The Romeo Catchers

by Arden, Alys

  I wanted to ask her if she was going to take the job—I knew how sensitive she was about the café staying open—but her posture gave me pause. She’d stuffed her hands into her pockets, as if to ensure that I wouldn’t be able to hold one . . . or maybe it was so she didn’t accidentally throw a fireball at me.

  I touched her arm, she jerked it away, and I instantly regretted everything I’d said back at the brothel. I knew she had this intense guilt over what we did on Halloween night, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Why can’t I get her to see that it’s misplaced? That she didn’t do anything wrong? That they’re monsters! I’d just thought, if she knew Désirée was watching, she wouldn’t feel tempted to unlock the door . . . and maybe wouldn’t be so guilt ridden and anxious. Now that sounded stupid even in my head. And now I’d started World War Three with the coven.

  You’re an effing dumbass.

  I definitely hadn’t intended to start a fight between her and Désirée, especially not the night before their first day of school, where they’d soon be reading Shakespeare under the same roof as that douche-pire and his family. And I sure as hell hadn’t wanted to make her this mad at me.

  I looked her way. Her jaw was tightly clenched.

  Don’t do anything. Don’t say anything. Just let her cool off.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I asked, as if I had some disease that physically made words come out of my mouth.

  “I don’t know. Walk in and ask if anyone’s a witch? Or if any of them are descendants of a Native American princess? Or I just give up on Mémé et Pépé and their American dream and take the job.”

  “Hey,” I said, pulling her arm.

  She stopped but didn’t look at me.

  “You’re not giving up on them. I know I didn’t know them, but I’m sure they’d want you to be happy, Adele. And being in that place all the time does not make you happy.”

  Her eyes didn’t lift from the ground, but she didn’t lash out at me either. It felt like a small win. Not wanting to push my luck, I didn’t say anything else. My hand went to her back, which stiffened, and we continued to walk.

  World Famous

  BOTTOM OF THE CUP TEAROOM

  EST. 1929

  New Orleans

  Psychic Readings

  Rust dripped from the blue metal sign, which was shaped like a teacup and saucer and looked retro enough to be in a signage museum. Adele pushed the door open and went ahead without so much as a glance in my direction.

  The feeling hit as soon as we crossed the threshold—kind of like when Adele took me to Vodou Pourvoyeur for the first time. Although, the Voodoo shop always felt earthy and warm; this place felt dark and frigid. Not in a scary way, just . . . mystical. A chill swept up my neck as I closed the door behind us.

  I rubbed my arms as we passed round black-and-white café tables that were carved like zodiac circles and approached the glass counter, which stretched the width of the shop. Behind it a dark corridor led deep into the back of the house like a tunnel.

  An emo-looking guy behind the counter spoke to Adele as we approached. “Clearly we’re destined to know each other.”

  “Ha,” she said warmly, “did you ever make it to Arcadian?”

  “I did, and you were right: they have stellar old-book smell.”

  Based on their conversation, it was hard to tell how well they knew each other.

  He glanced over her shoulder at me. “And with the barista—the nightwatcher,” he said in a tone that made me unsure whether it was friendly or not.

  The nightwatcher?

  “You two know each other?” Adele asked me.

  As I tried to place him, a black cat slowly walked across the glass counter. It rubbed its head on Adele’s arm and then jumped up to her shoulder. She didn’t even flinch. “Onyx,” she said as the cat stretched across her shoulders, getting comfortable.

  The guy watched Adele with intense curiosity, and I watched him even more intensely.

  “The big brother!” I said, suddenly remembering the Royal Street town house—it had been over a month since that night. I was glad he’d found a job.

  Although, the gainful employment had done nothing for the sickly hue of his face. Not that he looked frail—he looked like he could hold his own, and he had the kind of stare that let me know he was keenly aware of everything going on around him, like all the guys I knew back home who spent too much time on the streets. I didn’t automatically like him because of it, but it begged a natural sense of respect.

  He held out his hand. “Callis.”

