The Casquette Girls

by Arden, Alys

  “I heard it was a woman who killed zhat couple,” said the blonde.

  Niccolò moved to my side, and Ren hurried along with the story, speaking directly to her. “There were a few unreliable witnesses who claimed to have seen a young brunette bent over the bodies.” His gaze moved to me. “But there was never enough evidence to hold even a single suspect for more than a long weekend.”

  He carried on with his story, but the memory of the methodical slaps of the shutter hitting the frame clogged my ears. It got louder and louder and faster and—

  A sharp whistle brought me back to the present.

  Everyone around me was clapping enthusiastically, cheering for Ren as he took deep bows. The tour was over. I put my hands together in appreciation and forced a smile. It’s only a stupid story, Adele, chill out.

  The blonde turned to Gabe with a smile that could only mean she was looking for trouble. “Surely zhere is something to get into tonight? It is still La Nouvelle-Orléans, after all. How much could it have really changed?”

  Definitely a French accent. Definitely trouble.

  Niccolò looked at her and then to me. “How are you getting home?”

  “Uh, walking—”

  “I’ll walk you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Isaac said, stepping in between us.

  Niccolò smirked, almost beckoning a challenge, which in turn made Gabe grin from ear to ear.

  My eyes rolled at the ripple of testosterone, to no avail. “Ren, will you walk me home?”

  “At your service, Mademoiselle.”

  Isaac shot me an exasperated look, being unable to fulfill the promise he had made to my father about not letting me out of his sight.

  Gabe offered his hand to Désirée, but Isaac walked in front of it. “I got it,” he snapped, not giving her a chance to disagree, which I thought was kind of hilarious.

  As Isaac pulled her hand forward, her head turned back to me. “See you at seven, Adele. And try not to be late tomorrow morning.” She gave Niccolò an obnoxious look of approval, which everyone noticed. My cheeks burned like they were on fire.

  “Merci beaucoup, and goodnight, folks!” Ren yelled with a giant grin. “Au revoir, boys. À la prochaine!” He spun me in the direction of my house, linking his arm through mine.

  “Ciao,” I yelled over my shoulder to Niccolò, Gabe… and the blonde.

  Chapter 19 La Fille à La Cassette

  “Oh, to be young again and have so many gentleman callers fawning all over,” Ren said with an exaggerated Southern accent. I laughed as he let out an exasperated sigh.

  “No one is fawning over me. I have even less life post-Storm than I had pre-Storm, which I didn’t think was possible.”

  “Oh, child, you are growing into quite the ingénue, aren’t you?”

  “Hmm… I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “Or maybe you are still too hung up on the Parisian garçon to see the hot young things right in front of your face?”

  Ugh, Jeanne must have been running her mouth about Émile.

  “Can I ask you something, Ren?” Nervousness flooded from my stomach all the way to my shoulders, making them tingle. “How much of that stuff do you believe?”

  “There you go, changing the subject. That means youare sweet on one of them. Which one is it? I’m going to guess the Yankee. You two bicker too much to actually dislike each other.”

  “Ren!”

  “So, it’s the foreign fox?”

  “Stop! I’m serious. It’s important!”

  “D'accord, d'accord. How much of that stuff do I believe?” He twisted the end of his moustache. “Well, I believe bits and pieces of all of it. Legends are legends for a reason; they don’t just appear out of thin air. But over the years, they morph for different reasons. They evolve to serve a purpose of the time.”

  “But what about these stories? The Carter brothers, the casquette girls, the filmmakers…”

  “You mean the vampire stories?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “In the words of the great Monsieur Baudelaire, ‘The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist.’”

  My eyes moved to the lantern above his head, and I began to twist the ring around my finger.

  “Why so serious, darlin’? What’s the mat—?”

  “I think I opened the attic window at the Ursuline Convent.”

  He looked at me blankly for a moment. “Why on earth would you think that, bébé?”

