The home had already been smudged by the time they got there.
Everyone was now in the living room.
Ruth had stuck the sage stick into the vase of bee balm and sweet pea and was pouring herself a scotch.
“Ruth,” said Reine-Marie. “It’s only…” She looked at the clock on the mantel. “Oh, what the hell.”
She poured drinks for everyone, while Armand stared at the framed picture Florence had made. The one with the rainbow. The one Fiona had taken off the wall and held that night almost a month ago. Her finger had been pointing to the words his granddaughter had written in her careful hand.
Ça va bien aller.
Armand hadn’t known for sure, but he’d thought, wondered, hoped, prayed that Fiona was sending him a message. That yes, she had helped her brother, helped her father. But unlike them, she had limits. And had reached them.
She would not help them murder the Gamaches.
All would be well.
That was Armand’s last hope. The one he clung to even as time was running out. Ran out.
When Fiona had left the home, he knew it could mean one of two things. Either she was, as she said, looking out for the police to warn the others. Or she was going to flag them down, guide them to the house. Which was what she’d done.
The three women together—Fiona, Amelia, and Harriet—had saved their lives.
On their way home from the lake house, Reine-Marie had asked Armand to stop at the women’s prison where Fiona was being kept. She would spend many years behind bars for her role in what had happened.
Armand knew he would speak, once again, on her behalf. On behalf of John Fleming’s daughter. Though he wasn’t ready to see her. Not yet. But Reine-Marie wanted to. Needed to.
When she returned to the car, she was pale. But calm.
“What happened?” he’d asked.
Armand went over to Myrna.
“Drink?” she asked, lifting hers.
“Please. Scotch, neat. Can I borrow this?” He’d picked up the still smoldering smudge stick from among the flowers.
“You can have it. It’s done its job.”
“Not quite.”
He went downstairs for the first time since the confrontation with Fleming. As he descended, he could smell the musky sage and sweetgrass. Here too had been cleaned and cleansed. Washed, sanitized. Exorcised. But he needed to be sure.
Armand knew that ghosts could be stubborn.
Walking around the room, he wafted the smoldering sage stick toward the walls, the floors. The boxes of Christmas ornaments. He spent extra time on the pile of bricks, the ones he’d meant to get rid of. But had not.
The head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec went through the ancient ritual, solemnly smudging every corner of the room.
Then Armand turned to the bolted door and punched in the code: 1206. December 6th. The date of the shootings at the École Polytechnique.
Standing in the middle of the little room, surrounded by secrets, he closed his eyes and wafted the sweet smoke over himself. As men and women had done for thousands of years.
Then, noticing that Fred had followed him down, he picked up the smelly old dog and carried him upstairs.
That night a bonfire was lit on the village green in front of the three huge pines, celebrating Canada Day as they’d also celebrated, a week earlier, St-Jean Baptiste.
“Whatever happened to the women?” Harriet asked. “Anne Lamarque and the others.”
JJ, Billy’s nephew, was sitting on the log beside her. His name, perhaps not surprisingly for a family that had produced a Pierre Stone and a Billy Williams and a Mable the Maple, was John Johnson. JJ.
“The witches?” said Ruth. “Many years after being exiled, they each returned to the places that had banished them, just once, to confront the people who did that to them.”
“That must’ve been a shock for their families,” said Olivier.
“For the priests,” said Gabri. “Imagine seeing the witch return? Must’ve scared the shit out of them.”
Reine-Marie thought of the painting Clara had left in their living room. The bold swirls of vibrant colors had coalesced into a face. An old woman’s face, with blue eyes and sunburned skin and wild white hair.
And a surefire cure for warts.
“Did they go back to curse them?” asked Olivier.
“Non,” said Ruth. “To forgive them. That was the magic.”
The wizened Anne Lamarque in Clara’s painting was smiling. Happy and free.
“What happened?” Armand had asked Reine-Marie that morning when she’d returned to the car after confronting Fiona.
“I think you know.” She smiled. “Let’s go home.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m often asked where I get my ideas from. It’s a very good question and one I always feel I should be able to answer. And yet, I struggle.
How can I not know?
I think it’s because there are many ways, some clearer than others. I walk around with a notebook, and for many months before writing a book I observe and listen, taking down turns of phrase, single words, quotes from poems or books, snippets of conversation, or clipped articles from magazines and news reports. I often liken it to a pointillist work of art. Putting a dot of an idea here, another there. Some large, some tiny. Some to do with characters: Armand and Reine-Marie, Jean-Guy, Clara or Myrna, etc. Some are plot points. Some practical, some silly, some intuitive, some nutty. Some destined to become major themes, many destined to be ignored or used in another book. Or used as unexpected inspiration in later drafts.
For A World of Curiosities, I could not tell you exactly where the idea began. Where the major theme of “forgiveness” emerged. I have the feeling it wasn’t really until near the end when I realized how often, unconsciously, the characters struggled with it.
How often I’ve struggled with the need to forgive. To let go.
I’ve loved exploring that theme in this book.
I can tell you exactly when the idea for the painting, The Paston Treasure, hit me. I was in London reading a feature in one of the newsmagazines where prominent people talked about their favorite work of art.
This particular personage said, “The Paston Treasure,” then proceeded to say why. It was a revelation. I’d never heard of it, but what a wealth of ideas for a writer! I knew then it was going to be my Trojan horse that would allow all sorts of clues, all sorts of ideas, themes, references to past books, to enter into the lives of the Three Pines characters.
I’m not sure when the idea came to look at the case that first brought Armand and Jean-Guy together. Until I started writing those scenes I actually had no idea what that case was.
From there it was natural to also consider Armand’s “origin” story. At least, how he came to be in the homicide department. Again, I did not really know how it happened, until I went for a long, long walk. And the idea came to me.
To be honest, it was troubling. To use a real, tragic event—the murders at the École Polytechnique—and fictionalize elements?
I was a young journalist working in Québec City that day. December 6, 1989. I remember going into work early the next morning. I hosted the current affairs program for CBC Radio and needed to try to get clear on what happened at the École Polytechnique before going on air. The reports were still garbled. The researchers did amazing work, and through the morning I interviewed police, students, teachers, politicians. Trying to make sense out of a senseless act.
Fourteen young engineering students murdered. All women.
To my shame I initially believed, and gave airtime to, the politicians (all men) who insisted that this was the work of one lunatic, and not an indictment of society. There was no need to look at institutionalized misogyny. To examine equal rights, or lack of them. To have stronger gun control.