Curses and all of that were for primitive societies still clinging to old superstitions and beliefs. This was the twenty-first century, and Charles was a twenty-first-century man with the best education money could buy. Once made effective by ignorance and fear, curses were now destined to dissolve quickly within modern-day enlightenment.
Yet, there were still isolated incidences of intelligent men succumbing to curses placed on them by voodoo priests in places like Haiti. If Charles had been confused by drugs, his mind might have been overly susceptible to suggestion, no matter how absurd that suggestion might have been.
Marie firmly refused to believe Lucie Bruay would kill her own daughter, no matter what the malicious tongues were wagging to the contrary; no matter how much Marie continued to dislike the old hag.
She had seen Lucie working with the sick and the injured, in the aftermath of the earthquake, and, now, knew that Lucy had warned a whole village out of the way of an exploding volcano. It seemed inconceivable that such an altruistic woman, so intent on saving lives and relieving misery, could have stooped to taking another person’s life—let alone the life of her own daughter.
More likely, Cécile hadn’t limited her drug experiments to the food and drink she gave Charles and was, herself, dead of a chemical overdose. If Lucie had been part of the plot which had stolen Cécile’s body for jungle burial, then who could condemn a mother for wanting her daughter’s body left undefiled by a coroner’s scalpel?
All in all, Marie felt far better equipped to cope, now that she had a workable outline—no matter how much of that outline would eventually turn out to be based on sheer rumor. She no longer could blame Charles for not telling her things which—more than likely—he couldn’t even sort out in his own mind.
Cécile was dead. Cécile was buried.
Marie felt confident she could eventually win any battle with a dead woman for the possession of Charles Camaux.
When the effects of whatever it was Cécile had fed Charles’ bloodstream began to fade all the more (Marie refused to contemplate the possibility that there would always be some kind of permanent residue), then, Charles and Marie would only find their love strengthened because of what they had been through together.
Marie hadn’t had to drug Charles to get him. She didn’t need to drug him to keep him. Her love had gotten him. Her love would keep him.
Suddenly, she felt better and less troubled than she had in a very long time.
“I’m not even seasick,” she told Pierre who, up until then, had been concerned by Marie’s intense introspection.
“The water is calmer than I’ve ever seen it through here,” Pierre said. “Without a motor, we’d stall for sure.”
Marie was crossing a stretch of ocean that could have passed for the glass-like lake in The Cauldron.
* * * * * * *
Pierre didn’t dock the boat in Villeneuve.
“If you don’t mind the walk, I was told of a shortcut that can save you your winding car ride,” he’d said when he’d emerged from the squat building on Isla Charlotte where he’d gone to borrow the boat to take Marie back to Saint-Georges.
He steered the craft into a small deserted cove, complete with its own stretch of white sand, where he successfully beached it and helped Marie out without even getting her feet wet.
“Now, if I haven’t been led down the garden path, by the old salt who told me, there should be a trail somewhere over...there!” He pointed. “So far, so good. Now, we’re supposed to be able to see the Château from the top of the initial upgrade. The trail should come out right on the leading edge of your front lawn. Your husband’s grandfather, I was told, once had some kind of a boat docked here. I’ll walk you home, though, just to make sure you get there safely.”
“Really, you’ve been more than kind enough already,” Marie said. “I’ve had a horse as far as the top of the bluff and know the way from here.”
“You’re sure? It doesn’t seem all that gentlemanly simply to drop a beautiful woman off in some strange stretch of wilderness.”
“In this case, I assure you, it’s quite the most gentlemanly thing to do,” Marie said. “I’d prefer a little private time to myself, to think things through, anyway. You understand?”
“You wouldn’t lie about knowing your way home from here?”
“I assure you, I have no more desire to see me wandering around lost than you do.”
“Well, then....” Pierre could think of nothing better to add; so, he shrugged and slapped his hands against his thighs.
“Thank you, Pierre...for everything.”
“I almost didn’t tell you the gossip; you know that, don’t you?”
“I appreciate your reluctance to spread idle rumor about my husband. This time, however, you were wise to make the exception, I promise you.”
“So, come back to Isla Charlotte later and let me know how things work out, will you?”
“You must try making it to the Château,” Maria said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “I’m sure you and my husband will hit it off. Certainly, you’re the first real friend I’ve found in my new home.”
He gave a delightful blush and headed back to the boat. Marie waited until he had pushed off and was afloat, and, then, she turned and headed up the slope.
The trail was steep and hard going at first. On horseback, earlier in the week, Marie had decided it was too steep to head down. Going up on foot, though, she managed, although she was panting hard when she reached the leveling off point.
She looked, first, toward the Château, seeing its familiar chimneys off through the trees in the distance. Then, she looked back over the water to where Pierre was circling the boat to await her signal—just in case the house hadn’t turned out to be where they both thought it was, or steam vents had reared their nasty heads by way of a blockade.
Marie waved assurances that she was sufficiently oriented to carry on from there. Pierre waved back before steering his boat for open water.
