The Book of the Unwinding

by J. D. Horn

  Fascinated, warmed, Babau Jean dropped the pane and clutched another.

  A young man with thick, spiky black hair and the palest of skin rocked back and forth before the mirror.

  Time in this nowhere seemed elastic. Between the first woman’s hairstyle and the wooden console television, Alice estimated they’d jumped around three decades. Myriad silver spyholes shimmered all around them, each within easy grasp, but there were even more muted, shifting images that shot past like satellites, far beyond their reach. These, Alice sensed, belonged to an age that remained sealed to them, an age that she would perceive as “the future” if her feet stood solidly planted on the common world’s timeline.

  The guy they now beheld wore a plain white T-shirt. There was no way to know. Based on his appearance, their encounter might be happening in the common world’s present or thirty years earlier.

  Then Alice made out a rubber tourniquet around the man’s left arm, and an emptied glass hypodermic with a silver plunger in his right hand. Alice had seen her share of hypodermics during her years on Sinclair. The outmoded glass needle implied that this day had long since passed.

  The man clenched a cigarette between his teeth and stared forward into the glass, his shrunken, porcine eyes lost in the dark rings around them. He looked upon Babau Jean as he might his own reflection, without bewilderment but with a slight dissatisfaction. Without looking away from the mirror, he set the hypodermic down on its carrying case, then undid the tourniquet, letting it drop to the floor. He stood there, propping himself up against his sink and staring into the glass until his cigarette turned to ash, and the ash fell away. He spat the butt into the sink, looked over his shoulder and called something out, a muffled sound Alice couldn’t decode, then turned back. Leaning in, he placed his hand against the glass.

  Babau Jean caught hold of the hand, and only then did the man cry out and try to pull away. But it was too late—Babau Jean dug his fingers into the man’s arm, blood spurting where his sharp nails pierced the man’s flesh. He let the struggling man do the hard work of pulling them through the mirror. Like being reborn, they were suddenly in this new world. Babau Jean released the man, who clutched his wounded arm and backed away. His lips were moving, but he wasn’t speaking. He made terrible, terrified guttural sounds as he retreated. Then he tripped over his own feet and fell backward, his head hitting the lip of a filthy clawfoot tub. Hidden deep within Babau Jean, Alice shuddered at the sound of the man’s skull cracking.

  The man slid down the side of the tub, then lay supine on the floor, his head propped up by the leg of the tub, his right leg jerking, his right hand slapping the floor.

  They drew near him, and Babau Jean knelt over him, straddling the man with his knees. There was, Alice sensed, no more than a moment’s light left in the man. Babau Jean traced a bloodied finger along the man’s temple. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips over the dying man’s mouth, breathing in his last breath.

  The breath raced through Babau Jean, warming him, strengthening him. He pushed up from the corpse and rose. The world of color. The world of light. They were again his.

  Then he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His handsome features bore a subtle change that combined the women’s looks of terror with the dead man’s pallor—as if he became that which he fed on. Babau Jean reached up and touched his reflection. As his fingers moved from the glass to an almost unnoticeable discoloration of the skin beneath his eyes, it struck Alice that these slight changes were the beginning of Babau Jean’s frightening, masklike face. She also recognized it was too late to change the course he’d long since taken.

  Alice realized how much she shared with the monster. How Babau Jean, twisted, broken, and consumed by darkness, had never been the true monster. Until he’d been driven to be.

  “Until he chose to be,” a woman’s voice came from behind her. “Exactly as I, too, chose to be.”

  As Alice spun around, the sad, squalid bathroom evanesced, becoming the impeccable, luxurious Mahogany Hall. She stood as herself, the protective shell of Babau Jean gone. The band still played, though the volume had fallen, the tempo slowed. It was a hymn, one she’d heard played on the way to Précieux Sang Cemetery with Celestin’s body.

