A Spell in Provence

by Marie Laval

  Amy could well believe that a man would go wild for a woman like Rosalie Bruni. She seemed so confident, brazen and sexual. Yet she had never married. She never had children, except for her unofficial adopted daughter Serena, much later in life. Maybe she had loved Philippe Coste so much that she could not form any other attachment after his death.

  ‘Would you like to borrow the portfolio for a few days?' Céline suggested. 'Fabien won't mind.’

  Amy hesitated.

  ‘Are you sure? You said he was protective of his family papers, and he recently refused a team of archaeologists access to the forest, the old fountain and the library.’

  Céline gathered all the drawings in the portfolio and tied it with a leather bind.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t want him spending any more time thinking about ancient temples and Roman fountains. Philippe’s obsession cost him his life. My husband was about to resume the search when he was killed.’

  She looked up and there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘You may find me silly, but some old women in the village have talked of a curse and I have come to agree with them. I want to keep my son safe – and keep him away from this family fixation for that goddess and her temple.’

  She handed the portfolio to Amy.

  ‘I want you to have it. Don’t worry about Fabien. I’ll tell him that I was the one who gave you the papers.’

  She smiled, as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

  ‘What about that hot drink? I’m sure you’ve had enough of this dusty old library.’

  ‘Thank you but I must go back to Bellefontaine,’ Amy said. ‘I’ll look through the portfolio and bring it back tomorrow…’

  ‘Keep it as long as you want, there’s no rush,’ Céline insisted.

  Back at Bellefontaine, Amy found the Ducros enjoying a rest in the sunshine after walking through the forest from Manoir Coste. Monsieur Ducros said that the village mechanic had towed their car back to the garage and that it wouldn’t be ready before the following Tuesday at the earliest, so Amy offered to drive the couple to Cavaillon so that they could hire a car for the weekend.

  She made a potato gratin, mixed a vinaigrette and tossed some green lettuce in a salad bowl, then checked her emails while the gratin baked in the oven. It was good news. Now the computer glitch had been fixed, the Tourist Office had taken over a dozen bookings for Bellefontaine in the coming weeks. Amy smiled as she filled her reservation book.

  Next she sent an email to Laurent about the Coste fountain, attaching the photos the carvings and the Latin inscription, and mentioned that Philippe Coste’s portfolio was now in her possession. Hopefully, this would entice him back.

  After lunch, Amy drove the Ducros to Cavaillon. It was mid-afternoon by the time she came back. Stéphane was sitting in the courtyard alone. One glance at him was enough for her to realise that he was upset.

  ‘You’re a nice surprise,’ she said as she unlocked the front door. ‘Come in. I’ll get us something to eat.’

  She made a pot of tea, took some chocolate cake out of the fridge, and brought a tray outside on the terrace. While he ate she talked about the dig at the bottom of the garden, about Michka and the hunt. The boy was clearly worried about something, but there was no point rushing him.

  ‘I want to tell you about the first time Alain made contact with Brice,’ he announced after swallowing the last bite of chocolate cake.

  Resisting the urge to ask him why he hadn't said anything before, Amy bit her lip and waited for him to carry on.

  ‘It was a Saturday night, last October. Monsieur Coste got us some tickets to watch the football match in Marseille. There were kids from Maison Espérance and a few others from school, and the other Monsieur Coste was there too – the one who’s a bit of a drunk. Frédéric, he’s called, but he wanted us to call him Fred.’

  Stéphane paused.

  ‘When we got back to the minibus after the match, Brice looked through his rucksack for some chewing gum and found a postcard. He showed it to me. He was so excited. He couldn’t believe that he had a brother he knew nothing about’

  ‘You mean that someone just slipped a postcard into your friend’s bag some time during the evening and you didn’t think it strange?’

  Although she tried not to sound annoyed, Amy was getting impatient with the boys’ credulity.

  Stéphane bowed his head.

  ‘I guess we didn’t think it through. Brice wanted it so much to be true, and I wanted him to be happy. It’s hard for him not to have any family.’