Marie sat down for a moment to catch her breath and to watch Pierre’s progression out through the mouth of the cove. The ocean was still smooth as glass, as if calmed by oily slick. There was hardly any evidence of the small boat’s movement, as if all signs were erased on the slate as quickly as they were drawn there.
When the boat was a mere dot, Marie stood and stretched, enjoying the release of tension along her vertebrae-popping spine. She turned toward the Château, hearing and seeing the birds at one and the same time.
Majestically, they rose in one giant mass, circling and veering out to sea.
With a strange and eerie sense of déjà-vu, Marie watched them go, feeling the coldness brought to her veins by the sight. The impression was no less awesome for having, this time, occurred during daylight. Where before, it had appeared merely a black and shadowy mass, it was now an obvious undulating wave of varied-colored birds by way of a very knowing population deserting Saint-Georges—for safety?
Out at sea, Pierre saw the massive flock pass over him. As Marie watched from the bluff, she saw his boat make the wide turn back toward Saint-Georges. Pierre knew what was happening, as much as she did, and he was coming back for her. There might, after all, still be time for her to rush down the hill, climb into the boat, and sail out to sea, before....
Before the earthquake? Or would it be something worse, this time?
“Don’t be a fool!” she screamed to Pierre in the distance who obviously couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t wait for him to get within shouting distance, either. She didn’t have the time, not knowing how much time she did have. Her place was with her husband. She wouldn’t leave Charles, even had she known for certain there was safety for her in that returning boat with her friend.
She started running through the forest and its underbrush toward the distant Château.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN SHALL WE
THREE MEET AGAIN?
The first tremor was a faint vibration felt only against the so
les of Marie’s running feet. It passed, and, then, returned even less intense. It disappeared completely, and then returned, only to disappear again.
Marie felt like a mouse who knew she was being played with by a clever cat that tried to lull her into a false sense of complacency. Something big was building, though, and Marie could feel “it” in the air, couched within the trees, buried within the earth. She sensed it within in the wide expanses of sea and sky, both so blue that they were almost too painful for her eyes to see.
Whatever it was, it chose to build in complete silence, sneaking up on her. It was mainly Marie’s own loud breathing that she heard, not any outward noises or sounds that relayed any sense of impending disaster. She was panting for air, her lungs heaving as she worked them to capacity. Her chest cavity hurt. Her throat hurt. Her legs hurt. Yet, she ran and continued to do so until she could run no farther—only to continue running even then.
Until, it was the ground suddenly come up to meet Marie’s falling foot, instead of vice versa. Amid a loud cacophony that was painful to the ears, Marie lost her balance. Her right side no sooner hit the ground (knocking out what precious little wind she had left), than the ground dropped from beneath her.
Like a rag doll tossed upon a blanket, Marie was thrown upward into nothing but air all around her. This made the ground even harder the next time it found her.
* * * * * * *
It was quiet, though not a relaxed quiet. It was a fake calm pregnant with tensions not yet released. It was a mere pause, obviously not a finish.
Marie groaned.
Was there one part of her body that didn’t ache?
She’d lost all sense of time. Hours could have passed, or mere seconds. Her watch, broken and stopped at 3:15 (A.M.? P.M?), insinuated a possible passage of only a few minutes.
She came to her hands and knees, starting with fright when a nearby tree, jarred loose in the shake, commenced its belated fall with a crashing thud that would have sounded loud even had there been no one there to hear it.
Marie’s knees were scratched and bleeding. Her right arm was numb; she vaguely remembered hitting her crazy bone. Her dress was torn. She tasted blood and realized she’d bitten her lip.
Slowly, she managed to get to her feet, mentally checking for broken bones.
She started off, again, each step revealing new aches and pains. That said...she wasn’t dead. She was still moving and still able to glimpse distant Château chimneys through the trees (thank God, the building was still standing!). She would be home...eventually.
What if no one was there? They could have all fled during the time it took Marie to reach them though the interfering jungle. Even Charles might be gone. There would have been no reason for him to wait for her, thinking her still on Isla Charlotte visiting with her schoolteacher friend.
She was close to panic when she finally did burst free of underbrush and onto Château lawn. As in the previous earthquake, a canyon-like trench had opened in the grass, only this time it had remained open, revealing insides of iron-red earth, root-strewn and speckled with rocks and boulders, the latter often the size of small houses. Eerily, she half expected the once-swallowed butler, Marc, to climb on out.
She ran parallel to the trench, keeping well away from it. She still remembered, only too well, the way the sides had previously collapsed like quicksand.
Where the abyss finally came together, a visible crack still continued its run almost to the Château steps.
There was a hazy cast to the air which Marie recognized as not entirely from dust. Somewhere, close by, steam vents had sprouted to life and were venting their foul-smelling sulfuric super-heated fumes...with accompanying hisses.
There was no indication of life.
The Château doors were open, but the foyer immediately beyond was vacant.
“Charles!”
