The Amaranth Enchantment

The stone slab I sat on became unbearably cold, and at last I rose and continued on my way up the main road, still unsure what to do. Dog fell into step at my heels, his hoofs clacking on the pavement. He baaahed and brayed at people we passed like he was announcing a passing dignitary.

  The streets were full of people pouring in for the Winter Festival, which started in earnest the next day, but vendors came early to stake out the best spots. Even the royal family came and joined the party at festival time. All the city went wild, eating and drinking and spending to celebrate the winter solstice.

  Dog and I pressed on. I wondered if he’d go back to where he’d come from. But he just butted my legs along when I paused.

  I made my way in the direction of the bridge that would lead me to Riverside.

  Was that it, then? Had I made my decision to go to the Palisades and return the jewel?

  Better to cast myself at this woman’s mercy than to freeze to death or be trampled underfoot at Winter Festival. Wasn’t it?

  Dog and I trotted on until we came to a wide intersection. Two streets, St. Honoré and Jericho, flowed into each other, creating swirling eddies of people and animals and carts, the wares in which bobbed on the surface like the debris from a shipwreck. A shepherd steering a flock of two dozen dark sheep created no small commotion as he corralled his charges through traffic. Passersby jeered, but he ignored them, murmuring to his agitated sheep from underneath his wide-brimmed hat.

  Young ladies dressed as housemaids hurried along in twos and threes, pretending to ignore whistles from lanky youths in laborers’ garb. A shiny coach pulled by a smart pair of matched bays tried to gain headway, its driver shouting at everyone to clear away, while a lady in the carriage rapped at the glass with her white-gloved knuckles.

  I held on tight to one of Dog’s horns and stepped off the curb into the fracas. We wound our way through the clot of sheep. Dog had plenty to say to them. The craggy-browed shepherd eyed me and said, in a deep voice, “He shall separate the sheep from the goats.”

  “Yessir.” A Calvinist. I kept my head down and pressed forward. I was far from pious, but even I knew to keep my distance from fanatics.

  At last we reached the other side, where Dog found a watering trough. I was so thirsty I could have dunked my head in alongside him. I cupped my hand under the trickle that fed the trough and drank.

  The sun was past its highest point in the gray December sky, and its limp light reminded me of how hungry and tired I was. No breakfast, no lunch, no Uncle, no home. A heavy morning.

  We crossed the bridge. I tried not to look down at the surging gray water below, edged with chunks of ice. Once across, I followed the road northward. Soon the commercial riverfront was far behind me, and gardens and fields replaced stores and buildings. Dog tore up mouthfuls of grass, which still lay thick and green despite several frosts.

  The farther I went, the grander each house became. All was calm here, the noises of the city dampened by distance. Rows of stately trees stood as leafless sentries.

  A strange feeling came over me. I’d never heard such quiet. Serenity lay thick upon the lawns and gardens, the sculpted shrubbery and the marble statues. I couldn’t understand why I felt so unsettled, at once both peaceful almost to the point of sleepiness, and agitated as though a mosquito was buzzing in my ear.

  I rounded a curve in the road, and the thought came to me that around the bend I would see a marble archway. Four steps later, the archway came into view.

  I froze. Dog butted me.

  There was the arch I knew I’d see. How had I known? And why was it not quite right?

  Ivy grew over it, taller than it ought to be. Thicker.

  I took a step closer and faced the arch head-on. Carved in Roman letters across the top were the words, “The Palisades.” The witch-woman’s home.

  Maybe, I reasoned, I could see it in my mind’s eye because she was a witch, and there was some magic at play. If so, all the more reason to get rid of the gem and quit this place. Never mind employment.

  I patted my pocket once again to be sure the stone was there, then took a slow step forward through the arch and up the drive. Every bush, every tree seemed familiar somehow, as though I’d seen them in a dream. Everything about the grounds was gracious and lovely, but familiar, too, a bittersweet familiarity shot with pain.

