Witch & Curse

by Nancy Holder

  Their palms touched. Holly felt something very warm, as if Silvana’s aunt were holding a heated object that she was pressing against Holly.

  “You brought me beignets, didn’t you?” Amanda cried happily as she pointed at the box. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  Then a young girl who was a younger version of Tante Cecile danced into the room, shutting a door behind her.

  “Girl, you’re so skinny!” she cried as she raced into Amanda’s arms. “Haven’t you been skipping P.E. like we used to?”

  Amanda’s face lost some of its mirth. She said, “Things have been awfully tense around here.” She gestured to Holly. “Show them the book.”

  Holly took the soggy book out of the plastic bag she’d stored it in for the trip over. She explained how she had found it. Then she told Tante Cecile about the ward; when she pulled it from her pocket, the woman’s brows rose.

  “Someone who knows a lot about shamanism made that for you,” she observed. She looked at Silvana. “I think we ought to get to work right away, honey. We’ll have to socialize later, all right?”

  Chills danced up Holly’s spine as Tante Cecile gestured to a small table opposite the king-sized bed, where five candles formed a pentagram and in the center of the circle sat a Ouija board.

  Holly blinked. She had seen a Ouija board once at a slumber party when she was ten. One of the girls had brought it and in the middle of the night they had all gathered around it, giggling nervously, laughing to cover their fear. Nothing had happened, not really. One girl had claimed the pointer had moved, but everyone thought she was faking it, maybe to get attention, maybe to scare them all more. Maybe she hadn’t been faking, the thought rose unbidden, tickling her mind with memories of fears past.

  Swallowing the lump in her throat while trying to push aside her skepticism, Holly slid into her chair. It was silly—after all, she couldn’t be both cynical and frightened, could she? But yet she was.

  Slowly she lifted her eyes to meet those of the lady who had flown all the way from New Orleans to help her and Amanda. Tante Cecile sat, grim, staring at her in a way that creeped Holly out.

  Tante Cecile released her gaze, and Holly sagged slightly in relief as the other woman gazed first at Silvana and then at Amanda. The silence stretched taut between them as the candles flickered. Finally she nodded and the four clasped hands, Holly very carefully because of her arm. Amanda raised her own up to connect with Holly’s; Holly’s palms tingled slightly where they touched Silvana’s and Amanda’s palms.

  Then in a low, commanding voice, the older woman began. “We are gathered here to seek knowledge. We call upon the spirits of the past to clarify the present, to show us what has gone before that we might understand what is to come.”

  There was silence for a moment and Holly could feel her imagination beginning to run wild. Were the candle flames higher than they had been a moment before? When had the shadow appeared across the Ouija board?

  “All place hands on the guide.”

  Holly allowed her cousin to pull her fingers forward until all of their hands rested on the Ouija’s marker, the thing that could move from letter to letter.

  “Show us that we might see, show us that we might know, show us things of the past and what is yet to be,” Silvana and Tante Cecile chanted together.

  “Show me,” Holly whispered.

  Suddenly the marker shot out from beneath their hands and flew across the room, crashing into a mirror and shattering it. Holly didn’t see it happen, though. Holly couldn’t see anything, and all she could feel was the blinding pain. She struggled to breathe, but her lungs felt as if they had been flattened. She couldn’t move, and then as suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone. Everything was gone. No sight, no sound, no feeling, nothing and, finally, not even her thoughts.

  Silvana and Amanda stared at the broken mirror until a strangled gasp from Tante Cecile pulled their attention back to the table. Something wasn’t right, they could both feel it, and as one they turned toward Holly.

  Only Holly wasn’t there.

  A pale, shimmering woman sat in her place. Her clothes were centuries old and her hair fell in waves all the way to her waist. Her cheekbones were high and hollow and her eyes shone an unearthly blue. She looked at each of them slowly, as though moving her head was a great effort. She began to move her lips, but no sound came out.

