by M. J. Rose
“Maybe that means you are close to a breakthrough.”
“Sebastian, we can get the money another way. I can pawn some of my jewelry. Please, can we just leave?”
Despite my newfound friendship with Madame Calvé, whom I did wish I could help, I couldn’t deny my increasingly urgent need to leave. Besides, I hadn’t been able to find the book. I felt certain the house didn’t want me to find it.
He took my hand. “If we could, I’d say yes. But it’s still raining, and there have been mudslides, and all the roads are blocked. No one can leave.”
I sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Well, the flooding certainly isn’t your fault.”
“No, but bringing you here was. You told me you didn’t want to do any more blindfold drawings. I shouldn’t have insisted.”
“But you did.” My sympathy for Sebastian was waning. As much as I wanted to protect him, there was no denying I was trapped in this castle because of his greed and bad judgment.
“I think I want to go back to sleep,” I told him.
He kissed me good night on the top of my head, took the tray, and went out.
I tried to pick up with my Agatha Christie novel where I’d left off, but I could no longer concentrate. My neck ached. And I was still under the same roof as Mathieu. My attempted escape had failed. Gaspard was a mystery I hadn’t even begun to solve. And the unrelenting rain on the window panes had a foreboding tenor.
I pulled on my robe and wandered into the studio. Inspecting the drawing table, I made sure everything was where I needed it to be and then sat down. After removing my blindfold from its velvet-lined leather box, I placed it over my eyes. Feeling for the pencil, I picked it up. I waited for the images to appear, and when they did, I began to sketch the castle once more.
From the very beginning, my ability to draw a scene without consciously knowing what it was going to turn out to be frightened me. I sensed it had frightened my mother, too. Several times, at my request, she had tried to reverse the gift she’d unintentionally given me but never found a spell to expunge my ability to see secrets. Despite my protests, after a few tries, she curtailed her efforts, fearful that if she meddled too much, I might once again go blind.
She’d also warned me not to try to draw my own shadow portrait, especially once I’d turned fourteen and my menses arrived. For that was when daughters of La Lune came into their full power. The flow of blood somehow opened a door to the arcane and preternatural universe.
After drawing for more than an hour, I grew tired and put my head down on my arms for a moment to rest.
When I raised my head, I took off the blindfold and looked at the clock. Several hours had passed, and it was the middle of the night. I crawled into bed and slept until morning.
When I woke, I first looked out the window, hoping the rain had stopped so the roads might clear, but it was still teeming. I rang for coffee and, while waiting, walked into the studio, sat down at the desk, and looked at the pile of drawings.
I had never fallen asleep with the silken mask on before. I had never drawn in my sleep. But I’d done exactly that the night before. And it was those illustrations, the sleep-induced sketches, that I was staring at.
One by one, I examined the graphite vignettes. Each a secret of the château. Some were connected to the drawings I’d done during the last few days, others brand-new. There was a bedroom scene of a couple copulating. An addict smoking in the opium room. A maid pocketing silverware in the kitchen at least a hundred years before, judging by her clothes. A roguish-looking man shoving another man out of the turret window. A nursemaid mixing a poisoned draft in the kitchen. A chest full of iridescent pearls hidden in a rusty trunk in an attic.
There were more. More than a dozen drawings of secrets. Some criminal, others illicit or just sad. But nothing connected to Madame Calvé’s thirty-year search for Flamel’s alchemical masterpiece.
I finally reached the last of the sleep sketches in the pile. At first, I couldn’t understand it at all. And then I realized it was drawn from the perspective of someone standing at the top of a spiral staircase, looking down into a room. It was the same room I’d drawn before. Stone walls. Shelves carved from rock. But in this drawing, I saw beakers, alembics, jars, and bottles of elixirs on some of the shelves. The particulars surprised me. Usually, these sketches were rougher. Well enough rendered to understand, certainly well enough for me to use as blueprints to create the finished portraits. But this was different. The details were completely clear. Even the smallest articles were readable.
In the corner, a compass showed the east-west orientation. A series of vignettes in the upper corner illustrated particular vistas. As if looking through windows outside. Clues to where this area of the castle was in relation to the landscape. I’d drawn an actual map. There were also numbers in the margins, as if I had been working out mathematical equations. And symbols, too—the same ones I’d included before and some new ones—all unintelligible to me. And then I noticed the most peculiar aspect of my sleep sketch.
Neither the drawing style nor the hand that had written the notes and numbers was mine.
All artists had a signature—not the way they signed their names but the way they drew a line. It had to do with the pressure they put on the pencil or crayon or brush, how steady their hands were, how careful their eyes were, how well they were able to render what they saw or imagined and the sensitivity of their fingers to translate them into action.
I knew my own signature. And I knew I hadn’t done this drawing. If I thought it was possible, I would have claimed someone else had come into the studio while I slept and planted this sketch in front of me. But my windows and door were locked from the inside. I’d locked them myself. And if someone had broken in, I would have heard it.
I continued to study the picture. Madame would be happy that I’d found more clues about her treasure. I’d given her a staircase, a detailed tunnel, a compass. She had the egress to the treasure. Now, as soon as the rain abated, Sebastian and I really could leave.
