Divah

by Susannah Appelbaum

  “I was tricked,” I despaired.

  “You love too easily,” Laurent said, and then he was gone.

  He was right, of course, Itzy. I have always loved too easily. And now—now some innocent would pay for my mistakes.

  René was, for once, silent. Gaston was poking at the corpse with a stick. I looked at Maurice, miserably, and waited. He was thinking, weighing my options, pacing back and forth in a rutted ditch beside the stone castle.

  Finally, he stopped. His eyes grabbed mine.

  “What price for a soul?” he asked quietly.

  “That price is too high.”

  “We shall see.”

  “If you give her an innocent, Maurice, she will use it to unlock the Gates. She will have everything she needs,” René protested.

  “No. I think not.” Maurice drew himself up. “Tell the queen you will deliver to her what she demands. René, Gaston—back to my hotel. There is work to do.”

  59

  Shadowsill-n. 1) The very edge of a shadow, between light and dark. 2) The straddling of two worlds: typically childhood and adulthood. A vague, confusing place. 3) A demon ball.

  The day of July 14, 1789, dawned sooner than I could imagine, Itzy. The clouds were a heaving wet mattress in the sky.

  A deep dread had taken up residence in my gut, and it was all I could do to keep from weeping. Roland was little comfort to me that day; he was even more bumbling, as if both of his hands had been exchanged for hams as he slept.

  The Shadowsill was to be a masquerade ball, as the queen was amused by petty disguise. I, however, could not bear the thought of mirth, and after several botched attempts to attire me in my great cloak, I dismissed Roland and set off on a long walk.

  In the courtyard, Anaïs cornered me. She was, as usual, impeccably dressed, even at this early hour.

  “Luc.” She nodded amiably. “Why so glum?”

  “Anaïs,” I greeted her. “Where have you been? I was wondering if the Vielle Etoile had displeased you—you’ve been so scarce.”

  “Oh, you know. Keeping busy. Where are you off to?”

  “A walk. I thought it might clear my head.”

  “Quite. Just—Luc?”

  “Yes?”

  “Best stay away from the Bastille today.”

  “The prison?” I asked. It was an old, hulking thing I had no particular desire to see in a grim part of town.

  “Yes.” She smiled.

  “Anaïs? Dare I ask why?”

  “You might. And I might then tell you that it is an awful place, a terrible place, the place where Marie Antoinette sends those who displease her—in particular, scholars and hunters.”

  My eyes grew wide.

  “And today, I mean to free them.” She smiled and bowed slightly. I watched her as she walked away, her feet somehow never quite touching the ground. “See you at the party, Luc, mon cher,” she called. “It should be a blast!”

  60

  The ghostly tolling of the cathedral’s bells marked the beginning of the ball and summoned all those who would be guests to its doors. The deep, resonant chime echoed eerily off the Seine, along boulevards and twisting streets alike, impossible to ignore. Those who heard it shivered and clutched their children to them tightly.

  Even Roland seemed affected by the insistent clanging, for his eyes shifted about my room nervously as he muttered strange curses to himself.

  “Those bells!” he exclaimed. “They got no business ringing them! Why, they call the darkness out, they do. Those bells were forged in the bowels of the earth and nothing living should be made to hear them sound.”

  “Help me with my cloak, old man,” I ordered. “Do you have my mask?”

  The better part of a quarter of an hour was spent finding it, a small silken oval with holes for my eyes, the color of midnight to match my cloak. Once ready, I stared moodily into the hearth, unwilling to leave. I watched as the glowing embers went from orange to brown and burned to ash. Still the bells tolled, and still I lingered.

  “Should not you go, sire?” Roland asked nervously.

  I kicked the last of the dying embers with my boot and sighed.

  “Merci, Roland,” I said. “Do not wait up.”

  In the courtyard, I glanced about halfheartedly for Anaïs, but the yard was empty, save for a feral cat.

  “Gaston?” I called, but the cat merely hissed, spitting at me before vanishing into the shadows.

