She came awake with a start, and the sense that something dreadful had
happened. It must be late morning; the widow was gone from the other
side of the bed and Laduis’ cot was empty and neatly made up. There was—
All at once the whirl at the back of her mind resolved itself into a
pattern. There were two things in it, a picture of a strange room where
men talked before a fire while a sea beat on a rocky shore, and running
through it as though the picture were transparent, an appeal so naked
and desperate that it brought her to her feet at once—mind speaking to
mind without words to say that the holder of her Blue Star was lying
bewitched and near death.
There was no wine; it was horribly hard to trace out the pattern of the
counter-witchery in water, even with the help of some dust from the
corner, and the effort of the projection left her so weak and shaken
that when it was done she collapsed across the bed in the shift that had
served her as a night-dress and did not even hear Dame Domijaiek come
in.
“So you have done it,” said her voice (and Lalette thought that she had
never in her life heard anything so cold).
Lalette raised her head. The older woman was looking at the patterns
which still moved faintly, not at her at all. “I ask your pardon,” she
said. “It was an emergency; I learned—”
“Nothing you can say will change the fact that you have brought witchery
into my house.”
Lalette struggled to her feet. “Well, I will go.”
“Yes,” said the mask-maker, “I think you must go. You have brought on me
and my son even worse dangers than you dream of. You must go. When you
spoke of hating yesterday, I thought it might come to that, but I
foolishly let sympathy overrule my judgment.”
In the room above them, Mme. Kaja struck a chord on her music, and after
one false beginning, launched into the bride’s aria from “The
Disinherited.” Lalette looked at the floor and there were tears in her
eyes. The widow spoke again:
“Yet you were sent to me for help, and help you I will, if you will take
it. I think there is only one chance in the world for you, and that is
to go to Mancherei and place yourself under the dominion of the
Prophet.”
“But I have no money to get there, no money at all, and what could I do
there?” said Lalette (now angry with herself for having jeopardized
herself and the widow too, in some manner, for the sake of false
Rodvard; and willing in her contrition to follow this leading, but not
seeing how it could be done).
“Love forever finds a way to draw to itself those who need it. There is
a fund for the transportation of those who would go thither; and under
the ordinance of the Prophet, there have been established the houses
called couvertines of the Myonessae, where there is shelter and gainful
employ for such girls as yourself, who need them.”
“I—I do not believe in this religion, and—I am a witch.”
“Few believe in the beginning, but only turn to our doctrine for relief
from some condition of the world. It is this witchcraft you must
escape.”
Lalette heaved a sigh. (Her head ached now, and what was the use of this
struggle to be free and one’s own? The strings tightened, one was drawn
back to puppethood.)
“Very well. If you will tell me what to do.”