Page 25 of Spirits of Gascony

The minivan sped through a balmy summer evening where stars winked in the heavens, cicadas sawed away in the fields, a velvety darkness flowed over the landscape—and an agitated Louis wailed in his carrier.

The canine musketeers, however, remained strangely quiet, as if they sensed the fate that had befallen their master. A relentless fate, visible in the lines of wrinkles criss-crossing Yvon’s face, in his slender hands, their joints swollen, and in his wet breath gurgling in my ears.

All the time, he was aging. Twice, I stopped the van, to let him rest before we pushed on.

I had broken his curse, had brought him back to life. Because of me, he was dying. But he would die at home.

I ignored the screaming inside and concentrated on my driving.

“Mel.” His voice was a parody of his former bellow.

“Hush, dear. Almost there. We’re already in the forest of Lupiac.”

“Mel—”

“Five more minutes.”

He groaned. “No, Mel, listen. The Sansculottes have arrived.”

My stomach plummeted. I checked. True enough, headlights flared in the rear mirror. I couldn’t see much of the car following us, but it appeared to be green. Lime-green.

There was another set of headlines behind the pursuer. Not one, but two of the bastards. Now three. Four.

Nightfall must have spawned the automobile version of Agent Smith. Like a funeral procession, the vehicles trailed the van, always keeping their distance, a rolling menace sure of their prey.

A road sign peeled from the darkness, flared briefly, only to disappear again.

Chateau de Castelmore, 1 km.

A quick glance at the rear mirror. Two more cars had joined the queue. Panic fluttered in my throat. So close, we were so close.

How to get rid of the bastards?

Then I noticed. The last set of headlights gliding into the wide curve we emerged from was different. Bigger, square, they rode higher on the road than the Citro?ns.

No sooner had the thought blipped in my fevered brain did those headlights flare. The latest arrival accelerated and thundered past the row of pursuers until a tank-like vehicle cut in front of the queue. A second one followed.

The big car swerved. A second later, the other one mirrored the maneuver. My heartbeat gathered speed.

Brakes squealed. From behind me came the crash of metal on metal. Beams of light slashed at the darkness in a confusing whirl of colors where the night had been ripped apart. Then it all quietened. The headlights shrank in my rear mirror. The noise of the van’s engine covered the unnatural silence behind us.

Road rage courtesy of Yvon’s friends?

I stomped on the accelerator and the minivan surged into the night. The whispering woods had morphed into a tunnel, its blackness pierced by my headlights; a leafy underpass where wild things fluttered, whirred, and buzzed across my path, and many eyes watched over my progress. But the procession of vehicles had left us.

For the moment, we were safe.

“The turning,” Yvon whispered.

Crap. I yanked on the steering wheel, and the vehicle fishtailed through the gates in a spray of gravel, accompanied by sharp barks from the boot and a shriek from the capsized carrier. A second later, a foul reek wafted through the cabin.

Yvon gasped, his hands pressed to his sunken chest.

“Sorry, Yvon. We’re here.”

The double beams of the minivan’s headlights slipped across the facade of the Chateau de Castelmore. They illuminated roses, creepers, rotting shutters and the dull glass of the windowpanes. The rays came to rest on a boxlike shadow, its parking lights glowing.

Another lime-green Citro?n.

The next moment, Paulette emerged from behind the vehicle, waving. “Yoo-hoo,” she trilled.

Behind her hunkered Whiny Voice, the man Raoul had called the Armagnac fancier, the same bastard who had lured me to the bunkers. His gun pointed at our windscreen.

I turned to Yvon. “Stay here. Wait for me.”

“Mel, you mustn’t risk—”

My heart beating up a storm, I scrambled from the driver’s seat, keeping its door between my vulnerable body and the weapon. Tonight, it would be properly loaded, and there was no Raoul to remove the cartridge.

“You’re very hard to kill. Just like lover boy,” said Whiny Voice, a smirk splitting his fat face. “Do you wish to say a last prayer?”

The dark facade of the old ruin wobbled once, but my vision steadied again. She wouldn’t let him. Not before she was done, anyway.

“Don’t waste your bullets on the stupid Englishwoman. It’s Batz we want and alive as well.”