  I made my way as always from my fine hotel, pausing to inspect the empty streets. It was sundown, and the dwindling colors of the day were being chased by shadows. Up Rue Saint-Jacques I went, the large gate of the Petit Pont bridge looming ahead. The guards waved me by, and I proceeded over the span, my heels clacking hollowly on the wooden slats, the tarred pilings driven deep into the earth beneath the Seine. Several boats—many of them flying the queen’s banners—were moored against the far side of the quay, on the Île de la Cité. The Seine looked like a pauper’s mirror, reflecting back the glimmering exterior of Notre Dame.

  I felt the bells more than I heard them now, and I found myself falling into step with their rhythm. I was not alone, I noticed. Figures approached the cathedral from all sides, some on foot, some in ornate coaches, all drawn to the same dark destination. An army of valets tended the arriving guests, their horses and liveries led off in a slow parade of finery, and the next arrival was announced.

  The cathedral looked magnificent.

  All three immense portals were thrown open and a golden light poured out onto the street. Inside, dark figures moved about. The pews had been moved aside and the entire checkered floor cleared for the ball. Above this, an ornate wrought-iron chandelier was installed with ten thousand flickering candles. Music echoed off the vaulted ceilings, harps were strummed, drums were struck, and a choir sung. Notre Dame. Our Lady. Notre Damned.

  I shivered.

  A ring of ash encircled the entire cathedral. I stepped over the ribbon of cinders sprinkled before the doors, and I was in.

  I was now in her realm.

  61

  A girl-child greeted me, handing me an orchid for my lapel, and I secured it, without much thought, while surveying the crowd. Dancing had begun and the mood was merry, but I shared none of it. I looked around for Maurice, but if he was there, I did not see him.

  I saw Laurent, however.

  He leaned casually against a stone column, his face a playful mask. He had powdered his wings for the occasion, and they glittered in the candlelight. A girl was with him, with long strawberry blonde hair and an extravagant red velvet cape. He was teasing her, trying to peer behind her ornate eyewear. She tittered in delight and flushed as he touched her cheek.

  Our eyes locked and he winked wickedly.

  My stomach recoiled and I turned away.

  It was a gathering of rare creatures. The queen’s ladies-in-waiting were costumed as nuns, their rouged cheeks like polished apples beneath their flying headdresses. One flitted by, laughing coquettishly, trailed by a train of fools and admirers. “Luc!” she called, her voice husky and breathless. “Luc! Save a dance for me!”

  A large clan of woodwose—wild demon-men from deep in the forest, savages covered in thick, curly hair, and dragging lumpen clubs behind them—prowled the periphery, sniffing for food and poking at things suspiciously. Ghostly, transparent beings with plaited hair, clothed in fashions long gone, drifted along the aisles upon scented boughs of laurel. They whispered in reedy voices and glided seamlessly though the statuary. Fairy lords, pale and arrogant, kept to themselves, boredom evident beneath their masks. The diabolical menagerie was out in full, alongside clothed bears, fallen angels, and a tall, elegantly dressed man with a jackal head. And of course, everywhere, demons.

  I slunk down an empty corridor, preferring my own company.

  I was beside a quiet little chapel, an unadorned statue of a hapless saint. The natural light was all but gone, and the stained-glass windows were shades of gray. The party continued withou
t me, and I leaned against the cool stone to contemplate my future. Shame draped me like a cloak. As the party raged around me, I was wracked with une crise de la foi, a crisis of faith.

  Itzy, for eternity, the life of an angel—the life of service, really—is uninterrupted in its monotony. We are not whole, those of us with wings. We yearn for a soul. Perhaps because I am closer to the human realm, I want it even more. I have been wandering for an eternity trying to fill an emptiness inside.

  I tried to fill that void with art. With love. And now with despair.

  I watched, from the obscurity of the small enclave as Laurent whirled the girl about the cathedral’s floor. They made a lovely couple. How easy his manner—I envied him. What I lacked, I realized achingly, was ambition.

  All of humanity was teetering on my selfishness, just as Laurent had said.

  I staggered from my reverie, back toward the dark festivities.

  No one would sink on my watch.

