The Black Onyx Pact (34 page)

“
Here lies Aurore
a lonely soul who taught us to love
woman of sorrow who taught us to smile.
She lived owning nothing
and yet she leaves a wonderful inheritance.
Thank You for have lived.
”

Saphir looks at Sibylle, whom is wiping her tears.
«Her best friend wrote those words. That one, instead, is the phrase that Aurore asked us to write on her headstone.» explains Sibylle pointing up.
Saphir raises her gaze and reads:

“Let the cats sleep on my grave.”

Saphir swallows a sob and walks away without saying a word. Sibylle runs next to her, respecting her silence.
«You know,
madame
Améthyste, I never thought about it.» confesses to Sibylle. «But now I'm wondering who will miss me when I'm gone, a part Drakkar.»
Sibylle squeezes gently her shoulder.
«I will, Saphir.»
Saphir smiles. They walk in the path skirted by tall cypresses.
«You want to know something funny, Sibylle? It's something that came in my mind just now, and it's something no one knows.» She stops and looks intensely at Sibylle. «My husband didn't die instantly, he had the time to turn to look at me and say: “
I've cheated on you. For all these years I cheated on you
”.»
Sibylle frowns. Saphir smiles sadly and shakes her head.
«Can you believe it? He told me that lie because he realized he was dying and he didn't want me to suffer. He preferred to tell me that lie so I could replace the sadness with the anger.»
Sibylle doesn't tell her what she is really thinking, so she nods and then changes the subject and talks about the two evening she wants to organize; the one with Nymphe and the other one with her friends. Saphir listens carefully and nods often. When they arrive at the exit of the cemetery there is Yves waiting for Saphir next to the black car. He is wearing his dark chauffeur uniform.
«
Madame
.» he says to Saphir opening the car door.
Sibylle and Yves smile at each other. Sibylle thinks he is really an handsome man.
«So,
madame
Améthyste», says Saphir, «see you soon. I'll call Nymphe as soon as I arrive to the office. I'll work on your requests and I'll organize a rendezvous with the elite men of the Club. As for the “all girls night” count me in.» And winks at her before entering the car.