Whiny Voice swore, but he didn’t shoot.

I held on to the first sentence careening through my mind. “How the heck did you manage to get ahead of me?”

Paulette giggled. “So silly of you to keep stopping all the time. Nervous, eh? We raced right past, and you never noticed. Oh, and you were in such a hurry, you left the door to the Marquis’s villa open, so we knew where to go. So kind of you.”

She’d found my note. Such a shame it didn’t do the trick.

“Don’t look my way. Switch off the headlights,” Yvon’s ancient voice whispered from the passenger seat. “Then throw yourself to the ground and stay there, no matter what happens.”

Why hadn’t Paulette seen him? He was sitting in full view.

She answered my question when she asked. “Why did you take that geriatric for a drive? He should be in bed. Unless... It’s him, it’s Monsieur d’Artagnan! Don’t shoot, you idiot!”

I switched off the headlights and belly-flopped onto the gravel. The scene plunged into semi-blackness.

A heartbeat later, a shot cracked, and Paulette screamed. “Stop that, it hurts.”

The passenger door of the van opened. Then the one at the back. The dogs went ballistic in the van’s trunk while someone rummaged around on the back bench, shifting things. Something heavy and four-pawed walked along my spine and squatted on my shoulder blades. The soft weight stank of cat poo.

“Louis?” I whispered.

Purring ensued, overlaid by faltering footsteps on the other side of the minivan.

“Put the lights on,” Paulette yelled. “What sort of merde is this?”

Footsteps crunched on the gravel. The Citro?n’s door creaked open. From the van’s trunk came rapid rattling sounds. With a w homp, whomp, whomp, three heavy bodies hit the ground.

“ A l’attaque .” That had been Yvon. As scratchy and wheezy as it might be, I would recognize his voice in a crowd.

The dogs sprinted past me. Louis catapulted himself off my shoulders and raced after them, his paws pattering away.

I rose from the ground.

With a blinding flash, the Citro?n’s headlights came on full beam.

I threw myself back down.

Growls and snarls erupted ahead, trailed by shrieks so high-pitched they hurt.

Paulette. “No, no, go away, you horrors. You can’t bite me. I took the spoon, and I ate the ragout, so I’m immortal. Don’t stand there, gaping, you idiot. Help me.”

But...that’s impossible.

Shots followed each other in rapid succession. Oh no, the bastard had killed the dogs.

No, wrong. Not the musketeers, but Paulette howled like a soul in torment. “Why are you shooting me?”

“Get out of the way, you silly cow,” Whiny Voice snapped.

His comment was drowned by savage barking, tearing noises and more hollering, male and female. The motor of the Citro?n revved, a door banged, then the car squealed into reverse.

“You can’t leave me here,” she screeched. “I’m your new boss.”

“You’re an abomination,” Whiny Voice yelled from the driveway. “You can’t die anymore. But I can.”

Once the Citro?n was swallowed by the night, I slowly scrambled into the van and switched its headlights back on.

Paulette stood cornered by the three musketeers and Louis, the animals’ teeth bared, their muscles quivering with tension. Her dress was torn, her blood-smeared arms scratched and oddly puckered. When she shivered, metal objects slipped from the ruined sleeves of her dress and plinked to the ground.

Bullets. The golden spoon.

Oh. My. Gosh. I’ve really done it. I’ve cursed her.

The scratches and dents on her arms melted away as I stared, leaving only bloody smears behind.

“Good doggies. Good kitty,” I whispered. “Watch her for me, will you?” That done, I swung around and ran to the boot of the van. I checked first the back seat then the front, but Yvon had left. Again.

?This time, I lost the plot. With a battle yell worthy of Boadicea’s most naked moments, I threw myself at Paulette, longing to bruise, maul, kill the horrid female monster who made me kill my Yvon.

At first, she clawed back, but, immortal or not, at three-quarters my size and with her bantam weight, she was no match for me. She staggered and cowered on the ground, whimpering like a lost puppy.

Something wet touched the back of my legs. A heavy body crowded me. A whine followed.

“Merow.”

I swung around. Found myself scrutinized by three pairs of brown eyes and one set of green slitted ones.

