A Dance of Demons - Chapter 4

Urbain’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. No matter how many times he was asked what happened, he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t speak. Even when Simon Guillot grabbed his shoulders and shook him, he couldn’t do anything but stare out vacantly. The hairs on his arms and neck were permanently raised.

Even though he didn’t react, he could still hear the whispers about what might have happened.

“You don’t think it’s odd the wolf managed to sneak behind him?”

“I think it’s more odd that there isn’t so much as a scratch on him.”

“And none of his chickens were harmed.”

“That girl of his is always singing.”

“Do you think she is really their child? The wife hasn’t been able to carry a child to term…”

“You don’t think Jeanne killed Robert Blanchet to take their baby!”

Urbain squeezed his eyes shut. He forced his fingers to curl into fists. He couldn’t listen to them accuse his wife like this.

“Of course not! I think he did.”

Sweat rolled down Urbain’s back and made his shirt stick to his skin. He licked his lips and said nothing.

It was better this way. It was better that they think he was responsible than her.

“Urbain!”

Relief filled his chest at the sound of Jeanne’s voice.

They hadn’t loved each other when they got married. They had known each other for years and liked each other well enough, but they didn’t love each other. His father had assured him that they would fall in love after a few years of marriage, while his mother reminded him that marriage wasn’t about love. Urbain wasn’t sure that either of them was entirely right or entirely wrong. While there were plenty of moments when he felt they had just become used to each other, there were an equal number of moments when Urbain did love her.

This was one of those moments.

Jeanne threw her arms around his neck.

“Thank God! They told me the wolf had killed somebody, I was afraid—“

She cupped his face with her hands and looked him over with a deep frown. He couldn’t tell if her skin was cold, or if his was hot.

“What happened? Urbain?” she said.

Urbain shook his head.

He couldn’t tell her.

He couldn’t tell anybody.

His skin itched with the sensation of being watched. On any other morning, he might have told himself he was just imagining things. There was no such comfort this morning. He knew exactly what was watching him, even though he couldn’t bring himself to turn around and look.

The realization that the children weren’t with her unfroze Urbain. He looked around frantically, his breath coming in and out rapidly. His vision swam a little. He grasped at Jeanne’s hands.

“Where— Where are the children? Where is Claudine?” he asked.

Where was his daughter?

“They’re fine, Urbain, they’re fine. I left them with Annette. They’re safe.”

None of them were safe. So long as the rougarou lived in this town, none of them would be safe.

Why hadn’t it killed him last night? What kind of game was it playing with him?

Jeanne ran a hand through his hair. Her expression was soft and sympathetic, not unlike the way she looked at Claudine after a nightmare. From anybody else, it might have felt condescending, but not from her.

“Come now. Let’s get you home. You’ve had a long night. You need some rest.”

To nobody’s surprise, Urbain didn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. When he did, his dreams were full of sharp teeth and glowing red eyes. Every time he woke, it was with screams. After the first few times, Jeanne took Claudine and Enfant Blanchet to stay with Anette for a few days.

Neighbours came by, claiming to be dropping off something for him to fix or checking in. At first, Jeanne was polite. Then she stopped answering the door.

She was insistent on forcing Urbain to rest. The exhaustion was bone-deep, making even just sitting upright take more effort than it should have. After two or three days of watching her struggle to manage everything on her own, occasionally with Odette’s help, Urbain forced himself to do something other than sleep. He pushed himself up to his feet. Beads of sweat still rolled down the side of his face, and he felt like he’d been running for hours.

“Urbain—“

“I’m not an invalid. Don’t treat me like one,” he muttered.

Jeanne was quiet for a moment as she watched him change his clothes.

“Are you every going to tell me what happened?” she asked.

Urbain hesitated, then shook his head.

“I can’t,” he said.

His voice came out hoarse, and his throat felt like it was lined with parchment. He swallowed a few times. He took the cup of ale Jeanne handed him gratefully.

“Urbain, you have to. Whatever it is—“

“I can’t! Jeanne, I— Have I ever kept any secrets from you? In all our years of marriage, have I ever hidden one thing?”

Jeanne glanced up at the shelf where his family grimoire was hidden behind the urn. She closed her eyes and sighed. She gave a small shake of her head.

“Jeanne, if I told you about that, do you really think there’s anything I wouldn’t tell you?”

“Then why not this? What could possibly be so awful that you can’t tell me?” she demanded.

She stomped her food the same way Claudine did when she was upset.

Urbain rubbed his beard. Without saying anything, he moved around her to grab the grimoire from the shelf. The leather cold holding it shut slipped loose. He flipped through the pages, looking for Frère Michel’s entry about the rougarou. What, exactly, were the terms of the curse? He knew he couldn’t name the rougarou, but what about simply calling it what it was? Could he tell her that the town was being plagued by one without telling her who it was?

His eyes moved over the pages, taking in the details as quickly as he could.

“What are you looking for?” Jeanne asked.

Urbain cursed under his breath and slammed the grimoire shut. He whirled around to face Jeanne.

“We have to leave,” he said forcefully.

Jeanne jumped back a little, then stared up at him with her eyes wide and mouth open. She blinked twice.

“Leave?” she repeated.

Urbain nodded. They didn’t have much to take with them. Most of it was his tools. Packing their belongings wouldn’t take more than an hour. If he could find something to trade for Thibaud Séverin’s cart and a horse, they might be able to leave by sundown.

Jeanne laughed for several seconds before she seemed to realize he was serious.

“We have no other choice,” Urbain said.

“Where in God’s name would we go? This isn’t France, there aren’t towns all over the place for us to pick from.”

She was right about that.

“I— I haven’t thought through that far yet. We could go to the Iroquois settlement, it isn’t terribly far.”

