Secrets of the Snakestone

First published in the UK in 2024 by Nosy Crow Ltd

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Text copyright © Piu DasGupta, 2024 Cover illustration copyright © Helen Crawford-White, 2024

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ISBN: 978 1 83994 631 8

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In memory of my father, Somdeb DasGupta

Paris has beneath it another Paris; a Paris of sewers; which has its streets, its crossroads, its squares, its blind-alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is of slime, minus the human form…

The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges and confronts everything else. In that livid spot there are shades, but there are no longer any secrets. Each thing bears its true form, or at least, its definitive form. The mass of filth has this in its favour, that it is not a liar… All the uncleannesses of civilization, once past their use, fall into this trench of truth… All which was formerly rouged, is washed free. The last veil is torn away.

A sewer is a cynic. It tells everything…

Extracted from Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Prologue The Talisman

In the moonlight under the Eiffel Tower sat a sewer rat. Crowds of people milled about the tower. They had come to see this exciting landmark, only a few years old. But the rat was not interested in it or them. It slipped with the moonlight through a grating in the pavement and disappeared from sight.

The rat scurried into a drain and down, down, down into the bowels of the city. It ran along the channels where the Romans had collected urine to use as mouthwash.

It ran through the old, disused private latrine of the guillotined king. It ran under the toilets of the Opera House. It ran and it ran until it reached a spot in the north of the city, where a man and a boy were busy working underground, trying to unblock a sewer.

The rat plopped into the river of black water rushing through the sewer. Through its beady eyes it spotted a small gold object winking and glistening on the riverbank. Waves of vibration flowed from the object through the water. The rat paddled hard to get away, sensing something deep and slow and older than the city or the earth upon which it was built.

The boy spotted the glistening gold object too. He picked it up curiously. It resembled two halves of a walnut shell, opening on a hinge and shutting with a small clasp. Some sort of locket perhaps. Carved into the surface were letters in a strange spidery script. The boy bit the metal expertly. It was solid gold. As he held the thing in his hand, it seemed to heat up and vibrate, throbbing in his palm with a powerful energy. The boy was used to finding strange things at work in the sewers: snakes, watches, wallets, guns, a baby, an alligator, a twenty-carat diamond (which the Paris authorities had confiscated). Once even a human torso. But this thing seemed to have a life of

its own. It twitched in his palm like a living organ, giving off a halo of sickly greenish-yellow light.

The boy looked at the blue metal plaque on the sewer wall that identified the name of the street above. Rue Morgue. One of those streets with swanky houses, some even equipped with the latest flushing toilets. The object must have come from one of those. He slipped it into his pocket. It might be valuable. Perhaps he would get some money for returning it. He decided to try to find the house the next day.

Far above the boy’s head, in one of the tall houses on Rue Morgue, a toilet finished flushing. A figure shut the door of the marble-tiled water closet and crept stealthily away. Only the old night owl that slept in the rafters of the Sacré-Coeur heard and saw.

On flew the night owl, skimming over the rooftops of Rue Morgue, swooping over a skylight to a small attic room where a girl tossed in uneasy sleep. The wind whined through a crack in the skylight and the girl’s bed was crooked, hard and unyielding. But it was not for that reason she tossed and turned.

The owl flew back to its perch in the eaves of the cathedral. And the girl slept on fitfully, fretting and muttering, until dawn broke, and the city awoke.

1

The Witch

Zélie prodded the dead canary. The bird lay stiff on its back in the morning light, legs in the air, eyes open and staring, unseeing.

Standing on tiptoe, Zélie stretched her hand further through the door of the gilded cage. She stroked the bird’s tummy, as soft and fluffy as a baby chick’s. She wondered if they would bury it or throw it on the rubbish heap.

“The

Lord have mercy on us…” Blanche, the maid, had appeared in the hall and began to back away, crossing

herself. Picking up her long skirts, she rushed back down the corridor. “The witch! The witch has done it again! Cook, Pierre, come quickly!”

