FORTY

“Oh, Sylvie, look outside for me—I’ve had a dreadful dream.” I sat up in bed to see that Sylvie had brought my breakfast chocolate and bread bought fresh that morning. She pulled the heavy curtains and looked out into the spring morning. “What do you see out there in the street?” I asked anxiously.

“A big dray cart, Madame, the woman who just sold me the milk for your chocolate…she’s dipping some out from her bucket for the woman across the street. There’re two cats, a yellow dog…and someone’s pig has gotten out.”

“No one else? Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes, Madame. There’s a boy selling little pastries on a tray. Do you want me to get some?”

“Don’t go. Look again—you don’t see a…a man without a face, do you?”

“Of course I don’t. We live in a nice neighborhood. What on earth is wrong with you?”

“I dreamed he was outside, waiting for me, looking up at the house. It was as real as real—Then I woke up when you came in.”

“Madame, it is the opium again. How much cordial did you take before you went to sleep last night?”

“Hardly any, see?” I said, holding up the bottle from my nightstand. “I’m cutting down.”

“You’ve cut down before, and you always go back to it. It’s not doing you any good, I can see that.”

“Sylvie, you go beyond your place.”

“Madame, what do I care? Listen to me—times are hard and places are scarce. It won’t do me any good to be working for a corpse.”

“It’s not the cordial this time—look again.” Something in my tone of voice made her look intently at my face, then go again to look. The pale light of early spring poured in through the tall window, making a shining rectangle across the heavy brocade bedspread and dark-patterned carpet. The scent of blooming narcissus from bulbs forced in a pot on a side table filled the room.

“I see the first carriage in the street—your customers are coming. You’d best dress quickly.”

“Very well, Sylvie, but—”

“Don’t worry, Madame, I won’t let in any faceless men.” Sylvie’s voice was ironic.

The morning was unusually full: I divined the fate of a son at the front and a lover at sea, advised on an engagement, and referred an artillery officer to La Voisin for an ointment to make him impervious to bullet wounds. By late afternoon, business had dropped off. Mustapha had brought a copy of Le Mercure galant, which he began to read aloud for my amusement.

“Listen to this, Madame. The fashion is changing again: ribbons are to be removed from the rest of the costume, and the mode for men will be for ‘more sumptuous materials, elegance residing in the coiffure, the shoes, and the beauty of the linens and the vest.’ Just as well my own costume has timeless elegance, isn’t it? The truly fashionable man is above the mode,” he announced, inspecting the turned-up toes of his embroidered Turkish slippers.

“One might as well say the same for me.” I laughed as Mustapha gave me the paper and glided to the door to admit another client. Only his cough reminded me that I should give up the paper, for the client was waiting, and I looked up to see a demobilized soldier, his back to me, inspecting my furniture. He had on a wide hat and carried a heavy metal-tipped walking stick in one hand. With the other, he stroked the silver vase on the sideboard with a possessive air that I did not like. I sat up straight, tucked away the Mercure galant, and pulled the veils of my mourning headdress back down so my face was again hidden in mystery. All was in order: the round globe of the oracle glass shining on its stand of entwined silver dragons, the rods, the cabalistic cloth. Mustapha looked uneasy.

“Monsieur,” I said, “with what business may I assist you?”

The man turned and walked across the room with an arrogant air. I could see him staring at the heavy rings on my right hand as it rested on the black velvet that covered the table. He seated himself opposite me without my invitation, laying his walking stick against my table. I drew back with a start. It was not the false nose he wore or the stench of the infection from his cropped nose and ears. It was that I had recognized the faceless man.

“I have come to inquire after a missing relative,” the faceless man said. His voice was low, menacing. I could hear the breath hiss in and out of the mangled holes in his face beneath the artificial nose that was tied to his face with a silk cord. Yes, the voice was his, too. The voice of my nightmares. The Chevalier de Saint-Laurent. Uncle.

“I cannot see the past. Only the future. There will be no fee if I cannot obtain a reading on this missing relative.” My voice was calm. I am no child now, Uncle; I am strong. And even as I feared it, I craved this moment, when I could confront you and tell you what you are.