“Do you know how to speak to them? Because I certainly do not.”

Urbain didn’t either. There were a handful of words he had picked up over the years, but none of them would be very useful.

“There are other settlements along the Saint-Laurent. I know of one a few days travel from here,” he said.

“Think of your family, Urbain! How do you expect us to make that trip with two small children? Not to mention the fact that I am pregnant. I can’t make that kind of trip right now, and I won’t unless you tell me what you’re so afraid of.”

“It’s— It’s a rougarou, Jeanne.”

The colour that had risen in Jeanne’s face at her annoyance drained as soon as he said the word. Her hands dropped to her side, and the rag she’d been holding fell to the floor. For several long seconds, she said nothing. He could see the fear in her eyes.

“Who is it?” she finally asked.

He shook his head again.

“I can’t tell you,” he whispered.

Jeanne covered her mouth with both hands. She knew the stories just as well as he did, and she knew him well enough to understand what he wasn’t saying.

“You see now why we have to leave,” he told her.

“Leaving won’t stop the curse from being passed on,” she said.

Urbain hesitated. She was right.

“No. So long as I don’t name who it is, I won’t become one too. But that doesn’t mean he won’t come after me to make sure I keep quiet.”

“Or that he won’t stop killing other people,” Jeanne murmured.

“That isn’t our problem.”

It couldn’t be their problem.

She was right. She had been right all along. He had to think about his family, and he was. The best way to protect them was to leave witchcraft and the settlement behind.

The sound of a baby crying outside caught Urbain’s attention. Jeanne was faster, moving toward the door before Urbain even fully registered where the sound was coming from. His skin prickled as though he’d been struck by lightning. His blood felt hot beneath it.

His stomach sank as he heard a familiar voice singing a familiar song.

“Chante rossignol, chante, toi qui as le coeur gai.

Tu as le coeur à rire moi, je l’ai à pleurer.

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai.

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai.”

Urbain caught Jeanne around the waist and pulled her back.

“What are you—“

“Stay behind me,” he said.

The half of Jeanne’s mother’s silverware that Urbain hadn’t melted to coat bullets was still sitting on the table. He grabbed a fork and stuck it into the waistband of his trousers, pulling his shirt over it to hide it.

“It’s him?” Jeanne said.

From her tone and the look on her face, she clearly recognized the voice just as well as he did.

Urbain gave no response, terrified that even just nodding would be enough to trigger the curse.

“Urbain— Urbain, he has the baby. Oh my God, does he have Claudine too?”

Jeanne made a second attempt for the door, but Urbain managed to stop her again.

“Stay here and let me take care of it,” he said.

For a moment, it looked like she was going to argue with him. Thankfully, she took a step back and nodded. She wiped the tears from her eyes, swallowing hard.

“If he hurt them, I will cut his face off,” she warned.

Despite the tears, there was nothing in her tone that suggested she wouldn’t do it.

Urbain took a deep breath and opened the door. The sun was starting to set. He didn’t step out from the doorway. Inside the house was warded. Outside was not.

The first thing he saw was Claudine jumping from mud puddle to mud puddle. Normally, he would be frustrated at her for ruining her dress. Right now, he couldn’t have cared less. She could be setting her dress on fire and he couldn’t have cared less. All he cared was that, for now, she was safe.

The second thing he saw was the man holding Enfant Blanchet in his arms, still singing.

“C’est pour mon ami Pierre qui ne veut plus m’aimer

Pour un bouton de rose que je lui refusai.

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai.

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai.”

“Claudine, get inside,” Urbain said.

“But I want to—“

“Inside! Now!”

Claudine stopped jumping. She looked up at him. Her big, brown eyes imediately welled with tears. She sniffed, her lower lip trembling, but she didn’t argue anymore. Instead, she ran past him and into Jeanne’s arms behind him.

As much as it broke his heart to make his daughter cry and be unable to comfort her the way he wanted to, Urbain never took his eyes off the man holding the other child.

“Give me the baby. He has nothing to do with this,” Urbain said.

Even though the man looked perfectly human, his teeth seemed too sharp when he grinned.

“Why don’t you come here and take him from me? Or have your lovely wife do it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

The man only continued to grin.

“How many years have we known each other, Urbain Croteau? Not once in those years did I suspect you were witchbreed. Imagine my surprise when I took the curse myself and all of a sudden, found myself unable to enter your home. It seems so obvious in hindsight. I can smell it on you, even from here.”

“What do you want?” Urbain repeated.

“You know, I had a family in France. When the trials started, I got out. They weren’t so lucky. And they weren’t even witchbreed!”

“And that’s our faults?”

The man laughed bitterly and shook his head.

“Not yours. Theirs. People like them who whisper and point fingers and throw accusations. Truth be told, I thought I wanted to make sure you would never share my secret, but now… You know what I want, Urbain? I want them to blame you. Why should you get a family when I don’t?”

“You’re mad.”

“Perhaps. Tell them who I am, Urbain.”

“How do you know I haven’t already?”

The man snorted. In his arms, Enfant Blanchet squirmed awake and whimpered as he prepared to start crying.

“I would have felt it if you had.”

“Urbain,” Jeanne said from behind him.

The man held the baby out and let go.

Jeanne screamed.

Urbain lurched forward out of the protection of the doorway.

Enfant Blanchet only fell a foot before the man caught him again. His wailing was loud enough to wake the dead.

“Don’t— Don’t hurt him. I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt him,” Urbain pleaded.

“Tell them who the rougarou is.”

Urbain licked his lips.

Claudine was crying. It was hard to tell if Jeanne was too. He didn’t dare turn around to see their expressions. He didn’t think he would be able to go through this if he did.

He was doing this for her. For them.

He swallowed and took a deep breath.

“Bruno Martel.”