The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(24)

“Reverse curse?”

“Yes, and the other effects you see . . .” She nudged him to raise the glass to his eye again. “I still have to counter the jinx on the hill and the static in the soil. And then there’s that fellow. There, see him? Sitting on the stump in the middle of the row. We have a gargoyle living among the old vines, the ones Monsieur Gardin planted for Grand-Mère’s birthday. The wine you poured tonight came from those vines. It was the last vintage I brought into the world before I . . . went away.”

He pressed his eye closer to the glass. “How are you doing this?”

“I’m merely showing you what I see every day.”

He tested the vision several times with and without the glass. A beast with leathery wings and pointed ears opened its eyes and shifted on its feet before yawning. “This can’t be happening.”

“So disrespectful, I know. This one appears to be harmless at the moment. But I’m guessing as soon as the grapes are ready to be harvested, it’s his job to piss on the clusters as they go into the baskets so they’ll be sour for the press. That is, if I don’t find a way to banish him first. I’m sorry—he should have been dealt with years ago, but Grand-Mère hasn’t been able to keep up by herself.”

The gargoyle twisted his face around to sneer at them before tucking his head under his wing to go back to sleep.

Jean-Paul dropped the lens and crossed himself. “This isn’t possible. I’m drunk on spoiled wine. Or . . . or out of my mind with fever.”

“I assure you you’re not. It’s merely magic. Or, if you prefer one of your scientific terms, you’re getting a glimpse of what’s found at the end of the spectrum, outside the range of what your mortal eye can see.”

“No, this can’t be happening.” He jerked his hand loose of hers, and the vineyard appeared as it always had. He rubbed his eyes and looked again to make sure. But still he doubted his sanity.

“I’m a vine witch, Monsieur Martel. Chateau Renard’s vine witch specifically. And while you’ve been operating under the impression that bad weather and worse luck have been conspiring to hurt your vintages, I’m sorry to say it’s mostly been ignorance combined with an abundance of sabotage due to my prolonged absence. Grand-Mère’s spectral vision just isn’t what it used to be.”

“Madame is . . . ?” Jean-Paul’s thoughts swam in drunken circles inside his skull. “No, it’s all just superstition. How can any of this be real?”

She gestured to the sky with eyes cast up. “How can it not?”

His feet seemed to float beneath him. He worried his knees might buckle in front of this woman. He needed a drink. He needed a priest. God almighty, he had to be rid of her. Without another word he turned on his heel and returned to the house, slamming the door and shutting out the world behind him.





CHAPTER TWELVE

The cellar felt tolerably warm after standing outside in the cold spring air for so long. Elena threw off the ridiculous tablecloth and lit three fat candles, enough to give her strong light to read by. She hadn’t followed him to the house. He was angry. Scared. He needed time alone to wrestle with his doubt. She’d expected that. What she hadn’t anticipated was her own need to huddle in a safe space. The spell to alter the broken wine bottle in the fire had depleted her energy, yes, but at the same time something fervent swam in her humors.

His hand.

The heat from his skin still tingled on her palm. She’d felt a tiny flame of magic ignite inside her at his touch. Her heart ticked faster thinking about the spark. Her blood was still more water than fire, but for the first time since she’d awoken from the curse her power flowed toward healing. Despite her doubt, a full recovery might be possible. But how was it possible?

She flipped through her grimoire, ignoring the book’s incessant sighs and riffling pages suggesting she read up on love potions. Instead, she stopped on a passage explaining the static transfer of electricity from one body to another. Could that truly be all it took to revive a cursed soul? A little body heat? And what about the change she’d noticed in the vine itself? The deep melancholia she’d discovered the night she returned had felt like an anchor tugging her to the bottom of a black sea. But moments ago, with the first leaves ready to unfold, she’d detected a subtle shift, its mood no longer cloaked in gloom. More than the normal tilt toward spring that always swung on the hinge of hope, this change had coincided with the one inside her. But what particle of unseen fate had brought the change?

Lacking any clear answer, Elena turned again to the study of poison. A paragraph on the slow and painful death caused by ingesting castor beans proved so fascinating, she almost didn’t register the clattering of horse hooves across the cobblestones. So he’d left. At a gallop. He was more frightened by the revelation than she’d realized, but she’d best not intervene. He’d have to come out of it on his own terms. Closing him out of her thoughts, she turned her full focus on the spell book. If her strength truly was returning, she could begin distilling the poison. Eyes skimming over the complicated steps she would have to perform, she studied every ingredient and subtlety of the concoction until ribbons of misshapen candle wax pooled on the workbench.

And still he hadn’t returned.

She stared again at her palm. The sensation of his touch hadn’t subsided. If anything, it grew as she thought about Jean-Paul again. He was stubborn and prideful, but not so much that it closed him off from accepting the truth about her. He’d circle around in time. But where could he be? She cared more than she wished to admit, but knowing he’d come home when he was ready, she snuffed the wicks and went to bed, as startled by what had transpired between them as he must be.