LITMIR.BIZ

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the chalice,” I admitted, though it would feel right to uncover it here at Melusine Central. “Just…a clue. Something. We have to start somewhere, don’t we?”

      He looked around us and murmured, “Three fair figures…”

      That was the first line of the nursery rhyme that my family has passed down for generations, seeming nonsense with a hidden meaning—like “Ring around the Rosie” being about the bubonic plague, or “Mary Quite Contrary” being the Queen of Scots. Nursery rhymes rarely attracted the attention of people in power, so they made a great treasure map.

      Ours started, “Three fair figures, side by side…” As a child, I’d pictured people; kids are that literal. As a scholar, I knew the “figures” could be anything, standing stones or towers or trees or buildings.

      Nothing stood in threes at Lusignan. Not that we could see.

      My phone rang again. Lex. This time I just turned it off. My inner good-girl protested that it could be important, it could be an emergency, how could I be so selfish….

      AKA the Eve Syndrome, holding ourselves responsible for everything. Ten years ago, before I had a cell phone, I couldn’t have stressed about it. I chose not to this time, either.

      Instead, I raised my face to the blue sky, breathing in the fresh air. “This isn’t where we need to be looking.”

      “I was afraid you’d say that.” Rhys spread his arms to indicate the commons around us. “So where do we go next?”

      “To the women,” I decided, looking down the hill toward the two-lane road—and a Romanesque church that had survived the castle’s destruction. “And since I’m not ready to go door-to-door asking questions, I suggest we try St. Hilaire down there.”

      Why did I sense that Rhys didn’t like my suggestion? He didn’t frown. He just said, after a moment, “Do you want to borrow my handkerchief?”

      For my head. This was Europe.

      “Thanks,” I said, accepting the neatly folded cloth.

      “I’ll get the car and meet you outside.”

      Once upon a time, the women of Lusignan would have gathered around the town well to wash clothes or collect water, and to bond. Wells are famous for their goddess connections.

      If you’ve ever tossed a penny into a fountain and made a wish, some part of your soul must have understood their magic.

      With the advent of modern plumbing, we’ve lost that. Now, elderly Catholic women tend to congregate at church.

      The twelfth-century St. Hilaire de Lusignan had thick walls, round arches, and heavy piers instead of mere pillars. Its graying stone and blue-slate roof hinted at what the castle may have looked like—beautiful. When I pushed through one of its heavy double doors, I stepped into the scent of centuries of incense and wax and wood polish, of Yuletide greenery and Easter flowers, of continued faith. And it felt…

      It felt powerful in a way few places can.

      You don’t have to be Catholic, much less a practicing one, to appreciate the holiness of such a place.

      As my eyes adjusted to the shadows, I respectfully draped the handkerchief over my hair. In random pews, pretending not to notice my invasion of their territory, knelt three old women.

      Yes.

      On instinct, I strode to the front pew, genuflected, then sidestepped in and sat near the woman I assumed was most important who, kneeling, was saying her rosary. She had woven a crown out of her white braids. She wore a black shawl over that, and a black dress, and a thin wedding band.

      She seemed somehow timeless. That made sense. Old women, wise women, are the most powerful brand females come in.

      If I’d had a rosary, this would be easier. Instead, I unclasped the chain that held my chalice-well pendant and laid it on the wooden pew between us, in a loop.

      When the woman beside me said “Amen” and slanted her gaze toward the chain, I murmured, “Un cercle et un cercle.”

      Her sunken eyes searched my face suspiciously, slid with disapproval to my camisole, then dropped to the necklace. Then, as I’d hoped, she looped her rosary across it. “Pour toujours.”

      Basically, “Circle to circle, never an end.”

      I’d made contact.

      “I apologize for interrupting your prayers,” I whispered, still in French, but she shook her head.

      “St. Hilaire hears from me each day. He will not mind some peace. You have come for the fairy, oui?”

      “I’m here for her cup.”

      She snorted.

      “Is it not time for the cup to be found?” I asked gently.

      “Perhaps…perhaps. But few daughters are worthy to find it. Few understand its power.”

      “Then help me to understand.”

      Her chin came up as she looked me over again; cargo pants, spaghetti straps. I’d left the backpack with Rhys. “You are too young and too beautiful. You will not want to understand.”

      Not want to? “But I do. Please!”

      She picked up her rosary, dismissing me. So I added, as quickly as I could, “‘Three fair figures, side by side.’”

      I said it in English, but the old woman must have understood, because she lowered the beads to her lap. She crossed herself for Saint Hilaire, turned back to me and said in English with a heavy French accent, “Go on.”

      I recited:

      “Three fair figures, side by side,

      Mother, son and brother’s bride.

      In the hole where hid her queen,

      Waits the cup of Melusine.”

      The old woman nodded slowly, intrigued. “Perhaps you are one of us, at that.”

      “But that doesn’t tell me where the figures are, what they are. It doesn’t say if the hole is a pit or a cave or a well.”

      “Non!” My companion reverted to French. She seemed to like French better, and she was old enough to demand what she liked. “It tells more, if you only listen correctly.”

      “I want to.” I touched her hand in supplication. “Please…”

      She sharply nodded her decision. “You must drink of it.”

      I blinked. “Excuse me?”

      “You must promise that, should Melusine’s daughters help you in this, you will not forsake her. Should you find her chalice, you must drink her essence. Or you must let her sleep.”

      “But…” My intellectual, academic side was having major trouble with this. I was supposed to drink out of an ancient cup? Couldn’t that screw with carbon dating or DNA? And how did I know what the cup had last held? The likelihood of something gross like poison or blood sacrifices was low, but still!

      Still… “I will.”

      “Then you will regret it.”

      Was she trying to piss me off? “I promise to do as you ask, if you help me find the cup.”

      The woman beside me turned—in several ungainly lurches, her body no longer as lithe as it surely once had been—to look behind her. I followed her gaze and saw that the other two old women had been unapologetically eavesdropping. The three were somehow one, I realized, logical or not. They went together like the Norns or the Fates or the Wyrd Sisters.

      They nodded in answer to my companion’s silent question.

      She turned back to me and said, very intensely:

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