  “Isaac Thompson.” His hand was as cold as the room was, but the shake was solid.

  Adele turned to me, as if waiting for an explanation.

  My eyes bopped between them. “We, uh, met on the street one night . . . after curfew,” I said, not wanting to give away his—hopefully former—squatter status.

  “It appears that we’re both late-night soul-searchers,” said Callis, who seemed to appreciate me not calling him out.

  She looked at me, her eyebrow raised.

  Without words, I tried to convey, I’ll tell you the whole story as soon as we get out of here.

  “Yeah.” I laughed. “I’m a pretty hardcore insomniac. How’s your sister?”

  That got me an even higher raised eyebrow from Adele.

  “Great,” Callis said. “Now that we’ve taken up legitimate residence here on Royal Street and have regular meals—”

  The tin shelf behind him tipped from the wall so suddenly that there was only enough time for him to jump out of the way as stacks of moon-shaped mugs crashed to the brick floor, along with the shelf.

  “Not again,” Callis said, bending down to the floor.

  We leaned over the counter as he picked up a broken crescent handle.

  “This will surely be the one to get me fired.”

  I whipped to Adele, who scowled and shrugged.

  Accidents tended to follow wherever Adele went. Désirée claimed it was because Adele was so emotional, but I had a feeling it was more complicated than that. I spent far more time practicing than Adele did. Something about it all—the magic, the monsters—seemed to take Adele a little longer to believe. Accept.

  Movement came from the far end of the dark corridor: a young woman, peeking out of a doorway, covering her mouth as if trying not to laugh. But then a man stepped into the hallway, and she disappeared back behind a curtain.

  “What was that?” he asked, heading our way, kimono billowing behind him.

  At the doorway, his hands went straight to his hips, and a smile beamed across his face when he saw Adele. “I knew you’d come today.”

  Other than the kimono, he looked like just your average guy. Jeans. Mint-green polo, tucked in. Trimmed beard. It was an odd combo, but nothing close to the strangest thing I’d seen on Royal Street, which wasn’t even one of the weirder streets of the French Quarter.

  Smiling, Adele shook her head with a playful eye roll. “Hi, Mr. Daure.”

  He leaned over the counter and gripped both of our hands. “And this must be the beau?”

  “Is that what your crystal ball told you?” she asked, still playful.

  “No, your dad.”

  Her cheeks went pink, but her tone was cool as she glanced my way. “He’s something like that.” She didn’t even introduce me.

  Shit.

  The man smiled at me in a way that offered a mutual understanding—sympathy, even. “Chatham Daure,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Isaac Thompson, and likewise.”

  More handshaking. More obligatory introduction questions. I swear, Adele Le Moyne had more fatherly figures than any girl I’d ever known. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t hold her hand on the street without some guy looking at me funny. Like every dude within a twelve-block radius was in Mac’s biker-slash-drag-queen-slash-psychic mafia. And I was pretty sure she had no clue.

  He turned back to Adele. “So does this mean you’re ready to give t
he cards a shuffle?”

  “Pfft. You know I can’t read tarot cards.”

  “No, you know you can’t read tarot cards. I know you can. What about tea leaves?”

  Her head cocked to the side.

  “Palms? Crystal balls?”

  She smiled.

  “Okay, bones! I know you’ve been hanging out over at the Borges.”

  “I’ll stick to reading books, merci. But maybe Isaac should try? His friends call him the Corpse Whisperer.”

  Before my mouth could gape, another man walked in from the corridor, wearing a matching kimono, tied at the waist. “How morbid,” he said. He leaned on Chatham and, in an accent that was southern but not New Orleans, introduced himself as “the other Mr. Daure,” and I don’t think he meant brother.

  “Very morbid,” chimed Callis, standing up with a handful of salvaged mugs. He turned to stack them on the back counter but then froze, his gaze locked on my arm. He recovered quickly and carried on stacking.

  What the hell was that? I tried to shuffle my sleeve down without drawing attention to it.

