I returned to the institution in Matera one year after my brief affair with Rita Galeazzi, seduced by the prospect of learning more about my father’s work—the bulk of which I had not been privy to during his lifetime. I learned quickly that he had been corresponding with Ms Galeazzi and the other scholars at the Institute, assisting in research and experimentation of these most unnatural things. I fell in love with the work—and with Rita. Though, she was quite fervently against revisiting that one summer night.

  After a long day, Maria retired to her room at the inn, Josephine in the next one over. She dimmed the light and pulled the curtains over the window. It was not far from one end of the room to the other, with a modest bed taking up much of the space. There was a standing mirror like the one in Selika’s room, but this one had no special ornamentation, in fact seemed rather cheaply made.

  She first washed up and then, in her sleeping outfit with the night cowl sloping off her head like a giant sock, set about with the lock of hair she had taken from Selika’s residence.

  Maria carried this into the dark gardens outside, hunkering down behind the bushes and brambles. From her rucksack she took out the necessary ingredients to put together a concoction. Hair torn from the scalp of Selika, dash of melted tree sap, ribcage from an amphibian that had suffered an immensely painful death. Her rucksack also contained several other vials filled with essences. These were mixed in oils. Blood of self-mutilation, bone dust of murdered male, semen collected from inhabitants in a brothel.

  These were items which were not all easy to come by, but Maria had her ways of collecting such things. She mixed all of this together in a small ceramic bowl and then kindled a fire with flint and twigs, and began to gently broil it. Tangy smoke drifted into the cold night sky, the horrible scent becoming quickly lost, and nobody around to smell it or see what she was doing. The licking amber of the flames lit the surrounding gardens, revealing apples on vines, berries in thatches. Her precise fingers worked, pale skin faintly laced with thin greying hairs.

  The words uttered from her lips were verbatim from her younger brother’s manuscript pages. Words that were rooted in no language even she had heard of, jumbled letters and odd phrasing. When she said them, her lips contorted in strange ways, more animal than human.

  Eventually, she began to make out a diaphanous scene in the middle of the smoke cloud. She saw an alleyway, and every now and then, another woman clad in burlesque drifted into frame. She saw the woman whose perspective she was in draw a cigarette and light it. Another cabaret performer floated into view, but her details were hazy in the roiling smoke.

  They’re at the cabaret, Maria thought. Either on break, or they have just finished a shift. She continued to watch. As the perspective smoked her cigarette with her back against the brick wall, one of the other performers walked off, disappearing down the alley.

  End of shift, Maria thought. But she stays.

  The image began to flicker, before eventually fading altogether. Maria had seen enough, anyway. She patted out the flames and spilled the horrid concoction into the soil, where it was soaked up as any mixture of bodily fluids would be. Forgotten about. She collected her things, took a look around to see if anybody had been watching her, and found that she was, as predicted, thoroughly left alone in those dark, quiet gardens.

  That night she slept jarringly, frequently awoken by strange dreams involving Selika and Edgar. In one such dream, which turned out to be more of a vision of their childhood, she saw herself as a teenager. She and Edgar had gone to milk the cows and found that one of them was keeled over on the ground with flies buzzing around it. The cow was dead—had been for a while, too. But strangest of all about the scene (and she couldn’t remember if this had actually happened or was just a fabrication of her dream), the cow seemed to look at her, continuously blinking.

  She then saw the deformed shape of a calf, its arms and legs clawing through the mother’s gut like a child unwrapping presents on Christmas morning.

  Maria turned to her younger brother, who would have only been ten or eleven, dressed in a good set of farmhand clothing their father had purchased in town.

  “What should we do?” Edgar said with no expression.

  Maria was too scared to do anything, just watched the movements inside the cow until, slowly, it stopped, and the cow no longer blinked. Yes, it had been dead all along, Maria thought to herself, and the blinking was surely part of the dream. The calf must have been a part of the dream, too, as a thing like that was not possible, was it?

  “Maria?” He tugged on her clothing. “Is Father going to be mad?”

  Maria looked to her younger brother. “Did you do this, Ed?”

  “What? How could you suspect me? I hardly ever take care of the cows!”