A minute later, Sibylle waves at the car leaving. Nora goes next to her holding a soft cat in her arms. Sibylle looks at her and strokes the cat, then she notices Virginie nearby arguing with an old lady.
«What's going on?» asks Sibylle.
«Gah, nothing. Just Virginie that doesn't mind her own business, like always. She felt obliged to tell the lady she was wearing a horrible dress and now she is giving her some clothing advices, but the lady is obviously angry at her and doesn't listen.»
Sibylle smiles and heads to the bungalow together with Nora, whom says something cryptic:
«Pretty busy the grave of this Armand.»
«What you mean?» asks Sibylle.
«Well, he gets visits from the lady you were talking to; then from a man who comes here when he is drunk to yell at the tombstone in anger; then comes another woman, younger than this one, who cries like she was his wife. And then, rarely, comes even the man that was at the Gallery.»
Sibylle stops and stares at her.
«Wait a moment
—
“A woman who cries like she was his wife”?»
«Yes, younger and beautiful. She is more beautiful than the lady it was here, but she hasn't her class at all. She usually comes early in the morning or late in the evening, as if she wants to be sure not to meet other visitors.»
Sibylle puts a hand on her mouth, understanding who that woman could be. So Saphir's husband didn't lie to her, he really cheated on her! He just wanted to die with a clear conscience.
«And the drunk man?» asks again Sibylle.
«I don't know, he just came few times to yell against the tomb. And there is also the man I met at the Gallery.»
Sibylle starts to walk again.
«There were so many people that evening, Nora.»
The cat runs away from Nora's arms so the girl can now use her hands to describe a tall man.
«Yes, but there was only a man like that man. How come you didn't remember? That massive man who released pheromones just with his presence. Come on, Siba, how can't you remember?! Every woman in the Gallery was about to fall on their knees and begs him to fuck them! I was about to fall too! And I'm a lesbian. Hmmm, what was his name.... Oh yeah! Romain.»
Sibylle stops for the third time.
«What?»
«Romain.»
«What?»
«Romain!»
«What?!»
«Romain, Siba! Romain!»
«Oh my
—
A tall man, with a warm deep voice, a capturing smile, beautiful piercing green-amber eyes?»
«That's him!»
Sibylle moves the hand to her temple.
«Nora, Romain... is Drakkar.»
Nora widens her eyes and burst into laughter tapping her hands on her own thighs.
«So, all your friends seen Drakkar's face, is it? Ha ha ha, we'll laugh at you forever for this!»
Virginie arrives and once she hears about Drakkar she laughs at her too.
All three go back to the bungalow where during the lunch Sibylle tells them everything about the night at the Palace. She spends many hours talking and laughing with them, then she decides to leave to meet Amelie, the old
‘
feathered
’
lady from the Gallery.
Amelie's villa is situated just outside the city of Versailles, and it's a grandiose building from the
1920
's. Sibylle is driving her colorful and noisy car on its private the tree-lined path. She parks in the courtyard before the villa and when she gets off the car a girl runs in front of her. Sibylle raises both her eyebrows: the smiling girl is wearing a pair of red knee socks, a black lace panties, she is topless and has a long elegant red hooded coat on her shoulders. She is also holding an open handled basket. Her make-up is just perfect and her hair is tied in two side ponytails. She looks over her back and runs away laughing. Sibylle petrifies when two naked men arrive there; they are wearing just a pair of combat boots and hairy werewolf masks. They look around growling.
«Where did she go?» asks one of them.
Sibylle points at the private wood to the left.
«Thanks!» they say in unison running that way and howling loudly.
«Sic her, boys!» shouts Sibylle amused.
«My dea
w
est Sibylline!» chirps Amelie going to her. «We a
w
e here, dea
w
, come!»
Sibylle smiles and runs to hug her tight, making the woman almost cry.
«Aww, I love you too, Sibylline, my child.»
Sibylle moves back and looks at her in admiration.
«Oh Amelie, you look so fine. The Steampunk style suits you perfectly!»
It is true, the old lady wears that style divinely. She is dressed in a long Victorian taffeta dress of two nuances of red. The wide skirt has the heavy fabric in the back folded many times as to form many waves. The white lace blouse is lovely and the dark rigid corset is adorned with many metallic cables and strange buttons. She is also wearing a black top hat with a pair of brass welding goggles wrapped around it.
«Oh, thank you, my dea
w.
» She takes Sibylle arm-in-arm and leads her to the vast garden which is part of her private park. «You a
ww
ived just in time fo
w
the desse
w
t, my dea
w
. This mo
w
ning I decided to have b
w
eakfast with f
w
iends, but you know how I hate
nowmal
things, so I asked my f
w
iends to d
w
ess in Steampunk style. What a su
w
p
w
ise when my dea
w
—
dea
w
est f
w
iends
—
a
ww
ived with those fabulous d
w
esses! We all we
w
e so beautiful that I called a photog
w
aphe
w
f
w
iend of mine to immo
w
talize us. We just finished to pose fo
w
the photos. If you
w
mothe
w
we
w
e he
w
e she would have loved this day.» Amelie looks up to the sky and smiles while the memories of her best friend caress her mind like a breeze that gently touches the surface of a lake. «She loved costumes. She loved being with he
w
f
w
iends.» she sighs softly. «But on a totally different subject, dea
w
, I wanted to tell you to not be shocked if you see
w
unning a
w
ound a gi
w
l d
w
essed like
w
ed
w
iding hood and two men d
w
essed like we
w
ewolves.
They a
w
e—
how can I put it?
—
they a
w
e
w
ealizing an e
w
otic fantasy of thei
w
s. I make my villa available to a Club that
—
Oh, it's too complicated, I don't want to bo
w
e you, Sibylline.»
Sibylle giggles.
«Amelie, are you talking about the Club D?»
The lady joins her own hands as she jumps in surprise.
«Sibylline! How do you
—
?»
«I'm a member of it.»
«Oh!» Amelie throws up her arms in celebration. «Finally you decided to get that ho
ww
ible
— ho
ww
ible! —
man out of you
w
mind! Sibylline, my house is you
w
house, and if you need it fo
w
a
w
endezvous you have only to ask.»
The lady puts an arm around Sibylle's shoulders and leads her to the garden where a dozen people dressed in fine Steampunk clothes are enjoying the dessert, sitting on blankets on the meadow and talking mannerly.

Sibylle holds her breath.
«Oh... It seems a Renoir painting
—
», she murmurs enraptured.
That people dressed in those Victorian-like clothes, wearing also strange brass parts are statically talking and sipping in the most perfect way, really seem the characters of a painting. The sun shines on them, the flowers and the trees seem drawn around the pond, and many aquatic birds doze on the crystal surface. Some small boats slip gently on the water, the men rowing slowly and the women holding a lace umbrella above their head.
Amelie smiles and introduce Sibylle to the others. Sibylle spends hours talking with many interesting people. People who may look ready for a carnival parade, but that are absolutely serious and calm in the way they are. Sibylle loves especially the men's clothes, they are really sophisticated and accurate in every detail. From the smallest detail like the brass of their garments, to the strange weapons with complicated mechanisms.

