I climbed the clocktower of Bellvoir and looked down. From such majestic heights, I fought with my compulsion to view the people as anything but ants, as they flitted mindlessly. It is difficult to conceptualise how a town is but a simple design, until viewed at such minute scale. I was suddenly a child placed before a prized machine, whose mischief begs him to poke a single finger inside...just to see what would happen.
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Selika Montesquiou never wanted to be the one who changed history, but things had gone too far.
On quick feet in pointed black shoes, Selika scurried through the Fosseville cemetery, and six witches followed. Their shadows thrown by lamplights and stars created twisted, cursive figures on the uneven dirt ground, bending and warping over tombstones and plinths. The sound was of an improv drummer as their footsteps skittered across the rough terrain.
“Come, quick!” Selika hissed. “It’s near!”
Selika was a small yet severe woman in a black cloak and pointed hat. She had planned this night comprehensively, spent weeks putting to memory the layout of the cemetery, observing traffic through the surrounding area and noting patrol schedules. Yet she could not relax until they had secured what they’d come for—the body of the Count of Bellvoir—and disappeared without a trace.
Crouching behind a bush, Selika waited for the other witches to catch up, and then turned on her heel and dashed the rest of the way to the gravesite.
Her heartrate increased as she closed the distance between her and the grave. She became aware of the shovel in her hand, its cold handle and lofty weight. She kept it high above the ground as she moved, careful not to create any loud sounds by accidentally knocking it into something. Making frequent stops to catch her breath, she also used this time to check for groundskeepers. One thing Selika knew prior to commencing their risky heist was that the cemetery grounds were patrolled through the night, for these tumultuous times brought hooligans and all matters of scum. Scanning in the low-light, she could make out evidence of this: smashed vases, damaged tombs, statues missing limbs and heads. Yet Selika’s mission tonight was nothing like tomfoolery; it was fateful.
She saw a shadow in the distance just as she was about to get going, and immediately ducked her head. By now, the other witches had caught up and were hunkered in a narrow bend in the trail, just beneath the slope of a hill. The rasp of their breaths was the only sound except the chirping of crickets and animals stalking in the bushes.
Selika had tensed as she watched the groundskeeper sweeping.
“Let me deal with him,” came a voice to her right. Selika nodded, and without another word, the witch began creeping forward. From her cloak she revealed a wooden wand, about as long as the distance between her hand and the ground, and then sped up in half-crouch towards the unassuming groundskeeper.
Selika pushed off from her back foot and, keeping herself as small as possible (she was by no means tall to begin with, so this was not difficult), she raced further through the grounds with the other witches at her heel. She leapt vines that snaked the old paths. Her cloak caught on sticks and brambles, and by the time she had stopped again, just within talking distance from the groundskeeper with his lantern, she was covered in leaves.
There was no sign that the other witch had cast a spell of any kind, just the damp thud of a body hitting the dirt ground, cold.
Selika only released a breath when she reached the grave, rising now to her full height and walking until she was directly in front of it. The witches formed a semi-circle around her. Selika’s eyes widened.
As dim as it was in the moonlight, she could clearly see the great lengths the custodians had gone to in keeping the grave preserved. Even after all these years, the stone was pristine, the dirt hard and nourished. Flowers scattered about the site were well tended to, glistening with the wetness of being freshly-watered or the dew of night; and there were others potted in vases that decorated the gravesite. Yet aside from these things, there was nothing in particular marking the owner of the plot as anything prominent. Not wealthy, nor powerful. In fact, there was little indeed that differentiated his grave from the ones around him. His apparent insignificance, however, was just a façade—perhaps, a deterrent from would-be thugs.
Selika stared at the inscriptions on the headstone.
Here lies Edgar Fortestuna Lucien.
Count of Bellvoir. 1768-1815.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Younger brother to [REDACTED] and Maria.
Son to Odilon and Claudine.
Lord of Witches.
Selika didn’t pay much attention to the part of it that had been scratched off (by the looks of it, violently). In the distance, a dog howled and the hairs on the back of her neck peeled upwards. Her eyes traced this inscription, the weight of it. She had seen these words before in the days leading up to this night, but it seemed different knowing what she was about to do.
The Count of Bellvoir, as he was known in the twilight of his years, was a complicated man. It was not that Selika denied this, nor had she forgotten his (sometimes) angry, conservative and frankly misogynistic demeanour. However, there was no doubting Edgar Lucien’s place as a symbol of the Black Dime Cabaret. His philosophies of witchcraft shaped every witch Selika had ever run into. But things had changed following his untimely death, thirteen years ago—and not for the better. No thanks to people such as Maria Lucien.
