, the brides repeated.
“Unless you give me back my doll.”
My doll, my doll, my doll.The ghoulish brides formed a circle around the priest.
“Stay back,” he cried, holding it above his head. Élisabeth let out another chilling howl. The sound of twelve more wolves reverberated behind her. She stepped forward.
“No,” Father de Sancy gasped, clutching his chest. The doll drooped in his hand. He could no longer hold it up.
“Writhe in agony,” Élisabeth chanted, casting her spell.Writhe in agony, the brides repeated. The priest fell to his knees, the doll tumbling from his hand. His eyes widened at the coven surrounding him. His face had grown ashen. His mouth opened and closed, a fish on land unable to breathe. He stared at Élisabeth with a face full of horror.
