The Witchery, page 37
In the last weeks of his life, Asmodei spoke hardly at all, and only to Luc (who now knew what his sister had Seen). Was this willfulness? Or had the ether scorched his throat? Regardless, Asmodei was beyond words, or nearly so; and what words he uttered came from him in a voice not his own: reed-thin, ruined. And when Luc was not at sea with Calixto, he kept watch over the older man as best he could—and as best Asmodei allowed him to. Indeed, one of the reasons—and only one, as soon I’d discover to my chagrin—that Luc had taken to sleeping aboard the Soror Mystica even when she was in port was that her slip sat at the foot of Greene Street, quite near The Throne of the Goat; into which place he’d wander, as if for his amusement alone, taking a stool beside that man for whom, frankly, he’d an affinity I was neither able to share nor understand.
Finally, one night in late summer, Luc sought out Asmodei at the Throne, eager to share news he thought might amuse the man: Owing to a Sighting done, somehow, by Leo, Calixto had, two days prior, been declared wreck-master of the brig La Maria; and from the hold of that vessel—from the captain’s quarters, in fact—Luc himself had salvaged a chest of French erotica. But Asmodei was not there. Neither was he at either of our homes: not the first, on Front Street; nor the one on Caroline, which was still but a one-story shell.
The hour now was small: one, two, perhaps three in the morning. The air was especially still, swamp-heavy, redolent of shore-rot and night-blooming cereus, the scent from which cacti so cloys at the nose as to make one gag, and gladden to learn that each of its few flowers is abloom but once a year. A full moon lit the empty streets, and by its light Luc sought out Asmodei. He found him on the shore, staring out over the Straits. Though he was moderately sober, still Asmodei mumbled at the moon, both where it hung overhead and where it shone upon the water as the ladder to the Summerland.
Whether the two spoke that night, I cannot say; but Luc would seem less than surprised when, some months later, in October, as an unforeseen gale blew in fast and the rest of us sought shelter, Asmodei sailed out to sea in a stolen sloop, never to return.
I imagine he, Asmodei, said his good-byes to both Sebastiana and his Lord B. that night. As for the rest of us, well, it was left for us to bid the man good-bye as best we knew how…. Luc, having hired a team of carpenters to dismantle, board by board, The Throne of the Goat, made a bonfire of it, and around this we stood one November night, staring into the flames; and when that fire had burned to naught, I, for my part, looked up to the night sky, to the moon, and swore to Sebastiana that I’d done all I could.
I will not say I loved, nor even much liked Asmodei; but still I felt his loss. In going, it seemed he took something of Sebastiana with him. And after his disappearance, his death, I grew lonely, to a degree I’d not known in years, not since quitting Cuba with Calixto and finding the family. This was owing to Asmodei’s death, yes, in part, but also to…
Alors, would that I could give a good spin to Time on its axis and speed this story toward my death—it is that, after all, that I purposed to tell when I took this body over long hours ago—but I must first pen a few paragraphs more about the aforesaid loneliness and its truer cause: the ignominy of late ’44.
By December of that year, having survived the October gale in which we lost not only Asmodei but also that house in which we’d lived since our arrival in Key West—it took on water up to its wainscoting, causing the floor to buckle and the wood of the walls to rot like meat set out beneath the sun—we were ready to move into the Caroline Street house, the Witchery; problem was, it was not ready for us.
It had been framed but only partially built before the storm; and so—blessedly—the winds blew through it. Now we began to build in earnest, and from the top down. That is, once the skeleton of it stood, we outfitted its tower and atelier first.
Léopoldine and I much enjoyed the planning of the top of the house, and the procuring of what we’d place therein; and so busy were we with this that we left the fuller construction of the lower two floors to Calixto and Luc; which charge they passed on to an able crew, well paid to complete the project at speed. These workmen were told two things:
One, that more than the basics were called for; by which we meant—and here let me say I’d feel shame still, were it possible, for acceding to the others’ architectural wants, which so bespoke our being nouveau riche —a first floor featuring a double parlor opening off a foyer (marble-floored, merci bien) with a dining room opposite and kitchen-pantry combination sitting behind; also, there had to be an office, a billiards room (Calixto, Luc), and a library (me, admittedly). The second floor ought to comprise four bedroom suites.
