“You lied to your father.”
I turned to see Adrien standing in the doorway wearing a silver-gray suit and a tie of the same color, his hands in his pockets. He must have just gotten back from his meeting in Lyon. I wondered how long he'd been standing there.
“You have no intention of succeeding him as administrateur,” he said in a gently chiding tone. “You just told him that to ease his mind.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“I wasn't at all sure until I came here and saw you. I admit I'm relieved. It's for the best.” Glancing at the book as he shrugged off his suit coat, he said, “A bit much to take in all at once, I should think.”
His manner was relaxed and composed, studiously so, as if in an attempt to erase what had happened in this very spot the night before. If it had been hard to meet his gaze yesterday, today it was agonizing.
Holding up the book, I said, “What is it, like some epic multivolume fantasy novel that mixes actual history with mythological—”
“It isn't fiction.” Adrien pulled a pack of Sobranie Black Russians and a gold lighter from an inside pocket of his coat before laying it over the back of an upholstered iron chair. He sat, loosening his tie.
“So, you're saying it's all true? Even the part about the Follets?” Christ, I thought, this whole thing was a delusion of Adrien's, and my formerly rational father had somehow gotten completely sucked into it. But considering his fragile health, and the knowledge that stress would only worsen his condition, was it worth trying to talk sense to him, or should I just let him keep believing what he believed?
Adrien said, “That book is a factual and straightforward account of the life and history of the Vernae as written by Brantigern the Protector. I merely translated it from the original Gaulish into French, which your father subsequently translated into English.”
“It doesn't worry you that a mere ‘civilian’ is privy to this oh-so-secret document?”
“You would never disclose what you've learned here,” he said with calm certainty.
“What, you know that from my aura?”
“I know that because you're a dependable, trustworthy person who's far too devoted to her father to betray what's important to him, even after he's gone.”
“You aren't going to tell him that I don't really intend to succeed him, are you? He's so sick. He doesn't need that kind of—”
“Of course not. But it's good that I know. This way I can begin making inquiries as to a replacement. Do you mind?” he asked as he flipped open the Sobranies.
I shook my head. “Don't tell him that you know about his illness, either—please. Not until he volunteers the information. He's such a private man, so proud and self-contained.”
Adrien lit a gold-tipped black cigarette and said, on a plume of smoke, “I first realized something was wrong with your father about a year ago, when his aura began to darken. I mentioned something once or twice in passing, and he brushed it off, so I abandoned the subject. I know him well enough to know when to keep my mouth shut.”
“I'm grateful for that. Thank you.” Checking my watch, I said, “I've got to leave in less than an hour for the airport. Since Dad can't travel much anymore, I'd like to come visit him every few weeks, if that's all right with you.”
Adrien lowered his cigarette, a hint of something raw and desolate in his eyes. “It pains me that you even have to ask that. I'm . . .” He lowered his gaze, his jaw tight, shaking his head slightly as if to admonish himself not to say too much. Looking up, he said, “You are always welcome here, Isabel. Always. You never have to ask.”
I nodded, looking away. He took a drag on his cigarette, and then another one.
Gesturing toward the cave entrance in the craggy rock face that formed the back wall of the bathhouse, he said, “How long have they been shooting in there?”
“Since before I got here, so over an hour.”
“I should check up on them. Your father was going to do it, but I knew it would exhaust him to walk all the way here from the château.”
He looked toward the cave, his eyes narrowed slightly, as if in concentration.
I said, “What are you—”
He held up a hand to shush me. A few seconds later, he smiled and said, “It would appear this little project is at an end.”
“What, so you're like Superman, you can see through solid rock?”
“Not through rock, no, and certainly not at this distance. They're pretty far into the cave, although they're heading back this way. Voices are a different matter, though. They can travel a very great distance, through all kinds of material.”
“Okay, Adrien, obviously you've somehow gotten Dad to play Demons and Druids with you, but I'm not quite as susceptible to parlor tricks—especially crappy ones that don't prove a damned thing.”
“How's this one?” Adrien waved a hand in the direction of the cave and said, “Uediju rowero gutu.”
“. . . lost the flash drives? You lost the fucking flash drives?”
“I didn't lose them, Larry. I put them in my camera bag last night, like I always do, but this morning they were gone. I was gonna go into town and get more, but—”
“Then why the fuck didn't you?” Larry screamed. “They were our only fucking backup.”
“Because you needed me behind the fucking camera all day!”
“We're fucked! We are totally fucked! Do you realize how fucking fucked we are?”
Adrien waved his hand again. The conversation snapped off as if he'd pushed a button.
“How was that one?” he asked.
“That one was much better,” I said dazedly.
“Inigo calls it, ‘surround sound.’ So, Larry's got his culottes in a twist because, while he was filming the crystal pool scene just now, the electromagnetic vortex in the cave erased all of the digital images in the cameras and his laptop. He had the footage backed up on two different flash drives, but they appear to have disappeared. Everything he shot since he's been here is gone.” He waved a hand airily, then took a puff of his cigarette. “C'est la vie.”
“An electromagnetic vortex?”
