This is my 'day 3' blog post for October Frights Blog Hop 12 October 2024. A two-part story. Part II will be posted tomorrow. This is adapted from my current WIP 'From a Shallow Grave'
Château du Lac Vert. (Chateau of the Green Lake)
An invitation from my neighbour to join him and his wife for a meal invariably fronts a deeper motive. This one was no exception.
“Knowing your interest in the macabre, I thought this might interest you.” Alphonse placed a thin, leather bound book on the cleared table in front of me.
The unmarked cover was delicately hand-stitched while the first page contained a heading in French, hand written in fading gray ink, “Record of Inquisition, Trial and Execution for Witchcraft of Anna Maria Laurent.”
The exquisite calligraphy continued, “Proceedings conducted in the presence of Prince Eugene Philippe of Bourbon, Duke of Maçon, Seneschal of Morvan on 17th September, 1656. Below the writing, the mark of a stamp depicting the three Fleur-de-Lis of the House of Bourbon had been pressed into a pool of wax.
“This looks interesting,” I said. “How did you come by it?”
“My brother, Gauvin, found it. He has a company specializing in house restoration. They are renovating a chateau beside Lake Vért on Morvan. It was hidden in an alcove behind some wall panels they replaced.”
The Mountains of Morvan is an area in south-east of France around twenty kilometers from my home. Less than 1300 meters high and heavily wooded, the area has an historic past. On the upper slopes of one ridge are the remains of a Celtic hill-fort.
I turned through a few more pages. Archaic French listed, in graphic detail, the tortures used to obtain a confession from the witch.
“Would you mind if I borrow this for a few days to get a translation to English?” I asked. Alphonse spoke no English, and my command of French is not much better. I knew a lady, the owner of an antique shop, who spoke French, English and several other languages fluently.
Translation was not the only reason for my request. My interest in the occult is more than as a writer in the genre. During my years in university at Bath, south-west of England, I learned of my ancestor. An elderly uncle researched our family tree dating back to the early eighteenth century. I was impressed until, on deeper scrutiny, I saw several gaps in the lineage. My connections through university libraries produced that missing link, the black sheep of the family, Sir Francis Dashwood, Grand Master of The Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe, better known by the more notorious name of “The Hell-Fire Club.”
Few people know what rituals took place in the caves below West Wycombe, yet his family motto “Fay Ce Que Voudras”, meaning "Do As You Will," was used many years later by the best known practitioner of the black arts, Aleister Crowley.
My understanding grew. I became adept at using many of the rituals, the knowledge of which are hidden from anyone other than a true disciple. One does not seek the occult, the occult seeks out those capable of using its powers.
***
Colette closes her antique shop at six each afternoon. I timed my visit for a few minutes before the hour, hoping she would have enough interest in the book to give it her full attention for the evening. I also carried two bottles of red wine to further the cause.
In her late thirties with shoulder-length, bottle-blond hair, she smiled reminding me of a well-fed cat. “Do you wish to sell this?” she asked the moment she saw the book.
“It's not mine to sell. I hoped you could translate some of the pages for me.”
With the first bottle opened and poured, we sat either side of the table in her rooms above the shop. She took no more than ten minutes to read the book from cover to cover. “Do you know the story of the mothers of Morvan?” she asked.
I shook my head. Colette continued, “The middle of the seventeenth century, this area was devastated by famine and plague. The communities were so poor, the people starved. Many pregnant, unmarried young girls gave birth to still-born babies. With the death of the child, the lactating mothers sought employment with the aristocracy in the cities as wet-nurses.
“The story goes that the still-births were not genuine, but induced by witchcraft and that a living child was sacrificed to the demons of the forest in a ritual dating back to the old Celtic religion of the area. It looks like Anna Maria Laurent was the witch on whom this was blamed. The references to child sacrifice in the list of crimes bears this out.”
“So, was she burned at the stake?” I asked.
“Not according to the book.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I thought witches and heretics faced death by burning at that time.”
“The inquisition was becoming less intolerant by the seventeenth century. Hanging was more common in France, until the introduction of the guillotine. It appears, though, that Anna Maria Laurent had connections with the owners of the chateau on Lake Vért. The book says she was initially held in her rooms.” Colette turned a few pages. “Here, it says she was taken from her chamber to a cell beneath the castle. After she confessed under extreme torture, she was bricked up in the cell to die of starvation. That was unusual. Her position put her above the law of the common people. From the details recorded about her life, I suspect she was a courtesan to Prince Eugene.”
“Courtesan?” I asked.
“A royal prostitute. Perhaps, the prince's concubine.”
As we sat drinking the wine, she gave me details of the tortures described in the book. Many were of a sexual nature which, Colette explained, linked to the belief that witches fornicated with the devil and his minions. She went into great detail about the use of the vaginal pear, the breast rippers, the Judas chair and the Spanish donkey. I scribbled notes on sheets of paper. If she thought I would feel uncomfortable listening to explicit detail, she was mistaken. As a writer of horror, I am immune. I relished the chance to make notes that I could use in future stories.