Zélie tossed the fringe of thick curly black hair out of her eyes, which were still puffy from her sleepless night. She caught a glimpse of the cat’s tail whisking out of sight behind the door and braced herself for what was to come. Soon she heard Pierre the butler’s fast footsteps approaching, followed by the shuffling tread of Cook. As they entered the room, their jaws dropped open in unison. Cook fanned herself while Pierre rushed to the birdcage.

Zélie pointed to the muddy paw prints on the floor below the cage. “The cat. The bird must have died of fright…” She faltered. She knew it was useless. Whatever she said, she would be blamed for the bird’s death.

Cook and Pierre crossed themselves.

“Come on, witch.” Pierre seized Zélie by her frilly maid’s collar and dragged her through the hall to the kitchen. He dumped her on a chair by the stove.

“Sizzling saucisses! That’s three incidents this week, Zélie Dutta.” Cook folded her sweaty arms and glared at Zélie. “First Madame’s earrings disappear, then the milk goes sour. Now this. And it’s only Tuesday!”

“It’s Wednesday, not Tuesday.” Zélie corrected her. Cook’s brain was getting foggier by the day. It must be all that absinthe she kept drinking.

Cook’s face turned as puce as a lobster. “I said Wednesday. Are you deaf?”

Zélie rolled her eyes. She got off the chair and went to the kitchen door, marched through it and pulled it shut behind her, sticking her tongue out when it was closed. Through the keyhole she could just about make out Cook’s muffled voice.

“It isn’t natural, is it? That girl’s peepers. One eye the colour of an angel, the other that of the devil himself. And coming from foreign parts. She must be a witch! There’s no other explanation. There’s more devil than angel in that ferret, I’ll bet.”

“Hush, it’s not up to you to question Madame’s judgement,” Blanche retorted. “The mistress must have reasons for keeping the girl here. Madame will be back later. I’ll make sure she knows about this. Just mind your own business and keep your head down.” Through the keyhole Zélie saw the maid making for the kitchen door, so she beat a hasty retreat upstairs.

The attic room was hot and stuffy. Zélie stood on tiptoe and opened the skylight, then sat down at the rickety table pushed to the wall with a cracked mirror

propped against it. She glared at the reflection in the mirror. Brown skin, freckles, black hair popping untidily like champagne corks out of her maid’s cap. Nothing to look twice at. Except for one thing, only noticeable on close scrutiny: the left eye was sea grey, the right was obsidian black. Sighing, she pulled open a drawer in the table and brought out a sheet of paper and pen. A few hours before Madame was due back from her visit to the country. Plenty of time to write a letter. She sat down at the desk and wrote in a clear, fluid hand.

The Attic

36 Rue Morgue, Paris

Wednesday morning, 16th October 1895

Dear Baba,

Please can I come home? I hate it here. Madame Malaise is a monster and everybody blames me for everything because they say I am a witch. They also accuse me of stealing.

Respectfully your daughter,

Zélie

The Attic

36 Rue Morgue, Paris

Wednesday morning, 16th October 1895

Dear Baba,

Everything is fine. Paris is a very nice city and I am getting lots of exercise polishing the stairs. I am also eating lots of vegetables, mainly turnip gruel, and I have made friends with a pigeon. Today the canary died.

Respectfully your daughter, Zélie

Zélie knew her letters were read before they were sent. She looked up at the clouds drifting past behind the iron bars of the skylight. Even after a year and a half here in Paris the memories remained, dull and nagging like toothache. The clatter of rickshaws on bustling dirt roads. Baba, with his twinkling eyes and strong arms, swinging her on to his shoulders as if she were as light as a leaf. The squeak of her grandmother’s wicker chair during a rainy monsoon night as she paused thoughtfully in telling a story.

