Chapter 16. The Witch
`It was a crazy trip,' said Haakon to Amanda. He was whispering as he didn't want to waken those sleeping in the tents.
`What happened?' Amanda whispered back. `Was there any trouble with cops?''
`No,' said Haakon. `But a lot of positive publicity has come your way. And there's a lot of bad publicity surrounding my wife.'
`Tell me about it.'
`Our old friend Wolfgang Von Hellemann has been talking to some newspaper reporters. They say that he says that you shot the FBI agent by accident, because you thought he was a gangster, perhaps the goon who tried to kill me - and you wanted to kill him before he killed your mom and dad. That's been the theory a lot of people have had. And we know this is nothing new. But here's the bad publicity for my wife: Wolfgang has been saying that he knew a man in South America by the name of Jules Lancereaux, a mining man like Wolfgang. Lancereaux passed away a few years back but he knew my wife pretty well before we were married. I once had the impression they were very close. I'm telling you all this personal stuff because it's in all the papers, so you'll hear of it sooner or later. It was Lancereaux who put Maria in touch with Von Hellemann. And it was by way of this connection that your parents and my wife and I came to work for Wolfgang. But Maria never told me everything about Jules Lancereaux. She said she was a sorority sister of Mrs. Von Hellemann's niece and that it was this connection which put her in touch with Wolfgang. Anyway, we all got jobs in Grand Marais after we had to flee South America, and after we resigned from the CIA. These newspaper reporters who are quoting Von Hellemann say that Lancereaux was not a sorcerer but he knew people who did more than dabble in black magic. Lancereaux told Wolfgang that he had some poisoned bullets, given to him by a South American witch doctor, which he gave to Maria - and the story goes that if an unrequited lover shoots her beloved, under the light of the full moon, with one of these poisoned bullets, assuming she first steeps the magic bullet in her own blood, then, provided he doesn't die, he will fall in love the woman who shot him. Can you believe this love potion stuff? Von Hellemann has been preaching the theory that Maria shot me with one of these poisoned bullets, which she got from Lancereaux, who got it from a Bolivian witch doctor. Von Hellemann has been helping you a lot public-relations-wise via these reporters; he's been cursing himself for leaving you and Al in that cottage in those spooky woods after I had been shot. People have forgiven you. They are finding Von Hellemann's account of things very credible. Not everyone has forgiven you, but a lot of people believe you must have mistaken the FBI agent for a gangster, and they've transferred their animosity from you to Maria. I was shot on a night when the moon was full. But why would my wife try to slip me a love potion by shooting me with a poisoned bullet under a full moon, when I never stopped loving her?'
`Good question,' said Amanda, though she was thinking: You Know Why.
`Well, like I said, I thought I ought to tell you everything because you'll see a newspaper eventually. And if Maria is a witch, and if she did try to murder me, then you deserve to know that you will soon be riding a very slow raft down a very long river with a dangerous witch.'
Amanda didn't know what to say after that flippant remark. She said nothing for a few moments but she was thinking: You told me all this because you're fishing for information.
`Tell me,' began Amanda, after the long pause, `I know you loved Maria before you were shot, but did you love her any more deeply after you were shot. Did you become madly in love with her? We don't have to assume you were hit with an `enchanted' bullet. But you would know if you loved her before you were shot. And you would know if you fell in love with her after you were shot.
`When I was hiking back here I was asking myself those question over and over. Maria and I definitely got a lot closer. She was so sweet to me after I was shot.'
`I promised to keep it a secret, but your wife confessed to my mom and to me a long time ago that she shot you. And Von Hellemann is right about me, I shot the FBI man. I saw him lurking in the shadows. I thought he was a thug who was going to kill my parents when they returned to our cottage.'
There was another long pause as Haakon pondered Amanda's words.
`We all knew that if you killed the FBI agent it was for those reasons. But why would Maria try to kill me?'
`She peeped through a window one day and saw you and my mother naked together in a bathtub'
`Oh.'
`So you must not have been in love with Maria when you were in the tub with my mom, huh?'
`Things get so crazy sometimes, you don't always know what's what.'
`Your wife told me that she was furious, that she was consumed with rage, but in her jealous rage she happened to remember that she still had those magic bullets which Lancereaux got from the witch-doctor. She thought that she might as well give it a try - what did she have to lose? She's religious, she thought about mortal sins and all that, but she was really furious with you. She was desperate for revenge. But I suppose she also desperately wanted to see if shooting you would make you less interested in my mom and more interested in her, provided you didn't die. Do you want to tell your wife what Von Hellemann has been saying?'
`As soon as we get back to civilization she'll learn what he has been saying. Everything will come out then.'
`It might be best if she learns later, because we won't be crowded together on a raft then,' said Amanda.
`There's that angle of course.'
`It's our secret then,' said Amanda.
`And how good are you at keeping secrets?'
`Do you think she is still capable of murder?'
`No. Not as long as she doesn't fly into a jealous rage.'
`You're not still interested in my mom are you?'
`That's one of those questions where you are only allowed to give one answer - No. And that's the truth…..We might do whatever we have to do to keep your dad and your brother from finding out what's been going on. They might learn eventually, but let's postpone that day.'
`Agreed.'
Amanda curled up close to the fire and said she would try to sleep a little more.