“Oh, I think you will succeed in finding her. Lift up that veil, Geneviève Pasquier.”

“So, Uncle, we meet again at last. What excess of family devotion has brought you here? Would you like me to read your future?” I lifted the veil and stared directly at his hideous face without flinching. He sucked in his breath. The change that artifice, money, and love had brought to my face could not be mistaken.

“You have changed,” he said, regaining his calm. “You’re not a bad-looking girl these days.”

“Geneviève Pasquier is dead. I do not appreciate your familiarity. State your business or leave.”

“Come, come now,” he said, leaning across the table in repulsive intimacy, “you should be a little more friendly. Family is family, eh? Consider your duty to your elders.” He got up suddenly and paced around the room. “I’ve done a great deal for you. Look at you! You’re rich.” He gestured around him at the opulent furnishings of the room. “That desk, inlaid…and the tapestry…a Gobelins, isn’t it? And that carpet—it looks Turkish.” Turkish—Mustapha had vanished silently to fetch Gilles, as he did whenever a client looked troublesome.

“It was hardly your doing, Uncle. I owe you nothing.” His sly, foxy eyes darted sideways at me. He smiled that wide, confident grin that had once so entranced the ladies. It was hideous now. It distorted the scarred face and set the artificial nose off center.

“I think you do,” he said.

“I imagined that’s what you would think. You’ve never been more than a parasite. It would not be true to character for you to come for any other reason than money,” I answered.

He sprang forward with a growl and put both hands upon my desk. “Be careful of your tongue, you little bitch, or it will cost you everything.”

“Everything, Uncle? Didn’t you take that from me already? And see what good it did you. Be warned, Uncle, I will never be robbed again.” Hard and invulnerable in the iron garments of the Marquise de Morville, I felt exalted by the rising ferocity that came like the smoke of a raging fire deep inside me. I stood. “Beware of what you ask, for I will pay you in exactly the coin you deserve.” I felt that if he came even an inch closer, my rage would spill over him and dissolve him like vitriol. And facing me as he did, Uncle could not see Mustapha return with Gilles, silently motioning him to hide behind the screen that hid the kitchen door.

I could see the blood twisting the arteries in Uncle’s neck. His breath came hard. “I could wring your neck right here, you smiling, deformed little monster.”

“Hardly as deformed as you,” I laughed. “Whoremonger, betrayer of innocence, poisoner of old women. What do you intend to do? Blackmail me by threatening to inform the police about me? I’ll have a good bit to tell them about you, myself.” I stepped back from behind my table. He picked up his heavy walking stick from the floor beside the chair.

“You’ll stop laughing when I identify you and, as head of the family, put you in a convent and lay claim to everything you possess,” he hissed.

“You? The heir of the Pasquiers? Hardly, Uncle. I’m not an ignorant girl anymore. Anything you do will only enrich my brother, who will take everything. How silly of you not to settle for mere blackmail. How much you could have sucked from me under the threat to tell my brother where I was! And how unlikely for you to miss such an obvious source of money. Clearly you, too, are afraid Étienne will find you. No, you’ve been a fool, Uncle. Your threats have lost you everything. You won’t get a sou from me.”

“You stand there so cool, so arrogant. Who do you think you are? You’re nothing! I’ve had you, you’re nobody—and I can have you again. And what you have, I’ll take, just as I take whatever I want, now.” His fierce, wolfish smile showed his curious pointed eyeteeth. Like fangs. They seemed somehow as if they were dripping blood from a recent kill. What had he been doing since the police had last heard of him? He seemed ruthless with some recent evil. Careful, careful, I told myself. Don’t set him off by showing fear. Paralyze him with your coldness, as the viper does with his staring, venomous eye. I stood up, smiling, and strolled calmly around the table past him, stroking his arm with my jeweled fingers as casually as I would a cat, until I stood a foot before the screen where Gilles and Mustapha were concealed. He started and swore at my touch, his eyes following my hand. I knew how much he valued jewels.