  “Then...maybe their food was bad,” she mused. “Or a disease?” She looked around and saw several other cows, watching them. One even mooed, a sound that reverberated so deeply she felt it in her feet. Edgar looked like he was about to cry.

  “Help me bury it,” Maria said.

  Edgar did not question this, and somehow (perhaps by dream magic) they pulled the cow, dug a hole, and threw it in. By the time they were finished, both Maria and Edgar were covered in flies and blood.

  When she awoke following this dream, she was at first disturbed, and then confused. The dream was simply a dream; she was not even certain that something like this had ever happened before. Yet still, as the night wore on, sleep was elusive. Perhaps it was the small room with its unfamiliar darkness, or just the stress of the situation in Carcassonne.

  It was late into the night when Maria was awoken by the sound of quiet muttering. Sitting up in her bed, she blinked and looked around.

  Josephine? Her eyes landed on the wall that separated the two bedrooms. What is she talking about? The girl’s jumbled words were impossible to decipher; all Maria could make out was the frenetic pace of it, and the repetition of sounds as a low murmur. She imagined Josephine in the next room, her lips moving, clicking with each draw of breath.

  At first, Maria tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but she could not. She lit the candle on her bedside and climbed out of bed. The air inside her bedroom was bitingly cold, and as her socks hit the wooden floorboards, a chill wracked her body. She took the candle and walked over to the wall separating their rooms. Every now and then she heard a loud grunt and more mumbling, becoming more and more aggressive in nature.

  Curiosity piqued. “Josephine,” she hissed, with similar intensity to the noises. Then, she tried a little louder: “Josephine!”

  The talking stopped.

  Maria gulped, going as still as her bedframe. Crazy girl, it’s the middle of the night! she thought. But if only she could have caught a little more of what she was mumbling on about. The idea of not knowing struck Maria sharply. She didn’t like not knowing things.

  “What do you want?” Josephine said, her voice muffled by the wall.

  Maria wet her lips, but stopped herself from saying something else. She simply nodded and retreated from the wall, the absence of the candle light darkening the space between them. Maria whispered beyond hearing of the girl, “Good night then, Josephine.”

  Thus, for the remainder of the night, Maria did not get much sleep, yet nor did Josephine carry on with her mumbling. It became so quiet indeed that all there was for Maria to focus on was the tight feeling in her chest, and swirling thoughts.

  #

  Neither Maria nor Josephine acknowledged what had happened the night before while eating breakfast together in the bakery across the street.

  Maria rarely had such difficulties managing her sleep, but she did not feel rested this morning. Even holding a piece of bread to her lips felt sluggish. Through open windows, she watched as the town bustled about them, a street filled with passersby. It was a sunny, pleasant day by all indicators; and yet, Maria herself was deeply overcast.

  Josephine was observing the playing card that had been left in Selika’s house. Lucien is coming. After a time, she handed it back across the table, and Maria concealed it underneath her plate. “Is there anything we should gather from the specific type of card? Jack of hearts,” Josephine said.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Maria.

  “Well, I don’t recognise whose handwriting it is,” Josephine said glumly, still looking at the card, which peered ominously from under the plate.

  Maria bit off her last mouthful of bread and swallowed it down with a pour of wine. She enjoyed the wine vastly more than the bread, but then, she had always enjoyed good wine. “It can’t have been sent from Bellvoir. I thought, at first, it was possible. But, a note like this is passed in a hurry, inconspicuously. You know? A note—on a playing card, no less—is left because you cannot convey the message to them any other way. I’d imagine this is from Carcassonne, from one witch to another.”

  “Well, if somebody is missing a Jack of Hearts,” Josephine said.

  “True, we could search every deck of playing cards in the city.”

  Josephine scowled. “Who knew you were coming? Wasn’t many people. Your brother...?”

  Maria shook her head in resignation. As far as she knew, only Hermine and her closest circle knew where she was. As far as anybody else was concerned, Maria had simply gone out on her own private affairs. Unless Alfred had mentioned it to somebody, let it slip. Perhaps she would find this out later today, when they met with him after breakfast.

  “How about Antoinette?” Josephine asked.

  “That’s just silly. Antoinette isn’t working with them.”

