Under the canopy of dark clouds heavy with rain, a chill wind sighed and moaned through the trees. The first plop of rain plinked against the window, and the candles guttered in an errant draft.
I shivered in the growing dark, but when the girls clamored for Delphine to tell them a story for All Hallows Eve, I kept my doubts to myself. Before we opened our school, these girls lived in the Hydra House, a gambling hell and brothel. Next to the horrors they experienced then, what harm could a little story do? So, I pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders and nodded for our story teller to begin.
Before she spoke a word, I lifted a finger. “Nothing too frightening, Delphine. I want all of you girls to sleep peacefully tonight.”
“Bien sûr, Miss Meggie.” Delphine’s smile flashed in the deepening gloom. Her dark eyes gleamed with imagination and excitement. “I will only make it un peu, just a little scary.” She held up her thumb and finger to show only an inch of space between. “The storm rages over the sea from France, and we need the story to make us shiver.”
I opened my mouth to object, but Joie laughed, and Harriet clapped her hands. The rest of the girls smiled and leaned forward in anticipation.
The fire painted a shifting dance of light and shadows on Delphine’s narrow, mobile face and dusky curls. She lowered her voice and added a little artful tremble. “It is no secret that France is a very dangerous place, but Napoleon isn’t the only monster who lives there.
“Peut-etre you have heard of La Bête du Gévaudan, who terrorized the shepherds and farmers of the countryside. He attacked many, oh so many, and killed more than 100 people before Monsieur Jean Chastel shot him with a silver bullet.”
Harriet gasped, and the other girls nodded, though I doubted any of them had heard of the Beast of Gévaudan before.
Delphine smiled, but she didn’t pause. “But that was forty years ago. Tonight, I will tell you of another French monster. This one lived when I was young. She may live even now.”
As Delphine spoke, the howl of the wind outside the window faded. The drawing room became the fields and mountains around a rural French village in Provence, and the flickering candles turned into the stars that studded that foreign sky. I was hypnotized, even captivated, by the swell and flow of her soft, solemn voice.
This is Delphine’s tale, as she told it.
***
Months before l’ anniversaire of my fifteenth year, my mother and I moved to Aubagne, near Marseille to serve at La Comtess du Barthéleme’s country chateau.
There I met my truest friend indispensable, a stableboy, a year older than I, named Guillaume Moreau. We both knew how to work quickly so we could sneak away and look for, or make, an adventure or an amusing story. Together, we raced through the back halls and servant stairs of the grand chateau. We played tricks on the footmen, laughing like hyenas to see their anger. And of course, we hid behind doors and listened to the maids’ gossip.
So it was that on the afternoon of All Hallow’s Eve, whispers coming from the servants’ stair caught our attention. Without stopping to think, we crept closer to listen.
“He said soldiers of the Napoleon’s Consulate are camped on the foothills of Massif Du Garlaban. They are searching for those who protested the Revolution.” The voice belonged to Eloise, one of the chambermaids. It was no secret she had a weakness for Marcel, the butcher’s son. Even in the recent peace with England, he spoke often against the Jacobin terror and the evil government it spawned.
Her friend, Lilou, gave a muted shriek. “Do you think L’ Enchantresse d’ Aubagne will walk tonight?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth so I would not gasp aloud. L’ Enchantresse d’ Aubagne? I turned a questioning glance to Guillaume. He lifted his shoulders and shook his head.
I closed my eyes and leaned closer, not wanting to miss a word.
Eloise’s voice shook. “Ooh, I am hopeful and frightened all at once.”
“It is the same for me.” Lilou whispered. “One can admire her, even be grateful she fights for our villagers, but I shiver to think what she had to do to gain the power she wields.”
Eloise spoke so quietly, I stepped away from my hiding place to hear. “And what of L’Ombre Sauvage? The wild shadow that comes at her call. No one will say what it is, only that the beast is not tame. What happens if she loses control?”
In that moment, everything changed. It was the first time I’d heard the legend of L’ Enchantresse d’ Aubagne and her L’Ombre Sauvage.
I met Guillaume’s wide green eyes. His lips formed the name, ‘L’ Enchantresse d’ Aubagne.’
I nodded and whispered, “We should look for her.”
“She sounds dangerous.” It was not caution I heard in his voice. It was excitement.