  The beauty drew near, now wrapped in a floor-length, floral peignoir in gold lamé. Her onyx eyes sparkled as she tossed back her dark curls. “As you yourself might have done if I hadn’t intervened,” she said, moving past Alice to recline on the divan Alice intuited was customarily reserved for the victims whose life force fueled this world. For years, Celestin had changed them out like batteries, snatching up a new dreamer as soon as the old one was spent. In silent response to an unspoken question, the beauty lifted her lithe arm, making a languid gesture over her shoulder.

  A bier with a silver casket sat before the dais. “Our final dreamer, I’d imagine,” she said, lifting her chin in brave defiance of her own implied demise. Her forehead smoothed, and her eyelids lowered as a small smile came to her lips. She seemed serene, resolved to her tragic fate. “You’ve forgiven your monster for his crimes. Or at least you’ve begun to. I wonder if it’s possible that you might someday begin to forgive me. Perhaps if I could make you look through my eyes as Babau Jean has made you see through his?”

  The beauty held her hand out, beckoning for her to come closer. Alice hesitated, and the beauty lowered her hand, the light fading from her eyes as she accepted that Alice would not suffer her touch. “I tried to warn you,” she said, pique lining her every word.

  “Warn me?”

  The beauty’s finger pointed upward, to the ceiling. Alice saw her own name flash overhead in a snaking crimson script. “It was the best I could do,” she said with a toss of her curls. “And, oh”—her face stiffened as her eyes opened wide—“I paid for my little gesture. He made me pay.” Alice cast an eye around the space, looking for Babau Jean, the author of this replicated world, surprised to find he had slipped away, leaving her alone, exposed. The beauty chuckled, a laugh as slow and as sad as the hymn the band was playing. “No, not that hopeless old bogey. I’m talking about the real monster. Celestin Marin.”

  “I don’t understand what you want from me,” Alice said as the beauty pushed up on the divan and leaned forward. “Who are you?”

  The beauty rose, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. “Are you so deceived by outward appearances, my darling girl?” She traced her finger along Alice’s jawline. “Can you not recognize your own mother?”

  THIRTEEN

  Magazine Street restaurant. Private dining room. Lisette’s eyes ran down the table, its crisp cover dazzling white even in the restaurant’s intimate lighting.

  This dinner was Fleur Marin’s attempt to bring the Marin and Perrault—note the order—families together. Lisette’s father’s words still rang in her ears. There was no denying that whenever the two families “came together” they tended to come back apart covered in blood. No, this event was probably not the best idea, at least not from the Perrault side of the equation. But Remy had wanted them to come, so come she had.

  Was Fleur trying to rip a bandage off or stick one on? Either way, she was plenty smart enough to know a sea of wine couldn’t wash away the past, all of it dark, and a lot of it pretty damned recent. The damage Fleur’s parents had done to Lisette’s family could never be forgotten or, for that matter, completely forgiven. Fleur understood that. She had to.

  After Lisette’s odd morning, she might’ve forgotten this bury-the-hatchet dinner altogether if Remy hadn’t texted her three times this afternoon, first to remind her of time and place, then to coach her on the topics she wasn’t to bring up, then to remind her again about the time. She might have been annoyed, but it was nice for a change that he was the one nagging her to get something done and done right.

  Still, she was more than distracted, her mind darting about in a cycle of attesting to, then denying the connection she’d discovered—the connection she felt she’d b
een led to discover—between the city where she’d lived her entire life and the world of spirits. Either someone had rigged New Orleans from its very inception to serve as a doorway between the common world and the Great Beyond, or some force had bent the city from its founding to fulfill that same purpose. Chicken first or egg, something or somebody was looking to cross over. Lisette couldn’t help but wonder which direction.

  Lisette and Manon and Michael, Manon’s gay boyfriend from the café near Vèvè, were the first to arrive. Remy, Lucy, Fleur, and her nephew Hugo were coming together, and Isadore should be well on his way. Lisette checked the clock on her new phone for the third time. In nine minutes.

  Lisette had offered Fleur her father’s regrets without even considering passing along the invitation, so Fleur had invited Manon to bring along a date “to even out the table.” Lisette’s girl had invited her favorite purveyor of overpriced coffee drinks. Isadore was driving in from Baton Rouge, where he’d been called last minute to make a bid on landscaping a big new housing development, so Lisette had asked Michael if he’d mind her riding along with them. Manon couldn’t say Lisette had made him feel unwelcome if she’d asked him to be her escort.

