Bound in Moonlight (27 page)

“This?” I said, indicating the book in my hand.

“That is the first of what will be many volumes before he's done. In addition to learning the history and lore of this place, Adrien also had special tutors to prepare him for his priestly calling. They helped him to recognize and develop The Gift.”

“What gift?”

“It's actually a bundle of gifts, extrasensory abilities inherited from his druidic ancestors, which help him to protect and care for the Follets.”

“Extrasensory? Like psychic?”

“He can't read minds, if that's what you mean, but he can sense things about people through their auras, which are quite vibrant to him. He receives extraordinary insights through his dreams, and there are also certain spells he can employ—phrases in the old Gaulish tongue—to effect, for want of a better word, magic. In olden days, he would have been called a seer and recognized for the priest that he is, which is why he refers to himself and people like him as druids and druidesses.”

“Like Mom?” I said with a little roll of my eyes.

“Your mother
is
a druidess.”

I could not for the life of me figure out how to respond to that.

“She was born with The Gift,” he said. “Some people are, usually because both of their parents are gifted, because it's a recessive gene. If only one parent is gifted, the likelihood of having gifted offspring is quite dim. In any event, with your mother, the problem was that she never had any proper training, as did Adrien. Her gifts are unfocused and ill-developed, but she senses their presence on some level. Most gifted people don't, because our culture is too arrogant and skeptical to acknowledge the existence of abilities beyond the patently obvious. They're generally in such denial that even an exceptionally gifted druid who's been trained to read auras, like Adrien, won't recognize them as his own kind. In any event, that's why your mother's gotten caught up in all that Tarot-reading, crystal ball–gazing mumbo jumbo.”

“Oh, yeah,
that's
mumbo jumbo, but this business about satyrs and elves and djinnis—”

“Djinn,” he said.

“What?”

“The plural of djinni . . .” He let out a few more strident coughs, then sat back wearily. “Read the book, Isabel. It will tell you everything you need to know.”

Five

A
ND SO DO
I, Brantigern Anextlomarus, record the lore of our people, not for Roman eyes, nor for the eyes of any man, but for the gods and goddesses alone. Always have our rites and secrets been safeguarded from those who would burn our gods and mock our truths. Always shall it be so.

Thus concluded my afternoon reading, Volume I of Adrien's
Histoire Secrète de Grotte Cachée,
in which the druid Brantigern recounts the beliefs and history of his Celtic tribe from their settlement in the valley through the Gallic wars and the initial decades of Roman occupation.

I closed the book and set it on my lap, holding it firmly to make sure it didn't slide into the bathhouse pool, in which my legs were dangling. It was intriguing stuff, that book, but a little distressing, too, especially the parts about the tribes people serving as guardians to “gods” with whom I'd met and interacted. First, there'd been Darius, their “god of fire” from some unknown foreign land who had lived deep in their “enchanted cave” for centuries. Then came Elic, “a benign dusios from the North,” and finally Inigo, who'd been recruited by the Vernae's Roman conquerors to pose for the bathhouse statues. There'd been no mention of Lili. She must have come later.

The history itself might have simply been the product of research, but that business about Darius, Elic, and Inigo . . . It wasn't that they worshipped gods; they had dozens of them. It was that these particular gods were still living at Grotte Cachée. I'd met them, for heaven's sake. Was I honestly supposed to believe that they weren't people, but divine, sex-obsessed beings thousands of years old?

“You lied to your father.”

I turned to see Adrien standing in the doorway wearing a silver-gray suit and a tie of the same color, his hands in his pockets. He must have just gotten back from his meeting in Lyon. I wondered how long he'd been standing there.

“You have no intention of succeeding him as
administrateur,
” he said in a gently chiding tone. “You just told him that to ease his mind.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“I wasn't at all sure until I came here and saw you. I admit I'm relieved. It's for the best.” Glancing at the book as he shrugged off his suit coat, he said, “A bit much to take in all at once, I should think.”

His manner was relaxed and composed, studiously so, as if in an attempt to erase what had happened in this very spot the night before. If it had been hard to meet his gaze yesterday, today it was agonizing.

Holding up the book, I said, “What is it, like some epic multivolume fantasy novel that mixes actual history with mythological—”

“It isn't fiction.” Adrien pulled a pack of Sobranie Black Russians and a gold lighter from an inside pocket of his coat before laying it over the back of an upholstered iron chair. He sat, loosening his tie.