After a few hours, Sibylle wants to talk alone with Amelie: she need to tell her about Drakkar and the fact that lately Claude has almost disappeared from her thoughts. Amelie reacts with great joy at this news so decides to give her a divination.

The old woman, in fact, is the most famous seer of France, and her divination with precious stones is legendary.

She leads Sibylle to her
‘
prohibited garden maze
’
where no one is allowed without her permission. Amelie and Sibylle walk without saying a word. Sibylle knows the lady is concentrating, so she remains in respectful silence. The maze paths become narrower and the green hedges become higher. Suddenly the sky darkens and begins to thunder loudly. Now Sibylle is looking up smiling and enjoying that beautiful leaden sky; she closes her eyes and breaths deeply, feeling strangely free. She does like the stormy atmosphere. Amelie is still completely absorbed in her thoughts, in a sort of meditation. They arrive at the center of the maze, and Amelie stops near the large spiral at the center of the labyrinth and sits on the ground. Sibylle does the same. The old woman takes a white lace sachet from her pocket.
«Open you
w
hands, dea
w
.»
Sibylle extends her cupped hands and receives
28
small precious stones and semi precious stones, then she closes her eyes and concentrates, knowing what to do. She drops the stones in the center of the spiral and Amelie looks at them for long. The old woman begins to pick them up one at a time, starting with those more outward.
«No...», sighs in frustration Amelie.
Sibylle is alarmed, but waits for her to speak. Amelie collects almost all the stones leaving only three on the spiral: a purple crystal, a transparent stone and a black smooth stone. She softly touches one closing her eyes and finally looks at her.
«Sibylline, this amethyst is you.» she says showing her the purple crystal. «You a
w
e fa
w
f
w
om both those two stones ove
w
the
w
e and you a
w
e looking at them because you feel undecided between this t
w
anspa
w
ent qua
w
tz and this black onyx. Claude is the qua
w
tz, while this beautiful black onyx is the D
w
akka
w
you told me about. In the black onyx I see a man with no face; I see a bull, a sco
w
pion.» She closes her eyes for a second. «I see a falcon. A beautiful and majestic falcon.» She opens them again. «I don't know what that means, but what I see is a cou
w
agious man, a st
w
ong man, a good soul and a ve
w
y ve
w
y vi
w
ile male! He looks at you, he wants you, he deeply desi
w
es you, but it isn't in his natu
w
e to hunt; he
w
athe
w
p
w
otects what al
w
eady belongs to him. And you chose not to belong to him, not in the way he wants, at least. Sibylline, Claude is about to come back in you
w
life and he will unsettle it. You'll have to face an ha
w
d choice: Claude o
w
D
w
akka
w
.»
Amelie takes the quartz and the onyx, closes her eyes, mutters something e throws them toward the amethyst. The quartz falls right next to it almost touching it; the black onyx rolls far from it, in the perfect clockwise direction of the spiral. The old lady shakes her head and looks at Sibylle.
«You will choose Claude.»
Sibylle cheers with a joyful scream, then a long silence follows, a silence in which both the women are lost in their thoughts staring at the stones.
«But
— What about the onyx
», says Sibylle, «will it disappear from my life?»
Amelie sighs and nods slowly.
«I'm af
w
aid so, dea
w
. When you choose a man you do it to follow you
w
hea
w
t, don't you? What's w
w
ong, Sibylline? A
w
e you sta
w
ting to have doubts?» asks Amelie with a sly smile.
«No, simply I feel a bit sad, but it's the right thing to do, believe me. As you said he is just a shadow, a man with no face. And I want to go back with my husband, Amelie, I want to get back together with the man I fell in love with many years ago.»
«That man doesn't exists anymo
w
e, my dea
w
. If that man we
w
e been the same you would have been still with him. But he left without looking back. So why do you pe
w
sist in wanting him back?»
«Because that's what I want and I fight for what I want!»
Amelie frowns heavily.
«Sibylline, dea
w
, a
w
en't you Taoist? Shouldn't you follow the
“non-action”
p
w
inciple?»
«Yes, but I can't! I must
—
», she pauses realizing she is saying something stupid.
«Sibylline, dea
w
, can you please explain to me what “non-action” means again? Does it mean non acting, pe
w
haps?»
Sibylle shakes her head.