Two: Said crewmen were told to spare no expense yet were warned (by Luc, by Leo) that every expense would be watched; and so glaziers came over from New Orleans, and masons came down from the North, as did boatloads of furniture ordered from Walter Corey’s workshops in Portland, Maine; for I’d hoped—in vain—that by ordering from so far away we might stem a rising tide of jealousy evident amongst the islanders. Calixto even hired a muralist to adorn those walls Léopoldine opted not to cover in papier peint; and so it was we’d eventually dine in a room tricky with trompe l’oeil and telling, variously, the myths of the twins Artemis and Apollo (whose faces bore more than a passing resemblance to those of Leo and Luc), Poseidon (Cal), and Diana (for which I agreed to sit, reluctantly, having declined the twins’ twinkle-eyed suggestion that I pose for either Hermes or Aphrodite, or both). It was all…de trop, truly.
…But latterly we’d struck upon a means of Sighting wrecks that seemed, indeed was foolproof; and we had only to refine it in the new witchery whilst on the floors below us men worked from dawn to dusk upon a mansion suited to our means; or rather, all we supposed we’d soon earn.
In those weeks between the hurricane rendering our former home inhabitable and the whole of the Witchery being completed, I took up residence in the tower. The others lived…elsewhere (more anon).
The tower was a squared, gabled affair through the portes-fenêtres of which one could access a sea widow’s walk, though this latter feature came to be called, in our case, The Ledge of Lucre; for, in time, it would afford views of our warehouses, our ships, et cetera, all those trappings that betokened our success as wreckers. I set up a cot in the tower; and a humble, comfy little aerie it was, one I much preferred to that second-floor suite soon to be outfitted with a half-tester bed, bureaus of Brazilian rosewood, and rugs from some Glaswegian weaver, which last items Leo pushed upon me, opining that they were “oh, so plush and seamless besides!” Increasing the tower’s appeal, I descended from it by spiral staircase to an atelier, a witchery that would have been the envy of any sister who saw it.
Again, having let myself be urged toward luxury by Léopoldine and Luc—who knew what it meant to go hungry; and whom, I reminded myself, guiltily, I’d sired only to learn a decade later that they’d been left to live alone in the catacombs of Rome—enfin, yes, guilty as I was, I acceded to certain…indulgences, let me say:
Luc, given to whimsy, had surprised me by buying from a photographer in New Orleans—“…and cheaply, too!” he enthused—a collection of glass plates, the after-product of portraits produced in his studio. These featured the faces of the dead; for yellow fever had raged there in that city of late, and the new art (or is it a science?) of Monsieur Daguerre took hold as photographs became the memento mori of choice amongst the many left to mourn. Said plates came from New Orleans with the abovementioned glazier, who no doubt proffered an opened palm upon being told his mission: Blindfolded, he was to be led through the witchery to the tower, where he was to replace random panes of glass with the photographic plates; so that in looking out over the island, to sea or sky, one found oneself gazing into, indeed through the faces of the nameless dead. Need I say this was a most eerie effect? Need I say, too, that it amused me no end, finding those faces as the sun or moon hit them just so?…I thought the idea inspired, and told Luc so.