“‘Nobody,’ Uncle? No, I am somebody. It is you who have become a nobody. A leech without prospect. It’s really quite pitiful, wouldn’t you agree? Tell me, which of your besotted lady friends paid to get you out of prison this time? Did she turn away when she saw what her husband had done to you, Monsieur Lover of Women? And have you now added her to your list of female enemies? It strikes me that you hold too many grudges, Uncle.”

“I do not keep them long, dear little niece. The woman who scorned me is dead. So is everyone else who stands in my way. What have I to lose? I will take your money, your jewels, to flee the country. I will buy the women I want with the rings on your fingers, when I have sent you to keep your mother company. She tried to hide her money, too, but I knew she had it. She dared to call me a monster—she who outdid every monster living. My stick convinced her. What a fool she was. And all for five gold louis. But I wasn’t disappointed, for she led me to you. And now, Niece, I want to know where your cash box is…” He smiled, showing a large number of teeth, and tapped the heavy stick on his open palm. Mother. How on earth had a blind, insane woman led him to me? And what had he done there on the rue des Marmousets?

“You’re a clever man, Uncle, to find me here. Surely Mother did not give you the address.” He smiled again, temporarily distracted by the contemplation of his own brilliance.

“You were a fool, Niece. You let slip your mask. What fortune-teller gives away money rather than takes it? She said she didn’t have anything more for me—Marie-Angélique had visited and had given her hardly anything. But the stable boy had seen the celebrated Marquise de Morville leave by the back way. It would have been clear to a fool. The blind woman knew her daughter’s voice. Only it was the wrong daughter.” I could hear the breathing behind the screen. Mustapha, silent as a cat, peeped out. I must keep Uncle’s eyes only on me.

“What did you do to Mother?” Uncle came closer, his eyes sly and triumphant. Mustapha crossed behind him, his Turkish slippers making not a single sound on the heavy carpet.

“Helped end her misery on earth,” answered Uncle, “as I will now…help…you—” His remnant of a face distorted with rage, and the nose fell away, revealing two raw and oozing holes. His teeth were like a wolf’s, his eyes insane with evil. I saw the stick lash out and instinctively raised my arm before my face, screaming and falling to the ground as the bone snapped under the heavy blow. In another moment, the breath went out of me as Uncle’s body fell on mine. The screen overturned with a crash as my servants rushed to my aid. The ghastly dying thing sprawled across me, suffocating me, its touch filling me with horror.

“Don’t pull my arm!” I cried as Gilles rolled the body off me and Sylvie pulled at me, trying to right me. “He’s broken it. I swear I heard the bone break.”

“Well, he won’t be breaking any more, that’s for certain,” said Gilles with calm distaste, as he turned over the body with his toe. Two sharp little knives were sunk deep into the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent’s back, soaking in black blood that was oozing onto my dress, into the carpet, everywhere. “I think the second knife was entirely superfluous, Mustapha. The first seems to have gone to the heart.” Gilles looked at the little man with admiration.

“Oh, God, you’ve killed him.” I was shuddering all over. Uncle’s hideous face had touched mine, his filthy blood was staining me. His stink was in my nose, rising to my brain.

“Surely Madame is not sorry for him,” said Sylvie with some astonishment.

“No, Sylvie,” I answered, clutching my arm and lying absolutely still on the floor. Gradually, I was regaining control of myself. The pain in my arm seemed to spread all through me. “It is the problem of getting rid of the body.”

“What problem, Madame? We’ll simply bury him in the garden tonight.”

“And arouse the neighbors? The garden is too narrow, and the wall is directly beneath the windows of the house next door.”

“Madame is right,” said Sylvie with a sigh.