Marie told herself not to panic. Even if Charles wasn’t there, even if Pierre had decided Marie wasn’t returning to the boat so had headed back to Isla Charlotte, there were other alternatives available to her. There were several cars kept in the garage. Surely, one or two of them had been left. If not, there were the horses. If the horses had been turned out to better fend for themselves, Marie still had her legs.
“Charles!”
This upheaval had been worse than the last one, evidenced by the large crack now visible in the side of the walk-in fireplace; a large hunk of mantle stone had dropped into the middle of the hearth.
“Charles!”
She walked to the den and slid open the door, giving a small gasp of surprise to find Lucie Bruay seated, like some kind of regal mummy, in one of the large wing-back chairs facing the doorway.
“It’s happening!” the old woman said, frightening Marie who had thought the old woman possibly dead.
“Have you seen my husband?” Marie asked. Even though the old woman might sense Marie’s presence, her eyes focused on something far more distant. Her pupils, entirely independent of one another, began, disconcertingly, to wander in spasmodic jerks.
“Are you prepared to die?” Lucie asked in a macabre whisper.
As if on cue, the ground moved.
Marie backed into the rectangle formed by the nearest doorjamb, preparing to flee if the quake got more forceful. Although the Château had survived at least two big quakes, since Marie’s arrival on the island, its tons of rock could still fall at any minute. If and when they did, Marie had no intention of being buried beneath them.
The ground movement suddenly ceased as quickly as it had begun.
“My husband?” Marie tried again. “Have you seen Charles?”
With a sudden jolt, like two grapes on a slot machine clicking into adjoining spots, Lucie’s eyes focused. Her small, pinpoint pupils came alive with genuine recognition of Marie in the room.
“Your husband, my daughter’s husband,” she said. “Do you know where my daughter is this night?”
“Where is my husband?” Marie cared absolutely nothing about where Lucie’s daughter might be, only wondering why there was any need to bother with this uncooperative old crone when Charles might still possibly be somewhere in the house.
“What do you care where he is or isn’t?” Lucie asked, sitting straighter, clamping her fingers into the arms of the chair, like a bird’s talons skewered its prey. “Fyrea will have him. He took what wasn’t his for the taking—my daughter. Did he tell you that, Madame Camaux, Marie Camaux, the second Mrs. Charles Camaux? For that, he must suffer the consequences, just as my daughter did.”
“Your daughter tricked him!” Marie accused. “She used drugs that you taught her how to use, making you as guilty as she was.”
“Heard that, did you?” Lucie asked. She gave a frown that wrinkled her already wrinkled face into even more wrinkles.
“Deny it!” Marie challenged
“Mmmmmm,” Lucie mumbled noncommittally. Her eyes unfocused, yet again, and commenced a simultaneous slow roll into the back of her head. Spittle foamed at the right corner of her mouth.
Marie knew she could get nowhere with a woman who, difficult in normal circumstances, had obviously lost her senses. She turned to begin a search of the house.
Charles stood not two feet behind her.
“Charles, thank heavens!”
She ran into his open arms, holding him, sobbing against his chest. Except for a scratch along his right cheek, and several rips in his shirt, he looked unhurt.
He held her close, bringing his right hand to the back of her head to comb his fingers through her hair.
“We did this, you know?” he whispered, his voice a low, soothing caress. “We did this, and now we’re reaping the just rewards for our folly.”
Marie pulled back sharply, knowing her husband wasn’t talking to her, but, once again, conversing with the dead Cécile Bruay.
“Digliji,” Lucie Bruay said; Marie momentarily thought the old woman back to mumbling gibberish.
At that moment, though, Lucie was quit
e lucid. Her eyes were directly on Marie.
“That was the plant my daughter used to drug your husband,” Lucie elucidated.
At the window, Charles stood, gazing out on a scene that looked plagiarized from Dante’s Inferno. The air was thick with smoke and steam, and it smelled of fire and brimstone.
“The plant in question grows high on the mountain,” Lucie continued, “in an area usually shrouded in mist. It’s for use only in highly religious ceremonies. My daughter committed sacrilege by using it otherwise. Then, she was never one to hold to the old ways. She wanted new and material things of the kind only someone as rich and influential as Charles Camaux could give her. It made little difference that he didn’t love her. What a price, though, she had to pay for such folly, make him pay, make you pay, make us all pay.”
“Charles, you, and I have to get out of here,” Marie insisted. “If we don’t leave soon, we’ll be dead—if just from asphyxiation.”
“I’m old,” Lucie answered. “I am, in fact, very old. What do I care, any more, of living?”
“Well, I’m not old,” Marie insisted. “Neither is Charles!
“Run, then, if you think there’s a way for you out of here,” Lucie said. “As for your husband, well, as you can see, he waits to pay his dues.”
“Pay his dues for what?” Marie wanted to know. She told herself not to panic. There had to be a way out of this, somehow, even though a meandering river of magma already could be seen oozing down one of the valleys to cut off the road to Villeneuve. “By your own admission, it was your daughter who did the deed.”
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