  “He sees dead people,” Adele said.

  My back stiffened.

  Her face turned to mine, and it very clearly said, How do you like your secrets being told? And I felt like a total asshole.

  Both Mr. Daures leaned on the counter, eyes on me, nodding as if with understanding.

  “Um . . . I . . .”

  “Literally,” she added. “Dead bodies. He’s a recovery worker.”

  No one laughed or smiled, because it wasn’t funny, and she hadn’t intended it to be.

  “It’s not a glamorous job,” I said.

  They all continued to nod.

  Adele began to babble awkwardly, trying to change the subject. I knew she regretted saying it. She wasn’t good at being mean.

  Mr. Daure number two took my hand and flipped it over, gently stroking my palm. I think he had on some kind of eyeshadow that made his eyelids shimmer. It was barely noticeable unless the light caught it. As he continued to map out my calluses, I became paranoid that he could see everything about my future and thought it wasn’t good enough for Adele. But then he looked up at me with a smile that seemed genuine, although sometimes it was hard to tell in the South.

  “You’re going to fit right in here, Isaac,” he said.

  That’s a good thing . . . right?

  “So, Addie,” Chatham said, “can you start tomorrow? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “Um, well, yes, but it looks like you already hired someone.” She looked at Callis in a way that implied she would never take his job.

  “Didn’t I say there’s always room for you here, Adele?”

  She smiled.

  “Plus, you already know Callis. He’ll show you the ropes, and you can teach him all about the locals as they trickle back to town.” He winked.

  “We don’t know each other. We met once.”

  “It was a rainy afternoon,” Callis said with a slight dramatic flair that fit well with the atmosphere in the shop. “Full of family feuds, poltergeists, and tragic love affairs.”

  Adele smiled, apparently understanding whatever he was talking about—I had no clue.

  “All right,” she said. “It’s a deal.”

  “Shoot. Welcome to the family,” said Chatham, “or should I say, welcome back to the family, darling? It’s been so long.”

  Mr. Daure number two practically pulled her across the counter into a hug, and as all the southerners got caught up in their smiling, another man emerged from a room into the hallway. He slowly made his way down the long corridor but stopped a few feet back in the dark hall. His hair was silver and swept behind his ear, and he leaned onto a thick carved stick that had a stringed feather dangling from the top.

  “Addie Le Moyne.” His voice was gentle yet billowed authority. Everyone looked back. “Don’t do it,” he said.

  “Don’t take the job?” she asked.

  “Papa!” Chatham said.

  He ignored everyone else, speaking directly to Adele. “Don’t open the attic, Addie.”

  What the fuck?

  Everyone looked at her to see if she knew what he was talking about. Everyone but me. I knew exactly what he meant.

  “Um . . . o-o-kay, Papa Olsin,” she stuttered.

  “Don’t open the attic,” he said again.

  She stepped against me, and her hand slipped into mine. She didn’t say anything else and the old man just stood there in the shadows, shaking his head.

  “You’ll regret it,” he said.

  Her fingers crushed mine, and mine tightened around hers. I wanted to grab this guy from the hallway and shake out everything he knew. What the hell does he know?

  She looked up at me. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Oh, honey,” said Daure number two. “Don’t let that ole queen shake ya. But in the meantime, stay clear of attics. You know Papa when he gets his knickers in a twist.”

  “We . . . we don’t even have an attic anymore. It’s my bedroom now.”

  The two Mr. Daures looked at her lovingly, like maybe she didn’t get what he was trying to tell her now but one day she’d figure it out.

  Oh, she knows, I wanted to tell them.

  In the lingering silence, an ambient rush of waterfalls and chirping birds piped through the speakers.

  Adele shifted her weight.

  Finally, Callis cleared his throat. “Isaac, do you think your boss would take one more on his crew? I love it here, but I could double up.”

  “Yeah, probably,” I said, nodding.