  “Wh-where is Holly?” Amanda demanded, unable to keep the panic out of her voice.

  Tante Cecile quickly put her hand over Amanda’s. “Don’t be scared, Mandy. She and this woman are sharing the same space and time.”

  “She’s . . . possessed Holly?” Amanda asked. She glanced at Silvana, who looked as scared as she felt.

  “Yes, and at the same time, no. This is something far greater than that. She’s almost a part of Holly.”

  Tante Cecile turned to the woman and spoke to her in French. Then, as if the woman were speaking underwater, a strange, disembodied voice answered in English.

  “I . . . my name . . . Isabeau.” The pale woman’s whisper was low and her words vibrated in the air in a way no human’s could have. “I am one who has gone before.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I was born a Cahors, one of you, and I married a Deveraux, one of them.”

  “When?” Tante Cecile asked.

  “Six hundred years past. At Beltane, it will be exactly six hundred years ago.”

  “May Day,” Silvana whispered to Amanda. “May first.”

  “Why have you come?” Tante Cecile asked.

  “Have you read the book? The one from the beach?”

  “No,” Tante Cecile admitted.

  “Ah.” The woman sighed. “I loved him so. He could have been a good man, had I time enough—”

  “Isabeau,” Tante Cecile interrupted. “Stay focused.”

  “You must stop it from happening again.” The ghostly figure sighed. “It happens every night, in my time. I am tortured by it. Again and again.” She began to weep.

  “Stay with me, Isabeau,” Tante Cecile said firmly.

  “It will happen at Beltane in your time. It is the six hundredth year, which is the same alignment of the stars as when it occurred. It will come into your world, and it will happen again. You must stop it.” Her sigh ricocheted around the room.

  “Stop what?” Tante Cecile asked.

  The woman sobbed. “Massacre. Oh, Jean, mon amour, mon homme . . .”

  “Where is Holly?” Silvana asked. “May we speak to her?”

  The figure sighed again, tears streaming down her cheeks. “She is in me, her eyes will soon see what my eyes have seen, all these centuries, so much death. She will know, and she must stop it. Already she has seen my death and my betrayal of my husband, my love, Jean.”

  “And what is she seeing now?” Tante Cecile asked.

  “She is seeing the darkness, the intertwining of Deveraux and Cahors, a great secret and a terrible destiny. Through time, it has been a war and a vendetta. Destruction is the child of my womb, and all I wanted . . . it was not for me to want him, to want his love . . . but I did. . . .”

  Paris, 1562

  “Tell me about the Black Fire!” the Queen, Catherine de’ Medici, demanded.

  “There is no Fire, there hasn’t been for nearly two centuries,” Luc Deveraux spat, blood spraying from his lips. Coughs racked his body, and more blood bubbled up on his lips.

  The queen placed a finger under his chin and lifted his head so that his eyes met hers. Even on his knees he was nearly as tall as the petite Catherine. Her eyes bore into him with a cold hatred.

  “I think you’re lying to me.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Why would you tell the truth? Your family is not known for it. After all, despite your pledges of loyalty, support, the kind sympathy your father showed me when all France hated me, ‘the Italian woman,’ you and your family have always been plotting against me. For the first ten years of my marriage you
were the ones who cursed my womb, made it impossible for me to bear a child. Well, I foiled you at last.”

  The tortured man looked up at her. “Yes, and how many of your children will you live to see on that throne? The bearing of them does not signify that you can keep them alive long enough to produce heirs of their own.”

  She looked as though she would strike him, but she was a queen and she had servants to do that. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and one of them began lashing his back with the whip again. Luc Deveraux bit his tongue, refusing to let her hear him scream. How many dozens of his kinsmen had already been under this lash in the last fortnight? How many had she tortured? How many had she broken? He did not know, but she would not break him. He could not tell her what he did not know, and he refused to tell her that which he did. He would die first.

  At last the man with the whip ceased his efforts and Luc drew a ragged breath. He stared in hatred at the woman pacing in front of him.

