swear to keep secret our arrangement, and whatever you hear in this house or during your training.â I was very hungry. My hands started to shake, and I could feel the blood leaving my face.
âNervous?â She laughed. âPerhaps you imagine you must sign the contract in blood? No, the time to be nervous was when you were standing on the bridge. Donât you know the penalties for suicide? Did you really want your corpse to be exposed in the basement of the Châtelet for identification, then hung by the leg from the gibbet until nothing but bones were left? Why, that would make me nervous. Instead, you will be part of my secret family.â She leafed through the green ledger labeled P until she found a series of blank pages. At the top of the first one, she wrote âPasquier, Geneviève,â and the date, December 3, 1674. Then she leaned forward confidentially.
âA family requires loyaltyâ¦gratitudeâ¦discretion. And in our trade, we hear so many secrets. It is a kind of confessional; we are almost like priests. People bring their little tragedies to usâoften different people want the same thing, and we mustnât reveal it. Confidentially, you must understand, is part of the fortune-tellerâs tradeââ I started to slump off the stool. She looked at me with renewed interest.
âWhy, I do believe you must be hungry. Just look at your hands tremble, and youâve turned altogether pale. Letâs have the oath now, and weâll celebrate with a bit of something.â I was so hungry, I would have sworn to anything at that moment. But as the oath rolled on, conjuring by the puissant prince Rhadamanthus, by Lucifer, by Beelzebub, by Satanas, by Jauconill, and an infinite catalogue of infernal powers, I thought I would faint facedown in her cloven-hoofed censer. Oaths, in my opinion, infernal or not, ought to be short.
Rummaging in one of the cupboards, she produced a large box of fancifully shaped marzipan, a bottle of sweet wine, and two glasses. âYou know how it is,â she apologized, âI have to keep it locked up from the children in here, or I simply wouldnât have any . Now, now, not so fast, or youâll get sick. Four pieces are entirely enough .â And, refilling my glass, she took away the box and locked it up again. âAny more, and youâll spoil dinner.â The wine had trickled into my insides like liquid fire. I could see two of everything now. The two La Voisins raised their glasses in a toast; I raised my two, as well. We drank to the ancient art of fortune-telling.
âThe art of the fortune-teller!â she exclaimed. âPleasing, profitable, and entirely legal! Ah, how lucky you are nowadays; the Kingâs own law has declared superstition obsolete. No more trials for witchcraft, no burnings. Ours is now a new worldâof science, of law, of rationality. But even in this new world, men must allow women their littleâ¦aberrations, because we poor creatures are too simple to manage without.â She got up and put away the bottle and glasses in the other cupboard, and I could see that the rest of the shelves were lined with strange glass vials, all neatly labeled. She locked the cupboard again, turning to look at me from where she stood. What was in that cupboard? Something about it made my stomach feel queer.
âWhatâs wrong? Youâre looking a bit green around the mouth. Oh, dear me. I shouldnât have frightened you with all that talk of burning. Donât worry; my arts have been judged entirely legitimate by the highest court of heresy, the doctors of the Sorbonne. I defended them myself. I was much younger, but even then I knew the power of an elegant gown and a handsome bosom over elderly divines! Pooh! Such prejudice! I imagine they expected some dismal, stupid old crone. I merely pointed out to them that I could hardly be faulted for using the arts of astrology when they
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