“Right. Fine. Sorry.” I stepped away from my victim, hissing like a pressure cooker, a fiendish pulse pounding in my head.

I was no better than Paulette, letting rip like that. “Where’s your master?”

The dog closest to me, Aramis, tilted his head. “Arf?”

They were hunting dogs. They should be able to track. Unless Yvon had crumbled to dust on the spot... No, I wouldn’t go there.

Instead, I fetched his cardigan from the seat and dangled it in front of three wet, snuffling noses. “Find him. Find Yvon.”

I expected them to streak off toward the crypt. Instead, they raced at the entrance of the chateau gaping wide open and crunched their way inside.

“I feel totally odd.” Paulette rose and brushed herself off. “You must help me.” The old arrogance was back in her voice already.

“You’re beyond help.”

Louis draped over my shoulder, I turned my back on the woman and tapped the torch function on the replacement phone Yvon had given me. A cold, bright illumination burst from my hand. Thus armed, I sprinted after the dogs without another look at Paulette.

“Mel, stay with me. I’m ordering you,” she screeched. But she didn’t move, as if she knew the castle was forbidden territory.

I weaved my way between the plaster and crumbling bricks littering the corridor, together with rustling leaves blown in by last year’s autumn winds.

The beam from the phone skittered across the floor, from there to the other wall and back again. Past the remains of the grand staircase, I crept after the hounds who were sniffing their way to the intersection of the main hallways with the kitchen passage.

When Yvon’s musketeers stopped, I followed their example.

While I remained motionless, the night noises of the old house registered, a soft creak here, a scuttle there, comforting somehow, welcoming. What had once been Yvon’s home didn’t frighten me anymore; instead, it brought peace to my desperate mind.

Just as it had brought him peace.

Oh, yes, this time he left forever. Deep in my heart I knew.

Tears wet my cheeks, blurring my vision. The chivalric idiot wanted to spare me the grief, didn’t want me to witness his demise. He let the dogs loose and, in the ensuing skirmish, he sneaked away. No last goodbye. No last kiss. Only a gigantic void where his generous heart had been beating.

Time stops for no one, and after all those years it had called up his number.

Outside, the moon flared, a sudden brightness that coated the windowpanes with silver and transformed cobwebs into gauzy curtains. Inside, the light in my trembling fingers skipped over the candelabra, growing from the walls like exotic flowers.

The cat shifted on my shoulder. “Murp.” He jumped off and joined the hounds, now lying on the ground panting, unconcerned.

I could have sworn I heard music. Sniffed baking. Something creamy blipped on my tongue.

A human aura.

I rushed into the kitchen passage. At its other end, where I had expected gloom, I found brightness. Flames of many candles flickered while a ginormous fire crackled away. Roasting smells mixed in with the bakery.

The sound of many feet rushed the old flagstones. Voices talked in a language I couldn’t understand, a language that sounded somehow familiar. Like French, but not quite. Occitan, my helpful memory suggested, the old tongue of the south.

The babble filled the corridor, the feet shuffled on, but I spotted only a single aura.

As I crept closer with the torch app switched off, the lights dimmed, and the voices faded away, until one was left, a woman crooning. The huge fire spat and smoked, its reflections aflutter on the opposite wall. Through the kitchen drifted an apple wood-scented haze.

Something creaked rhythmically.

Having arrived under the archway, I steeled myself for the worst and hoped for the best. Then I stepped into the kitchen. The first thing I noticed was the rocking chair, swaying back and forth by the fire, the source of the creaking noise.

A woman sat in it. Solid and stout, she wore ankle-length skirts and a mobcap on her plaited hair. A dark head rested against her shoulders, sprouting tousled curls.

I had found Yvon.

In a fluid motion not of this Earth, the figure shimmered and swirled away from the chair, leaving him sagging inside.

She faced me, bright eyes in a kind face, a dusting of flour on her button nose. She wasn’t much taller than Paulette, but as determined, even in death.

“You must be Cook,” I said.

A wide, gap-toothed smile. A nod.

I didn’t dare to move, lest I chase her away. “Is he alive?”

Another nod.

Relief bubbled up, fizzy and warm. The scene wobbled once before it steadied again.

