The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(31)
“Magic.” And he’d begun to see.
“Precisely. Fairies, elves, gnomes, witches—they’ve all been credited or blamed. What the eye couldn’t see, the imagination filled in. We put names to the unexplained. Cast it as something to either fear or worship. And yet just because a thing can’t be seen doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” The monk lifted his palms skyward. “In truth, you could say almost everything I do here at the abbey relies on a belief in the unseen. In my profession we use faith to see; in science it’s the microscope. With magic, we don’t yet know how to quantify that range of unseen energy. We lack the proper tool. But not so for the witch.”
“So you’re saying the witches, this magic they do, it’s conceivable it’s merely a part of the natural world, only we don’t yet have the means to measure how it works?” He rubbed his hand through his hair, trying to make sense of it all. “She told me as much. She said she was showing me things that occurred outside the normal spectrum of human vision.”
“Ah. Yes. Like ultraviolet light. This, too, I have read about.”
Jean-Paul nodded, though not yet entirely convinced. “As you say, these bacteria in cheese are of the beneficial type. But where there is good there is also bad. Like cholera or flu. Also unseen, yet dangerous. What if this witchcraft works the same way? There might be benefit, but could there also be something to fear?”
Brother Anselm steepled his fingers. “The locals won’t admit it, won’t say a bad word against the vine witches, but malefaction does happen. You’ve no doubt heard of the devastation that swept through the valley’s vineyards half a century ago.”
“The phylloxera? Nearly every vine was killed because of the infestation.”
“Terrible times by all accounts. But despite official reports, it was no insect that was to blame. It was Celestine, the last witch to be burned in the Chanceaux Valley.”
Skeptical, Jean-Paul leaned forward as the monk relayed the story of a young witch who once worked the vines at Chateau Vermillion. One day she’d found herself with child, the result of an affair with the village mayor. Instead of marrying the woman and claiming the child as he should have done, he claimed he’d been spellbound. Hexed. Spurned, the witch cursed the entire valley. Not every witch can do that, explained the monk. But this one had broken the rules of the covenants and summoned a disastrous, forbidden magic. She nearly devastated the entire valley to smite one man. “So, yes,” the monk said. “As with the bacteria, the valley mostly benefits from the witches and their magic. Though it’s just as possible for their power to turn deadly under the right, or perhaps I should say wrong, conditions. Bear in mind, however, all witches born after the 1745 Covenant Laws were ratified are absolutely bound by its decree. The consequences of stepping outside the law are quite severe.”
At last Jean-Paul had found firm ground to stand on. If there was a covenant agreement, a lawful decree, then there were books and documents he could study. Laws he could test and weigh against the magic he’d seen. Rules and punishments. Finally he could get his bearings and find his way forward in the midst of uncertainty and fear.
As if reading his mind, Brother Anselm waved him forward. “Come, let me show you to our library. There are some books there I think you might find useful.”
And that was where Jean-Paul had stayed until the strain of reading by candlelight put unending pressure on the tender nerve above his right eye, as well as his heart.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A thousand blackbirds swooped into the narrow lane. Wings dipped and flapped, ugly squawks rattled out of feathered throats, and claws spread open to strike. Or at least the illusion of a thousand blackbirds descending on the inspector filled the darkened space. If Elena had been forced to summon the birds on the main road above, where the setting sun was unobstructed by spells, the translucent nature of their true form would have shown through. But in the dingy lane on the outer edge of the village, her illusion thrived in shadow. The inspector dived for cover, his voice of alarm drowned out by the incessant screeching of the fabricated birds. In the days before her curse she could have conjured real birds and had the man pecked a thousand times. Still, the display was enough. While the inspector ducked with his arms covering his head, she escaped inside the nearest building.
The acid tang of soap and lye filled her lungs as she darted across the launderette. Dodging wet trousers and limp bedsheets hung on a line, she ran for the rectangle of light at the back of the room, where an open door led to an alley. Much to the surprise of the worker scrubbing shirts against a washboard, she dipped under his clothesline and through the exit, shutting the door behind her.
A Bureau man would use every tool at his disposal to sniff out the truth of who she was after the stunt she’d just pulled. And then the entire village would know she was back, including Bastien and his bierhexe. In her weakened state, they’d destroy her.
Her feet fought for traction in the alley as she struggled to return to the upper end of the village, but it was as if her legs trudged through mud. The spell had depleted her last ounce of energy. She’d only made it halfway through the alley when her heart pounded hard enough she had to stop and catch her breath. She leaned against a wooden door under an arched alcove. She needed a plan, yet logic seemed to fly out of her head the moment she formed an idea. If only she could rest.