“And, Gilles don’t imagine I’ll let you risk trying to dump him in the river tonight. You know the police are uncommonly interested in who goes in and out at night, ever since d’Urbec bled all over the neighborhood.” Gilles looked annoyed, but he knew I was right, too. I sat up gradually, clutching my arm, and made my way to my armchair. “Oh, Lord, my arm hurts,” I said as I settled into the cushions. “Sylvie, go upstairs and get my cordial. Something…something is coming to me. A very good idea.” The idea continued to form as Sylvie pattered off upstairs. “Cleopatra…Ha, there are virtues to a classical education, after all. Gilles, would you and Mustapha be so kind as to roll up my former uncle into the rug? I think we need to have it sent out for cleaning. I want it out of the house before Chauvet comes to set my arm.”

Late in the afternoon, the neighbors all observed a cart draw up to the front door and a pair of lackeys, directed by a servant maid, load up a heavy, rolled carpet to be sent out for cleaning. The gossips of the neighborhood carried far and wide the news of the good fortune by which a terrible accident had been prevented. A torchière overturned, and a dreadful stain and burn mark had to be cleaned up and rewoven.

“Can you imagine the expense? It is a terrible pity; the carpet looks so costly!” Voices were rising to my open bedroom window, where I lay nursing my arm.

“It’s just the intervention of God that they didn’t set fire to the house. The whole neighborhood might have gone up in flames.” Excellent, I thought, as I heard them make way for the surgeon, whom they took for a gentleman from his dress and the liveried lackey with him.

Once shown upstairs, Chauvet had his lackey unpack an assortment of splints and bandages while he inspected my arm.

“Of course,” he observed in a voice that dripped irony, “there’s no telling how long it takes bones over a century old to heal.”

“I’ll just put some of the alchemical formula on it,” I replied blandly. He chuckled appreciatively as he tied on the splint.

“But next time, pick your clients more carefully…Oh, don’t look so surprised. No fall I’ve ever seen broke a wrist that far toward the elbow and left a welt, to boot. I’d say a cane, or a walking stick, or the flat of a sword. Your hand up so—across the face. It must have been a man. If it had been one of your witches, now, you wouldn’t have lived out the week, and there wouldn’t be a mark to show. Take a leaf from their book, sweetheart, or he’ll be back.” He finished by taking out a large square of black silk for a sling.

“I don’t need your advice,” I told him.

“Sorry, dear. But it’s not good, your living alone and known to have cash on hand. Whatever happened to that fellow with the dueling wound? There’s a solid fellow—plenty sturdy, and he’s stuck on you, too. You should marry him and give up this dangerous business. I’d marry you myself if you weren’t too old for me—and if I didn’t have two wives already. Both happy enough, they are—but, Lord, the expense.”

“Monsieur Chauvet, that’s not decent!” I exclaimed. I heard his laughter echoing down the stairs until the door was shut behind him.

I sat on the edge of the bed thinking. My right arm ached horribly. It was hard to believe that Uncle, the inhabitant of my nightmares, was dead. How formidable, how destructive he had seemed. A force of nature, brought down in retribution. And led to me by an old, blind woman who was trying to protect my gift of five gold louis. He must have gone to her for money to flee the country, after the first murder. And if she had had nothing at all, he might have believed her. But the little sum, in gold, convinced him there was more. How desperate, how crazy he must have been: he had beaten Mother to death to get her to reveal the hiding place. If I had walked out without giving her anything, she might still be alive. But instead, I had felt sorry for her. My pity had killed her more surely than the poison that I had thrown away unopened. My mind felt numb with the sadness of it. All at once the world seemed so desolate, so wicked, that I could not bear to live. No wonder people believe in the Devil, I thought. How else could you explain the conversion of a fleeting moment of grace into evil?

“No, it’s all logical,” I said firmly to myself. “Everything works by logic. The world is made according to rational law—no more, no less. There is no grace and no evil; everything follows the objective laws of nature.”

“Madame, I thought the surgeon had left. Oh, I see. You’re talking to yourself. Well, the carpet’s been sent off and Gilles with it. Mustapha has gone ahead and will meet them there, and I’ve ordered the carriage. My, that does look neat—the sling matches your gown. What a touch! That Chauvet is an artist!” Sylvie’s voice seemed to come from a thousand leagues away. “Goodness, Madame, what is wrong? I thought you hated him, and yet you sit there mourning. Or have you gone and taken too much cordial again? Not that I blame you this time.” She bustled to the armoire to fetch my light traveling cloak, laid it on the bed, and then got the footstool to reach down the hatbox.