  “I’m just saying, maybe she let loose her lips. And it’s not as if she is particularly pleased with you right now.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Josephine talking about Antoinette like this made Maria feel bitter. Perhaps Josephine sensed the change in her expression, for she seemed disinterested in pursuing that topic any further, conceding, “That is if their ‘Lucien’ is even a reference to you.”

  Maria hmphed.

  “By the way, I noticed you sneaking out last night,” Josephine said in an inquisitive tone. “And here I was thinking Maria Lucien would never dream of such things.”

  Maria stiffened. She found it odd that Josephine would bring this up considering what she had been doing last night. “Since when was Maria Lucien not free to do as she likes?”

  “Conjuring in the gardens? I can’t even recall the last time I saw you concocting something like that. I must say, the smell that emanated from it was ghastly—”

  “You don’t need to be so loud about it,” Maria said. “I pulled some witch’s hair when I went to Selika’s estate yesterday. I cooked a potion to see if I could find who it belonged to. Of course,”—she looked up at the streams of sunlight decorating the establishment, the mid-morning fury of breakfast—“I’d consider anybody who passed through Selika’s household, and used her bathroom accessories, to likely be involved.”

  “Well, did you find anything out?” Josephine asked, chewing on some bread.

  “I can assume somebody on last night’s closing shift at the cabaret might have a say in things,” Maria said. “And with a fondness for tobacco. But keep your voice down.”

  Josephine smirked. “Nicely done, Maria.”

  Maria felt her cheeks burn, and responded by frowning deeply. “Oh, save your praise for some other time. It was nothing spectacular!” In the heat of the moment, she thought about asking about Josephine’s night, but at the last second stopped herself. Forget it, she thought, and absentmindedly picked up and put down her empty glass.

  “I guess we will be visiting the cabaret, then?” Josephine said.

  Maria nodded. “After seeing my brother.”

  “That’s an exciting day.” Josephine collected a stale bit of bread from the platter between them. “I was wondering, though, why have you been so adamant on letting Selika go? I would have thought we could have learned a bit more from her. You know, with some persuasion.”

  “Oh, Josephine, how I do grow tired of having to explain these things to you younger women. You were not there when local law became involved in the case of the town of Mertil?”

  “Never even heard of that place.”

  “They defiled her. The girl was villainised and scapegoated for more than just the crimes she had been detained for. In the process, terrible lies came out about the cabaret.”

  “Lies such as what?”

  “It doesn’t matter what lies. For the one millionth time, we shall deal with the matter ourselves and that is that. You know how these cases spill into public hearsay. Hearsay, of all things, twisted and tumbled like clothes against a washstand.”

  Josephine pouted. “I just feel like sometimes you could give me more of an answer, instead of leading me in circles. It’s a little aggravating.”

  “Oh, don’t be a petulant girl.”

  “Do not treat me like Antoinette.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I...stand by what I said.” Josephine averted her eyes.

  Maria opened her mouth to berate Josephine for her lack of respect and insinuation, then closed it. I suppose she is not wrong, Maria thought. How she does remind me of Antoinette...or the other way around. She was suddenly feeling more sour than before.

  Neither of them spoke much after that, nothing but occasional, sporadic comments regarding their food and the pleasant weather.

  Maria was thinking about what Josephine had suggested about letting Selika go.

  If it were so simple, she thought. Frankly, the world is more complicated than what is true and what is not, and the relationship between witches and government is difficult. Yet, she did wonder how much longer she could protect them from such cruelties, like what happened to the girl from the Mertil case. When the practice of witchcraft was illegal in many places, some looked to such laws and inquired with themselves, maybe such laws were for the better.

  Regardless, Josephine was not completely wrong in stating her apprehensions about Maria nudging Selika to escape. She imagined her brother would not take kindly to it, either. But then, as far as Maria was concerned, they had learned all they could from her.

  After breakfast, the women took a carriage back up through the long roads to the town hall and made their way to Alfred’s office.

  Alfred was not a man of much variation or diversity. There was precisely one haircut he employed, a neat combover. He also must have groomed his beard each morning, for it never became longer, or went too short. His outfits were unvaried, too: white shirts and brown suits, pairs and pairs of identical shoes. At least Maria somewhat appreciated these simple things about him. Edgar was far more difficult in such regards. “I have expensive taste,” was one particular phrase he had often used. When they entered his office, Maria noticed Alfred stealing glances outside the room at a tall man in the hallway.