Groping with her hand to the very back of the

drawer, Zélie pulled out a bundle of papers tied with a piece of ribbon. She opened it and leafed through the letters. They were full of news from back home, jokes and riddles. Especially riddles, which she and her dad both loved. Such as:

Smooth, ripe, mellow, Luscious, creamy, yellow. One thing that’s my trait, I am never straight.

What am I?

The answer would always be tucked away somewhere else in the letter for Zélie to find – hidden in another word, or upside down, or on a slip of paper, or a word that could only be read in a mirror:

banana

But for two whole months now, there had been no letter from Baba. Just an eerie, deafening silence. A slow dread began to creep stealthily into Zélie’s brain. What if—

A soft cooing from the skylight woke her from her

reverie. She looked up. Two beady orange eyes stared down at her. Zélie jumped on the chair and pushed open the grating. She dug in her apron pocket and brought out a crust of baguette. The pigeon hopped about on the slate tiles of the roof expectantly.

“Coucou, Rodolphe.” Zélie broke up the crust and tossed the pieces on the roof, watching the pigeon hopping after them as they bounced down the tiles. One of Rodolphe’s clawed feet was missing, but he did a pro’s job of hopping on the other. He came every day, and Zélie was always sure to save a bit of baguette for him, even though she was usually quite hungry herself. “You’ve only got one foot,” she told him. “But you’ve got two beautiful orange eyes.”

The breeze coming through the skylight was thick with the smell of roasting chicken, leather harnesses and horse dung from the street below. Cautiously Zélie pushed the grating aside and climbed out through the skylight. She perched on the grey slate roof next to Rodolphe. The slope was very steep, but that didn’t bother Zélie. She’d climbed the palm trees back home many times, racing against the neighbour’s boys to get coconuts. Below her the chequered roofs of the city lay spread out in the morning haze like a giant’s chessboard.

Zélie leaned against the warm chimney stack. From the pocket of her apron she pulled a large book with the title The Parisian Lady’s Maid’s Handbook printed on its cover. She flipped it open to reveal a second cover beneath: The Mysteries of Paris, a book she had stolen from the house library when she was supposed to be dusting. It told the story of the adventures in Paris of a certain Count Rodolphe, an expert in kick-boxing. Zélie had eagerly absorbed the kick-boxing techniques, which were described in detail in the book, and considered herself something of an expert in this art. She had named the pigeon Rodolphe in honour of the hero.

Soon Zélie was lost in a sword fight on the banks of the Seine. Beside her, Rodolphe hopped on his single foot, beady orange eyes blinking. The city murmured to itself far below, like an old lady mumbling in her sleep. Bliss.

CRASH!

An ear-splitting noise ripped the air. Rodolphe dropped the piece of bread he had been pecking and flapped noisily away. Zélie jumped to her feet and swung back down through the skylight, landing with a smack on her bottom on the hard wooden floor. She ran to the door of the attic and opened it, crossing the

landing and peering over the bannister.

The spiral attic staircase twisted down to the floor below, which was strewn with chunks of gold and pink and blue. There was a low sobbing sound. Bending over the sea of colour was Blanche’s red head. A cloth and open tin of polish were scattered on the carpet.

The sound of scuffling feet rose from below. Pierre’s glistening bald head came into view. The bald head stopped beside Blanche and the sea of broken china.

“In God’s name, what’s going on?” The butler seized Blanche and shook her roughly by the shoulders.

“The Ormolu porcelain vase from the Palace of Versailles! You’ve smashed it! Are you mad, girl? That vase is priceless! Do you want us all to be sent to the guillotine when Madame gets back?”

The maidservant’s sobbing had risen to a wail. Zélie took a tiny step back towards the attic door. She had to get away.

A floorboard creaked. The two heads below lifted and became upturned faces.

“It was her!” Blanche shrieked, pointing a trembling finger. “I was polishing the vase and she came out on to the landing. She stared at me and made the sign of the devil. The vase smashed that very minute!”

