Magdalena had been a striking woman in her youth. Never beautiful in the classical sense of the term, she was an intelligent woman of immense charm, infectious wit and tremendous magnetism who – being quite self-assured, with that groomed and finely lacquered sense of entitlement which had been her birthright – knew damn well how to make herself desired. She never lacked for suitors. And I mean “suitors” as her background and pedigree – in that old world Latin aristocratic sense – made her a good catch and she wasn’t ever going to settle for someone not her peer. I’m quite certain, even now, that back then she was as sensual and hot blooded as any other young woman, so to pretend she had never lived or loved in those years prior her marriage to the elegant and cultivated Sebastian would be the grossest of lies. The match, however, was of the right sort and the marriage, in its initial passion, soon produced several children barely a year apart. I believe those initial years together were quite happy ones.

Her father, the marques, was a charming gentleman and no fool. Her mother was an insufferable snob. A capable and successful businessman in his own right, the marques managed his family’s patrimony with care whilst keeping his various fingers in several pies, some of them in what was then still an overseas province in Africa when that territory was still a colony. Whilst much of the western world was concerned with free love and the counter-culture, The Empire, although in denial and rapidly coming apart at the seams, had spent those years under assault on various fronts from restless natives who’s eyes were being opened. Independence in the mid seventies, of course, put an end to the gravy train but the old boy had had the foresight to see the inevitable and had extracted himself from Africa with time to spare and with little more than a scratch or two.

Magdalena’s first brush with the occult happened in her late teens whilst on holiday in Africa and was quite casual and benign. A friend had told her of a native woman of “certain gifts” who told fortunes to the wives and daughters of the white and well-healed and would she like to come along. In all probability this woman was more of a charlatan rather than being a genuine clairvoyant – busy milking all those gullible and vacant chatterboxes who’s means far exceeded their sense. However, whatever was whispered that day behind closed doors made Magdalena smile and it piqued her interest. Despite her natural inclination to skepticism, the episode left her rather intrigued; enough to find that afternoon’s excursion more than just an entertaining distraction.

A few years later political events back home came to a head and the Ancien Régime collapsed quite suddenly. Those who thought they might have to fear for their lives in the ensuing turmoil dropped what it was they were doing and scampered, as best they could, like thieves in the night. Magdalena and Sebastian, like many others in those uncertain April days, threw their young family and a change of clothes in the back of the car and crossed the ominously calm border in the dead of night. Two days later they found themselves in Paris as émigrés.

Having some means at their disposal and being educated and urbane, they rapidly settled down to a new life in their adopted city in the company of a rapidly growing Diaspora of their fellow nationals. Sebastian soon found work with a firm of good standing for a decent if somewhat modest salary and the kids were placed in respectable private schools. Times weren’t necessarily easy but some sense of normality returned in due course despite ongoing concerns with events back home. There were also financial issues lurking in the background and Sebastian’s prospects for promotion and advancement, despite proving himself to be capable and competent, were seemingly somewhat hampered by his being an outsider and something of an unknown quantity to his employers.

It was a few months later that Magdalena, at lunch and through a mutual friend, bumped into her old friend Kika from those carefree days back in Africa. Despite having moved in overlapping social circles back home before the coup, they had somewhat lost touch over the years so it was fun to reminisce about the past and rediscover how much they enjoyed each others’ company. Despite the recent events, finding themselves uprooted and having to start a new life of sorts, Kika said that she and her husband were doing rather well. Did Magdalena remember that time they went to see the clairvoyant? Magdalena laughed it off and replied how it at had all been rather fun and rather silly. At this Kika lowered her voice and her face took on something of a grave expression; all that had been child’s play, she said. She was now in touch, here in Paris, with another woman of an entirely different caliber. This woman was rather good. Times were hard for everyone sitting at that table but this person might be able to be of help. Would Magdalena like to meet her?

