The House Witch

By

Alyne de Winter

The Queen of Spades stands for secret enmity.

                                                         - Pushkin

The Queen of Spades smiled up from the gambling table and lost Captain Andre Fournier his entire year’s pay. Unable to endure one more miserable, ill-omened winter on the windy steppes of Russia, he abandoned the war. General Napoleon owed him nothing.

Andre walked the icy roads towards Paris, a tall, melancholy figure in the long dark coat and bicorn hat of Napoleon’s fusiliers. His uniform sometimes won him hospitality at the inns of frost-encrusted towns, but out in the windy countryside, he was hungry. There had been a girl once. He’d left her sobbing in the road as he marched off with his regiment. Now, he fell into a dream of joining her at her hot fire, cuddled up with a mug of warm cider in his hand. Hope cheered him on, but as the road grew long,  dreams, forest, sky and road vanished in a white blizzard, and he was lost.

He was sure he was dying when he came upon a stone farmhouse and, hanging from a bare branch, just where he could see it above the garden wall, was a large, red apple. His mouth watered. He rallied his strength and climbed over the wall, only to find that the tree was guarded. A child was standing in the snow, throwing bread to a flock of crows that  flapped and strutted in a circle around her. Her eyes were dark, her curly black hair confined by a quilted cap that matched her coat of red velvet lined with fur.

Andre took his hat off and apologized for intruding.

“What do you want?” the girl asked, as a crow perched upon her gloved, feeding hand.

“I was attracted by your apple,” he said.

The girl smiled. “I think God has sent you to me. I need someone to find my mother and bring her something she forgot. She will give you a bag of gold for it.”

“Gold?”

 “Here is the charm she needs.”

The girl handed Andre a silver bauble in the shape of a toad with an emerald in its head. The charm might be valuable in itself, Andre thought, as his fingers closed upon it.

 “I shall do as you ask,” Andre said. “Where is the place?”

“The crows will lead you.”

Dropping apple seeds on the snow, Andre followed the crows back into the wilderness. They led him to a city of crystal chandelier trees and spun sugar mansions, but did not alight there. They crossed the frozen river and a rutted road to a lofty gate hanging open on one rusted hinge. On the other side was a darkly opulent palace, scarred by the war, and desolate.

Andre was astonished when the crows flew between two urns, up the wide steps and in through the open doors. He stalled. That couldn’t be the place! The crows squawked impatiently, one dove at his head.

“All right!” Andre said and followed them inside.

The crows led him down a long, lightless, snow-dusted corridor. Voices broke through the silence, muted and far away. The crows suddenly lifted up through a hole in the ceiling to the sky, leaving him alone.

A girl emerged from the shadows pointing two pistols at him. He heard the

 triggers click.

“Stop right there!” she shouted.

She wore a red corset and dingy petticoats under a soldier’s coat that was much too large for her.

“Who are you?” She sneered at him from under the brim of her tricorn hat. “What do you want?”

“I was led here by crows,” Andre said.

“Crows? Why, those that just flew up through the roof?”

“Yes,” said Andre.

The girl lowered her guns and sauntered towards a set of double doors.

“This way,” she said.

She threw the doors open upon a vision of light, gaiety, shrieks and

laughter. It was a gaming room. Through the fiery haze thrown by hundreds of candelabra, Andre saw table after table of cards, roulette wheels and dice. There was a great commotion in the center. Soldiers in uniform, civilians in cutaways, aristocrats in rich but threadbare silks crowded around a large card table in feverish competition. Stacks of gold and silver coins glistened among heaps of bank notes and playing cards. It was a fortune ripe for the taking.

A fine a lady overlooked them all from an elaborate, wheel-backed chair. As Andre approached the table, she looked up. Her eyes were large, lustrous and deep. The rest of her face was lost in the reflected glow of her frosty diamonds and the beaded white silk of her gown burnished by the all-consuming candlelight. Mesmerized by her eyes, Andre squeezed in among the gamblers. He leaned on the table to see the lady better, and her eyes sank like jewels into his soul.

             “What will you wager?” the lady asked with a voice of gold.

“I’ve only this,” Andre said, and pulled from his pocket the silver toad.

He placed the toad on the table. Instantly, it came to life, hopped over the scattered riches and leapt straight onto the lady’s bosom. Her white hand closed over it. Her smile was a red flicker. Then she threw Andre a bag of gold. Ker-chink. He grabbed it quickly and dropped it into his deepest pocket.