  ‘What did the first postcard say?’

  ‘Alain wrote that he was Brice’s older brother and that he’d been adopted when he was very young. He’d been looking for Brice for a long time and had just found out that he lived at Maison Espérance. He had to stay away, however, because Soeur Michèle wouldn’t approve of him. He had been in trouble with the police for silly things when he was younger, but he now worked on cruise ships and was saving up to get a flat where Brice could join him. He also wrote to check the ‘poste restante’ in Bonnieux every week.’

  Stéphane glanced at her.

  ‘I guess we’ve been pretty stupid, eh?’

  Amy shrugged.

  ‘A little, yes. Did you tell your parents what you’ve just told me?’

  ‘No, I’ve told no one yet. I can’t talk to my dad at the moment. He’s always shouting. Mum isn’t at home today. She went this morning to see Tatie Lily who isn’t well, that’s why I came here. I thought you’d know what to do.’

  Amy gave his shoulder a soothing pat.

  ‘You did well. I’ll call the gendarmes straight away.’

  She went inside to dial the number of the gendarmerie. Capitaine Ferri said that he would collect Stéphane and take him back home. He wanted to interview the teenager in the presence of his parents. Remembering Fabien’s entreaties to warn him should any more details about Brice come to light, she rang Manoir Coste, but was told Fabien was in a business meeting.

  ‘I can put you through to his personal assistant or to Mademoiselle Loubier, if you want,’ the receptionist suggested. Amy said she would call again.

  Stéphane went pale when she told him that the gendarmes would drive him home.

  ‘My dad will kill me,’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t be silly … Would it help if I came too?’

  She couldn’t understand why Stéphane seemed so frightened of his father. Even if Paul was a little tense lately, she’d never seen him bad-tempered with his only son.

  ‘Would you? Please.’

  So Amy followed the gendarmes’ van taking Stéphane home. A red-faced Paul opened the door. His shirt was partly unbuttoned, his hair stuck up, as if he’d just woken up. He seemed reluctant to open his front door, and when he finally let them in, Amy understood why.

  An empty bottle of whisky stood on the coffee table, next to a tumbler filled to the brim.

  ‘What has my fool of a son done now?’ Paul asked, slurring his words.

  Capitaine Ferri asked Stéphane to relate his memories of the evening Brice had got the first postcard.

  ‘What twits!’ Paul exclaimed before taking a large gulp of whisky. ‘I can’t believe you could be that daft, at fifteen.’

  ‘Monsieur Michon, please let him speak,’ Capitaine Ferri remonstrated, his eyes cold, his face severe. ‘This is not helping.’

  He questioned Stéphane relentlessly about the movements of all those involved in the Marseille football trip, going over the boy’s statement over and over to highlight discrepancies. He wrote down the names of all participants to the trip, including Fabien’s, and left after promising to be in touch.

  Paul took his jacket and his car keys.

  ‘I’m going out,’ he announced.

  Amy shook her head.

  ‘Surely you’re not leaving Stéphane alone now. And you’re not thinking about driving, are you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You�
�ve had far too much to drink.’

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  He slipped his jacket on and walked out.

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Stéphane said in a small, shaky voice. ‘Dad hates me.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t.’

  She gave the boy a hug, and said she’d stay until his mother came home.

  It was late afternoon when Adèle returned. Amy told her about the developments concerning Brice.

  ‘Actually, there is something else.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t quite know how to say this, but I’m worried about Paul. He seemed very angry with Stéphane. And he had an awful lot to drink before he left.’

  Adèle buried her face into her hands and started crying.

  ‘He is angry with everybody these days. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He says he has money worries because a lot of the building work has dried up, but I’ve never seen him like that.’

  Amy stayed with her friend a while longer, but eventually she had to return home to cook the Ducros’ evening meal.

  ‘Give me a ring, or better still, come round tomorrow,’ she told Adèle before leaving,

  She made a tomato and basil soup and defrosted several homemade bread rolls. Tonight, however, cooking did not calm her nerves. Stéphane’s words swirled inside her mind.