Ever since Maria Lucien had inherited the Black Dime Cabaret from her brother, things had gotten worse for witches. Business at just one cabaret was bad, let alone however many she had licensed out across France. And that was not to mention her restrictions on witchcraft, her selective teachings, her censoring of old texts. Where once the cabaret had been a safe and prospering space for the witches and misfits of Bellvoir, it had now become a burden. But Selika figured a turning was in sight. Yes, Edgar Lucien had founded the Black Dime Cabaret on the promise of not just existing in seclusion from the rest of the world, but on playing a leading role in it. Not just in Bellvoir, but across all of France. And tonight, Selika figured that with such a demonstration of loyalty and power, she would be the one to put them back on the world’s stage. Not that she desired the infamy of doing such a thing, but because she had to.
The days of Maria Lucien—of stagnancy—must come to an end.
Selika slammed her shovel into the dirt. The hag must go, she thought, as another shovel chomped deeper into the chasm forged by the last. The hag must go!
“THE HAG MUST GO!” They had chanted this in a private meeting weeks prior, defacing paintings of Maria Lucien and her sympathizers. The newspapers had picked up on their clandestine activities, calling them “Lucienists.”
Selika flung her shovel up and out of the earth, spraying a massive mound of mud. Several more shovels sheared into the dirt. Whoops and hollers into the night.
Selika bared her teeth as she continued to dig. Surely somebody would hear the disturbance. Shovels into hard earth, spray of dirt, gasps and heavy breaths in the otherwise quiet night. Groundskeepers? Hooligans? Nobody came.
It was no time at all before Selika’s shovel clunked against wood. With another, her shovel penetrated into it. Her heart skipped a beat as this happened, and she peered down at the exposed coffin. “He is here,” Selika said in disbelief.
Shovels surged into the dirt, harder and faster than ever before. She had already copped her fair share in the mouth: cold, wormy dirt. It flew in sprays from each of the witches, their shovels gnawing like hungry beasts. Deeper, deeper. Eventually, she threw away the shovel and got down on her hands and knees, clawing and grabbing mounds of dirt from the coffin.
Until eventually there was no more.
Panting, Selika wiped sweat from her brow and stood back, admiring their work. None spoke, staring down at the tomb with the sense of uncertainty as to what should happen next.
“Should we...?” The question came from one of the other witches, just over Selika’s shoulder. The rest of her question needn’t be spoken, for Selika was thinking it too, and knew that this thought was shared amongst them all.
What do you look like in there?
Selika crouched down again, shuffling sidewards to better position herself abreast of the coffin. She felt for the edge, and unlatched it. She lifted the lid just enough to slip her fingers underneath, curved her fingertips ever so slightly for grip, and pulled.
There was quite a bit of resistance, which was to be expected, for the coffin had not been touched, let alone opened, in the thirteen years Edgar Lucien had been dead.
But she also felt a degree of apprehension. Selika had never actually seen Edgar Lucien before. Of course, she had known his face from paintings. Her favourite was The Limerence of Edgar and Rita, which she had looked upon and studied numerous times. But to see him in the flesh...or lack thereof. Now, this was something different entirely.
She swallowed, taking in a deep breath.
I’m sorry for this desecration, she thought.
Then slowly, she lifted open the coffin.
The seven witches gazed upon the bones of the dead Count in reverence. He had been posed in furious vermilion, the material of his clothing in-tact after all these years. You could make out the handstitched thread, a weave of immaculate detail and precision; and the gold trim on his uniform, militaristic, though he was never a military man.
Edgar Lucien lay with his head slightly-angled backwards, one arm across his chest and the other against his wrinkled ear, in total state of mummification. The only flesh remaining on his body was black and glassy.
After a while, Selika closed the lid, flipped the latch back onto it, and then brushed her hands. She could not stop the racing of her heart.
“It is time to go,” she said. “Help me with this.”
The other witches gathered around. Slowly, and with great care and difficulty, they managed to manoeuvre the coffin out of the grave and into the cold night air. The entire group carried it together, out back the way they had come, all scurrying legs and pounding hearts. Selika did not dare look to see if anybody was watching them. There were only two things she could think of: the state of Edgar Lucien’s mummified corpse, thirteen years under the grounds of Fosseville; and how much space remained between them and the exit.
When she at last saw the escape wagons parked in the distance, she smiled, and could not control the laughter that suddenly took her. Shaking, she cackled loudly into the night. Cackled until she reached the wagon, lifted the coffin inside, and climbed after it.
The horses pulled, and the witches vanished without a sign that they had ever been there at all, only the empty grave of Count Edgar Lucien in their wake.