  “Who is that?” Maria asked.

  “Don’t laugh, as it is a serious matter, and quite frankly out of my hands,” Alfred started, “but the man is there to paint my portrait. So if we could move on from the topic...”

  “To paint your portrait. And why would he do that?”

  “Like I said, it is beyond my control. It was organised by the council. They would like to hang it on the wall. Erm...” His eyes went again.

  “Like that one there?” Josephine asked, pointing to the portrait of Alfred that was already on the wall. “When did you have that painted? Yesterday?”

  Alfred cleared his throat. “Ok, I confess, it isn’t for the council. It is a gift for my wife, for our anniversary. She...requested it. Now it may have been a joke, but you know my wife, she doesn’t play around like that. I believe she was being honest with this.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know, but what sort of painting are we talking?” Maria asked, dumbfounded (and slightly dreading to hear what his response was going to be). She looked outside at the man who was there. The man immediately averted his eyes and began whistling.

  “It’s a...Well, it was her idea, like I said.”

  “Spit it out, Alfred, what have you got that man painting?”

  “It’s a naked portraiture, okay!” he blurted. “Naked! Yes, you heard that right. In a moment, I will be posing naked for that man outside. All laid bare! Is that what you wanted to hear me say, Maria! I’m posing naked for a painting, buttocks and all, there you go.”

  Maria cackled raucously, and even Josephine smiled. When she shot another glance at the man in-waiting, who would soon see all, he looked away and appeared in a mind of half-leaving. “May I ask. Right here, in this room, Alfred?”

  “Yes. It was difficult to schedule.”

  “I’m suddenly afraid to touch anything. Is it your first time?”

  “Okay!” He threw his hands in the air. “That’s enough talk of this.”

  “Very well. No need for a tantrum.” Though, she very much enjoyed how bright red her older brother’s face had become. You could just about hear the steam spouting from his ears.

  Alfred grumbled to himself. “Have you had your fun, woman?”

  “Yes. Thank you for facilitating it.”

  “Hmm.” He walked behind his desk and sat down, straightening his outfit as though trying to regain a modicum of dignity. “Now, before we begin, neither of you girls would care to explain why my prisoner no longer is in her cell? I already know it was you, Maria, so don’t take me for a fool. I’m not mad. But why? What am I supposed to tell the council to explain how this woman fled from their grasp? What were you even thinking?”

  “Slow down there, Alfred,” Maria said. “I need you to realise that you don’t earn extra money for every sentence you add to a rant. It’s just grating.”

  “She was our only lead, you invalid.”

  “Oh, don’t be dramatic about it. I simply encouraged her, and you know what, you’ll be glad I did. You certainly won’t be able to fund such frivolous things as your bare-butt-naked portraiture when all those funds are diverted to long and boring hearings like the one Selika would have been on. That is no fun for anybody, is it?”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong, just asking for an explanation. How did you do it? A curse? Did you loosen the locks when you were leaving?”

  “As I said, she did it herself. I simply gave her the necessary push. And, if you’d like to know, she isn’t our only lead. How after all these years you still think me so incompetent?”

  Alfred grunted. “Very well. Say it, then. Why are you keeping secrets?”

  Oh, how this man utterly infuriated her with everything he said. “Josephine, I apologise again for my brother and his irritating demeanour. Quite frankly, with all the wealth he has hoarded over the years, I wonder why he hasn’t thought to do something about it.”

  “Just excellent,” Alfred said. “No, I will not take the bait. Go on, speak.”

  “Any witch who flees from such places as your filthy jails ought to be commended, not made a fool of in front of all the city in a grilling made to humiliate.”

  “I’m not arguing,” Alfred said.

  “I want my witches protected. I’ve seen what becomes of witches under such circumstances. If I’m not looking out for them, who is? You, Alfred?”

  “I said already, I’m not arguing.” Alfred glanced towards the man waiting outside, and his leg bounced up and down with awareness of the time. “What have you found?”

  Maria passed him the playing card she had taken from Selika’s estate.

  Alfred scrunched up his nose as he looked at it. “Okay, what do you want me to make of this? We don’t even know who it refers to exactly.”

