The Woman at the Well ~ Prologue
A hot and unnatural wind blew from the cane fields, roiling over the thatched roofs of tenant worker's shacks and sweeping up the hill that lay beyond, crowned and crested by the houses of the elder families of Calvary. It bore on its back a large quantity of black ash and charred plant matter, and as it moved it swept up fallen leaves, discarded paper, dust from the unpaved road that ran along the base of the hill. All these small articles it flung against the sides of the hilltop mansions, battering their bolted doors and shuttered windows.
In the morning, the house servants would be dispatched to clean the detritus from the porches and to wipe the smudges from the windows, for the ladies of Calvary did not abide by disorder or cobwebs. Each had honed a sharp eye for the detection of filth.
It was the rap of the wind on her bedroom window that alerted Azelma that the burnoff had begun. Up here on the hill, no cry had gone up; no one played a jerking fiddle reel. To open their doors, to raise their curtains, even a crack, would let in the muck that was without.
But Azelma had no such qualms about dirt, and she had not been so long in Calvary that she had lost all curiosity. Leaving her Devotional behind at the writing desk, she opened the balcony door enough to slip through. The night was damp and warm. A tendril of wicked wind whipped past her face, and dusted the carpet just inside with an accusing finger of black ash. Ash quickly coated her nightgown, too; turning the lower hem and the modest ruff of lace that gripped her throat - both places her dressing gown did not quite cover - to a dingy gray.
How they would scold her, she thought, if they saw her like this. Those dour lords of Calvary, the pecking matrons, the anemic little unmarried girls. It would be a full-blown scandal if one of them were to see her this way, barefoot and in only her nightclothes - "practically naked" they would say - watching the revelry in the valley below.
They terrified her, and in her small and secret way she hated them for it. That she, a real Parisian woman, a thief, a drinker of whiskey; she, who knew two dozen ways to win at cards or dice, two dozen more to make a little money off an easy mark; who had once - just once - been in a knife fight and come away no worse for the experience. That she, who had once had a sister as fearless as Joan and Boadicea and Olympia all combined, should tremble beneath the disapproving eyes of those provincial ladies was terrible to her. And yet she thought of them constantly, and strove to appease them though she knew it was impossible for someone like her. Of late, she had begun to wonder if they were really the ones deserving of contempt.
However, tonight, of all nights, Azelma could be sure she was safe from prying eyes. All the citizens of Calvary were buttoned away indoors, riding out the storm of frivolity. Her very aloneness made her bold, and Azelma crept to the end of the balcony. A gust of wind climbed up the side of the house and lifted her nightgown above her knees. She made no attempt to smooth it down.
She could see the flames in the valley below, hopping across the cane stalks like a smooth stone on the surface of a pond. A cloud of cruel black smoke loomed above the fields, rising higher. There was still a few inches of blue evening visible around the periphery, but the cloud was growing by the moment and soon the last of the sky would be blotted out.
They would be entombed down here, she thought. Every one of them, buried alive in this valley of cane.
The burnoff was an important part of the sugar harvesting process. The fire would be allowed to rage all night, removing the dry leaves from the stalks and chasing venomous snakes from the field. In the morning, all that would be left would be the cane stalks, singed, but unharmed, ripe for the reaping.
Such was what she had been told. But it was Azelma's first harvest season in Calvary, and the stories did not do justice to the height of the flames, nor the quickness with which they spread. For a moment, Azelma wondered if a rogue gust of wind, a miscalculation in the firebreak, hadn't given the blaze an opportunity to spread out of control. But she could still hear the sounds of singing from the field hands, and occasionally the screech and skitter of the impromptu string band.
The workers were Swedish, French, Irish, Indian, and Negro. They had no common language save for their songs, and so they sang frequently. Sometimes Azelma would recognize one of their melodies and she would feel herself draw a breath to join them, and the words would dance on her lips and clamor to be heard.
So far, she had always managed to stop herself in time.
The citizens of Calvary were avid haters of music. They allowed the field hands to engage in such egregious sin because they knew there was no salvation for them, but for one of their own to behave so would have been unpardonable. Azelma did not deceive herself into thinking that she belonged to their inner circle, but she had not yet been able to defy them either. The longer she stayed, the harder it became to contemplate such a thing.
The wind had kicked up as the fire spread, and Azelma had to strain to catch the singing over its howling.
Suddenly it stopped. The wind, the distant strain of song. The world was muffled in a heavy whine, and through it she heard sharp raps at her door.
"Go away." The words were on her lips, but she struggled to get them out. It would be Emmanuel. He would want her for his bed. She would say it was the wrong time…
"Go…" Her voice was a whisper as the heavy door creaked open. Mist floated in, a cold wet dankness that chilled her to her bones. A shadow entered, gaining flesh, gaining life as it came closer. Cold moonlight struck it, and she thought she knew that gait, that arrogant tilt of the head, the wispy trail of a stained and torn hem.
The bloody imprint of a small foot on the rug in her wake.
"Remember me?" A familiar voice, like unspoken beauty, heavy with amusement. It chilled Azelma's blood. It was a voice that she heard in memories, in vision, in dreams. Never awake. Never like this.