  The house appeared once I’d rounded a corner through a grove of trees. It stood at a distance, partly obscured from view by the trees and a rise of ground. It seemed larger and grander than the king’s palace in the center of the city. But for such a vast house, it was as lifeless as the grave. No servants worked on the grounds, no horses ran in the paddocks, and no smoke rose from its many chimneys. The windows gave no sign of light or movement within. But surely this was the address Beryl had given.

  Somehow my feet carried me forward to the steps leading up to the door, and somehow Dog and I climbed them. My chest felt heavy and my head buzzed with confusion. I reached for the bell-pull and yanked it.

  From behind the carved mahogany door chimes rang out, a snippet of the melody of one of Laurenz’s patriotic songs. Each note rang clear and true, just as I had known it would.

  Because it was my house.

  * * *

  I sank to my knees and looked at my trembling hands, my rough gray dress, my dismal fingernails. I was dirtier than the granite masonry on which I knelt. Yet by rights it ought to have been mine.

  Piecemeal memories came to me, of Papa playing, hiding behind the pillars and peeking out at me, of Mama reclining in a lounge chair and sipping lemonade, my puppy at her feet.

  Dog nudged me, and I realized that footsteps were coming from inside. I stood and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, shoved some wayward hair back under my cap, and I braced myself for the opening door.

  It was the woman from the shop. There was no mistaking her pale skin and paler hair, neither young nor old. I felt breathless, as if the air had grown thinner.

  She was tall and slender, dressed in a plain gray gown that fell in a single drape from her shoulders to the ground. She wore no other ornament.

  “Good day, Miss Chapdelaine,” she said. “What have you done with my stone?”

  I took a step back. I’d never told her my name. Hardly anyone knew it, in fact. Most people assumed I was a Montescue.

  “I haven’t done anything with it,” I stammered. “I shouldn’t have come.” I backed away, almost falling over Dog. The woman’s eyes never left mine. “Why not? Why shouldn’t you come to your childhood home?”

  Not that I had needed confirmation, but when it came it hit me like a sack of flour swung at my stomach. The corners of my vision grew blurry, and I held on to a porch pillar for support.

  I felt lightheaded and stupid, as if I were burning with fever.

  “I didn’t know about the house,” I said. “I only came here to bring you your stone, and because you’d said you wanted… I closed my eyes. “Because my uncle didn’t… What to say? Did it matter anymore? “And anyway, now he can’t. He’s dead.”

  “I am sorry.”

  I looked up. I believed her.

  “You were sent back because I am the Amaranth Witch, is that not right?”

  I tried to swallow. “Then you are?”

  She said nothing.

  “A priest told us you were. I didn’t believe it.”

  The corners of her lips rose slightly.

  “But if you’re not a witch, how do you know my name? And about the house?”

  My tongue was fat and sticky. It was an effort to speak.

  The woman spoke. “I know about you.”

  I blinked. My eyes ached.

  “You do? Oh.” I didn’t have the strength to argue anything. I pressed my face against the cool marble pillar. Its solid density reassured me. It was the only thing around me that seemed to hold still. All I could think of was escape from this oppressive bewilderment. “Sorry to trouble you. I’ll get along now.” I told my body to let go of t
he pillar, but it wouldn’t. I didn’t know if my legs would hold me up, or if my mind would work at all.

  “Please stop it,” I said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop whatever you’re doing to me.”

  “I’m not doing anything to you.”

  The white marble reminded me of the reason I’d come. I reached into my pocket.

  “I brought you your stone,” I said, holding out my hand.

  She glanced at my hand then back at me. I looked at my open palm, where a dull gray river pebble lay.

  My mind groped for any explanation. For a moment I thought that my dirtiness had gotten on the jewel, too, and I tried rubbing it with my sleeve to get the gray off.

  The pale woman watched me. I feared I would vomit. I tried to think, but my mind was useless. The pebble seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t quivering.

  I dropped it on the patio floor. A little note rang out.

  I thought of all I’d endured to get it here, and my hopes that Beryl would make me her servant and give me a home, whereas now I’d as much as confessed to a theft.

  I wasn’t a thief.

  “Peter,” I croaked.