“So, you're saying it's all true? Even the part about the Follets?” Christ, I thought, this whole thing was a delusion of Adrien's, and my formerly rational father had somehow gotten completely sucked into it. But considering his fragile health, and the knowledge that stress would only worsen his condition, was it worth trying to talk sense to him, or should I just let him keep believing what he believed?

Adrien said, “That book is a factual and straightforward account of the life and history of the Vernae as written by Brantigern the Protector. I merely translated it from the original Gaulish into French, which your father subsequently translated into English.”

“It doesn't worry you that a mere ‘civilian' is privy to this oh-so-secret document?”

“You would never disclose what you've learned here,” he said with calm certainty.

“What, you know that from my aura?”

“I know that because you're a dependable, trustworthy person who's far too devoted to her father to betray what's important to him, even after he's gone.”

“You aren't going to tell him that I don't really intend to succeed him, are you? He's so sick. He doesn't need that kind of—”

“Of course not. But it's good that
I
know. This way I can begin making inquiries as to a replacement. Do you mind?” he asked as he flipped open the Sobranies.

I shook my head. “Don't tell him that you know about his illness, either—please. Not until he volunteers the information. He's such a private man, so proud and self-contained.”

Adrien lit a gold-tipped black cigarette and said, on a plume of smoke, “I first realized something was wrong with your father about a year ago, when his aura began to darken. I mentioned something once or twice in passing, and he brushed it off, so I abandoned the subject. I know him well enough to know when to keep my mouth shut.”

“I'm grateful for that. Thank you.” Checking my watch, I said, “I've got to leave in less than an hour for the airport. Since Dad can't travel much anymore, I'd like to come visit him every few weeks, if that's all right with you.”

Adrien lowered his cigarette, a hint of something raw and desolate in his eyes. “It pains me that you even have to ask that. I'm . . .” He lowered his gaze, his jaw tight, shaking his head slightly as if to admonish himself not to say too much. Looking up, he said, “You are always welcome here, Isabel. Always. You never have to ask.”

I nodded, looking away. He took a drag on his cigarette, and then another one.

Gesturing toward the cave entrance in the craggy rock face that formed the back wall of the bathhouse, he said, “How long have they been shooting in there?”

“Since before I got here, so over an hour.”

“I should check up on them. Your father was going to do it, but I knew it would exhaust him to walk all the way here from the château.”

He looked toward the cave, his eyes narrowed slightly, as if in concentration.

I said, “What are you—”

He held up a hand to shush me. A few seconds later, he smiled and said, “It would appear this little project is at an end.”

“What, so you're like Superman, you can see through solid rock?”

“Not through rock, no, and certainly not at this distance. They're pretty far into the cave, although they're heading back this way. Voices are a different matter, though. They can travel a very great distance, through all kinds of material.”

“Okay, Adrien, obviously you've somehow gotten Dad to play Demons and Druids with you, but I'm not quite as susceptible to parlor tricks—especially crappy ones that don't prove a damned thing.”

“How's this one?” Adrien waved a hand in the direction of the cave and said,
“Uediju rowero gutu.”

“. . . lost the flash drives? You lost the fucking flash drives?”

“I didn't lose them, Larry. I put them in my camera bag last night, like I always do, but this morning they were gone. I was gonna go into town and get more, but—”

“Then why the fuck didn't you?”
Larry screamed.
“They were our only fucking backup.”

“Because you needed me behind the fucking camera all day!”

“We're fucked! We are totally fucked! Do you realize how fucking fucked we are?”

Adrien waved his hand again. The conversation snapped off as if he'd pushed a button.

“How was that one?” he asked.

“That one was much better,” I said dazedly.

“Inigo calls it, ‘surround sound.' So, Larry's got his
culottes
in a twist because, while he was filming the crystal pool scene just now, the electromagnetic vortex in the cave erased all of the digital images in the cameras and his laptop. He had the footage backed up on two different flash drives, but they appear to have disappeared. Everything he shot since he's been here is gone.” He waved a hand airily, then took a puff of his cigarette.
“C'est la vie.”

“An electromagnetic vortex?”

“You've heard about the vortices at Sedona, Arizona, and Machu Picchu?”