“Sylvie,” I said dully, not moving, “Mother’s dead, too. I killed her.” With a gift compounded of guilt and good intentions. How stupid. How sad. A waste. It was all a waste.

“Killed her? Why of course you did. Madame will be delighted to hear that the poison finally took effect. It’s been such a long time! Why, she’s had Antoine down to check your parish death register three times already. Oh, I’ve never seen her so anxious to make someone one of us. But you lacked the basic requirements—and now, at last, you’ve done it! You’re fortunate, you know. She sets great store by you.” She got out the wide-brimmed black hat and blew on the black plumes to get the dust off them. “Now, don’t go moving that arm. Ha, and it’s your right one, too. How will you write your accounts now? What a nasty fellow. We’re well rid of him.”

The pharmacological laboratory in the rue Forez was all abuzz with activity when I stepped over the threshold from the black parlor that formed its antechamber.

“Ah, dear Marquise!” cried La Dodée, perspiring from the fire she had built up under the great kettle that sat on the hearth. “You look so well, all things considered. My, I can’t help but remember the first day you stepped into our workshop. You’re so changed, so elegant now!” I must indeed have looked different from the lost girl in the torn dress. The mirror told a new story these days; it showed me a tiny, straight figure in a black cloak and an old-fashioned, wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat over a lace cap. A nice face except for being all white with a bit of green under the eyes, just like a corpse. A tall walking stick topped with a silver owl’s head and decorated with black satin ribbons. Really, not too unlike the pictures of witches in certain engraved picture books. Altogether delicious, it seemed to me. I was fond of dramatic entrances, predictions made in a thrilling whisper, and curious accoutrements that set people talking. Oh yes, I was different. Well played, Geneviève.

Above, the familiar harpy, her wings outspread, sailed serenely. A series of large, empty jars stood on the worktable, ready to receive the product of the night’s labors. One of the little girls, grown larger now, was making labels for them. “Brain of a criminal,” “heart of a criminal,” and so forth, written in a clumsy hand. The other was brewing coffee on the strange brick stove, which I now knew for an alchemist’s athanor. Mustapha had pulled up a stool and was kicking his heels while he criticized her labors.

“Not so much water—you’ll steal the essence. Don’t you know anything about making Turkish coffee?”

“How would you know, since you’re not Turkish, anyway?” responded the girl.

“I’ll have you know I’m an honorary Turk. Look at my turban. Anyone who wears a turban like this is an expert on coffee,” Mustapha replied in his strange old-man’s voice. The smell of the coffee, all hot and heavy, filled the room. In the center of the floor, rolled tight, lay the rug.

“We’ve put the coffee on. It will be a long job tonight. La Voisin may drop in to see us a little later,” announced La Trianon, wiping her hands on her apron. “So kind of you to think of that empty space in our reception parlor. Are you sure you don’t want to charge anything for him?”

“No. He’s absolutely free, and good riddance.”

“An old lover?”

“Hardly,” I answered.

“Oh, I see. A relative. Well, he’s certainly handy. We’ve had a bit of a dry spell lately. So many customers, and the executioner raising prices every day! Livers are so scarce. You swear he’s a criminal? I don’t want to give false value to my clients when they come in for their formulas.”

“Absolutely. He’s killed off his mistress and has just bludgeoned an old blind woman to death this very day.”

“Why, excellent! That’s almost as good as if he’d been executed. Marie, get those two layabout men to unroll the carpet. They’re looking a bit pale—a little exercise ought to bring the roses back into their cheeks.” Silently, Gilles and Mustapha unrolled the carpet. Uncle’s blue-gray body flopped out like a fish at the market. “Goodness!” exclaimed La Trianon. “Knives right up the hilt! Whoever threw them was a real professional.” Mustapha bowed to her without a word. The girls got a pair of scissors and a little knife and began to remove Uncle’s clothing, clipping off the buttons for later use and then throwing the cloth into the fire as they finished. The wig sizzled and stank as it burned smokily next to the false nose.