“You've heard about the vortices at Sedona, Arizona, and Machu Picchu?”
I nodded.
“They're often associated with volcanoes, and also with magnetic meteorites buried in the earth. In the case of Grotte Cachée, we happen to have a meteorite buried almost directly beneath an extinct volcano.” He cocked his head toward the wall of rock. “The deeper one ventures into that cave, the more profound the effect of the vortex.”
Still reeling from Adrien's demonstration with the voices, I said, “You knew if he shot a scene in that cave, it would wipe out everything he'd filmed up till then. And I assume the disappearance of those flash drives is no coincidence.”
Adrien shrugged and smiled as he stubbed out his cigarette.
“Of course,” I said. “The Follets get a novel and exciting form of ‘carnal nourishment’ without sacrificing their privacy. Very clever of you, mon seigneur.”
“It was all your father's doing. I don't know that I would have thought of the vortex ruse on my own.”
“. . . the fuck are we supposed to tell Archer when he asks where his movie is?” It was Larry Parent's voice, unenhanced by “surround sound,” approaching from within the cave. “Oh, we are well and truly fucked, my friend.”
“Bonjour,” greeted Adrien as Larry, his crew, Inigo, and Juicy Fisher emerged from the cave, ducking to pass through the low opening.
Larry, his expression grim, sent the others on ahead. “Hey, Mr. Morel. Is, uh, is Mr. Archer around?”
“If this is about the footage disappearing from the cameras and laptop, you can discuss that with me.”
Larry stood with his mouth open for a second, then closed it. “You know?”
“I overheard.”
Looking toward the cave, Larry said, “Yeah, but—”
“There is an electromagnetic vortex deep in the cave,�
�� Adrien said. “We should have known better than to suggest that you try to film in there. It is really entirely our fault.”
“That's . . . well, that's really understanding of you, but, um. . .”
“But you are distraught to have lost a creative product into which you put so much time and effort.”
A yeah, right sneer escaped from Larry ever so briefly before he schooled his features and said, “Yeah. Right. There is that, but there's also . . . I mean, I don't mean to sound mercenary here. I am an artist and all, but—”
“You assume we won't finance your independent film because you have no movie to give us. Please have no fears on that account, Mr. Parent. I think I can safely speak for Mr. Archer when I say that this little mishap will not affect your payment.”
“Really?”
“As I say, we are entirely to blame. What is the American expression? My bad.”
After Larry had left, I said to Adrien, “I'd been worried that my dad was off his rocker. Now I'm thinking maybe it's me.”
Leaning forward on his elbows, he said, “Why would you think that?”
I chewed on my lip for a moment. “The ‘surround sound,’ it was for real?”
“It was.”
“And . . . and Elic and Lili and Inigo and Darius . . .”
“Follets. And no, that is not their last name.”
I shook my head. “Holy shit.”
“Has anyone ever told you you swear like a cutter?”
“So Darius is like really a cat?”
“When he chooses to be.”
“That night, during my Christmas visit, when we were sitting in front of the fireplace in the great hall, and that cat came in and creeped me out till I went to bed . . .”
He nodded. “Darius. He, um, assumed his human form after you left, and had a little conversation with me about duty. He wasn't censorious, in fact he was quite kind, but he did ask me if I wanted to be ‘launching into something serious’ with someone I could never . . . Well.”
Rising from his chair, he grabbed a towel off a stack on a bench and brought it over to me. “Here, dry your feet off. They must have shriveled up to nothing by now.”
“Thanks.” I set the book aside, lifted my legs out of the water, swiveled around on my butt, and took the towel.
Adrien crouched down, picked up the book, and said, soberly, “Did you read this all the way through?”
I nodded as I scrubbed the towel over my calves and feet.
“Then you know that it's critical to the welfare of the Follets that their gardiens be druids—that is to say, gifted. Every gardien since Brantigern has had The Gift, and that is because their fathers, or in some cases, their mothers, took gifted spouses. In compiling l'Histoire Secrète, I've come across quite a few instances in which a gardien, out of sacred duty, set aside the woman he loved and married instead the gifted woman who had been chosen for him.”
I stopped drying my feet and looked up. “That's . . . My God, Adrien, that's so sad.”
He just looked down.
I said, “It's as if the gardiens are slaves. They're completely caged by tradition and duty, prisoners of this damned château.”
“I was reared, as were all my ancestors, to dedicate my life dibu e debu—to the gods and goddesses. They must always come first. They are my reason for being.”
Looking back down, I said, “Who does the choosing? Of the wives?”
“As with any arranged marriage, it's usually the parents. If the parents are deceased, that duty falls to the gardien's administrateur. He—or she—is generally quite well traveled, with connections all over the world, whereas we gardiens tend to stick close to home.”
I stood up, folding the damp towel just to have something to do with my hands. “So, um, my father's been looking for a wife for you?”
He stood, too. “For some time, but gifted women tend to be difficult to spot. Perhaps my next administrateur will have better luck.”
No wonder he'd said he was relieved when I confirmed that I would not be succeeding my father as administrateur. My chest felt as if someone were sitting on it. I drew in a deep breath and said, with forced bonhomie, “God, Adrien, your life is positively medieval. I couldn't hack it. Makes me glad we never can, you know . . . ‘launch into something serious.’”