I nodded.

“They're often associated with volcanoes, and also with magnetic meteorites buried in the earth. In the case of Grotte Cachée, we happen to have a meteorite buried almost directly beneath an extinct volcano.” He cocked his head toward the wall of rock. “The deeper one ventures into that cave, the more profound the effect of the vortex.”

Still reeling from Adrien's demonstration with the voices, I said, “You knew if he shot a scene in that cave, it would wipe out everything he'd filmed up till then. And I assume the disappearance of those flash drives is no coincidence.”

Adrien shrugged and smiled as he stubbed out his cigarette.

“Of course,” I said. “The Follets get a novel and exciting form of ‘carnal nourishment' without sacrificing their privacy. Very clever of you,
mon seigneur
.”

“It was all your father's doing. I don't know that I would have thought of the vortex ruse on my own.”

“. . . the fuck are we supposed to tell Archer when he asks where his movie is?” It was Larry Parent's voice, unenhanced by “surround sound,” approaching from within the cave. “Oh, we are well and truly fucked, my friend.”

“Bonjour,”
greeted Adrien as Larry, his crew, Inigo, and Juicy Fisher emerged from the cave, ducking to pass through the low opening.

Larry, his expression grim, sent the others on ahead. “Hey, Mr. Morel. Is, uh, is Mr. Archer around?”

“If this is about the footage disappearing from the cameras and laptop, you can discuss that with me.”

Larry stood with his mouth open for a second, then closed it. “You know?”

“I overheard.”

Looking toward the cave, Larry said, “Yeah, but—”

“There is an electromagnetic vortex deep in the cave,” Adrien said. “We should have known better than to suggest that you try to film in there. It is really entirely our fault.”

“That's . . . well, that's really understanding of you, but, um. . .”

“But you are distraught to have lost a creative product into which you put so much time and effort.”

A
yeah, right
sneer escaped from Larry ever so briefly before he schooled his features and said, “Yeah. Right. There
is
that, but there's also . . . I mean, I don't mean to sound mercenary here. I
am
an artist and all, but—”

“You assume we won't finance your independent film because you have no movie to give us. Please have no fears on that account, Mr. Parent. I think I can safely speak for Mr. Archer when I say that this little mishap will not affect your payment.”

“Really?”

“As I say, we are entirely to blame. What is the American expression? My bad.”

After Larry had left, I said to Adrien, “I'd been worried that my dad was off his rocker. Now I'm thinking maybe it's me.”

Leaning forward on his elbows, he said, “Why would you think that?”

I chewed on my lip for a moment. “The ‘surround sound,' it was for real?”

“It was.”

“And . . . and Elic and Lili and Inigo and Darius . . .”

“Follets. And no, that is not their last name.”

I shook my head. “Holy shit.”

“Has anyone ever told you you swear like a cutter?”

“So Darius is like really a cat?”

“When he chooses to be.”

“That night, during my Christmas visit, when we were sitting in front of the fireplace in the great hall, and that cat came in and creeped me out till I went to bed . . .”

He nodded. “Darius. He, um, assumed his human form after you left, and had a little conversation with me about duty. He wasn't censorious, in fact he was quite kind, but he did ask me if I wanted to be ‘launching into something serious' with someone I could never . . . Well.”

Rising from his chair, he grabbed a towel off a stack on a bench and brought it over to me. “Here, dry your feet off. They must have shriveled up to nothing by now.”

“Thanks.” I set the book aside, lifted my legs out of the water, swiveled around on my butt, and took the towel.

Adrien crouched down, picked up the book, and said, soberly, “Did you read this all the way through?”

I nodded as I scrubbed the towel over my calves and feet.

“Then you know that it's critical to the welfare of the Follets that their
gardiens
be druids—that is to say, gifted. Every
gardien
since Brantigern has had The Gift, and that is because their fathers, or in some cases, their mothers, took gifted spouses. In compiling
l'Histoire Secrète,
I've come across quite a few instances in which a
gardien,
out of sacred duty, set aside the woman he loved and married instead the gifted woman who had been chosen for him.”

I stopped drying my feet and looked up. “That's . . . My God, Adrien, that's so sad.”

He just looked down.

I said, “It's as if the
gardiens
are slaves. They're completely caged by tradition and duty, prisoners of this damned château.”