“You’ve trumped the lady of the house,” someone said.

“Indeed he has,” the lady said. She rose. “Come with me. I may reward

 you further.”

Andre followed her out into a hallway lit with more candle branches. With each step, her face grew more visible and increasingly familiar. Before long, Andre was looking up into the face of the girl he’d left by the roadside so long ago. Her beauty had been marred by struggle but her natural grace remained.

They entered an old but magnificent bed chamber. She sat down at a gaming table and gestured for Andre to sit opposite. Unable to stop looking at her, he took the seat.

“Do you know me?” she asked.

“Why, yes, but….A child sent me….”

She looked away. Something of her original charm struck Andre, tinged with a sorrow that lent a touching poignancy to her face.

“Elena,” he said. “Your name is Elena.”

“So you do remember,” she said. “Andre Fournier. Come. Let us play a hand

 of vingt-et-un. Blackjack. I have other treasures that you may win.”

“Oh, yes,” said Andre and placed his bag of coins upon the table.

Elena shuffled a new pack of cards, dealt them. One went down upon another: heart, club, knave, diamond, king. Andre’s heart leapt like a spaniel’s on the scent. Ace of Spades. He shouted his victory! Soon, he was hot with his wins, trumping his hostess again and again and again. He grew anxious only when he heard a clock ticking. Why must he be bothered with time? His fixated eyes grew dim. Soon all he saw of Elena were her two long, white hands dealing out the cards, sliding coins and notes across the table towards him in ever-towering heaps. At last, the ill-omened Queen fell upon the table, casting her doom over Elena.

She dropped her diamond necklace on the table.

The clock struck midnight.

“It must end now,” Elena said with a wan smile.

Though her face was shadowy without her jewels, Elena’s eyes were still large and luminous as lamps. She poured two glasses of claret and offered one to Andre.

“To your wealth,” she said, raising her glass.

“Cheers,” said Andre and drank the claret down.

“Come,” she said, rising with a swish of beaded silk. “Let us retire for

the night.”

Elena did not take Andre to her bed, but rather put him in a conjoining room. He

did not mind. The bed was fat with cushions.  Andre hid his bags of gold under the goose down mattress and climbed on top. He drifted off to sleep fondling the diamond necklace, satisfied that he’d found his home at last, a paradise with a rich and beautiful lover, soon to be his wife. Elena!

When the clock struck three, Andre woke into a dream:  It was raining. Young

and fresh as a wild flower, Elena stood in the road alone, sobbing and pleading with him to stay. Her shawl barely covered her belly, swollen as it was with child. He ignored her pleas, threw her a kiss, and marched away.

Was that the way it went? How had he forgotten?

In the morning, she sent for him to join her at the fire. Above the mantel was a large mirror, slightly angled down to increase the light.

            “Last night,” Andre said. “I dreamed about you, Elena. Who is the child that sent me here?”

“Your child.”

Andre remembered the girl’s curly black hair and dark eyes, so much like his

 own. “Of course…. How could you leave her?”

“She is dead,” said Elena.

He was incredulous. Hadn’t he seen the girl alive, spoken to her?

“But that’s impossible. How can it be so?”

“Soldiers invaded our house. They had their way with us….There was nothing

 I could do. She was killed. We were utterly defenseless you see, being women and alone.”

Andre was lost for words. Then he stammered. “But I saw her alive.”

Elena smiled wistfully.

“What happened to you?” Andre asked.

“I, of course, was ruined. For a time I was kept by a wealthy officer. But he grew tired of me. He generously allowed me to keep my clothes and jewels before he threw me into the street. I thought I was about to die when I found this place.”

Andre fell back in his chair. His mouth hung open. He wished to speak but  words

would not come. Shame rose up in him like a flame, scorching his face, his eyes. He looked up as if for God, and saw only his own white face looking back from the mirror. But he did not see Elena.

He started to his feet, then laughed. She was standing across the room beside her

 bed, far from the mirror’s eye.

“Are you not happy to be reunited with me?” she asked, looking at him through

 her long eyelashes.

Entranced by the longing in her eyes, Andre forgot the trick of the mirror. Desire

 possessed him like a scarlet rose. He reached for Elena’s hand, held it to his lips.

“Tell me what you want and it is yours,” he said.

“A game is what I want,” she said. “One more wager.”

“Of course,” said Andre with a little bow.