  How did Brice’s so-called brother know that the boy would be at the football match, and how did he slip the postcard into his rucksack unnoticed? The Olympique Marseillais team were so popular it was virtually impossible to buy tickets on match night, which meant that Alain must have known about the excursion in advance.

  Except that there was no Alain because Brice didn’t have a brother. The whole story was a carefully laid trap, a fabrication. By whom? And why?

  Amy dropped her knife onto the cutting board. Of course! The fake Alain must live locally. Maybe he even worked at Maison Espérance and had taken part in the outing. It would have been easy for a member of staff to sneak the postcard into Brice’s rucksack at any time during the match.

  Had Capitaine Ferri reached a similar conclusion? Nobody connected to Maison Espérance was beyond suspicion from now on – not even Fabien or Frédéric.

  Amy shook her head. No, this was ridiculous. Fabien would have no reason to abduct a teenager. People who did that were criminals and perverts, and whatever she thought of his behaviour with her the other night, she was certain he was neither. As for Frédéric, he was friendly, always smiling and joking.

  She cast a glance at the window. It was still daylight. A walk would soothe her, she decided. She called Michka, clipped the lead on, and walked across the garden and into the forest. Once on the path she gave the lead some slack. The dog raced ahead and they were soon deep amongst the cedar trees. The forest was empty, and eerily quiet. Suddenly the dog froze, its nose in the air, its ears pulled right back. It gave a low growl that gave Amy goose bumps.

  ‘Come back.’

  She pulled on the lead. The dog growled again, its small body tense and shaking.

  Two men, both wearing dark clothing, were walking at a fast pace towards her, waving their arms as if they were arguing. Her chest tightened with apprehension. She stepped closer to Michka, ready to scoop her into her arms, when she realised one of the men seemed familiar. She let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Paul? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he said, a startled look on his face.

  His companion lifted the rim of his black hat, and Amy recognised Marc Chevalier.

  ‘Mademoiselle Carter, it's not a good idea to wander into the forest alone. Shall we put you back on the right track?’

  His lips stretched into a thin smile. It must have been the dimming light and the shadows that surrounding trees cast on his face, but there was an almost sinister look in his eyes.

  ‘I can manage on my own,’ she said, taking a step back.

  ‘Hurry, Amy, it’ll be dark soon,’ Paul said, casting an uneasy glance towards Marc Chevalier. He didn’t seem drunk or angry any longer, she thought, but afraid.

  She nodded, called the puppy and turned back on the path, but for a long time her neck prickled and an uneasy sensation burnt her back, as if the two men were watching her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Amy squeezed the Clio between a rusty white van and an ancient-looking 2CV on Buoux’s village square. She still hadn’t got round to getting the bonnet re-sprayed, and the splodges of garish red paint often attracted comments and stares. Today however, the landscape in front of her was so magnificent she didn’t care if passers-by remarked on her car’s scruffy bodywork.

  The Saint-Symphorien bell tower rose, majestic above the village, its stonework golden against the dark green hills. In the background, the white cliffs which attracted rock climbers from all over the world gleamed in the sunshine.

  She scanned the village’s red-tiled roofs and pretty houses, and focused on the fountain that stood across the square. It looked exactly as Philippe Coste had drawn it, over seventy years before, with a plain stone pillar and a cast iron pipe spurting water into a rectangular basin.

  The inscription above the pipe made her smile. ‘Abreuvoir, défense de se laver dans la fontaine’.

  As if anyone would want to wash in such a small basin and in full view of villagers! Then she noticed the date carved in the middle of the pillar ‘ 1835’. Bending down, she saw the words carved at the side.

  Pulchra fons

  Terracula pervigil

  They sounded Latin. On the side of the basin was another, smaller carving – this time a Greek word Ρσκλίσίā in the centre of a crown of oak leaves.

  She read the Latin words aloud. In Latin, fons meant spring or fountain, but she couldn’t make sense of the rest. She wrote them down anyway and took several photos. The late morning sun began to burn her neck and face and the sound of fresh water trickling into the fountain made her thirsty, so she decided to have a drink at the little café on the square.