Those maids could not have given us a more tempting mystery. If there was a lady of power, even if she came with a frightening, unknown beast, it would be our finest adventure. I had to see her.
That night my mind was not on my work, but I did my best to help my mother prepare our lady for her evening’s entertainment. It was full dark before I finally slipped out of the chateau. Surely, Guillaume would already be at our meeting place, a shallow cave in the hills leading up to L’ Massif Du Garlaban, the mountain that overlooks Aubagne and the Huveaune Valley.
In my haste, I risked discovery by running through the formal gardens to reach the woods. But once in the shadow of the trees, I slowed and stepped with care. It would not do to come upon the soldiers.
A chill wind blew heavy clouds that hid then, revealed the stars in the inky black sky. It teased the ends of my shawl and nipped at my nose and ears. The coming storm slowed me even more.
I had been climbing for only a few minutes when an owl glided by on silent wings. I stopped to watch and wonder if it was a portent meant for me, the lady enchantresse, or the soldiers. At the howl of a wolf, I jumped, then let out a quiet huff of laughter. I would not allow fear to end my adventure when it had just begun.
I pulled my shawl more tightly around me and pushed on. Guillaume would be waiting for me, and I could not disappoint him.
The incline soon became steeper, and when I was half-way up, I stopped to clutch my knees and catch my stuttering breath. Mist that seemed to come from nowhere rolled and eddied along the stones and gnarled roots at my feet. It snaked around my ankles with an icy caress.
I studied it with a frown until an eerie, ethereal music rose over the sound of the wind through the leaves. I stood upright and cocked my head at the disordered, wavering ghostly tones. The air around me vibrated, and another sound grew and grew until it roared.
I put my hand over my heart to calm its frantic beating. But then I saw a green light shimmering and flickering through the trees. It began an undulating advance toward me.
“The enchantress,” I whispered before I turned and crashed into a tall, solid figure.
I pulled in a sharp breath, but before I could scream, he put his hand over my mouth and pulled me closer. “Quiet, Delphine,” he murmured in my ear. “It is I.”
Guillaume! It was my friend. I put my arms around him and folded myself into his unexpected strength.
He held me close and backed up a few steps until we were hidden behind a Kermes shrub oak. His warmth stole into my chilled bones. The familiar smell of pine resin and the minty odor of camphor from the liniment he used on the horses calmed me further.
My heart still raced, but it was more than fear that made my voice tremble when I whispered, “Did you hear music and a roar? Do you see the light? And this mist. It is too cold to be real.”
“I heard. I see it.” After a few moments, he slowly pulled away, but he reached out and took my hand with a shy smile. “Come away, Delphine. The cave isn’t far,” he murmured.
Together we slid through the underbrush and trees and made our way around the rocks that jutted through the needles and fallen leaves. Guillaume wore dark clothes, but the whites of his eyes caught what little light there was. When we were far enough, he grinned, and I returned his squeeze of my hand and his smile.
We reached the rockslide that was the last leg of our ascent to our little cave. Guillaume took the lead until, over the whistle of the wind, we heard deep, mumbling voices to our left.
My friend climbed back down to me. We huddled side by side behind a large boulder, too afraid to move for longer than I would like to say. But finally, I was too embarrassed to cower there any longer.
“We can’t stay here,” I whispered. “I must know what is happening.”
He took my hand once more and nodded.
As quietly as we could, we clambered down the side of the mountain, moving from tree to bush to rock, running hunched over when there was no cover.
The terrain evened out, and the woods again swallowed us. We followed the occasional voice that came to us over the sounds of the swelling storm until we caught sight of the flickering flames of a fire.
On careful, silent feet, we eased forward until we could see five soldiers, a small company, come to stamp out the remaining pockets of rebellion around Aubagne.
As we came close enough to listen in on their conversation, Guillaume tripped on a jutting root. His windmilling arms caught a branch before he fell, but the leaves rustled, sounding loud to our ears.
“What is that?” one man said.
Guillaume looked at me in terror, and I grabbed his arm and pulled him further to the left where we huddled behind the broad trunk of an ancient oak.
I pursed my lips and breathed out slowly when a second man spoke. “Take courage, Basile. It is just the wind.”
“I don’t know. I think I saw something. Maybe it is this Enchantresse of Aubagne that I’ve heard about.”
A sixth man stepped out of the shadows. “That’s just peasants’ superstition. Don’t be such women.”