“If you’ll pardon, I think I’ll wait in the next room,” I said faintly. Sylvie shot me a withering glance.

“Oh, la, what delicacy!” exclaimed La Trianon. “I suppose philosophers have no stomach for real work. Truly, Marquise, we’d thought you would have outgrown your squeamishness by now.”

“Oh…it’s my arm that makes me feel faint. He broke it, you know, when he tried to…to…”

“Marquise, you shouldn’t feel bad. After all, everyone has a worthless relative or two,” broke in La Dodée. Sylvie had donned an apron and poked up the fire around the smoldering clothes.

“Yes, but I seem to have so many,” I murmured.

“Well, he’ll certainly be worth something now,” announced La Trianon. “Enough of this and that to keep us in business a good long time, to say nothing of the improvement in the decor of our parlor.”

“My dear,” said La Dodée comfortably, putting her arm around me, “perhaps you’d like to take coffee and wait outside in the parlor, after all. You look pale.”

“Why yes, I believe I would, thank you,” I answered. I felt suddenly very drained.

“I will carry the cup for Madame,” announced Gilles, “because she has only one good arm.” Mustapha swept up my train as if it were what he had been planning to do all along. As I left, from the corner of my eye, I could see La Trianon sharpening a set of knives on a whetstone. I could hear her voice; she was humming.

In the long silence, I could see Gilles surveying the black parlor from his seat in the corner. Mournfully, he eyed the portrait of the Devil partially concealed by the half-drawn curtain in the alcove. He shook his head, then turned his eyes up to the black ceiling, then looked at me, where I sat in the little armchair poised near the shuttered window. I could hear the faint clatter of the cup and saucer as they rested on my trembling knees.

“The river is neater,” announced Gilles slowly, staring at the toes of his worn shoes.

“I’d not have you take the risk,” I answered. The coffee made my stomach hurt.

“They appear to enjoy their work,” said Gilles, after another long silence. He got up and walked silently around the room, inspecting the astrological charts, fingering the cat’s-skull candle holder, picking up a little drop of black wax that had fallen on the table. Mustapha’s intelligent little eyes glittered with amusement as he watched Gilles’s mournful examination of the black parlor.

“Obviously, Gilles, you have not worked for witches very long. Now me—I’ve seen all types. Dwarves have a wider experience of life than galériens. You can’t deny that these ladies have a certain fascination. Work, after all, is always better accomplished when done with enthusiasm.”

“When they’re done, will they burn the remains?” asked Gilles, plucking at the buttons on his jacket, one by one, with his fingers.

“Oh no,” I answered. “They’ve been wanting a skeleton for the parlor for ever so long. It all came back to me when Uncle, ah, inconvenienced us so. They’ll mount it over there, in that empty space beside the curtain that’s over the picture.”

“Oh, I see,” said Gilles, looking unhappy.

“You must admit it’s brilliant. Concealed in plain sight. Our mistress is an extraordinarily intelligent woman. All that, and they’ll clean the rug in the bargain.” Mustapha’s hoarse young-old voice sounded admiring.

“I suppose it’s education that does it,” muttered Gilles.

“That, and a wide acquaintance,” said Mustapha. “Marquise, you have an unequaled mind. I am yours for life.”

“Thank you, Mustapha. Your service is equally appreciated.”

“Madame,” interjected Gilles, who appeared to have been silently ruminating over some idea, “may I dare to ask one question?” I nodded silently in response. “You aren’t one of them—a witch, too, are you?”

“No, Gilles. I hope it doesn’t disappoint you. I only know how to tell fortunes. I’ve never boiled anyone down before and haven’t the slightest idea how to mix poison. I’m accounted pretty much a failure in these circles. I lack character, they say.” Gilles seemed relieved. I inspected the pattern in the carpet beneath my feet with a morbid eye. It looked cheap. Not nice, like mine. Black and blood red is so garish in a carpet.