  The woman stepped quickly toward me, and I flinched, waiting for the blow to strike. She didn’t hit me, but pried my fingers off the pillar with hands of steel.

  Fear enveloped me. Without the pillar I felt naked. I fell back, and darkness closed in.

  Chapter 8

  Papa and Mama and I were dancing, round and round in the ballroom. I arched my back and let Papa’s strong arms carry me, while overhead the gilt chandelier spun. When I pulled my body back upright, I felt my hair flying and saw faces and candles careening in a giant circle. I leaned close to Papa, and he held me tight.

  “You’re making her sick, August,” Mama said.

  “I’m not sick either,” I said to Papa’s waistcoat. I felt his laugh rumble through me.

  “I have the prettiest dance partners in all of Laurent,” he said. “Don’t I, Your Highness?”

  “Indeed,” boomed a stout man in glittering clothes, whose fingers twirled one end of his long mustache. “And that girl of yours, egad. Voice of an angel.”

  “But she’s no angel when it’s time for bed, are you?” Papa held me up so high in the air that I could have stepped on his cravat. “Here’s Greta Mary, come to take you off to sleep.”

  “No, Papa, no! One more dance. I want to dance with the king!”

  Both men laughed. Mama smiled. Her soft brown hair framed her face so beautifully that it made me ache. In her blue gown she was lovelier than the china doll that sat in my nursery.

  Greta Mary, my nurse, appeared and curtsyed. Papa set me down, but I wouldn’t acknowledge his “Good night, Lucinda.”

  The stout man bent low and whispered in my ear, loud enough for my parents to hear. “When your parents present you, little Miss Chapdelaine, you shall have a dance with the king, and two dances with the prince. All right?”

  I looked in the direction the man pointed, to where a little boy in red stockings and a blue velvet coat sat with a glass of punch in each hand and a cherry-colored stain around his mouth.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t want to dance with him.”

  Greta Mary swooped down to shush me. A tall man in a black suit with tails that nearly reached the floor appeared at Papa’s side and tapped his shoulder.

  Papa turned and laughed, elbowing the king. “Look, it’s William Coxley, tiptoeing like a priest, startling the daylights out of me. What is it, man?”

  William Coxley said something to my papa in a deep voice, using words I couldn’t understand, something about papers in the library. Greta Mary, who never lingered when Papa discussed business, lunged for my hand, but I clung tight to Papa.

  “What, now?” Papa’s eyebrows rose. “In the middle of a party? Surely it can wait till morning.”

  The man’s mouth was a line even when speaking. “Very good, Mr. Chapdelaine.”

  Papa waved his hand. “Over there, Coxley, are two of Lady Huxtable’s daughters. Lovely girls without a partner. Why don’t you take your pick and invite one of them to dance?”

  The tall man made a curt reply that I couldn’t make out, bowed mechanically, and stalked off in the other direction, away from the Huxtable ladies.

  Greta Mary, her face flushed red, tugged on my hand. “Come along, Miss Lucinda. Say your good-byes and come like a good girl.”

  “But I don’t want to go to bed!”

  Mama kissed me. “Go quietly, and I’ll come up and see you before you go to sleep.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good night, Papa. Good night, Mama. Good night, sir. “

  The crowd of finely dressed adults parted before us, and Greta Mary led me up the stairs. She helped me out of my party clothes and into a nightgown, and tucked me into bed.

  My blankets and pillows enveloped me in softness. My puppy jumped up on the foot of my bed and warmed my toes. Greta Mary sat in her rocker by the fire and began to knit. The creak of the rockers and the dance of firelight on the ceiling overcame me, and I was asleep long before Mama came to say good night.

  Chapter 9

  It was still dark when I awoke. The fire had burned down to red cinders, throwing a red glow upon Greta Mary’s chair.

  I sat up. “Has Mama come?”

  There was no one in the chair. Confusion came over me. I reached out a hand, grasping at darkness.

  I was in my old bedroom, that much was certain. But Greta Mary wasn’t here, and I was fifteen, not five, and Mama and Papa weren’t downstairs dancing.