  I stepped out from the gloom onto the golden light of the checkered floor. Masked dancers closed in around me. Laurent was whirling the girl about with a sickening grace, his feet a blur upon the floor. Other dancers, hundreds upon hundreds, filled the shadows, but for me, nothing else existed. Once, twice maybe, Laurent saw me, and he stared haughtily.

  An insistent tap rained down upon my shoulder, and I turned, exasperated.

  A young woman looked up at me, her chestnut hair coiled neatly into an intricate arrangement, her bosom heaving.

  “What be it?” I nearly shouted.

  “A dance?” she asked, taken aback.

  I laughed then, my own voice sounding hollow in my ears.

  “Child—away with you.”

  “Child? I am older than you,” she smiled. “A dance, Luc. I insist.”

  I looked her over again, and she leaned in, whispering. “Get on your dance shoes, Luc, and stop your moping. This is a party, after all.”

  “René?” I asked, suspiciously.

  “Maurice,” she corrected, suddenly prudish.

  “Oh—you don’t say!” I smiled, stepping away to enjoy the view. “Nice rack.”

  The young maiden suddenly flushed an angry scarlet.

  “Put your hands on my shoulders and start your two-step. Now.”

  I did as Maurice asked. I set us off onto the dance floor.

  “I’ve had an epiphany, Maurice,” I confided.

  “Agathe,” she hissed.

  “Agathe. Nice name—a bit difficult on the tongue.”

  “Silence it then.”

  “Agathe, I’ve had an epiphany. What I lack is ambition.”

  We whirled by Laurent, and to my delight I noticed him stumble.

  “It’s what makes you charming, your lack of ambition,” Maurice-Agathe said.

  “I don’t want to be charming. It’s my charming nature that got us here.”

  “No—it’s your bad taste in women.”

  “Touché.”

  We spun around, and suddenly I was overcome with the elegance, the permanence of this human structure, this Cathedral de Notre Dame. Our Lady. Not much could take it down. With a few improvements, it would make a charming hotel.

  “Do not worry,” Maurice said. “I have it all under control. Laurent’s girl will be saved when René inhabits her.”

  “What?” I asked sharply.

  “We won’t let it go. The sacrifice. It is all arranged.”

  “Oh, is it?” I asked, whirling him around with undue force. A lock of the maiden’s hair came undone.

  “Easy,” he scolded, patting it into place.

  “Easy, nothing,” I replied. “Nothing about this is easy.”

  62

  As midnight neared, more and more people filled the vast cathedral, shadowy figures, dark things. The music soon took on a twisted, manic quality and the dancers adapted, dancing feverishly. I studied the span of flushed and feverish faces gloomily.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said to Agathe. “Outside the peasants are revolting. A revolution has begun. And inside—” I spun her about from one arm to the other. “Inside, we dance.”

  “Who knew you were so good on your feet?” Maurice grinned. “Who needs wings?”

  “Where is René?” I snapped.

  “He’ll be here.”

  “Are you sure he’s up to the task? He does tend toward distraction. Seems like an awfully big responsibility you’ve given him, to inhabit Laurent’s innocent.”

  “René, unreliable? I hadn’t noticed.”

  An audible gasp came from somewhere beside me. Maurice pulled away from me suddenly, falling over himself into a curtsy, and was gone. The crowd had given way and I stood, momentarily confused. Before me, the dancers parted, and it seemed to me the lights grew dim.

  “Luc,” the queen said. “So good of you to come.”

  She was ravishing, but I knew better.

  Her scarlet dress was exquisite, trailing out behind her. About her pale shoulders was a silvery shawl as thin as a spider’s web. But her mask bore my closest inspection. It was a golden oval, atop of which sat a fine net of spun gold and fiery opals that covered her hair. From one side floated a showy feather, light as air. My feather.

  “Your Majesty,” I bowed. “Might I have this dance?”

  Her eyes glittered as I approached, bowing again.

  Like my feather, she floated over to greet me. How could something so foul glide as she did across the floor, her skirts shimmering out behind her? We danced—or flew—across the cathedral’s mezzanine.