"Sister." She whispered.
Eponine smiled, and when she did, Azelma could see the bones behind her fragile cheeks, the splatter of old, dead blood staining her dress. Her long fingers, all the longer for the lack of flesh upon them. Talon-like, they brushed back dead hair, matted with the anonymous dirt of a pauper's grave.
"Did you forget me? I didn't forget you." Eponine whispered. The cacophony of that horrid, beastly whine grew until she couldn't stand it, and Azelma's knees grew weak. She leaned hard against the porch railing, trying to keep her feet.
"This is lovely," Eponine said, and she touched the corner of the immaculately made bed. The quilt split open beneath her fingers, and the carved bedpost seemed to shrink from her, and quick tongues of blue flame darted across the wood, blackening it. "You've done well for yourself, sister dear."
" 'Ponine…"
"I have a present for you. For your housewarming." Eponine drew closer, and Azelma could smell the dry rot of death, could see the hollows where her eyes would have been, consumed in bitter flame, a faint glow that seemed to be the only thing about her that truly could be alive.
"No, you're dead. You can't-" And a moment before she fainted, a horrible long breath that seemed to last a lifetime, she saw her sister's fingers tear through the delicate bones of her ribcage, and pull out a shriveled black heart.
"It's for you."
The last thing she remembered was the taste of that bitter, dried heart, as it passed through her lips, turning to dust on her tongue.
When she awoke, Azelma knew at once that something had changed. There was a weight within her breast that she had not felt before, as if a serpent had slithered inside and made its nest there. Wound its liquid body around her ribs in an impossible knot.
She remembered nothing after she had collapsed on the veranda, but she was back in her room now, buffeted by a mass of pillows and quilts. When she tried to sit up and felt how severely the blankets had been pulled down around her and tucked in, she knew she had not walked here on her own.
He had carried her then, she thought, and she felt welts of skin behind her knees and on the backs of her shoulders, where his arms would have been when he lifted her, begin to itch and crawl.
She felt no guilt over it. Shame was an art in Calvary, but Azelma was careful to take no part in it. Here, there was little opportunity for sin, but what wickednesses she could commit, to them Azelma held fast. She clutched them as a victim of a shipwreck would cling to a buoy.
She wanted to believe that she hadn't changed, but she knew that she had. The very fact that she now rose to meet her sins rather than let them roll over her unheeded proved that. It had only been a year, and already she had changed. What she would be like in five, in ten, in twenty on, she could no longer say.
Sick with fatalism, Azelma pushed back the covers and began to sit up. Halfway there, she paused, propped on her elbows. She had not realized she was not alone.
Emmanuel was slumped in an armchair at her bedside. His eyes were closed, one arm was draped carelessly, his hand limp and pointing at the floor.
She thought at first that he had fallen asleep, but then she saw his lips compress as if about to form words. His hand twitched, fingers curling in an aborted attempt at making a fist. He wasn't asleep; he was deep in prayer.
If left alone, he might not rouse for a long time. His gift for silent contemplation was greatly respected by the elders of Calvary Valley, for whom communion with God could only take place when the soul had slipped the fetters of the mortal world and stood with one metaphysical foot planted firmly in the physical realm and the other in the great mysteries beyond. There was hardly one amongst the citizens of Calvary who could not boast a brush with the Divine, but none had the talent for meditation that Emmanuel did. For, it was sometimes said, they did shrink away when confronted with Death's Lights, but he alone rose to meet them.
He alone, the Heir; the Prophet.
"Thank God," he murmured abruptly. He had heard her after all; the faintest of rustles had given her away. "You're awake." He smiled, and the light of it seemed to brighten his whole face. "The doctor said you should rest. As long as you need." He sat up, and took her hand in his, fingers warm against her cold skin. Weakly, she smiled at him, and let him hold her hand. It would not do, if she could not keep up appearances.
"How long was I…" Her voice was raspy, and he was attentive, quick to pour her water, the clean water from the well that tasted like stone and iron. He watched her as she drank; she hated how his eyes seemed to always be on her, fixated on her every breath, her every movement.
"It's all right, my dear one. The doctor came and saw you. He said you just need to rest, and not to strain yourself. No more heavy work; we have servants for that. Of course, it's only natural." Emmanuel fluttered over her. "He gave me a list of the foods you should eat, and the medicine…"
"Foods? Medicine? What do you mean?" Azelma pressed her hand over her heart, feeling it thud. Natural? What could be natural about the spirits that walked the earth, restless and starved for human touch. The spirits that his trances called to, like metal filings to a magnet, like lightning to a rod. There could be nothing right with what happened last night.
"Oh, my dear one…it's what we've been praying for so long." And here he pressed her hands to his breast, before kissing the tips of her fingers as though she were too fragile to touch.
"Praying…" Slowly, gradually. The realization began creeping over her like a plague, stealing the breath from her lips.
"My lovely, you're with child. We're going to be parents."
Tears brimmed in his eyes, and once again, she saw blackness.