  “Tell me what I want and this will all stop. Tell me about the Black Fire. Tell me what your family is plotting with the Huguenots. They will not tear France apart. There can only be one king, one people, one religion,” she stated.

  Weakly he whispered, “There is no plan.”

  “I wish that I could believe you,” she said coldly. “I don’t like torturing you, and I fear that you will never tell me what I need to know, that you will die first.”

  He said nothing, wondering what she was thinking, what she intended to do. A flick of her wrist sent the man with the whip outside, closing the door behind him. For the thousandth time Luc tested the strength of the chains anchoring his wrists to the ceiling. Even if he could pull the restraints from the stone he doubted that he would have the strength to stand.

  The door opened and his torturer reappeared, pushing a woman with long, black hair before him. Her hands were bound behind her and he handled her roughly, finally bringing her to stand before Luc and the queen. Marie stared at him with her pale eyes out of a face streaked with dirt and tears. Catherine nodded and her man yanked back Marie’s head and held a knife to her throat.

  “Luc, you know that I do not make idle threats. Either you tell me what I want to know, or he will slit your wife’s throat.”

  Luc spat a mixture of blood and saliva onto the stones. “Kill the whore. May she burn forever for betraying me.”

  An amused smile twisted Catherine’s face. “I take it you do not love your wife.”

  “I hate her,” he answered, rage rushing through his body.

  “And yet I think you love her, as well,” the queen replied. “I know something of loving and hating one person and I can see that you do, your eyes betray you.”

  “I have nothing to tell you, believe me or not, but kill the witch and save me the trouble.”

  “Interesting choice of words, Luc. I think I’ll leave you two alone for a while. I have some things I have to attend to.” The queen headed to the door. She turned before leaving. “My daughter is marrying tonight, the groom is the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre. Little does he know that his wedding bed is likely to be his deathbed as well. Now, I have to see to arrangements for our guests.” She spat the last word, then forced a smile and swept from the room, her servant trailing after her.

  Seattle, the present

  Now Isabeau spoke directly to the four women of the séance:

  “During the Religious Wars, Catherine de’ Medici tortured dozens of the Deveraux family, seeking the source of the Black Fire, but none could tell her. I watched her through the eyes of Marie, a Cahors married to Luc Deveraux. Before he bled to death from the many lashes he had received, Luc killed Marie with a knife she had secreted in her dress in the hopes of saving him. I saw and I could not stop it. That night Catherine’s daughter married the leader of the Huguenots. The next day Catherine had all the Protestant Huguenot wedding guests slaughtered. Instead of being a union of peace, it was a trap. On St. Bartholomew’s Day, the massacre occurred.

  “Following this, several of the survivors of the Deveraux family, the few who had escaped the queen, fled to the New World. Here they have flourished, nourishing their power and their hatred for centuries. Jeraud is a descendant of these Deveraux as you and Holly are descended from my family, the Cahors, the name changed slightly in the New World to provide protection and allow a new identity to spring forth, if only for public life.

  “The cycle is starting again and in a few weeks it will be the six hundredth anniversary of my shame, my failure.”

  Stunned, Amanda stared at Isabeau, trying to take in all that she had revealed. Suddenly the pale figure shuddered and her eyes rolled back for a moment. She seemed to fade slightly and then she returned, stronger, her eyes blazing. “My time draws short, we cannot long occupy this space. As I grow stronger, Holly fades. But this is not my time, it is hers, and I can only pray to the Goddess that she does not make the mistakes that I did.”

  Before their eyes, Isabeau drifted away, her features slowly shifting and solidifying into Holly’s. At last the blue eyes closed and the body shuddered.

  A moment later the eyelids fluttered open and Holly’s dark eyes stared out at them. Her eyes bulged from her head and her face looked frozen in a strange, strained mask. Suddenly, the muscles all went slack and as her body slumped in the chair, Holly gave a great gasp and gulped air into her lungs.

  “I saw, I saw,” she gasped, unable to continue.