Frown lines appeared on Cook’s face. The apparition tilted her head, reminding me of a friendly sparrow. She pointed at me and made eating motions with her fingers.

Cook was as substantial as Raoul had been, but she was older and would be so much stronger than him. She manifested a dead world for her master, pushing him back over a bridge he must have been close to crossing.

Perhaps he did. “I’m not hungry, thank you. Can I see him?”

She curtsied, the apron in hands smooth like marzipan.

I stepped around the rocking chair, the fireplace blazing by my side. When I bent over Yvon’s drooping body, his face was flushed, tiny beads of perspiration on his brow. The wrinkles, the liver spots, the white hair, gone. I let my finger come to a rest on the inside of his wrist. And there it was. The pulse of life.

?Brownish skirts with a frill at the bottom swishing, Cook moved to the other side of the rocking chair. Gently, she shook his shoulder. When he stirred, she withdrew, leaving behind floury footprints that faded only an instant later.

Yvon blinked, sat, and yawned. Raking his fingers through his hair, a befuddled expression on his face, he let his gaze rove through the room until it found Cook.

A slow smile spread in his face. “You’re here.”

She waggled her finger and pointed at me.

Yvon swung around in his chair, sending it into a wild rocking motion.

I wiped my clammy hands on my leggings. What if he didn’t recognize me anymore?

A shy grin surfaced on his face. “Mel.” He rose.

Words had deserted me again, but there was no need for them. I walked across and held on to him for a long time. He felt different. Softer, somehow. More human.

His kiss was as wonderful as ever.

When I stared past his shoulder, Cook melted into the wall of the domain she once ruled in a flutter of white and brown. I hoped she would return. I hadn’t even thanked her.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so. Mel, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t sure myself. In fact, I was supremely unsure.”

“Unsure of what?” I looked into his eyes, bright and blue once more, his face cleared of the wrinkles.

“We got something wrong. Think missing ingredient. But it only came to me afterward. This kitchen meant the world to me once. We should have tried lifting the curse here. We didn’t, and as a result things didn’t work quite so well. Please don’t blame yourself. I know you like to do so. You did everything right, but I effed things up. I should have known better.”

Gently, he blew into my ear, and the fine hairs on my arms responded to his call.

I nuzzled his cheek, sucking in the familiar scent of musk, cloves, and violets.

“Cook waited for me. I knew she would. She’s always been here for me whenever I needed her. She finished what you started and scolded me while she was at it for giving you such an unnecessary fright.”

I could have floated into the starry skies above the chateau’s wonky roof.

“It worked.” I pushed off his chest, sought his gaze. “Tell me, it worked. She didn’t return you to your former state.”

“Yes. Of that, I’m certain. I feel different. Like a man reborn.” The fire reflected in his amazing eyes as he laughed.

The question trembled on my tongue before it leapt. “Are you?”

He snickered. “I never died. I’d drifted far into Sayonara country, believe me, but I didn’t die. Had that happened, even Cook wouldn’t have been able to bring me back.”

I remembered something important. “Paulette ate the ragout. With the golden spoon.”

“Oh? Don’t tell me she’s...?”

“Immortal? Looks like it.”

“How?”

“Ask me something easier. I jotted down the ingredients for what I claimed to be an immortality ragout, and as a last item I noted ‘wait twenty-four hours, then walk the grounds of Castelmore.’ Then I left the door to the villa ajar. The idea was to stop her from following us, but unfortunately she’s not good at following instructions. Never in my wildest dreams did I think she’d catch the curse.”

Yvon buried his head in his hands. “ Incroyable .” He peeped through his fingers. “My friends will deal with her. Once they have dealt with the scrap metal on the access road.”

“ Les flics . The police—”

He placed a finger on my lips. “Will never know. There’s no need to. Things will be taken care of, trust me.”

“Paulette will never let go. Nor will the guy with the whiny voice.”

His face went dark and grim. “He too will be sorted. Forget them.”

We kissed again until motors rumbled outside the castle.

He snapped his fingers. “Ah , merveilleux , the cavalry has arrived. We must disappear for a while until I have found a way of convincing Paulette’s boffins I’m of no use to them anymore and there’s no point in shooting me to find out. Then, we can rebuild this place, you and me together.”