The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(6)
“Ingenious. Bastien warned me there’d be repercussions for not selling.”
“It’s why we fought,” she said as her eyes scanned the vineyard for further evidence of spells. “He wanted me to sabotage his neighbors’ vineyards. And not just the usual mischief everyone does. He wanted hexes. Vicious magic that would do real damage. He had this grand plan to squeeze the weaker vignerons out so he could buy their land and double his holdings. I defied him by refusing. Threatened to expose his intentions. But apparently he found someone else to do it for him.”
“Ah.” Grand-Mère absorbed the confession and glanced up at the snowflakes swirling above their heads. “I should warn you he’s come up in the world since you’ve been gone. His plan seems to have worked. He owns more property than anyone else in the valley now. He even brought on a bierhexe to oversee his place. She’d be the one behind the spellwork.”
“A bierhexe from the Alps working a vineyard? I didn’t think they had any interest in our type of work. It explains the complexity of the magic, though. But it isn’t just the hexwork that has me concerned. There’s something else wrong with the vines. I can’t quite sort it out. A type of melancholia. Not a spell exactly, and not a disease.” She ran her finger over the nub of a freshly clipped branch, finding no further clues.
“You belong here, Elena. It’s in your blood.” Grand-Mère rubbed her shoulder in a supportive gesture. “Even if the vineyard is no longer mine to give you.”
Thinking again about how the vineyard had been lost, tears swam in Elena’s eyes. “I would have hawked love potions out of the back of a cart or done palm readings for tourists in the street ten hours a day rather than sell to a . . . a businessman from the city.”
“It tore my heart out to sell this place.” The old woman looked out at the blackened vines rimmed in new snow. “But do you truly believe I’d hand over my life’s work to just anyone? I’ve been divining harvests and coaxing wine into the world with my magic longer than you’ve been alive. And reading men’s intentions. I can tell you he isn’t in it simply to make a profit. Even if he is a mortal who shuns witchwork as superstition, Jean-Paul’s heart is in the right place. He wants to make wine worthy of the Renard brand. He took your accusation about hijacking my reputation for gain rather hard back there, I think.” She rubbed her thumb against her fingers, as if testing the tension wire of his emotions once more. “You may have to apologize for that—he does have his pride—but otherwise he’s graciously allowed you to stay as my guest until you find your footing.”
“And what will he say when he learns who I am? He doesn’t want a witch helping him. He’s an outsider who thinks bad wine can be fixed using science, of all things.”
“True. He believes he’s a victim of bad weather and depleted soil.”
She scoffed. “If only he were so lucky.”
“Come,” said Grand-Mère, hooking her arm around Elena’s. “He wouldn’t be the first man to learn he’s wrong about something he’s certain about. But for now I have something to show you that might cheer you up.”
They left a trail of snowy footprints behind as they walked to the barrel-aging room beside the main house. Elena stomped the snow off her shoes as Grand-Mère opened the cellar door with the key that hung from the chatelaine at her waist. The old woman retrieved an oil lamp from a shelf in the entryway and rubbed her fingers together until a small flame erupted. She remarked it was the only real magic she had left and then touched the fire to the wick. Soft lamplight bloomed above a darkened ramp. “After you,” she said.
The air grew heavy with the smell of damp earth, smoky oak, and a ribbon of vanilla sweetness as they descended inside the ancient corridor. The powerful combination of scent and memory mingled in Elena’s heart and lungs, feeding her spirit. Before curses and bad luck had got their hold on her, she’d vowed to anyone who would listen that the scent of a wine cellar was its own healing magic. She inhaled deeply, drawing in its power.
The sound of their shoes scuffing against the flagstone floor echoed off the walls as they entered the main room of the cellar. Encased in yellow stone five hundred years earlier, the carved space formed a large rectangular room with a low-hanging arched ceiling. A hand-forged iron lamp hung from a chain in the center overhead, while plain white candles had been jammed into the mouths of empty wine bottles and placed atop several of the forty oak barrels lining the walls. A room untouched by time. The space soothed Elena’s uncertainty in a way she couldn’t have understood or anticipated the last time she had stood among the barrels.
Grand-Mère blew air off the tips of her fingers, lighting the overhead lamp, then motioned for Elena to follow her to the back of the cellar. “I know you’re probably eager to open the barrels, but it’s not why I brought you down here.”
Three small rooms had been added to the original corridor over the centuries. The largest housed select bottles of prime vintages the way a library showed off its books. It also doubled as a place where a wealthy patron might stand at a table and taste the merits of the latest pinot noir. The second room provided storage for the curved wands used for stirring the lees, a wine thief or two for suctioning samples of fermenting wine, and extra rakes, brooms, and baskets. But at the back end, tucked away behind the barrels, was a small room with a heavy oak door. She dared not get her hopes up.