Page 10 of Atlas of Unknowable Things

SPECTRAL VISITATIONS

The belief pattern that has been created around the UFO abductions is reminiscent of medieval theories of abduction by demons, pacts with Satan, and flights of the Sabbat, complete with the Mark of the Devil on the body of the witch.

—JACQUES VALLEE, CONFRONTATIONS

We had lunch at twelve-thirty sharp—a feast laid out on a blanket atop a soft patch of grass.

Everyone from the photo was there, eating magnificent food and partaking liberally of crisp white Spanish wine.

The food was spectacular, with the standouts being a salad of bright green leaves glistening with oil and vinegar and bursting with an intense flavor of onion, and a chicken dish served with aromatic yellow rice.

The group had a vibrancy to it that I wasn’t really used to.

They seemed comfortable with one another, quick to laugh and tease.

Dorian was an exceptionally generous host, constantly smiling over at me as if we were old friends.

Finn, who had so unnerved me with his cold gaze in the garden, turned out to be warm and friendly.

I couldn’t think why my initial take on him had been so off.

In fact, he was the life of the party, making sure everyone had wine before drinking from the bottle with unbridled enthusiasm.

Handsome almost beyond measure, he had a Byronic celebrity feel to him, and I found it strange that he’d chosen to go into academia instead of into the performing arts.

The others were equally elegant. Dorian gave off young Cary Grant vibes.

Lexi had changed into linen palazzo pants and wore her hair in a low chignon that seemed to catch the sun every time she turned her head.

Aspen, now sporting scarlet lipstick and movie-star sunglasses, had covered her overalls with a man’s dress shirt that hung on her small frame in exactly the right way.

In their presence, I felt my own lack of style quite keenly.

“Enjoying the chicken?” asked Dorian, placing a cool hand on my shoulder.

“It’s delicious.” I took a sip of water to try to even out some of the wine I’d drunk.

“Poule au riz,” Lexi said. “A classic French dish.”

“So Lexi tells me you’re moving into one of the bungalows?” said Dorian.

“Yes, into Dr. Casimir’s old place,” I said, seeing a green light to press on some of the questions I’d been so desperately wanting to ask.

But as soon as the words left my mouth, an obvious pall settled over the group and everyone stared at me blankly except for Finn, who looked off toward the woods.

“Into Isabelle’s cabana?” Aspen asked uneasily. She shot a glance at Lexi.

“That’s okay, right? I know she left just a while ago. If you think she might return, then I don’t want to invade her space.”

There was a silence that lasted too long for my comfort.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” said Aspen, giving me a dimpled smile.

“What exactly did she do here? Dorian, you said cognitive neuro-programming?”

“Yes,” said Finn. “Incredibly gifted. She was at the precipice of an important discovery when she left. It’s a shame she didn’t get to share her research with us.”

“How can you be sure she won’t be back?”

Again, there was a silence filled with uncomfortable eye contact.

“She’s not coming back,” Lexi said finally. “She did leave some of her things, but we stored them. They won’t be in your way in the cabana.”

“Aren’t you … aren’t you worried something might have happened to her?” I knew Dorian was, but the rest of them didn’t seem especially bothered.

Finn let out a peal of melodious laughter. “Worried? About Isabelle?”

“What he means is Isabelle could take care of herself,” Lexi said quickly.

We ate heartily after that, and as we began to fall into a natural rhythm, I started to feel comfortable with them, laughing easily at their jokes, enjoying the beauty of the natural world and the healing balm of good company.

“So, Robin,” said Finn during a lull in the conversation, “tell us about your research!” Crouching in a floppy sun hat, swinging the bottle of wine he held between his knees, he had the curious talent of making you feel as if you were at the center of some important arts movement.

The group grew quiet, the sudden cessation of their raucous laughter leaving only the sounds of birdcalls whipping through the trees.

I did a fast mental calculation and quickly saw the path forward.

I would tell them about my research, then later that day, I would pretend to look Casimir up and find the post about the statue.

Then I could ask to see it, and having laid the groundwork, they would probably be pretty willing to help.

“Are you familiar with the work of Margaret Murray?”

“The anthropologist?” asked Aspen.

“Yes. So if you know her work, you know that it’s been dismissed many times over.”

