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“You all right?” She looked up to see Henry’s eyes on her in the mirror. She wondered what she’d done to call his attention.

She cleared her throat. “May I ask you something personal?” The panicked howl inside her skull lowered to a moan. Next to her, Rebecca snored softly.

Henry shifted in his seat. “Sure.”

“Why did you decide to stay in France? Going back to America would surely have been safer.”

He shrugged. “Not necessarily. Sure, I might get killed by the Nazis because I stayed. But if I’d gone home, I probably would have been drafted. And then I would have ended up in some trench. Getting killed by Nazis.”

“But that’s not why you stayed.”

His eyes flicked to hers in the mirror. “No. It’s not.”

“Then why?”

Henry was quiet for a moment. “Hitler covets art. It isn’t the same as loving it.

He takes the things he wants and destroys the rest. Anything that doesn’t align with his worldview, anything that isn’t Aryan enough for them, they have a name for it, they call it Entartete Kunst .

Degenerate art.” He was quiet for several seconds. “How can art be degenerate?”

Lydia couldn’t think of anything to say, and so she said nothing.

“I had a responsibility. I couldn’t just let them take whatever they wanted and pick and choose what to keep, what to destroy. And I couldn’t leave, not when the people I’d worked alongside were risking everything. It would have been…cowardly.”

“I understand.” Lydia was beginning to think Henry was a bit like herself—principled to the point of self-destruction. They drove in silence for a few minutes, watching the fog blanketing the hillside. “Do you think you’ll go back home someday? After the war?”

“No.” Henry’s hands flexed on the wheel. “ Maybe. I don’t know.”

“You don’t care for New Orleans?”

“I love New Orleans. Greatest city on earth. The food, the music…”

“You miss it.”

A beat. “Yes.”

“Then why?”

Henry frowned. “It’s…complicated.”

“I see.” Lydia thought again about what she’d seen in Henry’s mind—the doors, the pearl-white eyes, the terror. “But you wouldn’t have to go back to New Orleans. America is a big country. You could go anywhere.”

“I could.” Lydia could hear from Henry’s tone that she had missed something vital.

“But you won’t,” she said. “Why?”

Henry glanced at his mirror, then away again. “In America, when you’re a Black man, you’re a boy. It doesn’t matter how old, or how educated. You’re a boy until the day you die. ‘Watch your mouth, boy. Don’t get smart, boy.’?” He shrugged. “In France I’m a man.”

“The Nazis don’t see you as a man.”

“There are Nazis everywhere. They just go by different names.”

They were quiet for a moment. Lydia waited until the panic began rising in her again before speaking.

“May I ask you something else?”

“Why not?” Lydia couldn’t tell if he was amused or annoyed, but she pressed on.

“That first night…” She was suddenly terribly embarrassed. “That first night at the chateau, I’m afraid I went… exploring , and—”

“That was you.” Lydia was surprised to hear him laugh. “I should have known.”

“I’m sorry.” She waited a moment. “Who were you talking to?”

Henry didn’t answer right away. He waited so long that Lydia was sure he wouldn’t answer at all. Then, finally, he spoke.

“My father. He died when I was just a baby. And sometimes I…talk to him. Ask his advice. I’ve done it ever since I was a kid.”

It was a lie. Whoever or whatever Henry had been talking to that night, it wasn’t advice he’d been asking for.

Lydia remembered the desperation she’d heard in his voice.

Please. I can’t do this right now. I know you think I can do something for you.

And I’m sorry. I really am. But I am tired, and I just… can’t.

“Does it help?” She watched his face in the mirror, as if she would find the truth there.

Henry kept his eyes on the road. “Sometimes.”

They drove in silence. Bare trees seemed to reach through the mist like skeletons, casting eerie shapes in the fog.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Henry asked.

“Of course.”

He didn’t speak right away, as if he were reconsidering. “Why do you change your face?”

Lydia couldn’t conceal her surprise. “ Oh. How did you—”

“Back in the cave, when you were in my head. I could sort of… see these little pieces of you. Just flashes, but it was enough.” He chuckled. “Your mother seems like an interesting woman.”