  Their waiter—one of the four, he’d explained, who would be serving them tonight—was making a show of decanting one of the wines he’d told them Fleur had selected for the evening, a Cabernet-Merlot blend whose vintage had Michael sitting on the edge of his seat like a six-year-old at the circus.

  Fancy restaurant. Private dining room. Four waiters for eight diners. A chance, Lisette decided, to see how “the other half” lived. The waiter set the bottle on a silver coaster, then filled their glasses from the decanter.

  She’d felt a bit disingenuous accepting the invitation. She’d begun to consider Fleur a friendly acquaintance, if not an outright friend. Still, the only reason she and Isadore had agreed to the dinner was they hoped the implied blessing of their son’s romance with Fleur’s daughter would dump a cooling bucket of water on it. Lisette reckoned things might have worked out differently for the Capulets and Montagues if they’d agreed to sit down for a meal together.

  Well isn’t she a shady one, Lisette thought as it dawned on her that Fleur had likely arrived at the same damned conclusion.

  “Eight hundred dollars,” Manon leaned over and whispered into Lisette’s ear as the waiter carried away the not quite empty bottle. Lisette didn’t question it. Manon worked in hospitality, so she’d know the price.

  “No wonder our waiter friend is saving a taste for himself.” Fleur was trying either to impress them or to buy their goodwill. Or maybe Senator Endicott’s soon-to-be ex-wife was so removed from the real world she thought it normal to drop more than what most of the people Lisette knew made in a week on a single bottle of wine.

  “No, Mama.” Manon pulled her shoulders back and looked down her nose at her. Lisette knew that look. She’d embarrassed her daughter once again.

  “Tannins,” Michael said, an obvious attempt at explanation that meant nothing to her. “Sediment,” he added when she didn’t respond. “Older wines can collect sediment at the bottom of the bottle.”

  “Eight hundred dollars, and they can’t even bring us a clean bottle of wine?” She said it with the sole aim of provoking Manon, but then Michael started laughing.

  “Ugh. The two of you.” Manon widened her scowl to include them both.

  Lisette tasted her—she jumped through the calculations—one-hundred-forty-dollar glass of wine. Then she took another, deeper sip. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was Manon framing them as accomplices, but Lisette found herself liking this Michael even more. Still, it made her sad that her girl was wasting all her time on a dead-end man, when she could be out with someone who might grow into a life partner. Lisette knew better than to go there with Manon, though.

  “I’m so sorry for being late.” Fleur came sweeping in, Remy and Lucy in tow. “To my own dinner party, if you can imagine it.” Fleur wore an expensive-looking crimson and black floral cocktail dress with cap sleeves and a flare skirt. She’d changed her hair since Lisette had last seen her. It was still shoulder length, but looked a shade lighter, now almost a chestnut brown. Neat, perfectly trimmed bangs. The rest meticulously tousled.

  Fleur looked younger. Good for her.

  Lisette knew she looked every bit as good in the black sleeveless below-the-knee dress she’d worn to every special event in the last three years, without putting in one-tenth the effort Fleur had. She’d be even more sure of that as soon as Isadore arrived to compliment her in it.

  Michael rose to greet Fleur. At least he’d been raised right.

  “I was waiting for Hugo, who can’t make it. He sends his apologies. Some kind of last-minute crisis at Evangeline Caissy’s establishment.” She held up her hands and shook her head. “Don’t ask me.” She glanced around the table. “Isadore?”

  “He’s on his way,” Lisette said to reassure them both.

  “Thank you so much for coming.” Fleur crossed to stand before Manon. “Manon, it’s lovely to meet you again, this time under more pleasant circumstances.” Fleur offered Michael her hand. “You must be Michael.” Michael looked confused, like he wasn’t sure if he should shake Fleur’s hand or kiss it. Fleur seemed to pick up on his discomfort and saved him by taking a couple steps back and clasping her hands together. “I must say, Manon, I expected you to be beautiful, but look at you. You are positively radiant. Glowing.”