“It might be interesting if you would let me try some psychometry with the book,” she said.
Psychometry is the art of divining events or information connected to an object or its past owners by touching the item. It is something I too would have considered now that I understood the contents of the book. “I didn't realize you were clairvoyant.” I replied.
“Have been all my life. Tarot cards and palm-reading mainly.”
She lit two scented candles, placing one each side of the table with the book between. With electric lights turned out, we resumed our seats. Laying one hand on the book, Colette closed her eyes. She sat for a long while. The faint sound of spitting wax from the candles, her shallow breathing and the monotonous tick of a clock felt oppressive to me. Several times she shook her head as if to clear unwanted thoughts. I wondered if this might be showmanship. Then a clear voice said, “Help me. Release me.”
Still sitting, I jumped, my knee jolting against the table. I turned my head, certain the voice came from behind my left shoulder.
“Are you all right?” That was definitely from Colette.
“A voice. Did you hear it?”
“I heard nothing. What did the voice say?”
I repeated the words. “They sounded so close to me, yet different from hearing you speak. Oddly, they were in perfect English.”
“Perhaps you too are a sensitive; it sounds like you had a telepathic link with spirit. If so, you received the emotion behind the words, then your mind converted that into words you understand. Telepathy has no language barriers like speech. Let's try to get more. Place your hands over the book.” Colette placed her hands on top of mine. “Close your eyes and empty all thoughts from your mind. Relax and listen to my voice. Repeat my words in your thoughts. Repeat, 'I hear your plea and wish to help. Speak to me, I welcome you into my presence. Tell me your name.'”
She spoke the words three times, each time I echoed them in my mind, then we sat in silence. Repeating the words to myself at recurring intervals, it felt as if an hour passed before I opened my eyes, yet the clock on the wall showed no more than ten minutes.
“I get nothing more,” I said. “Perhaps I imagined the voice.”
“I too get nothing. Something about the book seems to be blocking communication with the spirit world. I think there is nothing more we can do at this time.”
***
As usual, I went to sleep at around midnight, but then woke abruptly, with an awareness of something wrong. The clock on my bedside table showed 03:22 in red digits. The air felt cold and damp. Had I left doors or windows open? Night time temperatures here, during October often fall below freezing.
Sitting up with a need to visit the toilet, I saw her. How she appeared so plainly, I fail now to understand. I saw her clearly as if she stood in the light of a full moon, yet there was no moon. The most striking detail, her face, indicated she was not European. Similar to images of Cleopatra, I suspected Egyptian. Her clothing—she wore a gown of blue beneath a hooded cloak of gray—was historic, seventeenth or eighteenth century. After the initial moment of surprise, I felt no fear, even though I knew she was dead, a ghost. This was Anna Maria Laurent, the witch of Morvan.
You too pass unfounded judgment on me, as did those who forced me to confess? The words came into my mind in the same purring tones I heard with Colette, accompanied by intense sadness.
“I make no judgment.” I spoke the words aloud, even knowing there was no need. “I thought of you as the witch of Morvan in recognition of the title given you by your inquisitors.”
Witchcraft! My only crime was in worshiping gods from a time long before the one in whose name I was condemned. I was an emissary between those gods and the people who sought their favours.
“A priestess of an older religion?” I assumed it had connections with the Druids and nature worship.
The villagers came to me for help. Their new gods had let them down. The Old Ones could be appeased, but there is always a price to pay. The people faced death by cold and starvation; they were willing to make that payment.
“Hence the still-births and death for the new-born?” I asked.
A sense of confirmation came into my mind. What gods do you worship? she asked.
“I worship no gods.”
Then how can you expect to release me? What price must I pay? I felt a sense of resignation from the spectre.
“I make no promises, but will do what I can. From where do you need to be released?”
Since my death, my Ka is trapped within my body.
“Then how are you able to come here?” I asked.
You summoned me. Three times you welcomed me into your presence, then thrice time three. Thus, I must obey. I recognise the power in your incantations.
“Yes, I understand the magic of repetition in threes, although I was not intending to summon you here physically.”
What you see is the image I placed in your mind while you slept. The way I wish to be seen, not the mummified remains I am now.
“Then your body still remains incarcerated beneath the chateau?”
She confirmed, adding, I cursed the place and all who dwell therein.
“And the curse remains until your spirit is released,” I said.
We conversed for twenty minutes. She gave me details of her torture even more graphic than Colette. The agony she suffered until she confessed to everything the perverted minds of her inquisitors could imagine, appalled even me. She told how they not only ripped the tongue from her mouth, but burned out her eyes and shattered the bones in her fingers and hands to prevent her casting a spell on her torturers. Five days she suffered alone, chained naked to the wall, unable to move in the damp, ice-cold darkness of her bricked up cell before she died of thirst and loss of blood. I remain horrified at such sadistic cruelty.
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