“I don’t know, Sargeant. Even in Marseille, they talk of the woman in white and her wild beast.”
Their leader’s chuckle was mocking. “You are all fools. I will prove it. I’ll go on a short patrol to the river and back, and I’ll expose this story for the trick it is. Do any of you have enough courage to come with me?”
I was horrified, but I had to admire this sergeant’s courage. The memory of what I had seen and heard still made the hair at my nape stand, though I tried to hide it from Guillaume. I wouldn’t have him think I lacked courage.
At the fire, two of the soldiers stood and moved to their sergeant’s side. The other three looked away, avoiding his gaze. When the three brave or foolhardy men strode out of the clearing and into the deeper dark beneath the trees, those who stayed huddled closer to the warmth of the flames. Then they groaned when a sullen rain began to fall.
In a sudden burst of lightning, Guillaume and I looked at each other. There was no doubt about our decision. We waited until the men moved past us before we quietly followed.
We tried to keep close enough to see which way the men went but far enough that they wouldn’t hear us. As we walked, the force of the storm swelled, and the buffeting wind pushed at us until we stepped off the path. The steady pattering rain became a deluge and forced us deeper into the trees, seeking some protection. After a few more minutes, soaked and miserable, we stopped.
“Can you see them?” Guillaume shouted above the groaning of the trees.
I peered into the wild darkness. “No,” I answered glumly. They had turned, or we had veered too far south. Either way, we had lost them.
Then, in a sudden blinding streak of lightning, I saw a flash of white in the distance. The crack of thunder that sounded the next second drowned out my yelp.
I moved closer to Guillaume and pulled at his arm. “This way.”
I took the lead, weaving carefully through the woods. With every step, my heart beat faster. When I was sure it would jump right out of my chest, I stopped and pointed to a thick broom shrub at the edge of the tree line.
I don’t know how we came to find her before the soldiers did, but when the thunder boomed again, we hurried forward to conceal ourselves behind the bush and peaked out at the apparition. She stood strangely still on a bleak outcropping of rock with her back to the turbulent Huveaune River.
In the next flash of lightning, I saw that her eyes were closed, and her face was raised to the sky. Her dark auburn hair streamed out behind her. She was tall for a woman but shaped in a way that any fourteen-year-old girl still waiting for her body to blossom would envy. I cast a quick, embarrassed glance at Guillaume, but quickly turned back to the woman on the bluff.
Each flash of lightning revealed more to my eyes. She was dressed in a glimmering, flowing robe that draped from her shoulder to her feet. Though the rain continued to fall, and my dress was plastered to my body, her luminous white robe fluttered around her feet in the driving wind. How did she keep it dry?
And then all questions melted away when I saw the animal standing by her side. It was the shadow beast. Male or female, I could not tell. Its fur and the woman’s hair were the same color, but the beast had stripes as dark as night all along its back and down its tail.
The top of its sleek head came to her waist. Its small, pointed ears twitched, and its broad shoulders and chest rippled when it moved. A strap leading from a collar around its neck linked the beast to the woman. She truly had to be an enchantresse to stand so still and unconcerned next to the strange, powerful beast.
Breathless and chilled, I waited to see what she would do.
Nothing happened for long enough that the storm began to subside. Then, over the crash and boom of the angry river, a sound came through the trees from the woman’s right. The beast let out a vibrating growl, and I froze.
Guillaume put his arm around me and pulled me back, but I resisted. It was as if the enchantresse had mesmerized me, and I could not leave.
A moment later, the three soldiers crashed through the trees and onto the rocks. They stopped for only a moment, and then with a battle cry, the sergeant drew his sword and rushed forward.
The enchantresse did not move. I almost screamed a warning, but at the last moment, she dropped the leash, and the beast leapt over her head and swiped at the man with a paw as big as a dinner plate. The sergeant dropped his sword and stumbled away, blood flowing down the side of his face. The beast followed, and with another swipe of its paw, it sent the soldier over the side of the outcropping and into the raging river below. Another clash of thunder drowned out his death cry.
The enchantresse laughed, and the sound was otherworldly, deep and echoing, and disturbingly indifferent.
The second soldier pulled his sword. His friend said, “We should go back and get the others.”
The woman spoke for the first time. “You should gather your friends and ride away. There is nothing for you here but death.” Her voice was like the tolling of a bell, deep but melodic.