“It’s a lot easier makin’ corpses than gettin’ rid of ’em,” Gilles mumbled under his breath.

The bell attached to the front door tinkled, and La Voisin, looking busy, stood before us in her wide dark cloak and untrimmed black felt hat over the lace cap that hid her hair. A housewife on a shopping trip. As if to complete the illusion, Margot followed with a basket on her arm. Only the red boots peeping from beneath La Voisin’s heavy green quilted petticoat added a jarring note to the pattern of bustling bourgeois efficiency.

“Well, well, the smell of prosperity! And here you are sitting in the parlor sipping coffee instead of helping out. Ah, philosophers! Always so bloody-tongued and lily-handed! I never thought the trait would infest the female half of humanity! My dear, you should be celebrating—savoring—not just lounging about. Today your long-awaited vengeance is complete! A burial scheduled across town—no, you can’t deceive me—she used it at last, you little charmer…and an enshrinement about to take place. Rise and I will embrace you, dear little philosopher, for you have proved you are worthy to be one of us, for all your milk-faced looks and pale, useless hands.” I had already put down the coffee cup at her jibe. Now I rose and was clasped to her ever more capacious orange-water-scented bosom.

“Ah, you are a picture!” she exclaimed, extending me at arm’s length to admire me a bit. Under her gaze, I could feel how dark and picturesque I had become. I lack only a monkey in silk on a chain, I thought. “My most exquisite creation!” she exclaimed happily. “And writes Greek, too! That is an elegant touch, if I do say so! Come, my dears, all of you, and you shall see how a skeleton is mounted tonight. I stopped by to pick up the wire and bolts on the way. Not just any will do, you know.”

The basket, much too immense for only a scrap of wire and a few screws, also contained provisions for the long night: cakes and wine, roasted capons stuffed with chestnuts, and a string of steaming sausages garlicky enough to make one weep. As darkness fell, La Trianon had the two great wrought-iron chandeliers under the high roof of the laboratory lowered and the candles lit. In the light of the dozens of flickering candles and the orange glow of the fire beneath the great kettle, the ladies worked indefatigably until the jars were filled with pickling solution and sealed. While I looked on morosely, what remained of Uncle was deposited in the great kettle.

“There,” announced La Voisin as the lid clanged down on the pot, “almost as good as a parricide.”

“Cat food,” said Mustapha knowingly to Gilles, who turned pale at the thought. “Waste not, want not,” he added almost maliciously, just to see the look on Gilles’s face.

Their pickling done, the witches stacked the jars neatly on the shelves, wiped their hands on their aprons, and spread out the feast. Sausages and crusty loaves, chicken and cakes were demolished with gusto.

“My,” said La Dodée, wiping the grease off her face, “this work certainly does give one an appetite.” La Trianon began a drinking song, and the others joined in. Not to be outdone, La Voisin countered with a lewder one involving a priest and an abbess, while the others joined in the chorus. The lid on the huge kettle rattled and leaped over the fire in the great hearth, keeping time to the songs they sang as they passed the bottles around. By the time the first pink stains of dawn were visible in the eastern sky, I had learned not only how a skeleton is mounted but also that La Voisin had an even greater store of filthy ballads than is possessed by the grossest-minded sailors. As we prepared to depart, with the new accessory, still damp, hanging in the niche by the curtain, La Trianon sighed happily. “Ah,” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes to heaven, “at last my deepest desire—to have an image of death constantly before me for the edification of my soul.” La Voisin rolled her eyes in an even more exaggerated imitation of piety and crossed herself; then the two witches burst out in raucous laughter.

“My, my,” exclaimed La Dodée, wiping her hands on her apron, “I’m sure he’s never looked better.”

“Pretty is as pretty does,” I answered, picking my cloak and hat from the peg on the wall. That morning I went home to bed and slept for the entire next day and night, and didn’t have any dreams at all.