Sovant looked out over the Great Slave Lake and his mind was carried back to Superior's shores. He was reliving the time when he felt the blasts of hot air on his face from the huge flames in the colossal heart at the bottom of Von Hellemann's Castle. There was the thunder of the cataract and the subterranean river which fell into the subterranean lake. Sovant loved the way the colors of the floodlights lit up the walls of Von Helleman's underworld. He saw himself taking a glass elevator 1700 feet straight up, until the bottom of the chasm glowed like an opal between his feet. He made his way down the corridors of porphyry, past a file of caryatids and a rank of atlantes supporting a massive entablature. He was striding down the marble and travertine boulevards which were the hallways of the Castle. When, at last, he left the Castle, exiting via a portico, then crossing a veranda which led him to the immense lawn, the full moon was well up, directly overhead in fact now that it was midnight. Superior was shining under this moon-glow and Sovant had little difficulty finding the path through the forest, the path which led to the footbridge over the gorge, which led straight to the cottage where Amanda and Al lived with their parents. Sovant saw himself walking under pines and junipers, firs and spruce. It was easy to dismiss the birch and even the maples, because the scent of the evergreens was what really impressed one most about these North Woods. Their sweetness so was intoxicating and omnipresent. It was midnight and midsummer and the air was sultry - it was stiflingly hot even at midnight - while Sovant was taking a nocturnal plunge through the conifers. On this part of the forest path an open meadow was as rare as an island in the Atlantic. Whenever one tread over these nocturnal paths one was always conscious of ancient folklore: the imagination had a tendency to populate the dark forest with goblins and witches. Who wouldn't find a forest a little spooky at night? But it was still
simply a matter of not letting your imagination run away with you. And, really, what are the chances that a witch is going to catch you in the woods?
The wind in the treetops, the creaking of the boughs and the branches, a cry of a night hawk, the hum of the insects, the crunch of his heals on the gravel: these were the only sounds Sovant could hear on the path that night last summer. There were no howling wolves. No enraged grizzlies to get his heart pumping. There were merely trees and moonlight and the mountain and the Great Lake for as far as the eye could see. Of course it would all be very eerie if he allowed the weaker half of his mind to give orders to the stronger half. He didn't know if he believed in diabolical forces, yet he was certainly breathing harder, and his pulse was pounding when he came to the footbridge. He began to cross it. The roar of the water in the gorge was so loud it drowned out every other sound. A pack of wolves could be running after him and he would not hear them until they were at his throat, so loud was the water crashing below him and over boulders. With such magnificent materials all about to work with, Doré could have painted a haunting sylvan scene full of witches gathering in the moonlight.
Sovant in his reverie stopped that midsummer night midway across the bridge. There, perfectly visible in the light of the full moon, were Amanda's and Al's initials carved into the wood. He ran his finger over the Al M. and the A.M. He had to hunt for a little while for his own profession of love, as he had written one, albeit in very small letters. But there it was: there was the H.S. and the P. M. inside a heart. There were the initials he had inscribed in the handrail last summer. When exactly did he erase them? When did he obliterate them and instead write: H.S. loves M.S? Sovant recalled that it was when he first crossed that bridge after he had been shot. It was two weeks after he had been shot by Maria with a poisoned bullet, when he carved their initials into that bridge. Two weeks after he had been shot by Maria he renounced his love for Pamela and he made a written declaration of his love for Maria. It was exactly as if, one day, he was mad about Pamela, and then the next day he was mad about Maria. It couldn't be denied: all the facts pointed directly to supernatural enchantment.
Sovant was indeed wondering about how he became so infatuated with Maria so suddenly after he had definitely fallen out of love with her.
Sovant also wanted to remember the spot where the FBI agent had died. He wanted to recall the window which Amanda would stare out of, brooding, staring in silence, looking out at the darkness, at the haunted scene, at the black malevolence of the forest beyond her bedroom window. He found the places he was looking for in his mind's eye. He found the window through which Amanda let herself down, carrying the shotgun, when she first started out on her lethal errand. Sovant saw in his mind's eye the punctured, bloody back of the FBI agent. He imagined the scene when his distraught children first learned that their daddy was dead. That sort of anguish seemed like something a witch would like to inflict. Could it be that the witch was his wife? Sovant tried desperately to find the words which would prove Maria innocent, but he wasn't finding them.
Sovant could see the spot where Amanda must have stood when she pulled the trigger. He told himself, more than once, when he travelled those paths at night, guarding Von Hellemann and his estate, that there was no such thing as sorcery: there were no murdering witches: the summer solstice was just another day: midnight was just another tick on the clock: the full moon shining down on the woods was just another natural phenomena with nothing supernatural about it. Sovant imagined what the FBI agent must have thought as he crouched in those dark shadows, and thought when he heard the shotgun blast behind him, and then he felt the life ebb slowly out of him in his dying moments. Sovant certainly knew what it felt like to fight for his life after being gunned down in a dark forest.
Sovant, like an agile lawyer, was trying to tell himself, that, though Maria had shot her husband with a poisoned bullet, nevertheless, Maria was a perfectly sweet and wonderful woman. She was a little high-strung, undoubtedly, and he certainly shouldn't have cheated on her, especially with her best friend. Honestly! - having Amanda mention that Maria had seen him naked in a bathtub with her naked mother! How embarrassing was that? Sovant took a gulp of his bourbon, as he needed a drink rather badly at the moment. Sovant couldn't help seeing the culpable role he played in the death of the agent. If he never cheated on Maria with Pamela, the FBI agent would still be alive. If he accused Maria of being a sorceress, damning accusations could be made against him. Still, Sovant was wondering about love potions and magic spells, wondering if an enchantress named Maria Sovant née Camerino, who hailed from Detroit, had bewitched him with black magic. Sovant had to admit it was an odd thing for a former CIA agent to be wondering about.
Amanda woke up and she and Sovant started whispering again. Then, a little while later, Maria joined them.
`When did you get back?' asked Maria, while Haakon stood up to kiss his wife.
`Maybe 20 minutes ago,' said Haakon. `Sorry if our talking woke you.'
Maria and Haakon retired to their tent. Amanda drew her blankets tightly round her shoulders as she sipped her coffee and looked out over a gray, shadowy world which didn't seem to know if it was day or night.