While the soldier hesitated. The woman picked up the sergeant’s sword and dropped the leash. The shadow beast let out a full-throated, terrifying roar and moved between its mistress and the third soldier.
The man with the drawn sword swallowed. “I must kill your beast and imprison you for the death of the sergeant.”
With another disturbing chuckle, she lifted the sword and saluted him. “You may try.”
Before she took her position, the soldier lunged, but with a scrape of steel, the woman in white caught his blade and deflected his strike.
With his dark uniform, it was difficult to track the soldier’s moves. Easier to see the woman in white, so I kept my eyes on her.
Tall as she was, she was still shorter than the soldier and had a shorter reach. And even I could tell, the man was a good swordsman. But with each of the woman’s agile, graceful movements, I.
He lunged forward ruthlessly. For a moment, I feared she was finished. But at the last moment, she parried, and before the soldier recovered, her sword flashed forward, quicker than my eyes could follow, and slid into his chest.
The beast yowled as the man fell. Then it stood and stretched and padded back to the woman’s side.
She never looked away from the third man as she leaned down to gather the leash. When she stood upright, he turned and ran away.
With no hesitation, the enchantresse reached down and loosed the collar that held it bound. With another leap, the wild shadow lunged through the trees in pursuit.
I waited with a heavy weight in my stomach. It wasn’t long before an agonizing high-pitched scream split the air. Then it stopped, cut off abruptly.
I thought I would be sick. I swallowed, took a deep breath, and swallowed again. Guillaume’s hand on my back steadied me a little.
With a small smile, the enchantresse brought a small, shining pipe to her ruby lips and gave three staccato whistles. Then she cocked her head, closed her eyes, and waited.
From the trees to our left, the beast let out what sounded like a mutinous roar.
Did a wolf’s prey feel a shiver of fear like mine each time the hunter howled?
The woman whistled again, and that time, the beast responded with a low rumbling moan. She stared into the woods until the wild shadow stole out of the trees. It prowled back and forth with a long-muffled growl, finally coming close enough to brush against the woman’s legs. Then, in one graceful move, it lay at her feet and waited as she reattached its collar.
I made no noise when I released my breath, but the woman in white turned her head. I froze when her eyes found mine. The animal jumped forward with a howl. I screamed, and Guillaume jumped to his feet, stepping in front of me.
My only thought was that I was too young to die.
But then the enchantresse took a tighter hold on the leash and pulled back to stop the sleek, now straining beast. Then she looked up and lifted her hand. Even her gesture held power as she pointed down the mountain.
I did not dare to disobey. I took Guillaume’s arm. Together, we turned away from the fiercely cruel and exquisite vision and walked, without looking back and without saying a word, to Chateau Barthéleme.
***
Delphine stopped talking, and silence reigned for half a minute.
Then Renée cried. “That’s all? That’s the end of the story? Delphine, that is not kind.”
Joie stood and started pacing around the room. “She’s right, Delphine. What about Guillaume? Where is he now?” She turned back and put her fists on her hips. “You didn’t tell us who the woman, the enchantresse was. And what about the beast? What was the wild shadow beast?”
“I wager it was a lion, escaped from a menagerie,” Renée said.
Though she was the youngest of all the girls at the school, Harriet shook her head and spoke up with a determined voice. “No. Delphine didn’t say it had a mane. It couldn’t have been a lion.”
“Girl lions don’t have manes.” Renée glowered, defending her guess.
Harriet wrinkled her nose. “If it was a lion, its roar would have been so loud it would have hurt Delphine’s ears. She would have told us if it was a lion.” After a moment of thought, and with a generous impulse, she added, “But if it escaped from a menagerie like you said, it could have been a tiger or a panther.”
I interrupted. “Come, girls. It is time for all of us to go to bed.”
They protested, but I stood and pulled first one, then another, to their feet. “Up the stairs and to bed, all of you.”
Slowly, they traipsed out of the drawing room and began climbing the stairs.
“Perhaps it was a jaguar,” Clara offered quietly.
Joie shrugged. “It was probably a lynx. There are lynxes in France.”
All the way up the stairs, they continued to guess and argue.
All except Delphine, who, like all good storytellers, offered no opinions, answers, or explanations. She just nodded to her friends, stepped into her chamber, and closed the door behind her.
Copyright © 2025 by Gigi Lynn