Summary

In Chapter 3, Sebastien comes home just before Irene’s 17th birthday. Ursule senses him before he even arrives and she runs up to him, smudging his coat with dirt from the garden. Irene notices the contrast between her parents, and she begins to wonder if her mother uses magic to keep Sebastien. After Ursule and Sebastien go to bed, Irene goes down to the cellar and finds the recipe for a potion “to persuade the reluctant lover,” which her mother had forbidden her to learn (187). Irene reads the recipe and becomes convinced her mother never used it on her father. Looking at the page with the recipe in the grimoire, Irene feels the “first stirrings” of her power in her belly (188). Irene believes her power is coming and she wants to be a witch more than any woman ever...