“I’m under a spell, aren’t I?” I asked Dujols.
“Yes, yes, that’s why you can’t take off the necklace. Why you can’t send her away,” he said. “She doesn’t want you here. Doesn’t want you to see us. She may not let you come to us again.”
I nodded. I could feel a fight coming from La Lune. I didn’t know how she was going to manage it, but I was sure she was getting ready.
“I think you’re right. Around you all, it seems as if she has less strength. Everything seems a little more clear to me. Can you tell me how I can end this? How I can break her spell?”
“The ritual would be written in La Lune’s grimoire,” Dujols said.
“Why would she write it down? Wouldn’t that be risking someone doing just what I plan to do?”
“Spells are complicated and dangerous. They must be followed exactly, and so they are almost always committed to paper. There are too many steps to remember with exactitude. I would guess that the magick she’s used all these years to stay contained, to merge, to get what she wants, is recorded on the pages of her book.”
“What do I need to do?”
I knew what he was going to say before he said it from the way his eyes were shining.
“Bring me the book. I will help you figure it out.”
“And what do you want from me?” I asked.
“What I’ve told you all along. To study the book. To find the secret. To learn the formula.”
“The formula?”
“ ‘Make of the blood, a stone’ . . .”
Chapter 37
Dujols and Alexandra escorted me home. It was four o’clock in the morning, but my grandmother’s maid had been worried and was up and waiting. Alice was shocked to see me so dirty and disheveled and fussed over me, making me a draught of tea, honey, and brandy. After I’d drunk it down, she helped me bathe and put me to bed.
I slept all through that day and night and woke up the second morning feeling restored. And resolved.
A note had come from Dr. Blanche the afternoon before, and Alice brought it to me in bed along with my café au lait and croissants.
My grandmother was asking for me, the note said. She’d had nightmares that I was in danger, and nothing they said settled her down. The doctor felt that if I visited, even if my visit upset her, that angst would be preferable to the panic that she was experiencing now.
I dressed for painting at the Louvre later that day, then went to see my grandmother. When I arrived, the doctor wasn’t at the clinic, but the head nurse met me and told me that my grandmother had a guest. And then she gave me a coy smile. Some of the men who were salon regulars had taken to visiting her, and I wasn’t surprised one was here.
“The doctor left word that when you arrived, it was fine for you to go in right away. She’s anxious to see you.”
The door was partially open. I put out my hand to open it wider, but what I heard my grandmother say made me stop.
“I don’t understand, Benjamin. Are you saying that you aren’t responsible for my son’s death?”
I felt a wave of dizziness. Benjamin? With my grandmother? How had he found his way here? What would happen if he saw me? Would the nurses and doctors at the clinic help me or deliver me to him?
I wanted to run, but I needed to hear what he was going to say, what lies he was going to tell. I had to know how to fight him.
Taking a step back into the shadows behind the door, I held my breath and listened.
“Of course I’m not. That’s Sandrine’s delusion.” His voice was kind and concerned. “Philippe was a second father to me. I owe him everything.”
“What happened then?” my grandmother asked. Did she believe him? Was she goading him into revealing his motives? Before she’d become ill, she’d certainly been capable of matching wits with him, but was she still?
“Philippe was racked with guilt that so many clients’ savings had been lost due to his poor investments. He couldn’t face his own actions. Not mine. I hate that he took the coward’s way out—but that is what he did. And now Sandrine is suffering because of his actions. I came here to help her. You want that, too, don’t you? To help her?”
“Yes, of course. We have to help Sandrine. The best way to do that is to get her away from Paris. Away from Paris and back home,” Grand-mère said.
What? Did she really believe La Lune was that much a threat to me that I would be safer with the man responsible for her son’s death?
“That’s what I want, too. Just tell me where to find her,” Benjamin said.
“The doctor told me he tried to reach her yesterday but without luck. Perhaps Julien would know.”
“Julien?”
“Julien Duplessi, the architect I hired to— That doesn’t matter now. Julien is mostly likely at his office. I’ll write down the address for you.”
“Why would he know where she is if you don’t?”
There was a silence. My grandmother never should have mentioned Julien to Benjamin. I stepped farther behind the door, deeper into the shadows.
She was silent.
“I see,” Benjamin said. “I do hope you recover your health, Madame. Thank you for your help. You needn’t worry about Sandrine anymore. I’ll take good care of her.”
Benjamin walked out of the room and down the hall, never for a moment sensing I was there, behind the door to my grandmother’s room, holding my breath.
I waited until I could no longer see him and the echo of his footsteps was long gone. I pushed open the door to my grandmother’s room.
“Sandrine, I have been so worried.” She clasped her hands together. She looked so much better. Almost like herself.
“Oh, why did you tell him about Julien?” I asked her.
“You need to go home. You have to leave Paris. And Julien.”
“But Benjamin was lying to you! He’s the one who stole the money, gambled it away. Put Papa in debt and shamed the firm. Why would you throw me into his arms? He only wants me back for the shares of the bank that Papa put in my name years ago.”
“Divorce him once you return to New York. Just get away from Paris now. Away from La Lune. She feeds off of love. If you give it up, you can protect yourself and protect Julien. If you love him, you’ll do that. Don’t you see? You’ll save him and you’ll be safe.”
Tears filled my eyes. I went to my grandmother and put my arms around her. She felt so solid and strong. She believed I was haunted by the ghost of a sixteenth-century witch, and now so did I.
I straightened up.
“Sandrine?” My grandmother’s voice sounded surprised, lighter.
“Yes.”
“Where is she?” Grand-mère asked. “I don’t see her shadow. What’s happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has something changed? How are things between you and Julien?”
“Terrible. I haven’t seen him for more than two weeks. He’s broken it off with me.”
“Thank God.”
“But I love him.”
“You can’t, Sandrine. That’s why I don’t see her shadow. She’s losing some of her power.”
I sighed. What did I believe? One of us was crazy. Or we both were. Did it even matter anymore?
“The doctor said that once I could be with you without getting upset I would be able to go home. It will only be a few days now, mon ange. I’ll go home, and you can go back to America with your husband. You’ll be safe, and I can rest easy.”
“No. I belong here. Painting. Being an artist. Being with Julien. I won’t go back.”
And with that my grandmother let out a shriek and pointed to my right. I didn’t have to look. I knew there would be nothing I could see.
My determination had strengthened her hold. My grandmother was seeing La Lune again.
The nurse came running. As she attended to my grandmother, who had collapsed onto the bed, I walked out of her room, down the hall and outside, into the carriage I’d had wait for me.