by Daniel Caet
Becca turned to look at the tree with narrow branches that was painted on the other side of the room and that contained the names of those who had been part of that family before her. Had any of them gone through the same thing she was suffering? She knew that this was a question that none of them could answer, but she couldn't help wondering, why her? Why of the huge number of names on the wall this was happening to her? Her eyes scanned the names one by one, some of them too small to see from a distance. Just a collection of letters and dates, that was all they were. Her eyes were jumping from one name to the next without knowing very well what they were looking for until they reached a branch that she knew very well. A branch that had very few names and the last one was one that was very familiar to her. Her mother, Genevieve. Her eyes went through the years that marked her birth and death, but if she had expected to feel some pain, once again it did not happen. It took her a second to see it. Maybe it should have been obvious, but human eyes only see what they expect to see, and she definitely did not expect that. Above her mother’s, only one name stood out for its length compared to the others, an elegant, ancient name, a noble name. Sophie de Courcillon, Marquise de La Valette. Her eyes must have stuck on the peculiarity of that name so bombastic, but instead it was another detail that caught her attention. That name was not accompanied by two dates but only by one, nineteen twenty-seven. A date of birth without a date of death. The hairs on her neck bristled at the reality of what that discovery meant to her, to her entire life. That woman was her grandmother and she was alive somewhere in the world.
Becca burst into the kitchen almost breathless and bumping into Mrs McDermott.
“Where is Eustace?” she asked without even apologising.
“If I am not mistaken, he is serving breakfast to ma’am's guest in the dining room,” one of the girls, half frightened, answered quickly.
Becca came out the door again as a lightning bolt and ran to the dining room. Upon arrival she found Eustace chatting amicably with Charice.
“Good morning, beautiful!” said Charice smiling.
“Eustace, how long have you and your family been working in this house?” Becca asked ignoring the greeting, leaving Charice stunned by her attitude.
“Me, about twenty years, but my family has been here for more than five generations, Madam,” said the butler without losing an iota of composure.
“Perfect. So, if I tell you the name Sophie de Courcillon, I guess It will mean something to you.”
“Well,” the man said, “I imagine it refers to madam’s grandmother, Madam the Marquise.”
“Who?” Charice asked, looking as if she had seen a ghost.
“The Marquise. It turns out that my grandmother is a marquise, Charice! And I say it is because I just found out that the lady is not dead! Am I wrong, Eustace?”
“No, Madam is not mistaken,” replied the butler, with a face that showed complete lack of understanding what the fuss was about. “Madam the Marquise lives in Paris, or at least lived there until about a year ago that we learned about her for the last time.”
“I can't believe it!” replied Becca indignantly. “And what were you waiting for to tell me?”
“Excuse me, Madam, but tell her what?” replied the man even more confused. “Does madam mean she didn't know her grandmother was still alive?”
“No, I'm afraid nobody bothered to tell me anything, much less herself.”
“I beg madam to excuse me, I could not assume that you were not informed,” said the man visibly embarrassed.
“But ... just a moment,” Charice interrupted. “If your grandmother is alive, how come she has never contacted you all this time? And how is it possible that you inherited all the family fortune? Doesn't it belong to her?”
“For the first question, I don't have an answer, I'm afraid,” Eustace replied, “but for the second one. The Marquise does not belong to the Duncan branch of the family, she married Phillip Engels, the madam’s grandfather who did belong to that branch and was the heir of Duncan Hall being the only child of Isobel Duncan. Therefore, the family fortune belongs to the heiress of the Duncan bloodline, that is, to Madam”
“Fuck, this is an episode of Santa Barbara!” said Charice with a sneer.
“Besides,” the butler continued, “if Madam would allow me an appreciation that perhaps is out of place, the Marquise's fortune will probably double that of the Duncan family several times. Her grandmother has been a successful businesswoman and her companies move large amounts of money around the world.”
“Whatever it is, but that woman has to be a monster if she hasn't wanted to see you in your whole life. Fuck her, honey! This morning I woke up with the intention of telling you that I think we should forget all this and return to New York. You have to look for your happiness, and that's where you were always happy, you said it yourself ...”
“Are you crazy?” interrupted Becca. “I do not have the intention to go anywhere, Charice! This woman has stayed away from me for years and she will explain to me why, I can guarantee that. And by the way, she will explain this family mess that I have until the last letter, even if I have to take it out of her with a corkscrew.”
“Becca, don't be ridiculous!” said Charice. “You are not thinking properly. What will all this bring to you? More pain? Do not get into this. Turn the page. What do you intend to do, invite her for tea as if nothing had happened and sit down and wait until she wants to tell who knows what to a granddaughter she has ignored for years? That is not going to happen…”
“I think Miss Charice is right, if I may say so,” Eustace replied from the corner of the room. “It is impossible for you to invite your grandmother to Duncan Hall,” he continued, “because, as far as I know, your grandmother left the mansion before you were born swearing she would not set foot in these grounds again. So, I'm afraid if you want to talk to her ...”
