Page 66 of A Resistance of Witches
“Lydia?” he whispered. He waited, every nerve and cell in his body alive with dread. Waiting.
But behind the door was nothing but darkness and silence.
•••
By morning,Henry had made up his mind to return to Château de Laurier.
He’d stood before that open door all night long, calling Lydia’s name and then Rebecca’s into the void, and received no reply. It was possible he would never learn what had become of Lydia. But Rebecca had been alive when he’d left her, just a few short miles through those woods.
He needed to know.
Madame Boucher provided him with a winter coat that had once belonged to her oldest son, along with some water, and bread and cheese. In his pack, Henry carried theGrimorium Bellum, which gave off an electric hum like cicadas and made his teeth ache. The day was bright and crisp, and the hike became a sort of meditation.
He reached the château by late afternoon, just as the sky began to turn a shade of brilliant, saturated blue—the last, dazzling gasp of daytime before the sun began its descent into evening.
He approached the château carefully, in case the Nazis had left someone behind to guard it, but the place was abandoned. Tire tracks marked where the Gestapo vehicles had come and gone. Henry spied dark brown stains by the front door, and more by the kitchen window. He looked for Rebecca’s car, but it was nowhere to be found.
Maybe she made it after all, he thought. It was a wild hope, too dangerous and fragile to believe.
The door to the kitchen lay in splinters on the floor. As he entered, Henry found even more blood pooling on the stones and splattered across the wall, along with what looked like brain and fragments of bone. There was a revolting smell in the room, like bad meat. He swallowed to keep from gagging.
No bodies.Whatever happened, there had been at least a few survivors to carry away the dead.
There was more blood in the stairwell. Henry followed the droplets scattered across the floor like breadcrumbs, leading up and into a lesser-used wing of the château. He reached a door he was certain had always been kept closed but that now stood wide open. Streaks of rust-colored blood stained the doorframe, and dark, sticky fingerprints congealed on the handle.
The room had been turned upside down. The wardrobe was thrown open, with coats and furs strewn across the floor. An old mattress had been torn from the bed and slashed open, spilling horsehair across the room, and the blankets were piled in a heap by the footboard. A carved wooden chest had been emptied and tossed aside, lying half-broken where it had landed.A shame, Henry thought. He’d always had a soft spot for beautiful old things.
He continued down the hall, following the trail of dark brown droplets as he went, leading to the library. More blood stained the floor in front of the open doorway, smeared as if someone had been dragged away. At the far end of the library, the narrow door leading to the chapel stood open, with a splintered hole where the handle had once been. Dust motes floated in the golden afternoon light, looking strangely peaceful against the blood and debris.
Whatever happened, she didn’t make it easy for them, Henry thought.
There was an unexpected smell in the air—the bitter stink of oldsmoke. Henry noticed an enormous leatherbound book lying on the floor. The book’s cover was charred as if it had been set on fire, and the musty old rug had blackened around it like a dark halo. The base of an oil lamp lay nearby.
“What happened here?”The sound of his own voice was jarring, a startling break in the deep silence of the empty château.
With a sick sense of dread in his stomach, Henry left the library the way he had entered and climbed the stone steps to the topmost floor, to the secret rooms where he and René had hidden some of the Louvre’s most precious works of art. He felt queasy, imagining what he might find behind that door. He placed his hand on the cold iron knob, prepared himself for the worst, and pushed.
Everything was exactly as he had left it; every painting and sculpture in its proper place, safe and hidden. Relief washed over him. It seemed the Gestapo had missed the cache of treasures that had been right under their noses the entire time. He could have wept.Three years of his life.His sacrifice, René’s sacrifice, had not been for nothing.
A figure passed through Henry’s vision, there and then gone.
He staggered back, with his heart pounding inside his chest. He was certain there had been someone standing in the doorway, but now there was no one. He waited and listened.
“Hello?”
But the silence was complete. He was alone.
He descended the stairs warily, adrenaline still coursing through his veins. He returned to the library and sat at the mahogany writing desk. Inside the drawer he found a piece of stationery and a pen. He wrote:
Dear Monsieur Jaujard,
I regret to inform you that René Dreyfus has passed away unexpectedly. I am afraid that despite my commitment to our worktogether, I’m unable to remain at the château any longer. I humbly request that someone be sent to collect Monsieur Dreyfus’s personal effects at the earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
H. Boudreaux
He sealed and addressed the letter. He felt fairly certain that his message wouldn’t catch the attention of the government censors. With any luck, the Louvre’s director would receive it and send someone to relocate the art before the Nazis discovered it. His heart ached knowing that he wouldn’t be able to accompany the artwork to its new home, but he had a more pressing duty now.