“You may, if you wish, keep your winnings, or bet it all on this.” she held out a

large, black key, “If you can discover whatever this key unlocks, you may keep the treasure you find inside.”

Andre struggled for a moment. With all of the gold he ahd won, he could begin

 life over as a fine gentleman. He could make more money through investments. Yet, the key, yes, the key was intriguing. But then again, perhaps it was bewitched.

Elena held the key before his eyes and swung it slightly to and fro.

“It is told that a great fortune is hidden somewhere in this house. No one has

 found it. Just a few days ago, I discovered this key under a loose floorboard. Perhaps….”

“Of course,” said Andre. “Of course I shall take it and find that treasure. For us,

my dear Elena. For us.”

The house was like a maze; hallways filled with snow, room after room of dusty furniture and cobwebs, small enclosed gardens of bare trees and crows. Armed coquettes, like the girl that had greeted him, swayed in the doorways. They did not accost Andre. He wondered why they did not abscond with the money heaped up so openly on the gaming tables. Puzzled and anxious lest they were plotting to ambush him once he found the treasure, Andre kept looking over his shoulder and trying the key quickly, quiet as a moth darting from to door to door to door. By the time he found a broken staircase at the back of the palace, a blue twilight had fallen and it was very cold. Andre drew his collar up and clutched it close about his face as he went up the stairs. At the top was another passage and at the very end, an open door. He went in.

            It was a large bed chamber, royally furnished in rose colored damask and gold leaf. The marble fireplace was blackened with soot. Worn bed curtains swayed in the drafts that blew in through a row of tall, broken windows. Snow and dead leaves littered the carpets, frost formed on the mirrors.  Andre went directly to the dressing table with its many drawers, perfume bottles and jewelry boxes. He rifled through them all and found nothing. He turned a corner, and then another, and stumbled into an ante chamber faced with stone like a small medieval shrine. In the center, on an iron stand, was a large red box with golden hinges and inlays of ivory, onyx and gold. It had a silver lock cast in the shape of a toad with an emerald in its head.

            Andre’s mouth watered, his heart pounded with anticipation. He looked at the key, then at the lock. Slowly he went forward and inserted the key. It turned!

            “Surprise!” Andre hissed.

            He listened for spies, then hurried back to close the door. Once he was certain that he was absolutely alone, Andre returned to the box and lifted the lid.

Inside was a yawning twilight sky.

            A mass of gold coins streamed past like water, then changed into autumn leaves blown by the wind. As the leaves began to disappear, he saw a little girl in red chasing them over the ground and laughing. Tears sprang into Andre’s eyes. He dashed them away with his fists so that they fell into the box like rain. Andre reached in, thinking to embrace the child.  Suddenly he recoiled. His hands did not hit the bottom of the box, but had gone into another dimension, a world that was not a dream, but continued on, independent of his waking. The girl ran into a pile of golden leaves and threw them up into the air. They fell down like coins. She unexpectedly saw him, ran to him shouting in a faint, muted voice, “Papa! Papa!” Elena came out, young and fresh as a meadow of wild flowers, and wearing the silver toad on a chain around her neck. Smiling at Andre, she drew the child back and held her against her skirts. They both waved and kissed their hands to him.

Trembling, Andre dropped the lid back down.

            Someone was in the room, standing in the dark. Her pure white face flickered brightly from a frame of black hair that blended with the shadows so that her golden crown seemed to float above her head. She fixed Andre’s eyes with a gaze as old as the world.

            “You have found your treasure at last, Monsieur. Open it again.” She made a lifting gesture with her spade

Andre lifted the lid. It was snowing heavily inside. So white were Elena and the child, he could barely see them in the garden. Crows cawed from the apple tree, calling him to enter…

“Bonne nuit, Monsieur,” whispered the Queen.

There was a blizzard that night. Snow blew into the dilapidated palace, down the corridors and into the rooms. Winds gusted against the doors to the gaming room, blowing them open. It swept the gold and silver leaves from the tables, scattering them, whirling them about, tossing them in heaps into the dead fireplace, against the peeling walls. In the center of the room was a table covered with a moldy white cloth,  plastered with hard wax and playing cards whose colors had bled away to nothing. Sitting in an ornate chair with a back in the shape of a wheel, was a lady in white, a lady of fortune, a lady of bones, a silver pendent in the shape of a toad, clinking on her breastbone. 

Finis