“Who is this?” Lexi asked absently. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“She was an early twentieth-century anthropologist who studied the history of witchcraft,” Aspen explained. “Didn’t she argue that witches were real?”

“Not quite. She proposed a theory that witchcraft as we know it is actually the vestiges of an ancient organized religion that was driven underground by the church, but which has never fully died out.”

“I thought she argued that the Inquisition was actually hunting real witches,” said Aspen, her brow furrowed. “Which is obviously ludicrous.”

“Not real witches—real covens that grew out of Dianic cults. She argued that instead of just randomly killing old women, the church was making a concerted effort to find these covens and execute their members in an effort to drive a competing religion out of existence. I mean, of course there were also people who were persecuted as witches for all the classic reasons—misogyny, ageism, fear of losing power, and so forth. Of course there was widespread belief in folk magic, a largely innocuous belief in things like goblins and sprites, and a whole sort of morally ambiguous realm that existed side by side with our own. ‘Appease the house brownie and have good luck,’ etc. But that folk magic wasn’t what Murray was interested in.

She was convinced that alongside that, there also existed an actual, organized religion that the church claimed to be witchcraft. ”

“Skip to the good part,” Aspen said. “You found something that you think backs up her claim, didn’t you?”

For a split second, I thought she might know the real reason I was here, but then the fleeting suspicion vanished.

“I did,” I said, swirling the wine in my glass.

“You have to tell us now. You know that, right?” She was sitting up on her knees, her eyes lit up with a childlike excitement. “We won’t breathe a word, and it’s not like any of us are in competing fields.”

I took another swig and nodded. “Okay, do any of you know who Gilles de Rais was?” When I was met with blank stares, I continued on.

“He’s most famously known as a notoriously evil serial killer, but there is a theory that these crimes might have been falsely attributed to him in an effort to smear his name. ”

“Oh, right,” said Dorian. “Wasn’t he that man who claimed to be a werewolf but was actually a cannibal?”

“Couldn’t he be both?” asked Finn with a grin. “Whitman said we all contain multitudes.”

“Shush, you,” said Aspen, with a drunken swipe of a finger, as if she were administering a spell. “Let Robin finish.”

“You’re thinking of Gilles Garnier. Different Gilles, and that one probably wasn’t framed. He was just a psychopath. But our Gilles—Gilles de Rais—he wasn’t your typical serial killer. See, his other main claim to fame is that he was basically Joan of Arc’s right-hand man.”

“Joan of Arc?” Lexi said, arching her brow. “I didn’t see that coming. Oh, but Joan of Arc was burned as a witch, right?”

“I’m intrigued,” said Dorian.

“Actually, she was burned for heresy,” I said, “but this is where Margaret Murray’s theories come into play.

You see, Joan of Arc chose Gilles de Rais as her escort during the Hundred Years’ War.

He was marshal of France then, and by all accounts fiercely devoted to her.

And yet when it came down to the wire, he let her burn. Why?”

“Maybe because he was a werewolf serial killer?” Finn said, pouring more wine into my glass.

“Sure. That’s one way of looking at it. But Murray had a different idea.

She argued that Joan and Gilles de Rais were actually practitioners of an ancient religion and that Joan was designated as a sacrifice.

Murray claims that because Joan was the chosen sacrificial victim, that Gilles couldn’t do anything other than stand by and let it happen.

He was bound by a religious oath to uphold the sacrifice, even though he was supposed to be her friend and protector.

But Joan most likely had accepted the sacrificial position.

When you read the accounts, she seemed almost acquiescent to her own death.

She was given several opportunities to receive a more lenient punishment, but she seemed almost resigned to dying. ”

“So you found something that makes you think Murray’s theory might actually be correct?” Aspen asked.

“I did. A correspondence between the two that references, among other things, a magical recipe. Why would the marshal of France and a Christian prophet be discussing the specific ingredients in a witch’s ointment?

Especially in the way that he seems to be doing.

It’s as if he’s giving her instructions.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense as it stands, but if we assume they were linked to this older religion, then the picture begins to grow clearer.

But I need to understand more about that last ingredient before I can claim that it really is what I think it is. ”

“You think this will prove that there were actual witches?” Lexi asked with a hint of sarcasm.

“No, but it would prove that there was an ancient religion that we have been suppressing and ignoring for a century.”