2 andSoapWater

Pierre lunged up the stairs to the attic four steps at a time. When he reached the landing, he stopped and circled Zélie, crossing himself and shielding his face with his hands. “Mon Dieu, protect me from this witch… St Thomas, St Pierre, St François, defend me!” He dug about in his pocket and whipped out a string of garlic, which all the servants had taken to carrying since Zélie arrived. He thrust it under her nose.

It felt as if her face had been shoved into a sailor’s armpit. She began to retch.

“The charm’s working! Garlic always works on your kind.” Pierre grinned triumphantly, although beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead and his false teeth were chattering like a cage of monkeys. He stretched out a trembling hand.

Still gagging on the garlic smell, Zélie felt herself seized by his grip, which was surprisingly strong, and thrust back into the attic.

The door slammed shut. Pierre’s falsetto voice hissed through the keyhole like an angry wasp. “You can stay in there, witch. The mistress will be back later this morning; you’ll have to face the music then.” The key turned in the lock.

A heavy silence descended on the house. As if in a dream, Zélie walked to the table with the cracked mirror. The notepaper and letter still lay on the table skew-whiff as she had left them. A dribble from the pen was spreading on the paper in an inky pool. Zélie peered out of the window to see if Rodolphe had come back, but the sky was empty. The cracked mirror scowled back at her. She turned it to the wall. Clenching her fists so tight that she left eight red half-moon marks in her palms, she kicked the iron bed frame.

There has to be an escape.

There is no escape. There has to be.

There isn’t. Yes there is.

No there isn’t.

Her brain turned in circles like a dog chasing its tail. And then, suddenly, it dawned on her like an exploding camera flash. She didn’t need to find an escape. She had simply to escape.

Hurriedly Zélie crossed the floor to the smaller of the two iron beds, the one that was hers. The other belonged to her fellow maidservant Blanche. She pulled a knapsack from under it and opened a drawer. She threw some things into the bag. Not too many: nobody must notice anything missing. Just one change of clothes, the precious letters from her dad, the few francs she had managed to save. She would stow away on a ship and return to India. Baba might be disappointed that she had not made a go of things, but when he knew the truth about her misery, he would surely understand.

Her brain seethed with resentment, tears stabbing her eyes. It was all so unfair. She had never understood

why she had been shipped to Paris from her home in Calcutta in the first place. Supposedly she’d been sent over as a housemaid because the Malaise family had lent her father some money, and offering her services was the only way to pay them back. But there had been something cloak-and-dagger about the whole affair. She couldn’t see why Baba had played along with a plan that meant taking her out of school and the home she shared with him and her beloved grandma Tami. Even though he owed the Malaises money, surely he could have found some way to pay back the loan other than sending her out here to work for them? It must have torn his heart. There had been something so sad, so resigned in the slow wave he had given her as the ship left the dock. Then there was the worrying fact that he hadn’t written to her for two months. The sooner she got home to make sure everything was all right, the better.

Zélie went to the locked door and shook it. It rattled but remained closed. She was not fazed. Pulling a hairgrip from her pocket, she jiggled it in the lock. There was a soft click. She opened the door and peered out cautiously. There was nobody in sight. Taking one step forward and several deep breaths, she shut her eyes and counted to ten.

Zélie Dutta, she reminded herself, you have beaten Vikram Sen, thrice champion of Bowbazar Street, at climbing for coconuts, and your own father five times at chess (the last time he cheated). You do a better roundhouse kick than Count Rodolphe. You have crushed the head of a poisonous cobra with your naked heel and you can twist your tongue. You can fart with your armpit and curse in three languages. You deserve better than this and you can escape.

She opened her eyes. All was quiet and deserted. It was just a matter of a hop down the sweeping staircase, a skip across the marble hall and a jump out on to the porch steps. Then she would be on the road to freedom.

Within a moment she had reached the bottom of the sweeping staircase. She looked left, then right down the marble hallway. A murmur of voices floated down from the salon upstairs. Pierre and Blanche were getting the room ready for guests later that day. The coast was clear.