“We're going to Paris,” said Becca with a resolution that left no room for replication. “Today, pack your bags.”
“Oh, don't fuck me! You're not thinking Becca!” protested Charice.
“I'm going with or without you, you can come with me and help me with this or be responsible for what might happen to me,” Becca replied with a mocking smile confident of what her friend's decision would be while she left the room. A second later, Becca's head reappeared through the door. “Eustace, you come with us,” she said leaving without waiting for an answer.
They landed at Orly airport that same night at about eight o'clock. The organisation of the trip had once again been an example of Eustace's impeccable ability to manage unforeseen events. In just three phone calls he had made the private plane that had brought them from New York ready to take off that same afternoon and got a landing slot assigned at Orly, organised a car that was waiting for them upon arrival and ensured that they had rooms available for that night at the Four Seasons. Unfortunately for Becca, what Eustace had not been able to achieve was that Charice stopped a single moment trying to convince her that this was crazy and a waste of time, that this grandmother did not want to see her and that this sudden attack to meet the family would only bring her headaches. Actually, the headache was being induced by Charice’s unnecessary moaning, but she kept that to herself. As much as Becca did not understand why her friend, who had pushed her to be adventurous and daring, was now so determined that she did not do what was possibly the most daring thing that had crossed her mind since arriving in Scotland, Becca couldn’t accept that she had a grandmother and not try to meet her, even if it was for the old woman to tell her that she did not want to know anything about her. At least this time she would say it in her face.
Charice's mood did not improve upon arrival at the hotel, and she went to sleep without even having dinner arguing a migraine. Eustace didn't leave his room, so Becca ended up having dinner alone in the hotel restaurant. That night she could not sleep. She had given very clear instructions to Eustace. The next day they would turn up at their grandmother's last kn
own residence, which Eustace had found on an old bill corresponding to the move when her grandmother left Duncan Hall. Becca was aware that this woman might no longer live there, but at least she had a place to start, and if necessary she was willing to travel all over France to find her and discover her part of the story. Becca hoped that her grandmother could shed some light on everything she was living, Helel, the books, the attacks and everything else, although she was aware that it could be that this woman only brought more confusion to her life. For starters, and as far as Becca knew, that woman must be old enough to be dead, and that trip could be a waste of time; but it didn't matter, Becca couldn't wait until the next day to clear her doubts.
The next morning, Becca got up early and went down for breakfast only to find Charice in the restaurant, with dark circles around her eyes, clutching a cup of coffee and absolutely depressed. She had no idea what had happened to her friend, but that trip had her shattered, and she had lost all the vitality and energy she normally wasted.
“You're good?” Becca asked with some fear of the answer.
“Yes,” Charice replied with a reluctant smile. “I'm just tired, the damn migraine hasn't let me sleep at all.”
Becca decided not to give it any importance because she did not want to give Charice a reason to start again with the song of the previous day, so when they finished breakfast they went to meet with Eustace who already had the car ready.
“Madame de Courcillon's residence, assuming she is still there, is near Les Invalides. It shouldn't be more than five minutes, Madam,” he said as they got into the car and nerves began to cling to Becca's stomach.
The five minutes ended up being twenty-five due to the traffic chaos of the city, but finally the car stopped in front of the typical Parisian building of about five floors located in front of a small park. The appearance of the neighbourhood was ideal and clearly high standing.
“Which one is her floor?” asked Becca.
“I'm afraid everyone, Madam,” Eustace replied, explaining that the entire building was a house and not independent floors as she had supposed. Becca looked for the doorbell to announce her arrival but realised that there was none. Immediately the double metal door with opaque crystals opened and a man in his forties dressed in something like a livery and who seemed taken from a novel by Alexandre Dumas received them.
“Good morning, my name is ...” Becca wanted to introduce herself, but she didn't have time.
“Madam is waiting for you, if you are so kind to accompany me.”
Becca went pale. As far as she knew Eustace had not announced her visit since she did not want to give her grandmother the possibility of fleeing from her, so the fact that the man indicated that she was waiting for them without even needing to ask for her name left her out of place. She turned to look at Eustace and Charice who seemed not to give it any relevance, so she decided that it was best to follow that man inside the building while Eustace stood by the car.
The house was much bigger inside than it looked on the outside. What had once been the lobby of the building's staircase was profusely decorated with armchairs and carpets that made it a cosy room rather than the typical lifeless passage space. The man led them to an elevator of metal doors with art deco decoration that seemed to be two hundred years old and told them to enter since the lady of the house would receive them in the library on the top floor. Becca had doubts that this piece of old machinery could lift them all, but it did without a single noise or squeak. When they reached the destination floor, the doors opened to a huge reading room. The walls of the different rooms on the floor had been removed making the extension resemble that of a university library. On the walls, volumes of all possible aspects were piled up, some clearly modern and others with so many years that it was scary to even touch them in case they fell apart in their hands. The butler directed them to the end of the room where a woman was standing with her back to them looking out a large window.