  “I think it’s clear,” Maria said. “So who knew I was coming? Hermine, who’s in Bellvoir? She couldn’t have gotten word here so quickly. And who else? Oh, yes, you knew.”

  “What are you accusing me of here? That I’m secretly talking to the witches about— About what? I don’t even know what this message means. That is just a silly thought.” He threw the card nonchalantly onto his table and didn’t seem interested in giving a second look at it.

  Maria felt her face grow hot, and she restrained herself from getting snappy with him. “Well, it still stands, someone was warning the witches that a Lucien was coming.”

  “For all we know, it could refer to our brother.”

  “Are you stupid? He is dead. He cannot come anywhere.”

  “I don’t remember you having such a temper,” Alfred said with a half-smile, as though he found all of this quite amusing. “I can tell you now that there is nobody in this town who is working with those witches except other witches. You know, most people around here hate them. In fact, I’m very progressive compared to them!”

  “If that’s what you believe. Josephine, if you would step out for a moment?”

  “And miss out on this free entertainment? Alfred, you should come by the cabaret once in a while. I need this more often.”

  “Josephine, out.”

  Josephine shrugged and left without further complaint, joining the unlucky artist in the hallway. After she was gone, Maria closed the distance between herself and her brother. “Did you see what the watchman had obtained from Selika?”

  Alfred avoided her eyes. “Briefly.”

  “I know I don’t have to tell you that not all witchcraft is good and that some things even I wouldn’t dabble in these days. I want you to know that there were pages in that collection that aren’t published anywhere. Those are things that Edgar wrote, yes, but we both agreed it would be unresponsible to publish them. If I were him, I would have destroyed them long before this ever could have happened, but I’m not surprised he didn’t.”

  “Didn’t all this burn down in the fire when he died?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “So one of his scribes stole them? A whore?”

  “I don’t know. It does make me wonder, though, what else is out there.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If somebody has gotten into his private writings, there was more there than just spells and alchemy. There wasn’t a topic our brother didn’t write about in his time.”

  Alfred paled. “What are you implying?”

  “Oh, don’t be so daft!”

  “Damn, why do you have to keep insulting me?”

  “Because you’re a buffoon, Alfred, and you act as though you are the most dense man on this planet sometimes! You know how much Edgar used to write, and not just about silly frivolous things, he wrote things about our family. Things that could be used against us if, for some reason, any of the content from his journals were to come out. You realise, we will have to have all of this destroyed. We will need to find every single copy and destroy it.”

  “That...sounds hard,” Alfred said, his voice cracking.

  “Look. Josephine and I will talk to Bella at the cabaret to see if she knows anything. After all, these are her witches who seem so fond of Edgar’s things. But if there is anything you know, or any powers you have to help us, then for the first time in my life, I’m asking you to start talking.”

  Alfred cleared his throat. “Yes, Maria. I understand.”

  “Good. I thought you would be too much of an idiot to.”

  “Just make sure work of things, will you?” Alfred said. “Or the council will make a fuss about it. That damned man died long ago and I was just becoming peaceful again.”

  Alfred would never admit it to her, but Maria was sure that her being here brought him a sense of relief. After all, he would never have asked her to come if he didn’t want her there.

  “Let me sort out this ill thread,” Maria said.

  “But if this is not solved by next Monday, I’m shutting you down and sending you back off to Bellvoir. Then, the fact our prisoner escaped is on your head.”

  “I’m very threatened, brother.”

  “Will you never take me seriously?” he said, clenching his fist and just about stomping his foot on the floor. Maria took a pause, glaring at him with humoured eyes.

  “So much time spent at the cabaret,” Maria said as the most satisfying smile broke out, “when the comedy has been here all along.”

  Alfred made a disgruntled noise.

  “Goodbye, brother.”

  “And don’t call me that!”

  Maria left his office, joining Josephine outside. She turned to the painter, who was maintaining a fair distance from them, and asked, “Are you even a real painter?”

  “I...uh...”

  Maria sighed and walked away from him down the hallway.

  Josephine sped up to keep pace. “What was that about?”

  “Just...reminiscing on old times,” Maria said.

  Once out of the building, she called for a wagon and stood next to Josephine without saying anything. All this talk of the past, she thought. It’s really driving me mad.