«No, it means not to force the events, not to struggle in order to push things in the direction you want them to go, because we don't know the whole picture of destiny.»
«That's
w
ight, my dea
w.
Please,
w
emind me why is that.»
«Because we are children of the universe, of the events, of the changes. We shouldn't fight against those forces, we must accept them.»
«That's
w
ight again, my dea
w
. Now, you have to unde
w
stand what's the
w
ight thing to do, the thing that will b
w
ing peace in the futu
w
e and then you just have to accept it. As it will be done into you it will be done in the unive
w
se. Neve
w
g
w
ieve ove
w
when things don't go the way you want, and you
—
my dea
w
—
a
w
e doing exactly that. You
w
desi
w
e to have Claude back at all costs it's moving the whole unive
w
se so that it can happen. And it will happen.»
«But that's exactly what I want!»
«What you want could not be what you
w
eally need, silly! You a
w
e fo
w
cing the events!»
«But I do love Claude.»
«And he'll be the one you'll choose. You will have you
w
Claude, losing this one.» says Amelie picking up the black onyx to putting it back in the white lace sachet. But she stops and hands it to Sibylle.
«He
w
e, dea
w
, keep it.»
«What? No! I don't want keep it, I know what they mean to you!»
«It's the stone that asked me to be given to you. It told me that wants to be kept by you fo
w
a while.»
«But I
—
»
«One day you'll give it back to me, dea
w
, don't wo
ww
y, I'm just lending it to you.»
Sibylle takes it and, as soon as her hand touches it, she feels a strange chill on her back. She looks at Amelie.
«Who gave it to you?»
«It belonged to my g
w
eat g
w
andfathe
w
. My fathe
w
told me that his g
w
andfathe
w
found it in the wood du
w
ing a full Moon night. A moonbeam coming th
w
ough the t
w
ees lit the stone which was laying on the g
w
ound nea
w
a st
w
eam.»
«Beautiful. I fear to lose it, Amelie.»
«Well, if you'll lose it... it means it wasn't meant to be with you.»
«But in this way you will lose it too!»
«Same thing goes fo
w
me: if it won't come back to me it means it doesn't belong to me anymo
w
e. It's the stone that choose with whom to stay.»
«Intriguing.» murmurs Sibylle looking at the black onyx.
«Keep it safe, Sibylline, because it neve
w
asks to be given to someone, that means it wants to guide you somewhe
w
e.»
«What I have to do then?»
«Nothing. Live you
w
life as always, fo
w
get the stone and don't think too much befo
w
e doing things. Follow you
w
instinct. It will talk to you when the time will come.»
A tremendous thunder echoes in the sky. The two women looks up at those huge black clouds.
«I better be going now, Amelie. I must get home to the cats and Verdâtre, I don't see them since yesterday!»
Amelie half-closes her eyes.
«Ve
w
dât
w
e?»
«Yes, it's a chrysalis. I look forward to see it turning into a beautiful butterfly.»
«It's a moth, dea
w
.»
They both get up.
«Oh? How can you be so sure?» asks Sibylle.
Amelie smiles, walking arm-in-arm with her and leading her out of the garden maze while the dark clouds amass in the sky.
«Because I've seen it in a d
w
eam.»
«And why you think it's Verdâtre?»
«Because in the d
w
eam it was in you
w
home. And f
w
om the
w
e it went to lay on a man's shoulde
w
—
»
«Was the man Claude?»
«So
ww
y, dea
w
, I didn't see his face.»
«Don't you remember any other clue?»
Amelie stops and closes her eyes, recollecting the dream.
It is night and she is fluctuating in Sibylle's apartment like a spirit. She sees Sibylle sleeping alone on her bed with the cats sleeping next to her, and then she sees the moth coming out of a glass case. She follows it for all its flight above the city then she sees it heading to the Notre Dame cathedral, where a bare chested and barefoot man is perching among the gargoyles. The moth goes to lay on his left shoulder, and in that moment he turns his head to look at that delicate creature. He just looks at her without touching it.
«No, dea
w
, nothing. His face is w
w
apped by the da
w
kness, I'm so
ww
y.»
Just before it starts to rain, Sibylle arrives at her car, greets Amelie with a big hug and departs noisily. The old lady waves at her while she honks. Amelie sighs and heads inside where her friends are waiting for her in the ballroom for the
—
Oh! She stops and turns to Sibylle whom now is too far away.
«The sca
w
...», murmurs the woman remembering clearly a fresh scar on the left shoulder of the man in the dream, just when the moth rested on.