Chapter 42
Dressing quickly, I grabbed the illustration and went downstairs to find my hostess and deliver her treasure map.
The scent of coffee and freshly baked bread wafted in the air. I rushed into the breakfast room, calling out, “Madame, Madame,” before I realized how many people were seated around the table. As soon as I saw them, I quickly folded the drawing and shoved it into my trouser pocket.
Picasso, Cocteau, and Anna all said how relieved they were to see me and asked how I was. Mathieu wasn’t there, which actually relieved me.
“Sit down, and have something to eat,” Madame Calvé said, as she fussed over me.
Once breakfast was over and everyone but Sebastian had gone off to play cards or to read and the three of us were alone, I told Madame I had something to show her.
“I mapped the room,” I said.
Madame moved plates and cups well out of the way, then took the sketch from me, laid it out on the table, and began studying it.
For a few moments, the only sound was the rain beating on the windows. I glanced over at Sebastian, noting the gleam in his eyes.
“I’ve never seen this area, Delphine,” she said. “You’ve drawn something that just isn’t here. I’ve examined every corner of the basement. Architects have charted all the tunnels underneath the structure. There are no spiral stone staircases like this. And the only area of the castle that faces that direction is the drawbridge and tower. And we’ve taken that apart already. I’m afraid this isn’t going to help.”
I turned to my brother. He’d assured me that as soon as the rain ceased and the roads were passable, we could go. I expected him to tell Madame now that we were done. My twin smiled at me.
Then, to Madame, he said, “Delphine will find it, Emma. She’s a perfectionist. We’re stuck here anyway. She’ll stay at it until she does.” He turned back to me. “Won’t you, Delphine?”
&nbs
p; I was amazed. He’d promised me I could stop. I shook my head. “No, I’m not sure I can.”
I was disappointed in my brother, whom I’d trusted to help me. He’d betrayed me. He couldn’t give up. I’d told him I’d pawn my jewelry. Didn’t he believe me? Was Madame paying more than I knew? Did Sebastian owe more than he’d let on? My anger built, this time not mitigated by the memory of the watery image of my brother standing in front of the castle, warning me: Unless you are here to save me …
What was the truth? What had brought us here? What was keeping us here?
*
After breakfast, I donned a rain slicker and Wellingtons brought by the maid so I could take a walk. I’d spent too long up in my room sleeping the day and night before. I needed some fresh air, even if it was wet. Maybe looking at the castle from the outside would give me a different perspective.
Walking the château’s perimeter didn’t reveal anything new. The only thing I noticed was that in the rain, it loomed even larger, grayer, more melancholy. Occasionally, I stopped to peer out at the distant landscape. None of the images I’d drawn matched up.
I had worked my way around three-quarters of the stone fortress when I tripped on a loose cobblestone. I fell and landed ungracefully on my right foot, which I’d hurt slightly in the car accident. When I stood and tested it, I was relieved to find I hadn’t injured it even more. I brushed myself off and walked on, hoping none of the guests had been looking out the window and seen my ignominious fall.
I worked my way around to the castle’s north side. As the daughter of an architect, I understood buildings and how they were constructed. But even with my father talking about his designs all my life, I’d never thought about buildings as living things. I’d never searched in their shadows for the stories they held.
He’d be interested to hear about the château, I thought. He loved this region and its history. Maybe I’d bring him some of the sketches I’d done. Or perhaps do a painting for him. What if I did a series of the château’s rooms as sections of the human mind? Took thoughts and turned them into different chambers? My father had told me once about an ancient Greek device called a memory palace. Maybe I could explore that concept surrealistically using the castle.
I didn’t see the tree root. Just as I hadn’t seen the loose stone. This time, I went sprawling.
Two falls in less than an hour. And there had been the rug in my bedroom, the broken pencil, and the window that closed too quickly on my hand. Not to mention the disaster with the car.
That was too many accidents in too short a time, wasn’t it? I wondered if the house wanted me to go. If it was determined to keep its secrets buried. I meddled, I knew, with the natural order of things when I put on the blindfold. We were not meant to see inside one another’s souls with such ease. I’d thought a lot about that since coming home from New York. All my commissioned portraits might have fulfilled the sitters’ curiosity at first, but what havoc I’d created. My art was, in fact, a trick. A circus act with an expensive price of admission.
“Are you all right?”
I looked up into Gaspard’s face, his silver hair wet with rain, his eyes full of questions.
“I think so.”
With his help, I stood and tested my foot. It was no worse.
“The castle isn’t always welcoming to guests,” he said, startling me.
“I was just thinking that and then how silly I was to anthropomorphize the château. Stone and wood and glass can’t have thoughts.”
“Not the way we do, but they’re from the earth and are living things and have their own form of consciousness.”
When I’d tripped, my sketchbook had fallen and lay on the ground, splayed open. Gaspard bent to pick it up and was about to hand it over to me when he stopped. The page the sketchbook had opened to captured his attention.