  I let go of Adele’s hand, grabbed a pen and business card from the counter, and scribbled down an address. “Come talk to AJ tomorrow morning. Four thirty. He hates it when people are late.”

  I turned back to Adele, focusing all of my energy on keeping my expression neutral rather than staring daggers at her. “We should go.”

  “What the hell?” I yelled as soon as we turned the street corner. I paced ahead, then turned back around. “What the hell, Adele? You’re going to open the attic?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “You cannot be serious?”

  “How does that guy even know about the attic? Maybe I was right to tell Désirée about your little field trip! Maybe I should warn everyone in the entire administration that their lives are in danger?”

  “You believe that old quack? You don’t even know him!”

  “Maybe you should try believing a little more! Maybe then the attic would never have been opened in the first place! Maybe you’d be further along with your magic!” Before I even finished the words, I regretted saying them. I’d gone too far.

  She didn’t say anything, but if looks could kill, I’d be fried.

  I wanted to take it back—to apologize—and she stood there a moment, as if giving me the chance to, but I didn’t. I was too pissed off.

  “Believe whatever you want, Isaac. Clearly you don’t believe in me.”

  “Adele.” I tried to grab her arm as she walked past me, but she yanked it away, hurrying along.

  “Adele, I’m sor—”

  She turned around, waiting for it, and for some God-only-knows reason, my apology morphed into a question instead: “Is that really why you want to put the coven together? To open the attic? To save Nicco?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not the one obsessed with the attic, Isaac. You are. You’re obsessed with Nicco. Not me.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Floating Kisses

  The tip of my pencil snapped on the paper.

  Instead of sharpening it, I set the sketch pad aside and pulled out a crate of wood scraps from underneath the bottom bunk—pieces I’d salvaged over the last couple weeks.

  I chose a stick and flipped it in my hand a couple times, deciding which end would be best to work on, and then started whittling with a knife Mac had loaned me.

  Hours had gone by since we left the tearoom, and I was still just a
s angry. I’d run five miles—all the way to the bridge and back. I’d done push-ups. Curl-ups on the bar in the doorway. Sit-ups. Had a hot shower. Then a cold shower. Nothing was helping. No matter what activity I forced myself into, all I thought about were the things I’d said to Adele.

  Worse, like a reel stuck on repeat, I kept imagining her opening the attic, letting him out.

  I pressed my thumb against the tip of the stake and, with very little pressure, drew blood. Sharp enough. I thought about the amount of strength it would actually take to force it through something. Someone.

  My stake collection was no different than Désirée upgrading the invisibility spell at the brothel or enhancing our gris-gris. I just wanted to be prepared.

  Failing to plan is planning to fail, as my pop would say.

  I tossed it back into the crate with the others and grabbed another scrap of wood.

  Six fresh stakes later, the stainless steel room smelled of cedar, and I was still thinking about Nicco. I dropped the knife into the crate and lay back on the bottom bunk, trying to think about Adele instead.

  I liked all of our firsts. First text. First date. First kiss. First art lesson. First . . . other things. But I did not like our first real fight.

  This. Sucks.

  I pushed aside the threaded bracelets covering my watch. It was after one. I had to be up in three hours for work. With a sigh, I moved to the top bunk and grabbed the copy of The Shining from under the pillow. If Jack Torrance couldn’t take my mind off Adele, nothing could. Even if it was Adele’s book.

  The water twists, turning us.

  Her arms are so tight around my neck, I can barely breathe, but the only thing I fear more than the water is her losing her grip. My head breaks the surface, and I gasp so hard I suck in a mouthful of water along with the air.

  “Don’t let go!” I choke out as a wave crashes over us again, pushing us faster down the street. My left hand clutches her left ankle as her little body clings around my back. We pummel past a truck, my right hand slapping for it as we bounce against the metal. But it’s too slippery. Just before the water sweeps us out of reach, I grab on to the tailgate, and we jerk to a stop. My fingers refuse to let go. With one last burst of strength, I haul us up, one foot digging into the bumper, and fling us up into the bed of the truck.