Yes, among all the rest I might yet save Perette.

Of course, after what I had seen in the infirmary I went to Perette as soon as I could. That was in the morning, after Prime. We all went to our duties a little late, for the abbess was with her confessor and we guessed that discipline might be a little relaxed. I found Perette, as I expected, in the stables where we kept our beasts. She had taken some stale bread with her, and the place was awash with the hens and ducks and speckled pullets that had followed her in. She looked at me inquiringly.

“Perette.” She smiled then, a wide-open smile of delight, and indicated the birds. She looked so happy-and so innocent-that I felt oddly reluctant to speak of the morning’s incident. I steeled myself nevertheless. “Never mind the hens, Perette. I saw you in the infirmary this morning.” She looked at me pertly, head to one side. “I saw you pretending to be the Unholy Nun.”

Perette gave the hooting cry that in her passes for laughter.

“It isn’t funny.” I took her arms and turned her to face me. “It could have been very dangerous.”

Perette shrugged. She is clever enough at some things, but when we broach the subject of might-have, or could-have-been, or would-be, she tends to lose interest.

I spoke slowly, patiently, using simple words she knew. “Perette. Listen to me. Tell me the truth.” She smiled at me, giving no sign of whether or not she understood. “Tell me, Perette. How many times have you-” No, that was wrong. “Perette. Have you played this game before?”

Perette nodded and hooted happily.

“And did-did Père Colombin ask you to play this game?”

Again, the nod.

“Did-Did Père Colombin say why he wanted you to play this game?”

That was more difficult. Perette thought for a moment, shrugged, then held out a grimy palm. In it rested a small brown object. A piece of sugar. She looked at it, licked it, then replaced it carefully in her pocket.

“Sugar? He gives you sugar when you play the game?”

Perette shrugged again. Then, fumbling around her neck, she drew out the small medallion I had seen LeMerle take from her only a few weeks ago, now secured by a piece of twine. Christina Mirabilis smiled out from the bright enameled disc.

Again I made my voice slow and coaxing. “So, Perette. You played the game for Père Colombin.” Perette smiled and ticked her head from one side to the other. The medallion winked in the sunlight. “But why did he want you to play the game?”

The wild girl shrugged and turned the medallion over in her fingers, catching the light. I tried to curb my impatience. “Yes, Perette, but why did he ask you? Did he tell you why?”

Again she shrugged. What did it matter why he wanted it, said the shrug, as long as there was sugar and trinkets?

I gave her a gentle shake. “Perette. What you did was a bad thing.”

She looked puzzled at that, beginning to shake her head in denial. “A bad thing!” I insisted, raising my voice a little. “It wasn’t your fault, but it was bad all the same. Père Colombin was bad to make you do it.”

Perette turned her mouth down sulkily and made as if to pull away. I held her back. “Do you remember Fleur?” I said suddenly. “Do you remember when they took Fleur away?”

Perhaps she did not, I told myself. It had been almost a month since Fleur’s disappearance, and Perette might already have forgotten her young playmate. For a moment she looked puzzled, then raised her hand in the gesture she had always used to indicate the child.

“It was Père Colombin who took Fleur away,” I told her. “He may seem very nice, he may give you presents, but, Perette, he’s a bad man, and I need to know what he’s planning!” My voice had risen again, and I was gripping her arm painfully. Her blank expression told me that I had gone too fast, that I had lost her. “Perette, look at me!”

But it was too late. The moment of contact was gone, and Perette had returned her attention to the birds. As I turned away, furious at my own impatience, I saw her sitting in a clucking mound of them, arms outstretched, her lap a mass of white, brown, speckled, golden, green, and red feathers.

And yet I cannot give up. If there is a key to this enigma, it is she. My sweet Perette, my innocent. Whatever he is planning, she knows it. It may be beyond her understanding, but his secret is there, hidden within her as securely as in a Chinese puzzle box. If only I knew what it was. If only I could break your locks, my dear.

I tried to talk to LeMerle all yesterday, but he avoids me, and I cannot afford to draw attention to myself. Last night his door was locked, the light extinguished. I wondered whether he was in the infirmary but dared not go to see. Clémente is still incapable of rational speech, so Antoine tells me, alternating long periods of lethargy with intervals of wild, wakeful delirium. During those times she has to be secured to the mattress for fear she might injure herself. Often she tears at her clothing, exposing herself, thrusting violently at the air as if ridden by a demon lover. At these times she may scream or moan in terrible pleasure, or claw at her face in an agony of self-loathing. Better to tie her down, though she pleads to be released, thrashing her head from side to side and spitting with uncanny accuracy at anyone who dares approach her.

I am not allowed to visit. Antoine too has been removed from the infirmary, though Virginie remains to care for the possessed woman. Antoine tells me this with sly satisfaction; Clémente seems crazed and may never regain her sanity. So Virginie tells her. Antoine’s eyes are small and mean as she speaks of it. She has volunteered to help in the infirmary, washing blankets and preparing broths for the afflicted woman, into which, no doubt, she slips a regular dose of morning glories.

Lovely Clémente is no longer quite so lovely, she reports in that new, sly voice; her face will be scarred by the repeated assault of her fingernails; her hair is coming out in patches. I would have liked to go to her, to comfort her perhaps or to explain to her ravaged face that it wasn’t my fault…

What good would it do? Antoine’s hand may have given her the dose, but it was I who gave her the means. I would do it again in the same circumstances. LeMerle, wisely keeping his distance, knows it. Again he has opened a gulf inside me, has opened the dark budget of possibility within my entrails.

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Giordano used to say that in the original Hebrew the word witch meant poisoner.

I wonder if Giordano would recognize his pupil now.