The Book of Shadows by James Reese

Author:James Reese [Reese, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Historical, General
ISBN: 9780061739569
Publisher: HarperTorch
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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21

From the Book of

Sebastiana d'Azur—

"To the French Court

I Meet My Queen—Preparations

for a Southerly Escape"

When word of my return to Paris—and my riches—reached my husband, he sent his man around with his card, seeking my assent to a visit. I struck a line through his name and sent the card back; this quite piqued him; and when next his man came around it was to deliver a letter bearing a thinly veiled threat. (My husband alone knew of my provenance; and it is far easier to fake the provenance behind a portrait than behind a person, this I know.)

We met at a café, and spoke at length of nothing. Eventually it became clear: I sought his silence and he sought a quantity of my cash; a deal might have been struck if only I hadn't... Alors, it was when the man dared speak of that sum of money that would secure but one year's silence—he'd keep me on a tether, would he?—that I began to... to trouble him. Pain him. (It was my witch's will at work, perhaps for the very first time; of course, I did not know that then.)

And so, as he drew from his breast pocket a contract of sorts, I, indignant, angry, envisioned his heart to be a seizing machine; and watched with satisfaction as his hands returned to pat that same pocket, this time to press away the sudden sharp pains beneath it. Had I effected this? I wondered. Impossible! A moment later, when, recovered, Monsieur oh so politely suggested we might negotiate the sum, my world went red again, and this time it was his tongue I imagined as I knotted a cherry stem with my ungloved fingers. And, yes... he set to choking. Perhaps I was somehow effecting this. Intrigued, I was; and pleased. I watched as his hands ringed his thick neck and the flesh of his face progressed from pink to purple to white. If it was my will at work, what a wondrous discovery! (Of course, never for a moment did witchery figure into this; only in hindsight would I understand what I'd done that day.)... For certainty, for vengeance, and yes, for fun, I played upon my husband's lungs, saw them as the closing locks of a canal; and when he tipped backward in his cane-backed chair, I rushed around the tiny table to his side—ever the faithful wife—and, kneeling, lowering my lips to his ear, whispered, "You'll go away, won't you? And never utter my name in less than admiring tones?" Only when he nodded and snorted out his assent did I stand; closing my eyes, I let the locks of his lungs open and air flood in. Leaving him to the ministrations of strangers, I slipped from the café unseen, and greatly satisfied; but still I attributed the "success" of the mission to luck and the dissolute ways to which my husband had long ago taken, the toll of which showed: his burgeoning belly, his cherry nose, his shallow breathing.

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