  A nervous smile rose to Manon’s lips. “Uh . . . thank you.” Manon’s voice crept up at the end, making it sound more like a question than a response. Glowing? Lisette turned to face her daughter, searching for the bliss she had failed to notice. Manon cringed and pressed back into her chair.

  Remy bounded to Lisette’s side of the table and placed a kiss on her cheek. “Thanks for coming, Mama.”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it, baby.” She decided a little white lie wouldn’t hurt. “You know I’ve been looking forward to this.” He shot her a look that told her he’d caught her fibbing but was glad she was making an effort.

  Lucy drew up beside her mother. The two resembled each other to an absurd degree, except for coloring. Lucy had inherited her grandmother Laure’s dark-blonde hair and fair blue eyes, though some colorist had helped Lucy kick the blonde up a notch or two. Lisette prayed the hair and eyes were all Lucy had inherited from her grandma. “Good evening, Mrs. Perrault. It’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too, ma chère,” Lisette said, surprised that she actually meant it. Ah, what the hell. Sins of the fathers, or in this case grandparents, shouldn’t be placed at this young girl’s feet. With the thought, Lisette’s eye fell to Lucy’s white, crystal-covered pumps, which must’ve cost, by Marin standards, three, maybe even four bottles of wine. Lisette patted Remy to signal he should return to his date.

  Lisette’s phone sounded with the “Your husband is attempting to reach you . . .” ringtone Remy had assigned to his dad. She leaned over and snatched the phone from her purse, tapping the screen before it could call out again. A text message. She scanned it. He wasn’t coming. Someone had shattered all the windows in each of his six company trucks. Happened all at once. Rounding up the guys at the office to try to get to the bottom of it. “Oh,” she said, disappointed and concerned. What in the hell was going on today?

  “Bad news?” Fleur said.

  Lisette tried to smile, but failed at it. “Nothing serious,” she said to assure the kids, “but something’s come up. Isadore won’t be joining us.” She sensed Manon tensing up beside her. “It’s nothing, baby. Something with a couple of the trucks at work. That’s all.”

  “Accident?” she said.

  “Yeah.” Lisette patted her hand. “Something like that, but nobody’s hurt.” She assumed nobody was hurt. Isadore would’ve told her otherwise, wouldn’t he?

  “What a shame,” Fleur said. “He’ll join us next time.” Lisette nodded in agreement even though she felt pretty darned sure
neither of them expected there to be a next time.

  Fleur drew near Lisette, leaning down to kiss her on each cheek. A bit more intimacy than Lisette had been prepared for, but she could roll with it. “You look so beautiful,” Fleur said, grasping Lisette’s hand and holding it out as Fleur examined her. “That dress is absolutely perfect on you. Isadore doesn’t know what he’s missing.” Actually, Lisette reflected, he did, but she breathed a bit easier having passed Marin muster.

  Fleur noticed the wine Lisette had only just begun to drink. “Oh,” she said, feigning, Lisette felt, surprise. “We’re drinking red?” She flashed the waiter a confused look. He gave a slight nod of his head, communicating a bit of information Lisette failed to grasp.

  “But you don’t seem to be enjoying the wine,” Fleur said. “Would you like something else?” Her tone implied that she was attempting to give a helpful hint. Before Lisette could even respond, Fleur continued. “I thought this might go well with the main course. Of course, it’s so hard to know sometimes. I’ve visited the domaine, but I understand the year might not have produced their best recolte.”

  “No, no,” Lisette said as Fleur snatched up the glass and swirled the wine beneath her nose. “It’s delicious.” She looked to Manon for confirmation.

  “Yes, delicious,” Manon said with a bright smile, though it looked to Lisette like she hadn’t touched her glass.

  Fleur smiled down at them as she returned the glass to the table. “I’m so glad. Shall we?” She returned to the other side of the table, and a new waiter slipped over to pull back her chair. “Thank you,” Fleur said, looking back at him as he slid her chair forward. The waiter then repeated the process, this time for Lucy.