  An old man came to take her order as soon as she sat down at the zinc table. She ordered a diabolo menthe – mint cordial and lemonade – pulled her guide book out of her bag and flicked through the pages to find the entry on Buoux.

  Like many hill-top villages, Buoux, she read, was built on a prehistoric settlement. The area had been taken over by Gauls before being conquered by the Romans some time during the second century BC. Laurent’s assistant Patricia had said that the original Gallic tribes in Provence were the Salyens who had established strongholds in the region, the most notable places being Entremont and Glanum.

  The guide gave a brief outline of the tribes’ belief in earth mothers and sacred springs, in their cult of the dead and predilection for human and animal sacrifices. The Salyens believed that severing and preserving the heads of defeated enemies or tribal heroes would make them invincible and give them special powers.

  The author mentioned Glanum’s miraculous spring and the deities which were worshiped there – among these was the ‘Good Goddess’ who the Romans later adopted under the name of ‘Bona Dea’. This was exactly what Laurent, Ben and Patricia had talked about.

  Bona Dea , Amy whispered, here we are again. La Bonne Dame. How strange she should have such a benevolent name when the belief system was quite the opposite, with human sacrifices and severed heads. She remembered the empty glare of the Bellefontaine statue and wondered how many sacrifices she had witnessed in her now lost temple.

  The elderly man brought Amy a tall glass filled with the sparkly, bright green drink.

  ‘These guide books are all the same,’ he grumbled, after peeping at the book over her shoulder. ‘It’s all about Glanum and Entremont, but what about Buoux, or Bonnieux? I could tell you a thing or two about this area and where to find traces of the old people.’

  ‘Papi! Stop bothering the customers and get back in here,’ a woman’s voice called from inside the café.

  He turned to leave but Amy put her hand on his fo
rearm to stop him.

  ‘When you talk about the old people, do you mean the Gauls – the Salyens?’

  He nodded.

  ‘They left traces all around us, you know – underground, in the hills and the caves.’

  She frowned.

  ‘Underground?’

  ‘Mais oui, Mademoiselle. Many of the hills around here are riddled with tunnels and caves, even if most of them have now collapsed.’

  Amy felt uneasy. Every time someone mentioned tunnels or underground chambers, the memory of her dreams and of Sophie Dessange’s stories came flooding back.

  ‘What do you think about the claim that some people around here still worship the old gods?’

  The man snorted.

  ‘Are you talking about La Bonne Dame and what's been going on in Bonnieux's forest by any chance?’

  She nodded.

  He squinted at her, examining her face.

  ‘You’re not a journalist, are you?’

  ‘Oh no. Not at all! I’ve just bought a house in Bonnieux and I heard a few scary stories about the forest. I was wondering if …’

  ‘If La Bonne Dame would come and get you?’ He smiled, uncovering a row of uneven and tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Let me give you a few words of advice, young lady. Don’t go wandering alone in the forest, especially not in the evenings, and if you ever see any lights, run in the opposite direction as fast as you can. Many young women got caught because they were in the wrong place, at the wrong time.’

  ‘Caught? What do you mean by that?’

  He laughed.

  ‘Just do as I say, and you’ll be all right.’

  Sensing that he wasn’t going to tell her anything else, she pointed at the fountain across the square.

  ‘Do you know anything about the fountain?’

  ‘Not much. It was rebuilt after the 1835 earthquake by a stonemason from Bonnieux. My grandmother used to say it was cursed because the man used parts of an ancient temple to build it. Didn’t stop her from drawing water from it, even though she used to cross herself before doing so.’

  The woman’s voice called again from inside the café and the old man said he had to go. Amy sipped her drink. Now she understood why Philippe Coste had drawn the fountains from Buoux and nearby villages. They must all have been built from the temple in the forest. She would have to take a look at them all.Who knows, maybe she would be able to find clues to the location of the lost forest temple?