Picking up her long skirts, she ran across the hall. She stretched out her hand to the front door and turned the big brass doorknob. It twisted, the door swung open and she ran out, smack into the mistress of the house.

“Zélie Dutta!” Madame Malaise’s eyebrows shot up and her thin painted lips parted in an “o”. Behind her, a large black carriage was parked on Rue Morgue. Madame had returned to Paris from the country earlier than expected.

“What on earth is going on?” Madame glared at Zélie and the three other servants, who at that moment appeared on the staircase. “Blanche, explain.”

The maid dropped her gaze and her usually pale face flamed up to match her red hair. “I was cleaning the Ormolu vase from Versailles. I looked up and saw Zélie on the landing. She made the sign of the devil and the vase broke.”

“I did not!” Zélie stamped her foot and glared at Blanche. “Dammit, you’re a lying snake! You broke the vase yourself.”

Madame Malaise’s eyes narrowed. She grasped Blanche by her frilly maid’s collar and yanked her up so that she hung limply like an unstrung marionette.

“Do you take me for a fool? The girl’s a foreigner, but she’s not a witch. You broke the vase yourself, didn’t you?”

Blanche remained silent.

Madame Malaise gave a throaty chuckle, like a hyena swooping on its kill. “Just as well the vase isn’t

genuine. Do you think I’d be stupid enough to have a treasure from Versailles in this house full of clumsy oafs? Oh no, the real Versailles vase is safely locked up in a bank vault on the Champs-Élysées. That was a copy. But I’ll dock your wages next month anyway for breaking it. And the next month’s too for lying.”

“Yes, Madame.” Blanche’s body slumped in Madame’s grasp and her head drooped. But her eyes spat green venom in Zélie’s direction.

“And now for you.” Madame turned to Zélie. “You can have your mouth rinsed in soap for swearing. Cook, do it now.” Madame snapped her fingers at the coachman to bring her trunk inside and swept up the stairs in a rustle of silk and furs.

“Come on, you little weasel.” Fleshy, greasy fingers grasped Zélie by the shoulders. She found herself being picked up and tucked under Cook’s sweaty armpit and carried down the hall to the kitchen. Rough hands pushed her down. A blast of freezing water struck her head. Zélie coughed and spluttered as a waxy brick was thrust into her mouth, melting into vinegary foam that frothed over her tongue and up her nostrils.

Cook’s voice thundered in her ear. “That’ll rinse out your foul mouth, you witch.”

SQUAWK!

There was a flutter of wings and a loud caw. Peering up from the sink, Zélie glimpsed Rodolphe hopping on his single foot on the windowsill. He must have spotted her through the kitchen window and flown down in the hope of a snack.

“Rodolphe, go away!” She tried to shout the warning, but all that came out was a wet gurgle. A cascade of soapy suds flew from the sink on to the pigeon and he shot up from the windowsill into the air, a flurry of feathers and angry squawks. A massive splurge of yellow liquid shot from his bottom and splattered over Cook’s head.

She screamed. “Mon Dieu! Wretched bird. Wait till I get hold of you. You’ll be pigeon pie before I’m done!”

The iron grip on Zélie’s neck loosened. Retching and spitting, she raised her head out of the sink. Her knees shook and her vision swam.

Cook’s face floated before her, blotched red and white, mixed with the mustard-coloured goo that had been Rodolphe’s parting shot. She shook her fist at Zélie. “Witch! I heard you summon that bird to fly down and dump on me—”

One of the bells by the kitchen dresser jangled. Cook’s face turned the colour of mouldy cheese.

Then she pulled herself together and boomed like a foghorn. “Boudoir Number One! Madame will want help getting ready for her morning promenade. Get to it!” She wiped her face with her apron.

Zélie didn’t need to be told twice. Shooting like a bullet from the sink, she stumbled through the kitchen door and across the hall, tucking her hair under her maid’s cap as she tottered up the stairs.