“Liar,” he said softly.
I met his gaze.
He said, “I can see your aura, remember?”
“It's not fair,” I said, a little hoarsely. “I can't see yours.”
“That's probably a good thing.”
“Be careful driving to the airport,” my father said as Adrien loaded my little carry-on into the trunk of the Renault. Glancing up at the blushy peach sky, he said, “Night falls quickly here. It's the mountains. They swallow up the sun.”
“I'm an excellent driver, night or day,” I told him. “You worry too much.”
“He's right,” Adrien said. “You're not used to driving on mountain roads, and in the dark—”
“I'll be fine, you guys. Jeez.” I looked at my watch. “I've got to get going. I'm supposed to be halfway there by now.”
“Go, then,” my father said. “You don't want to miss your plane.”
“Bye, Dad.” We did our continental kiss-kiss thing. It may have been my imagination, but I think he held on to my shoulders a little longer than usual, and maybe a little more firmly.
“Adrien.” I extended my hand. He shook it. It was excruciatingly civilized.
“Don't wait another nineteen years to visit us again,” he said.
“I won't.”
He opened the car door for me. I got in, blew my dad a kiss, and pulled away.
He'd been right about the sun setting quickly. As I was driving down the long stretch of gravel road leading out of the valley, the sky turned violet, then an ethereal blue tinged on the horizon with just the faintest indigo stain.
I looked in my rearview mirror. The castle, which had always appeared so dark and forbidding to me, seemed to take on a bronzish glow against that otherworldly sky. A single figure stood on the drawbridge, gazing in my direction: Adrien.
I watched him watch me drive away until I rounded a curve in the road and the château disappeared from view.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louisa Burton, a lifelong devotee of Victorian erotica, mythology, and history, lives in upstate New York. Visit her website www.louisaburton.com.
ALSO BY LOUISA BURTON
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One
OCTOBER 1829
You want him,” Elic murmured into Lili's ear in the French that had long ago replaced the languages of their birth.
Lili, lounging next to him on a damask and gilt chaise in le Salon Ambre, lifted her after-dinner brandy to her lips with a silky smile that was answer enough. “Shh . . . He'll hear.”
Elic glanced across the candlelit room at the object of their attention, a dark, gravely handsome young Englishman with large, watchful eyes. At the moment, he was rhapsodizing in his native tongue about the “rich volcanic soil” of la Vallée de la Grotte Cachée while Archer listened raptly and Inigo, ever the peacock in a green and gold brocade waistcoat, his mop of springy black curls riotously unbound, stifled a yawn.
When their visitor paused to take a breath, Elic said, in English, “Do you speak French, Beckett?”
He blinked at Elic, took a puff of his cigar, and said, “I confess, I never studied it in school.”
“How very curious,” Lili said in that velvety, exotically accented voice that still, after all these years, sent a hot shiver of desire humming along Elic's veins. “I thought all gently bred Englishmen knew French—not that I've any objection
to conversing in English. It is quite as beautiful a language, in its own way.”
“You're fucking him with your eyes,” Elic told Lili in French.
“Can you blame me?” she replied, still smiling at their guest.
“Can't quite see the appeal.” It was a lie. Of a goodly height, David Beckett had a lean but stalwart physique set off to damnable advantage by a well-cut black tailcoat. And there was a certain stillness about him, a quiet intensity, that imparted an aura of mystery.
“Such lies are beneath you,” Lili murmured to Elic. “And your jealousy is absurd, my love, considering how many bedmates we've shared over the years.” Before Elic could respond to that, she apologized to Beckett, in English, for having conducted that exchange in a language he couldn't understand.
The young man met Lili's eyes for an electric moment, then lowered his gaze to his brandy, which he swirled in a way that was meant to look thoughtful—though to Elic, it bespoke a deep discomfiture. He actually appeared to be blushing, though it was difficult to tell in the golden, wavering candlelight.
From the moment David Beckett had been introduced to Lili upon his arrival that afternoon at Château de la Grotte Cachée, he had seemed gripped by a sort of uneasy entrancement. It was hardly an unusual reaction among male visitors to the château. Ilutu-Lili, with her lustrous black hair, slumberous eyes, and easy sensuality, had a bewitching effect on men. She had certainly bewitched Elic; for eighty years he had been caught in her spell. Tonight, with her hair secured by a diamond-crusted comb in a knot of loops and tumbling curls, her shoulders bared by the wide, sloping neckline of her gown—a confection of garnet chine silk with billowy puff sleeves and a handspan waist—she looked the very image of the goddess she truly was.
“What language did you study?” Elic asked Beckett.
“I've taken classes in Latin, Greek, Italian, and Hebrew, though of those tongues, the only one in which I am truly fluent is Italian.”
“Quite the well-schooled gardener,” Elic said.
The taunt earned him a look of surprised amusement from Inigo, and scowls from Archer and Lili. Beckett's gaze lit on Lili before returning to Elic, whom he studied for a long, pensive moment.
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