  “I admire your hat,” I whispered. “But it might look better on me.”

  “I admire the girl,” she said in return. I tightened my grip on her waist but she merely smiled. “Your friend Laurent did well to bring her.”

  “Perhaps you should have chosen him as your consort,” I replied.

  “He is a better dancer,” she acknowledged, smiling.

  We moved together in silence, dancing our way past a gathering of woodwose, their hides greasy and matted, the odor of musk nearly palpable.

  My stomach tightened. “You promised me my feather,” I reminded her, indicating her mask.

  “Once I have opened the Gates, I will give you wings of flesh, of skin, of scales.”

  “Merci, but I’m partial to mine.”

  “I will be happy to never hear or speak the language of French again. Like razors on my tongue.”

  “The French seem to like it. They’re rising up right now, as we speak.”

  “Let them,” she laughed gaily. “The dead are rising, too.”

  She pulled away and clapped her hands. The music ceased.

  The wild woodwose with their bulbous clubs cleared the floor of any last stragglers. High above, a bell rang, a deep resonant clanging, slow and booming. I could feel it in my very core. Those bells were forged in the bowels of the earth and nothing living should be made to hear them sound.

  From the darkened halls of the cathedral, they came. The dead stepped forward from the shadows. Some were newly dead; they bore an expression of confusion and shambled forward on stiffened legs. And there were those whose eternal sleep had been interrupted much later—shreds of their burial shrouds clinging to them. And then the bones—yellowed and gnawed on by mice—they clattered forward to their queen.

  I recognized a few—the street vendor. The pretty baker-girl. Cassedents was there—one gray eye hanging from its socket, a rusty spade in his blackened hand. The man toiled his entire life only to find no rest in the end, no grave. There were hundreds, thousands even, standing before us, all realizing the same thing. Eternal rest is hard to find.

  Midnight had arrived, and still the bell tolled. With each gong, sand and mortar sifted down on us until the very stone walls of the cathedral were shaking. Finally, one last specter of the dead appeared, rolling onto the floor, landing softly against my boot.

  Nicolas.

  “René?” I asked hesitantly, but the head was silent, staring up at me with sunken
eyes.

  I looked up at the great vaulted ceiling of the transept. The walls were shaking now, visibly, and I wondered if she meant to take them down upon us all. Many guests were holding their ears, standing around dumbly. The great chandelier, with its thousands of tallow candles, was swaying. Hot wax was sloshing from the lit tapers and falling like searing rain on the guests below.

  Agathe appeared beside me and on tiptoe leaned up to whisper to me.

  “René is delayed,” she growled.

  “Delayed?” I hissed back.

  “So, too, is Gaston.”

  “Laurent’s not delayed,” I pointed out. “Laurent is right here, true to his word. Look—he brings her out. He means to present the girl to the Divah! An angel bringing an innocent to sacrifice!”

  Indeed, the young maiden with strawberry blonde hair was being led onto the floor before the queen.

  “Where are they?” I demanded.

  “At the Bastille. Things are slightly out of hand, I hear.”

  “Things are heating up here, Maurice. Things are about to get scorching.”

  “I will do it then,” Maurice assured me.

  I looked at him sideways. “You will inhabit the girl? Forgive me, but it is not your area of expertise.”

  He smoothed his dress and fluffed his hair. “I managed this one all right. Took me most of the afternoon. Peasant stock, mon ami. Thick skin, hearty souls.”

  “It has to be done quickly,” I hissed over the bells. “The Gates want an offering, and they won’t wait.”

  “Shh. Wait and see. Have faith, my friend.”

  “Faith? That is a word of those who are destined to die.”

  63

  The chandelier was swinging, raining down hot wax, but the maiden did not seem to feel it. It glazed the dancers like porcelain dolls. Her face was beatific, an inner rapture shone upon her features. Laurent removed her red cloak, slipping it easily from her shoulders and allowing it to fall—a puddle of velvet on the floor. Beneath, the girl wore a dress of bejeweled silvery cloth, so thin and rich it was nearly weightless.