Léopoldine, for her part, discovered she’d a penchant for silks and such; and it was as a result of this penchant—or rather the many, many purchases resulting from same—that I came upon a way for us to honor that oath we’d all sworn when first we’d decided to apply the Craft for financial gain…. Years earlier, whilst resident in Man-hattan, I’d heard much talk about the brothers Tappan, Lewis and Arthur; who, with monies earned in the silk trade, had founded the American Antislavery Society (as well as the Magdalene Society for the relief of “penitent prostitutes,” the establishment of which saw them derided by many working women of the Third and Fifth Wards, but not the Cyprians, nor I, now that I’d seen a lower breed of whore at work in the Throne). I wrote now to the Tappans—anonymously, of course—and solicited ways by which we might further the abolitionist cause (as well as that of said Magdalenes). Thusly did we begin funneling funds northward; as still we do, to this day…. And in time we had much, much money to funnel; such that great pains had to be taken to preserve our anonymity.
…Enfin, we had in the witchery proper all a sister could want; and though that room—the whole of the third floor, a pine-planked expanse broken only by four square supports—would come to contain all, all and everything requisite to the Craft, initially we tailored it to that means of Sight, as practiced by Leo alone, that soon had the Soror Mystica arriving first at every wreck of worth.
Axiomancy, it was; and in the witchery we worked it thusly:
Center-all, upon the floor, we’d had built, in brick, a broad and shallow pit. A six-foot circle this was, filled with cinders rendered more…potent by the addition of human remains (procured, more easily than the living would like to know, by Calixto and Luc—in league with Eugénie—on their trips to New Orleans). Onto the piney floor surrounding this pit—in a design seeming half bull’s-eye, half globe—Luc copied a chart of the keys till the whole of the floor was covered, and in order to Sight we had to shove aside our worktables and other furnishings. This we did every second month—less frequently than the twins would have liked; but upon this I insisted, lest we Sight and salvage so many wrecks as to give rise to suspicion. Already there was envy; add to that suspicion and…Suffice to say: I’d not risk ruin; for tales found their way back to us, tales telling of the good that came of our funneled funds.
The floor itself, then, was a chart, showing not only the reef but all the keys and lesser features of the wreckers’ water-world. The waters themselves were painted in shades of blue corresponding to soundings taken therein; though, I must add, our floor chart was only as accurate as its sources—old Spanish and British charts, imperfect in some particulars, erroneous in others; and though on one or two occasions this caused our Sightings to err, it was those same charts that caused the ships to wreck: a wash, in other words. A shame it is, though, that more than a quarter century after Florida fell into American hands, its waters remain so poorly charted. Hélas, as Leo is wont to say: “Others’ pity, our profit.”…Enfin, the whole of the floor was both accurate (enough) and artful, Luc showing himself as skilled with paints as he was with pens, the latter attested to by the many ledgers he kept, and in which he accounted for every penny we earned and spent.
It was Luc, too, who was responsible for burning those fires that heated the ash to the requisite temperature: It had to be warm, not hot, at the hour of the Sighting. And at the appointed hour—as determined by Léopoldine, who now charted the stars with such delicacy she was able to determine not only the day, but the hour most propitious to Sight—we’d all four gather in the witchery to watch her balance an ax on end in the pit, mounding the ashes at its base tightly enough to support it but loosely enough to allow it to pivot, as does the arm of a compass. And pivot the ax head would, though not before Leo persuaded it with great patience—the ax itself is wont to tip—and no small amount of spellwork. If a worthy wreck were imminent—and we ensured a wreck’s worth by burying gold coins in the ash, so as to witness the Work—then slowly, slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ax head would turn toward its location. The wreck being thus rudely sited, we’d progress from the macro-to the microcosm: We’d unfurl actual charts of the specified area on a tabletop, refining the wreck’s location by either acultomancy:
Placing twenty-one needles in a glass dish set atop the chart, slowly we’d pour water (rainwater; never gathered in tin) over these to see if a majority turned toward the same spot; or, failing this, sideromancy:
Whereby we’d read, similarly, the movement of straws placed upon a red-hot pallet of iron (nota bene: the convex side of a shovel works well).
Thusly did we arrive at the near-exact coordinates of wrecks-to-come; and when Leo—with further recourse to her star charts—discerned the likely date of said wreck, Calixto had only to see to it that the Soror Mystica was nearer the site than any other ship.