“Madam, the visits you expected.”
“Thanks Maurice, you can retire,” the woman said, turning so that the sun coming through the window momentarily blinded Becca who could not make out her face. “Welcome, Rebecca!”
When her eyes got used to the light and she could see the face of the woman who welcomed her, she felt her legs fail for a second, but the woman approached her and held her. The face that Becca had in front, looking at her with the same seriousness of a marble statue was a face she had seen before. That brunette woman, probably under forty, beautiful and smelling deliciously, was the same woman who had rescued her that first night in Duncan Hall when the winged creature had called her to the fountain. She remembered her face perfectly, scrutinising hers then with the same intensity as now.
“Charice, can you please help me?”
“Sure, Aunt,” Charice replied, helping Becca to lift and Becca's eyes looked at her dishevelled when she heard the familiar treatment from her friend's lips, who in turn looked at her in shame as the child that has been caught stealing cookies. The two women helped her to sit in an armchair in front of a low table on which someone had left a porcelain coffee set that smoked spreading a wonderful smell throughout the room.
“Take this!” said the woman, handing her a cup full of that dark and hot liquid. “It's strong, but that will help your blood pressure rise and you'll feel better.”
Becca drank a couple of sips obediently and just as the woman had told her, almost immediately she began to find herself recovered. And very, very pissed off. She set the cup down on the table so as not to be tempted to throw it, and looked seriously at the two women in front of her.
“I will be very clear with my questions and demand the same clarity in the answers,” she said, controlling herself not to shout. “Who the fuck are you and what the hell is this all about?” she asked, addressing first the woman with the black hair and then Charice.
“Becca ...” Charice began to answer with a face that showed she felt guilty.
“Allow me, my dear,” the woman interrupted and her voice, although she did not raise it at all, filled the entire room. “Since you have asked for clear answers, I will be as concise as possible, although I must tell you that this is not exactly one of my virtues. My name you already know, Sophie de Courcillon, or at least that's what my name is now; but that's the subject of another conversation that we should also have. Regarding what I am, I think you're already informed that we are family, aren't you?”
“Well, I don't know,” Becca replied in a clearly aggressive tone. “I was supposed to meet my grandmother, but unless you sleep in a freezer there is something that does not fit.”
“Let me start over, this time with a different question,” she said as she took out a cigarette from a silver cigarette case and lit it as if she were a Hollywood actress without bothering to ask if the smoke could bother her. “Do you know who you are?”
“Do I know who I am? Of course, I know who I am, or I knew it until I started discovering things about my dear family that nobody can understand and that are starting to make me very angry!”
“Anger has always been a family defect, it doesn't surprise me,” she said as she rose to walk to the window and turned her back. “I think you've been reading quite a lot lately, right?” she continued to seemingly change the subject. “You don't need to answer me. Have you understood already who is Helel?” Becca felt the hair on her arms bristle. She didn't dare to verbalise it, but she knew perfectly what the answer to that question was. “Luzbel, Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, the fallen, the enemy. All those are the names that men and other creatures have given him at different times in history, almost all of them wrong. But his only real name, the name that this family has always known him by, is Helel,” she said, turning to look at Becca again. “At this point you are quite familiar with a part of his history, but I wonder if you have understood what his relationship with you is.”
“Well, at least you just confirmed that there is a relationship.”
“We bo
th know that you had already concluded that yourself,” the woman replied distantly. “If what you want is that I am as clear and honest with you as you have asked me, I would beg you to do the same.”
Becca tensed in her seat when she felt scolded and the following words spit out of her mouth.
“Very well. It is true, by now any idiot would have understood that I have not received those books for no reason; but no, I have not yet been able to understand what all this means. Have you sent me the volumes?”
The woman laughed slightly, and the gesture made her even prettier than she had initially seemed to Becca.
“No, it wasn't me. In fact, if it had been for me you would have never seen them. Unfortunately, your father had other ideas.”
“So, my father exists? Do you know him?”
“Of course, your father exists, and I know him. Your father is Helel.”
Becca realised that her legs were trembling again, and she was grateful for being sit down. She did her best to compose her face to try that the sudden anxiety that phrase had just generated was not noticeable, but she could feel how that anguish began to take hold of her causing something that she knew very well to accumulate inside her, something she should not let go.
As if reading her mind, the woman approached her and grabbed her hand in a tender gesture that did not match her unperturbed face. At the same moment when the woman touched her, Becca felt the energy she feared so much calmed down and the anguish disappeared.
“I will teach you to control this, it is important that you learn not to lose focus.”
Those words, together with the gesture, broke Becca who noticed how two big tears escaped her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. The anguish and anxiety of everything she had had to live in recent weeks and, above all, the impotence of not understanding anything finally surfaced.
“Who am I?” she asked in a truncated voice.