I looked to see which one it was and saw my rough version of the stairs and the tunnel leading to the stone room. I’d included some of the key information so I could refer to it without having to carry the large drawing in the rain.
“This drawing is different from the one you showed us all the other day, isn’t it? It’s more recent,” he said.
“Yes. When I tried again yesterday, I found more markers. That’s why I was out here.” I pointed to my drawing. “There aren’t any windows in the chamber, but there are in whatever is above it. And this is the view from that section. If I can find that, I’ll know where the vault is situated.”
“The vault?” His voice was strained. And a vein on his temple throbbed once.
“I don’t see it as a dungeon anymore but as a vault protecting riches. You don’t think it could be cursed, do you?”
“Do you believe in curses?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ve read about all the disasters that have befallen the Carter team and other archaeologists in Egypt, haven’t you? It certainly seems as if those tombs are cursed.”
“Well, if there’s even a chance this one is cursed, why keep searching?” he asked.
“Yesterday I would have said because it’s a well-paying job and my brother and I need to make a living. And then there’s Madame. I also have an obligation to her.”
“Now?” His gaze was so intense I felt almost violated and wanted to turn away, but before I could, he apologized. “I’m prying. I’m sorry.”
I waited for an explanation of why he was so curious. I sensed it was coming; when it didn’t, I was a bit surprised.
He handed me the sketchbook.
“Well, thank you for rescuing me a second time,” I said.
“I hope there won’t be a third.”
“So do I.” I laughed.
“Let me walk you back, just to be sure.”
Hugging the building, both of us sharing his large umbrella, we circumnavigated the château. As we came around a bend, I looked up and saw a lone figure, a man, standing in a window, seeming to look right down at me. Was it Sebastian? Mathieu? I didn’t think it was either. I shivered.
“It is windy and wet. Let’s hurry before you get even more chilled,” Gaspard said.
But I didn’t move. I couldn’t take my eyes off the figure. His malevolence reached out to me through the glass, the rain, and the distance. Which one of the several men who’d come to the château for the séance was it? And why would any of them be so angry with me? He was too tall for Picasso. But it could have been any of the others.
Gaspard followed my gaze. “Do you know who that is?”
I shook my head. “No, he’s too far in the shadows.”
“Shadows again. They haunt us here.” He opened a doorway that I hadn’t noticed. “Come this way; it’s a shortcut to the kitchen. We can get some coffee. You need to be warmed up.”
I followed him. In a few minutes, we were sitting in the kitchen with big cups of café crème and a plate of the cook’s freshly baked madeleines.
“What did you mean about the shadows? I call my paintings shadow portraits. Did I tell you that?”
He nodded and began to tell me about the different people who had lived in this land and the secrets they had left behind.
“Many believe that in these hills, the ghosts of the Knights Templar still guard their Grail from beyond the grave. For more than a hundred years, they performed valiant acts and were repaid with gifts: money, gold, silver, land.
“At their zenith, their wealth was second only to that of the papacy. With their riches, they became what some say were the first international bankers. Instead of travelers carrying their gold and silver with them and having it so easily stolen by highwaymen, the Templars accepted deposits and gave the travelers intricately coded notes. When the traveler reached his next destination, he could visit the local Templar house or castle, present the note, and withdraw what he needed. These codes were the secret to their system. Masters of encryption, they were said to have used them to safeguard other secrets.
“Some of the legends about them are fabrications, but there is on
e I can attest to. A man named Bernard Sermon I joined the Poor Knights of Christ in 1151. He was a benefactor of the order, which allowed him to take part in the Knights’ spiritual life.
“In 1156, he learned of a group of marauders searching the countryside for treasure. Concerned for the Templars’ considerable store of silver and gold, Bernard had a massive bell cast from the precious metals and hid it underground. As if the earth had opened and devoured it, the bell was never seen again.
“Every year on the night of October 13, pale shadows rise from the graveyard. All together, the ghosts of the Templars move slowly in a solemn procession to a castle not far from here. There they hold vigil while the invisible bell tolls, and they mourn their losses.”
“Have you heard the bell? Have you seen the ghosts?”
He nodded. “Many of us have. We’re a strange breed. Living in the Languedoc, we’re more susceptible than most to the arcane and mystical. We have Cathar blood in our veins.”
“My father is fascinated with their history. When I was younger, we used to take trips searching for their ruins.”
“They’re holy sites. You can feel it when you find them. Almost as if the earth that soaked up their blood hums.”
“My father calls it the choir of the dead.”
Gaspard shook his head in remorse. “And all they did was try to live peacefully. Innocent farmers who believed our souls were reborn each time with more knowledge and goodness. Doomed because they believed in two Gods, an evil one and a good one. It was just their way to explain everything malignant and terrible in the world. How, they asked, could a benevolent God allow for the sickness and strife, the war and misery that man was subjected to? Logical, wasn’t it?”
“But dangerous. Isn’t that what got them branded as heretics?”
“Exactly. In 1209, with the help of the nobility, the church organized an army to attack them. By 1244, more than thirty thousand men, women, and children were massacred in the name of the Catholic Church.
