“Merci.”
This was the first bit of good news. It meant Fleming hadn’t dropped the ring. Hadn’t been down in their basement. It meant Reine-Marie hadn’t had a madman’s hand on her shoulder.
He sat back in his chair and stared out the window for a moment. Then, taking a last look at the peaceful village, he turned away and tilted his head back, staring at the tongue-and-groove ceiling. If Fleming was inside his head, that might mean he could get inside Fleming’s. If he tried.
Armand closed his eyes. And waited. And waited.
Out of the darkness, eyes appeared. Startling blue.
His own eyes flew open, and his chair tilted forward, almost throwing him out of it.
Unlike the elderly and embittered Ruth as the Virgin Mary in Clara’s portrait, where Clara had put a dot of light in her angry eyes, creating hope in the midst of despair, Fleming’s eyes gleamed bright. But in them there was a black spot. A blight. A cave.
Armand saw the invitation to enter. Into despair. And knew he had no choice.
He sat up straight, planted his feet firmly on the floor, placed a hand on each knee, closed his eyes again, and took several deep breaths.
I’m coming for you.
In the distance he heard a sound. So deep was his reverie, so complete his focus, it took him a moment to realize it was his phone.
“Gamache.”
“Armand, I’ve figured out the code,” said Jérôme Brunel. “It’s written in a mix of shorthands, including Tironian. It’s actually the same phrase in French, English, Latin, German, Hebrew, all mixed together. A chaos of languages, like speaking in tongues.”
“What does it say?”
“I’m coming for you.”
Armand felt his blood rush to his core.
And after all it is nothing new / It is only a memory, after all.
A memory of a fear / that has now come true.
CHAPTER 32
Harriet and Sam went for a hike through the forest, along the trail that led up to François’s Seat, the highest point of the mountains that surrounded and protected and hid Three Pines from the outside world.
The trail was steep enough to leave her winded.
“Why’s it called François’s Seat?” Sam asked, catching his own breath.
They sat down on sun-warmed boulders and admired the view, which fanned out 360 degrees. From there they felt they could reach out and touch the Green Mountains of Vermont.
“I asked Auntie Myrna once, but she didn’t know.”
The mention of her aunt gave Harriet a pang. Of sadness. Perhaps guilt. She’d turned her back on the woman who’d been an important part of her life all her life in favor of a man she’d just met.
How could that happen, she wondered, that Sam could get so deep into her heart so quickly? And eclipse loved ones?
He seemed to understand her. She wasn’t afraid with him. He’d even shown interest in her odd hobby of collecting bricks, saying he had one himself.
“A hobby?” she’d asked.
“No, a brick. One I’ve had since I was a kid. I’ll show it to you sometime.”
He brought egg salad and peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in a damp dish towel out of his knapsack, and she pulled a large thermos of ice-cold water out of hers. They ate in silence, enjoying the view.
The warmth of the day was hitting the pines and balsams, bringing out the sweet fragrance of their new needles.
Harriet looked over the endless canopy of forest and saw unimaginable beauty. It was enchanting, bewitching. And if you weren’t careful, it would kill you.
A few steps off the path, perhaps to pick up pinecones or look at a wildflower, and you were lost. You’d turn around. And around. And the path would have disappeared.
At first there’d be disbelief, even perhaps mild amusement. And then, as the minutes turned to hours, there’d be a quickly mounting awareness. This was trouble. Then, as the sun went down, anxiety turned to fear turned to panic.
This can’t be happening.
Was that how Anne Lamarque felt when the priest turned her in, as the witnesses against her piled up? As her husband testified about the grimoire? Did her amusement turn to disbelief, turn to panic, turn to terror?
She’d strayed too far from the prescribed path, and this was her punishment.
Harriet looked over the forest and imagined a woman in long, torn skirts and a rough blouse, clutching a shawl to her breast with one hand and a burlap sack with the other.
Anne Lamarque’s face and hands were torn and bloody. Her clothing encrusted with muck and stinking of sweat and piss and shit. Her wild hair was thick with leaves and twigs, as though she were turning into the forest itself.
She finally looked like what she’d been accused of.
Before I was not a witch / But now I am one …
The witch woman was on the run, chased through the wilderness by beasts hungry for her body and demons hungry for her soul.
Every sound became a threat. The howls of the wolves, the scrambling and shrieking of strange creatures, the bright eyes staring at her in the moonlight. Flesh-eating flies buzzed around her head, tormenting her, biting her, driving her mad. Sending her running through the forest, over the edge of the known world and into insanity.
Until she’d finally fallen to her knees. Her head in her hands. Bent over small, like a child who’d seen the closet door drift open in the night. And knew the nightmare was real.
Anne Lamarque surrendered to her fate.
What then? Harriet wondered.
Had Anne heard the soft babble of the river and raised her head? Had she lifted her face from her filthy hands and seen soft light in the sky? Had she seen a clearing just ahead? A meadow with herbs and sweetgrass?
Had she, like so many after her, recognized in this hidden place a home?
Anne Lamarque had defied her tormentors. Instead of being damned, instead of dying, she’d made a home. Here. Found a home here. Built a home here, from stones pulled from the earth, and from trees that once seemed so fearsome, but now offered themselves as shelter.
According to Ruth, two other women eventually found their way to Anne. But Harriet suspected there were more. Many more.
A bouquet of them, perhaps. Young and old. Their common crimes were breasts and a womb. And a mind.
With the help of the grimoire, they survived, built a community where all were welcome. That was the real magic.
“What’re you thinking?” Sam asked, his voice soft, gentle.
“I was thinking that maybe it’s not so bad being a witch.” She glanced down at his knapsack. “What else have you got in there?”
It wasn’t quite empty, and she hoped maybe he’d brought a cake. It was the right shape for a lemon loaf, though it looked too heavy for that.
She reached for it.
“I’m sending the family up to the lake with four agents,” said Jean-Guy. He named them and Armand nodded approval. They were good, they could be trusted. “I’m on my way back to Three Pines, but I had a thought.”
“Go on.”
“Suppose it’s Godin.”
“Fleming?” Gamache was about to point out that Monsieur and Madame Godin had been married for forty years and living in that house for fifteen. Godin could not be Fleming. But then he realized …
“Do we know for sure that is Monsieur Godin?” Beauvoir asked, just as Gamache got to that thought. “His ID checks out, but those could be faked. Fleming could have killed them both, then pretended to be Godin, knowing we’d show up.”
It could be, thought Armand. Godin was roughly the right age. He was taller, and heftier, but those could be changed with lifts in shoes and an intentional weight gain. Even eye color could be changed with contacts.