Et voilà, so it was that we became rich. Very.
Hélas, before we were able to refine such Sight, and whilst still the Witchery itself was being built and I alone resided in its tower—like that storybook crone it would soon seem I’d become—the twins took up residence aboard the Soror Mystica.
And one night, determining to venture out, as I so rarely did—I drew stares, and well-meaning inquiries regarding my health; for, as the logical result of loss of appetite, I’d grown quite thin, which state was only heightened by my pallor and hair that had grown so silver I had to hide its night sheen beneath a broad-brimmed hat—I found myself headed down Caroline Street, toward the schooner in her slip.
It was midnight, surely; but into a panier I’d placed the makings of a snack: wine, some chocolates, fruits, and whatnot. I’d surprise my three, as I thought of them still.
Chapter Thirty-three
…O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
—SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
I’D COME ABOARD THE Mystica QUIETLY, so quietly I’D LATER wonder if I hadn’t half expected to find what I found, see what I saw;…or leastways some variation thereof.
And let this suffice on the topic of what I found, saw, variations thereof, et cetera: It was a sight I never thought I’d see.
…As for Sight of the other sort, yes, the irony is not lost upon me: I suppose I might have Sighted…this…them…my three; but it is a truism of the Sight that a sister most often Sees only what she looks for. And, as said, I’d never even have thought to See…this:
There they lay, asleep, the twins on either side of Calixto. It was dark in the captain’s cabin, but not dark enough: By the greasy, glaring, golden light of an oil lamp, hanging high on its hook, I saw that they dozed in…in a most intimate pose.
Luc’s long, lightly haired legs extended beneath a throw of sapphire hue, tangled at his knees as if placed there for effect by Titian or Tiepolo; and when I saw the scar atop his left foot—his nickname of Lord B. had long outlived his limp, but had disappeared with Asmodei—I had this thought, plain as if I heard the words spoken aloud: He is grown.
Of course, if asked, I’d have said I knew this, certainly: He was sixteen, perhaps seventeen, quite independent, really, with money and a mind all his own. Indeed, he was quite like Calixto had been when first I’d met him: similar in both age and aspect, though somewhat bolder. He is grown. And though I cannot say that I ever really parented the boy (even less so his sister)—truth be told, it was Sebastiana and even Asmodei who’d done more of that—still it stunned me to see, so evidently, that the boy had become a man. He is grown. And in the seven-some years since we’d met, what had my relationship been to the twins? Not parental, no, not quite. Sibling-like? Hardly; for that they had each other, as it were. Custodial, then? No, much more than that. Alors, no one word is sufficient; for I was what I was: a witch who’d sired twins and found them only after ten hard years had passed. And now here was the boy, grown. About to be gone…. Enfin, that’s what the healed scar told me as I stood there at the cabin door, staring, stupidly, as yet unseen: It spoke to me somehow of the end of family, and that thought echoed as loneliness. Mine. Such that tears welled, very much against my will.
Shakily, I reached for a seat, a chair at the table still littered from their feast; and in so doing, I sent a bottle of wine onto its side. Empty, it rolled as bottles will on belayed boats: slowly, yet somehow more loudly than on land. Finally, it fell. The bottle broke…. And my three awoke.
They started. They sat up fast. Calixto clasped to his crotch more than his share of the sapphire throw, such that now Luc woke, saw me, and muttered a most emphatic “Merde.” Whilst Cal and Luc tugged at opposing ends of the throw, seeking cover, Léopoldine sat there unsheathed—beautiful, shoulders back and breasts forward. And though it may seem I describe a defiant stance, it was not that at all; but neither was she shamed in any way. Simply put, Léopoldine refused shame. She always had. This I’d long admired in the witch;…though maybe not so much then, truth to tell.
Silence ensued. Silence endured. And all the while I cried.
Their assumption—a mistake, hastily made—was that I cried owing to what I’d witnessed. Not so. Rather, not wholly.