Lydia couldn’t think of anything to say. She felt exposed and immensely vulnerable.

“I saw you. The real you, I mean. At first, I didn’t recognize you, but then…” His eyes flashed toward her in the mirror again, curious and intense. “You’re working at it all the time, aren’t you? In the back of your mind, a part of you is always keeping up the illusion.”

She felt her heart flutter, an unnerving, confusing sensation she couldn’t make sense of. “It’s not as bad as all that,” she said softly. “After a while it becomes second nature.”

Henry nodded. “I’m not judging. It’s very good. I never would have known you were doing it. But, it’s funny. Now that I know, I can almost tell it’s not real. It’s like an optical illusion. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t mean any offense. I like your face.” He sounded so serious as he said it. So sincere.

“Oh?” She laughed. “Which one?”

There they were again, his eyes, watching her. Lydia felt herself grow warm under his gaze.

“Both of them,” he said.

···

The farmhouse appeared through the fog like a ghost ship. To Lydia, it felt as if someone had plucked it from a dream and set it before her, whole, but not quite real.

“Did we beat them?” Rebecca mumbled, stirring. “Is the book still here?”

“I believe it is.” Lydia winced. There was a menacing hum in the air, like the house was full of wasps. She scanned the horizon warily, searching for any sign of the blond witch or her coven, but they were alone. It seemed impossible.

Where are you?

They pulled the Citroen around to the side of the house, where it wouldn’t be seen from the road. The front door was open, just as she remembered. As she stepped from the car, the humming became louder, more urgent.

“It’s here.” She looked at Rebecca and Henry. “Do you feel that?”

Rebecca frowned. “Feel what?”

Lydia locked eyes with Henry. He looked sick, the skin on his face too tight. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Lydia was first inside, her heart racing as she crossed the threshold.

Everything was the same as she remembered—the abandoned meal, the broken crockery scattered across the floor.

She heard a sound behind her and turned.

Rebecca was standing in the doorway, examining the silver ornament—the mezuzah, Henry had called it, with a look on her face that Lydia couldn’t quite read—something that looked almost like grief.

As she walked the creaking floorboards, Lydia felt the ever-present hum grow into a wail, an insistent keening rising from the ground under her feet.

She moved through the house until she found the place where it reached a crescendo, transforming into a bone-rattling howl.

The book was crying out. It wanted to be found.

Almost there , she thought. Great Mother, at last.

Lydia took the poker from the fireplace and raised it high, bringing it down hard on the wooden floorboards.

Again and again, she drove the iron point into the wood, working herself into a frenzy, until she’d created a splintered hole the size of her palm.

Kneeling, she wedged the poker underneath the broken floorboard and, using all the force she could muster, pried up the wood with a hard crack.

She thrust her arm inside the hole, blocking out any thoughts of what creatures might be found in a hole such as this one.

Her fingers brushed against something rough and solid, and as they did, the wailing was accompanied by a chattering, like a thousand voices hissing and gibbering at once.

Lydia withdrew, and the chattering stopped.

She looked up. Rebecca was watching her from the doorway.

Steeling herself, Lydia reached in again, and pulled the book up and into the light.

It had been wrapped in canvas before being hidden away and was covered with dirt and wood splinters.

As she unwrapped it, she found to her surprise that it was warm.

Like it’s alive , she thought with a sudden, nauseating thrill.

The binding was leather, the cover cracked and brittle, though not nearly as damaged as Lydia had expected, given its age.

Very carefully, she lifted the cover with the tips of her fingers.

“Lydia.” Rebecca’s voice cut the silence.

She looked up. She’d nearly forgotten Rebecca was there.

“Do you really think you should open that?”

The book was whispering to her.

“It’s fine,” she said.

The pages of the Grimorium Bellum were inked in a dense wall of illegible script.

The characters were hard and linear, laid out in tight lines with no breaks or pictures.

She let her fingers trace the letters, and felt the chattering change, settling into a single tune, a commanding chorus, rising to meet her from the pages of the book.

“I can read it.”