  “We know,” Amanda answered gently, reaching out to touch her hand. “We heard.”

  Holly said, “They don’t know the secret of the Black Fire. But they want it, very badly.”

  “Enough to kill for it.”

  Part Three: Beltane

  The Awakening

  BELTANE

  “I had a vision last night and it frightened me greatly. I saw the head of a great family take for wife a mortal enemy. Their passion was great and their power unearthly. And their mating destroyed all within their path.”

  —Duke Kensington to his scribe, Joshua, May 1, 1612

  TWELVE

  MEAD MOON

  Disguise our evil with faces kind

  A goodly exterior, a darker mind

  And turn the gentle to my power

  And poison the most innocent flower

  Transform us and make us new

  Give us strength through and through

  Lady hide our hearts and fates

  Grant us the gift of masquerade

  Thanksgiving was over, thank God, and they were on the verge of Christmas. But Marie-Claire Anderson was heartsick.

  He knows, she thought miserably. My poor, sweet, boring husband knows I cheated on him.

  That evening, Richard had tiptoed into their bedroom to check on her, and she had lain with her back to the door, pretending to be asleep. He had whispered, “Oh God, baby,” and started to cry. She could hear him weeping in the hall like an abandoned child, and it nearly killed her.

  He went back down the hallway, and she decided to follow him, try to explain that she was almost middle-aged, and she needed—needed badly—to feel young and desirable. That he plunked away day and night at his computer, never noticing her new clothes, her haircuts. And so she tried harder, bought more makeup, more clothes. Worked out.

  He never said anything.

  I was starving, she wanted to tell him. Michael . . . he fed me.

  Her minor burns were gone, but she had stared long and hard at her face and seen the wrinkles and creases. She had been terrified. Who wants an old woman? Richard doesn’t want anybody. And Michael . . . Michael has abandoned me. It was just an affair. I should have known that. But I’ve been so lonely . . . and so afraid.

  Sitting up, she pushed herself out of bed, fumbling for the light switch. She was drained; it was all too much, the fire and the E.R. and now this, her marital crisis. Will we get divorced? Can we make up?

  Her mind spun.

  The bedroom door was ajar; she timidly eased it open and walked into the ha
ll, calling her husband’s name. There was no answer.

  She continued down the hall, spotting a flash of white. One of the cats. She smiled sadly at the sweetness of kittens and little girls, her own innocence lost.

  I will win him back. Nicole and I will make him come back, she thought. We have our little tricks, she and I. . . .

  And then she remembered that Richard had brought her something to drink earlier in the evening. Some tea. She was ashamed; that tea had been a gift from Michael, who claimed it enhanced physical youth and beauty. She’d laughed . . . and started drinking it religiously, every night. Her legs wobbled like rubber and she held out a hand as the wall slid toward her. She moved on down the hall, looking for her lost love.

  The guest room door was open, and someone was sitting on the bed. Her contacts were out, and she hadn’t put on her glasses. She couldn’t make out the figure.

  But it gestured toward her, and who else could it be but Richard? The girls were at a party . . . so many parties when you’re that young . . . and free, and you have your whole life. . . . .

  “Honey?” she slurred.

  The figure beckoned her.

  She staggered toward it.

  Your whole life . . .

  Michael Deveraux smiled as he and Eli stared into the Turk’s eye.

  “I’ll kill her now,” he said to his son. “It’s a perfect time.”

  In the Chamber of Spells, Eli nodded eagerly. He wasn’t used to killing living human beings, but he had definitely acquired a taste for it.

  Michael whispered to the darkness,

  “Dark is dark, light is light,

  Know now that which is not right.

  The time has come, the time is near,

  Live the love and live in fear.

  When it came, the soul will cry

  Tonight, her innocence shall die.

  Fight the world and look within,

  Hesitation shall not win.”

  And the door to the guest room in the Anderson house opened and Richard Anderson said to his wife, “What are you doing in here?”