Louise Penny - Cruelest Month

‘No thank you, mon beau Gabri . Not just yet.’ Madeleine smiled and the tension was broken. Without further discussion the group got to work. Chairs were brought into the bedroom and placed in a circle.

Jeanne put the bag she’d carried on one of the chairs and started unpacking while Clara and Myrna explored. They looked at the fireplace with its dark mahogany mantel and severe Victorian portrait above. The bookcase was full of leather-bound volumes from a time when people actually read them and didn’t just buy them by the yard from decorators.

‘I wonder where the bird is,’ said Clara, reaching for the items on the dresser.

‘Hiding from us, poor thing. Probably terrified,’ said Myrna, pointing her flashlight into a dark corner. No bird.

‘It’s like a museum.’ Gabri joined them and picked up a silver mirror.

‘It’s like a mausoleum,’ said Hazel. When they turned back to the body of the room they were astonished to see the place lit by candles. There must have been twenty of them scattered around the bedroom. It glowed, but somehow the candlelight, so warm and inviting at Clara and Peter’s, made a mockery of itself in this room. The darkness seemed darker and the flickering flames threw grotesque shadows against the rich wallpaper. Clara felt like dousing each candle, vanquishing the demons their own shadows created. Even her own, so familiar, was distorted and hideous.

Sitting now in the circle, her back to the open door, Clara noticed that four candles remained unlit. After each person had chosen a chair Jeanne reached into a small sack. Then she walked about their circle scattering something.

‘This is now a sacred circle,’ she intoned, her face alternately in shadow and light, her eyes sunken into her head so that they looked to be empty black sockets. ‘This salt will bless the circle and keep all within safe.’

Clara felt Myrna’s hand take hers. The only sound was the soft pelting as Jeanne scattered the salt round their circle. Clara’s head was tingling, alert to any sound. The thought of a bird swooping out of the darkness, talons extended, beak open and shrieking, was freaking her out. The skin on the back of her neck was crawling.

Jeanne struck a match and Clara almost jumped out of her skin.

‘The wisdom of the four corners of the earth is invited into our sacred circle, to protect and guide us and watch over our work tonight as we cleanse this house of the spirits that are strangling it. Of the evil that’s taken hold here. Of all the wickedness, the fear, the terror, the hatred that binds itself to this house. To this very room.’

‘Are we having fun yet?’ Gabri whispered.

Jeanne lit the candles one by one and returned to her seat, composing herself. She was the only one. Clara could feel her heart pounding and her breathing coming in short, jagged gulps. Beside her Myrna was squirming as though ants were crawling over her. All round their circle people were staring and pale. The circle might be sacred, thought Clara, but it’s definitely scared. She looked round and wondered, if this was a movie and she and Peter were watching it curled up on their sofa, which of them would get it first?

Monsieur Béliveau, craven, gaunt, grieving?

Gilles Sandon, massive and strong, more at home in the woods than in a Victorian mansion?

Hazel, so kind and generous. Or was it weak? Or her daughter, insatiable Sophie?

No. Clara’s gaze landed on Odile. She would be the first one lost. Poor, sweet Odile. Already lost, really. The most needy and the least missed. She was genetically designed to be eaten first. Clara felt badly for the brutality of her thoughts. She blamed the house. This house that blocked out the good and rewarded the rest.

‘And now we call the dead,’ said Jeanne, and Clara, who didn’t think she could get more afraid, did.

‘We know you’re here.’ Jeanne’s voice was growing stronger and stranger. ‘They’re coming. Coming from the basement, coming from the attic. They’re all around us now. They’re coming down the hallway.’

And Clara was sure she could hear footsteps. Shuffling, limping footfalls on the carpet outside. She could see the Mummy, arms out, bandages filthy and rotting, shuffling toward them, along the dark and damned corridor. Why had they kept the door open?

‘Be here,’ Jeanne growled. ‘Now!’ She clapped her hands.

A shriek was heard inside the room, inside their sacred circle. Then another.

And a thud.

The dead had arrived.

NINE

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache looked over the top of his newspaper and stole a peek at his infant granddaughter. She was sitting in the mud on the edge of Beaver Lake, sticking her filthy big toe into her mouth. Her face was covered in either mud or chocolate, or something else entirely that didn’t bear thinking of.

It was Easter Monday and all of Montreal seemed to have the same idea. A morning walk around Mont Royal, to Beaver Lake at the summit. Gamache and Reine-Marie sunned themselves on one of the benches and watched as their son and his family enjoyed a last day in Montreal before flying back to Paris.

With a shriek of laughter little Florence toppled into the water.

Gamache dropped his paper and was halfway out of his seat when he felt a restraining hand.

‘Daniel’s there, mon cher . It’s his job now.’

Armand stopped and watched, still poised to act. Beside him his young German shepherd, Henri, got to his feet, alert, sensing the sudden shift in mood. But sure enough Daniel laughed and scooped his tiny, dripping daughter into his large, safe arms and plunged his face into her belly making her laugh and hug her daddy’s head. Gamache exhaled and turning to Reine-Marie bent down and kissed her, whispering, ‘Thank you,’ into the crown of her graying hair. He then reached out and smoothed his hand along Henri’s flank, and kissed him too on the top of his head.

‘Good boy.’

Henri, no longer able to contain himself, jumped up, his feet almost up to Gamache’s shoulders.

‘ Non, ’ commanded Gamache. ‘Down.’

Henri dropped immediately.

‘Lie down.’

Henri lay down, contrite. There was no doubt who was the alpha dog.

‘Good boy,’ said Gamache again and gave Henri a treat.

‘Good boy,’ said Reine-Marie to Gamache.

‘Where’s my treat?’

‘In a public park, monsieur l’inspecteur ?’ She looked at the other families walking leisurely through Parc Mont Royal, the beautiful mountain rising in the very center of Montreal. ‘Though it probably wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘For me it would.’ Gamache smiled and blushed a little, glad Daniel and his family couldn’t hear.

‘You’re very sweet, in a brutish kind of way.’ Reine-Marie kissed him. Gamache heard a shuffling and suddenly noticed the book section of his paper taking flight, one sheet at a time. Leaping up he lunged here and there, trying to stomp on the pages of his paper before they blew away. Florence, wrapped in a blanket now and watching this, pointed and laughed. Daniel put her on the ground and she stomped her feet as well. Gamache then exaggerated his actions until Daniel, his wife Roslyn and little Florence were all lifting their legs high and lunging after imaginary rogue papers, Gamache after the real thing.

‘It’s a good thing love is blind,’ laughed Reine-Marie after Gamache returned to the bench.

‘And not very bright,’ agreed Gamache, squeezing her hands. ‘Warm enough? Would you like a café au lait ?’

‘Actually I would.’ His wife looked up from her own paper, La Presse .