  They slumbered in the burial ground.

  Finally I sat up and threw back the covers. My feet hit the cold floor, and all the blood drained from my belly. It prickled in my feet, making me lame. I hobbled toward the fire and saw that a small pot sat in the embers, emitting a delicious fragrance.

  There was a rag nearby, and I used it to clutch the lid and lift it off the pot. Soup. And on a small table by the foot of my bed, a clean setting of dishes.

  Stories of witches poisoning young girls came to mind, but I dismissed them.

  In the stories, the witches were ugly hags with warty faces, and the girls were beautiful princesses. Hence, I was safe. Not very sound reasoning, but it reassured me.

  The soup was bland and slightly bitter with flecks of dried herbs. It was perfect. I set down my bowl and heard Dog bleating outside. It comforted me mightily.

  I laced on my shoes, which stood at attention nearby. Beryl.

  Why had she brought me to my bedroom and fed me? Why hadn’t she beaten me or at least scolded me? Who was she?

  I didn’t know if I was a prisoner in her home, or a guest, but I decided to go find her and ask. I had a sense of where she’d be. I opened the door and stepped into the dark hallway.

  I found the door I wanted and opened it. My foot reached for the stairs, overestimating their height. Of course. I was bigger now. I adjusted my steps and climbed the winding staircase to the many-windowed room at the top of the house. The tower room, where Papa used to sit at night and watch through his spyglass for the lights of his ships returning from across the sea.

  She sat in a cushioned chair in the middle of the room.

  There was no candle or fire, but reflected moonlight threw a pale glow over empty flowerpots, damask chairs, and the mounted telescope, looking like a long-legged hunchback draped in a cloak of dusty leather. A pane of glass was missing from more than one window, and night noises climbed inside.

  I sat in a chair opposite Beryl.

  “Why do you live in my home?” I asked.

  “What have you done with my stone?” was her answer. A swell of anxiety rose in my throat.

  “Are you a witch?”

  “Are you a thief?”

  Now I was angry.

  “If I was a thief, why would I have come back here to confess and prove it to you?” I demanded.

&
nbsp; “If I was a witch, why wouldn’t I have killed you by now? Or cursed you with warts?”

  My hands flew up to my face. It was still smooth, though tender where Aunt had struck me. I chided myself for checking.

  We were at an impasse. I could think of nothing else to say. I debated rising to my feet to see if I could walk out as easily as I’d walked in. I had just decided to try it when she spoke.

  “I bought this house. Years ago. From a lawyer who was selling it. The owners had died in an accident.”

  In the dim light I felt safe when my eyes grew wet. It had been so long since I’d last heard them mentioned. I needed a change of subject.

  “What is an amaranth?”

  She smiled faintly. “A mythical flower that never dies. There’s also a real flower called by that name. I have several of them growing here in pots. I’ll show you. Another name for it is ‘Love-lies-bleeding.’”

  I studied Beryl’s face as she studied mine.

  “Beryl. That’s not your true name, is it?” She said nothing. I tried another angle. “How did you know my name?”

  She laughed a little. “I know many things, but that took no… magic, as you might want to call it.” She smiled a wry smile. “You’re the exact image of your mother. There are several paintings of her here.”

  It was all I could do not to jump up and go searching for them. They’d be easier to see in the morning, I told myself.

  “I’d heard about a daughter who was sent to live with relatives,” she went on.

  “I often wondered what became of her. When I saw you in the shop, I was pretty sure I’d found my answer. When you showed up at my door, I was certain.”

  How could a painting of Mama tell her who I was? I didn’t look much like Mama, so far as I could tell. “You didn’t look happy there,” she said.

  This puzzled me. “Is that why you spoke for me? Because you pitied me?”

  She watched me for a moment. I became conscious of the wind whistling through the open windows, and a night bird calling off in the trees beyond the lawns.

  “What is your given name?” she asked softly.

  It seemed as though I was bound to never get a straight answer from her. Yet something made me trust her, made me willing to reveal my name.