“No! You are nothing like the possessed! Do you not remember the friar that came through Saint-Philbert when the boys were still alive? The one with the demoniac?”
Élisabeth shook her head, wiping her face with her sleeve.
“Nicolas and I went to see them. Were you not with us?” Marthe waited for Élisabeth to nod, to acknowledge the memory, for she could see the day clearly in her mind. The friar had come from the south in late summer, walking with a gnarled cane, calling out for the villagers to gather. When all the wives and children had poured from their homes, he began the exorcism. The possessed woman, a filthy and shambling creature tied by the wrists to a cord around the friar’s waist, had rolled on the ground making impossible shapes with her body: her hips raised, her knees behind her ears, her head twisted near off her neck. It was so grotesque that Nicolas had laughed out loud, and the village wives had to tell him to hush.
“Do you not remember? The demoniac had fits for nearly half an hour, barking and moaning and contorting all the time. She crawled around on her hands and knees, licking the cobblestones in the square. Then the friar sprinkled her with holy water and she screamed as if she had been scalded. Lili, you are nothing like that woman—why, you just took communion in the chapel! You cannot think you are afflicted with ademon.”
For a moment hope blossomed across Élisabeth’s face, her blue eyes widening. “That is true, I did not scream in the chapel.” Then she faltered and a sob caught in her throat. “Even if there is no demon, I am still barren. I am still cursed. I lost my child, and I can never have another. Not until the curse is broken.”
Marthe gently stroked her sister’s back while her mind raced. Of course Élisabeth was not possessed—could not be!—but a witch’s lesser curse was possible. Everyone in Saint-Philbert sprinkled crushed eggshells outside their door to keep witches away, and traded information about signs of their craft, from mothers’ milk drying up to crops shrivelling and animals wasting away. If poor Élisabeth’s misfortune became widely known, she would have such a blot against her name.Theirname. Marthe stiffened at the thought that Élisabeth’s shame—once again—might affect her own prospects.
“There must be a way to lift the curse,” she said, letting her hand drop to her side.
“There isn’t.” Élisabeth sniffed. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve eaten vervain and dill until I’ve retched. I’ve drunk water that had a true relic of Saint Ignatius dipped in it. I’ve walked backwards around the stone circle at the top of the Roche d’Oëtre in the moonlight. And I came here, to the holiest place on earth and laid on its sacred ground. Nothing has worked. Nothing! I still feel such sharp movements in my gut. I am cursed and I can never, ever have another child.”
“Thereissomething you could try.” Marthe waited until Élisabeth looked up. “The Winter Witch is an old woman, yes? Barren herself.” Her sister nodded. “So could a younger, more powerful practitioner… break her curse?”
Marthe watched her sister’s face as her meaning dawned. Élisabeth shook her head so vehemently the sides of her hood slapped her cheeks. “No. I would not dare—”
“Why ever not? Jeanne Roy is one of us! A sister of the sea. She saved us from the storm. There can be no mightier a sorceress in the whole world than her.”
Élisabeth’s voice grew shrill. “It is unthinkable to beg a favour from a witch.”
Marthe took her hands. “She’s not awitch. You do not know that she has made a pact with the Devil. She is a mighty sorceress who can heal and mend and cure. There is a difference. And if she is the leader of the banished coven the old priest seeks, she will certainly have the power to break the curse.”
Élisabeth pulled away. “If she leads a coven then she is a witch! And there is nothing more evil than a witch—”
“But magic is good!” Marthe insisted. “Magic is holy. Even priests have magic. If one has the power to help and to heal, how can that be evil?”
Élisabeth began to gnaw on her thumbnail, her eyes darting left and right. “I cannot survive another witch.”
“You cannot survive as you are, Lili. If Jeanne is as powerful as Father de Sancy says she is, you must make an ally of her.”
Élisabeth bit her nail down to the quick, her eyes still scanning the horizon. Marthe felt a surge of frustration. Why could her sister never listen? It was Élisabeth’s pigheaded refusal to consider the counsel of anyone but Rémy that had brought them across the sea. The day the village priest had signed the letters of good conduct—the testament to their chastity and piety—Marthe had lashed out and told Élisabeth she would be found out on her wedding night; she would be known for a whore and whipped. Marthe had cursed her sister for her sins and the priest for his lies.
Only a knock on the cottage door had stopped her tirade. It was the Delaunays’ wrinkled cook, Old Geneviève, who seemed to know the moment she walked through the door the cause of the sisters’ quarrel.
“I told you to stay away from that boy,” Old Geneviève said, shifting her weight heavily on her cane. “He’s just like his father.”
“Rémy loves me—”
Old Geneviève cut Élisabeth off. “Go. Go and forget him. I see you’ve got them letters. Good. I told the curé that all that gossip was nowt but spite and if it were true, why was there no child to account for? I said you were born unlucky, as sure as you were born with those blue eyes, and if he could talk so much about God’s mercy without laying some of it down on you and your poor sister… well.”
“Soyouare the cause of our misfortune.” Marthe glared at the old cook. “You lied to that fool priest so the parish could be rid of us.”
Old Geneviève sighed and rubbed her hip. “I am not the cause of your woes. I am sorry for you, Marthe, for you are blameless. But consider, a spirited girl such as yourself might do better in New France than in this tired old village.” She turned and spoke more gently to Élisabeth. “And you. Listen to me. Go on that bride ship and start again. Find a better man than Rémy.”
“I will go to seek my salvation,” Élisabeth said stiffly. “But I won’t be anyone else’s bride. I love Rémy, I love him and I always—”
The cook had held up her hand. Her eyes were small and dark, smaller still when she narrowed them. “I know it’s not easy to listen to folks when you don’t like what they have to say. But you must try, Élisabeth Jossard, for your own sake.”
On that night, as Old Geneviève had limped out of the cottage and back up the hill, Marthe had wondered why, if Élisabeth and Rémy loved each other so much, they had not fought harder to stay together. Now that she knew the truth about the witch’s curse, she wondered why Élisabeth was still so unwilling to heed anyone’s advice but his.
She tried again. “Please appeal to Jeanne Roy, Lili. It may be your only hope.”
Élisabeth stared at the ground, spitting out a jagged nail. “I suppose she might look on me with favour.”
Marthe tried to hide her surprise. She held her breath, waiting.