A few days later she called the number Kika had given her and was given an appointment for that afternoon at an address in the 20th. She found the place with some time to spare and climbed the six floors up to the attic to be greeted at the door by a young girl in her teens who ushered her in without saying a word. The room was small and cramped,  spartan but very clean;the ceiling sloping down towards the left as of the centre of the room.  The girl gestured that Magdalena was to sit for now and pointed towards the grey canvas sofa facing the window, before she disappeared through a door at the other end of the room.  The only other person in the room was a young man in his twenties sitting at the far end of the sofa, quite motionless and gazing out the window. He didn’t so much as blink when Magdalena sat down next to him. Something in the air smelled sickly sweet. The door at the other end of the room was opened and the young man got up and went in. Ten or so minutes later he re emerged and left the flat in a hurry, walking past Magdalena as if she wasn’t even there.

A clear but high-pitched voice summoned her from the adjoining room. The woman was of slight build, gray haired and evidently in the evening of her life but of an unsettlingly fresh complexion and she sat, in her floral housedress, behind an old kitchen table. The room was completely bare apart from an empty stool in front of the table that the woman indicated Magdalena should sit on. Daylight flooded in through the window to the left but there was a pregnant, toxic density in the room that heightened her pulse. The sweet stench in the air was almost overpowering. What did she want and how could she be of service, the woman asked?

What Magdalena requested initially was quite modest in many respects and most probably motivated by the right sort of concerns. The woman assured her that none of that would be a problem but that there would be a fee of some significance and that she would need a series of objects and ingredients that would have to be procured for the necessary rituals. Magdalena paid the woman upfront and left the flat with a curious shopping list, most of which could be obtained from your average grocers; 18 eggs, 12 white candles, bay leaves, rosemary, and so on. The woman was as good as her word and results were fast in appearing and quite tangible. Here began something that Magdalena found easy and convenient to fall back on and the expediency of it all made it rather addictive. Things began to go rather well for them on the whole and all this in exchange for nothing more than a grocer’s list of items and a few bits of paper. All this time in Paris – the best part of sixteen years – the woman received her in the same flat, in the same manner and never seeming to age. Magdalena, though, changed considerably, as something silent, invisible, creeping and pestilent began to consume her from within. Her complexion became tight and sallow and her charm and light began to vanish to be replaced by an implicit resentment and acidity that became her odour to all but the most obtuse.

The years passed and the children grew into young adults. Paris had been good to them in their time of exile but after sixteen years it was time to leave and God forbid the kids forgetting who they were and getting too comfortable with “going native”. Things back home had changed in leaps and bounds and the country was blossoming once again, led by a young but maturing democracy and with a well managed economy being kept quite nicely on the boil.

Mariana by now was turning into a beautiful young woman of eighteen. At first glance her manner was gentle and well natured but this only obscured her intelligence and her strong character, amplified by adolescent irreverence and further tempered by her broad and foreign upbringing. Having nothing to prove, she ran rings around so many of those narrow-minded fools that she was forever being reminded were her social peers. One day she had the affront to bring home a young foreigner that quite clearly she was romantically entangled with. Magdalena was not the slightest bit impressed. On the surface he was pleasant enough but he had no business running after Mariana as if the world would end without her. Magdalena banked on this being a silly fad that would die a natural death once Mariana had got tired of him. As it happened, the fad went on for rather longer than she supposed it would but, although fuming, Magdalena bade her time. In a few months he would be off to university in Paris and that would be the end of the matter. And she would see to it.

He left for Paris in September smitten with Mariana and with the heaviest of hearts. One morning, not long after, Magdalena burst into Mariana’s room whilst she still lay asleep in bed, and wiped the floor with her. Later in the day, when Mariana had gone off to lectures, Magdalena went back to her room and picked up a couple of items the boy had left her. At this she called Kika who gave her the number of someone she knew.

What Magdalena then consented to at the meeting she had with that agent of filth is something that she must and will answer for the day she moves on to meet her maker. The two items she took with her she gave the woman as a marker. The boy, she was assured, would be stripped dry and banished from further contact with Mariana for years to come. The woman was as good as her word. A bright young boy was inexplicably crippled; his life ruined by the malice of a miserable woman.