  “It was right when we got back into town. I had just discovered a dead body in a car. I cut my hand on the broken window. I'd never seen a dead body before. His blue eyes were just staring at me and… I ran. When I stopped in front of the convent to catch my breath, the shutter just started flapping, only there was no wind…”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me into a narrow alleyway. “Breathe, darlin’.”

  “I didn’t mean to trespass. It was like the window pulled me in, and before I knew it, I was in the courtyard. I didn’t touch anything, I swear— the shutter flapped itself until it came crashing down! The window shattered and…”

  “And?”

  The last words rushed out of my subconscious in a shrill whisper.“And something flew out!” I froze, admitting to myself for the first time what had happened that morning: something had come out of that window. I knewit. He looked at me with a serious but sympathetic expression.

  “What flew out? Some kind of monster?”

  “Well, no… maybe… I don’t know! It was raining, and it all happened so fast, and my hand was bleeding all over the place— I didn’t see anything, but I swear that I heard something, Ren. And I felt something.”

  The fear that flicked in his eyes made me immediately regret telling him. He drew me into a hug, but I quickly pulled away.

  “You don’t really think there were vampires trapped in the attic, do you?”

  “Calm down, bébé. There is no way you opened that window. It’s just some bizarre coincidence.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences?”

  “Stop worrying your pretty little head.” His acting skills were no longer as convincing, but I appreciated him not being patronizing. “I’m sorry if the story spooked you.”

  “How are you so certain I didn’t open it?”

  “Well, the story has more holes than a New Orleans’ road. Besides nails from the Vatican, it’s been said that magic was used to keep the vampires trapped inside the attic. Naturally, the church quickly quelled the rumor but, unless those nuns had some other miraculous gifts from God, that theory makes the most sense to me. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that there’s no way you could have accidentally undone the spell of another. Only the original caster of a spell could undo it.”

  He smoothed my hair.

  That seemed plausible to me. I didn’t know anything about binding or unbinding spells, but I desperately wanted to grasp onto anything that proved I hadn’t unleashed a drove of bloodsucking killers into the city I loved so much.

  “Adele, you were traumatized: the city’s a ruin, you had just discovered a corpse, and it was pouring rain. Plus, it looks like you have men lining up at the door to protect you.” He winked, attempting to lighten the mood, but I was hardly paying attention – my mind was rewinding all of the weird things that had happened since the Storm.

  “Can I ask you one more thing?”

  “Oui, of course.”

  The two copper gas lanterns over our heads began to swing back and forth, creaking.

  “Do you really believe in magic? Like, really.”

  “Oui, bébé. Moving pictures and flying machines both seemed like magic at one time. It’s not a huge leap to believe that what seems irrational or magical now will be commonplace in the future. I believe everyone has magical powers. However, only certain people – the ones who are open to it – can tap into the true capacity of the mind and push the current brink of human
thought. Some are called geniuses, some are called prophets, others are called witches.”

  “So, if someone is not open to magic, they could prevent supernatural things from happening?”

  He chuckled. “If only it were that easy, bébé. Sometimes magic finds us; we don’t find it. And once it does, it’s nearly impossible to close ourselves to it. It would be like trying to forget how to read or speak or walk. Usually people who unlock magic within themselves don’t understand their importance in the world.”

  I frowned. Hadn’t I heard that before?

  “Just remember, everything happens for a reason. D'accord?”

  “Okay.”

  “Anything else?”

  I paused, debating whether I should tell him about my recent bout of telekinesis. Instinct pinched my lips and shook my head. Luckily, he let it rest and linked our arms back together.

  “Lâche pas la patate, bébé,” he said when we got to the front door. “That I can guarantee. Whatever it is, you’ll figure it out.” He kissed my cheek instead of giving me one of his bear hugs.

  “Merci beaucoup.”

  “Bonne nuit. Sweet dreams.” He waited for me to slip inside and lock the door.

  Through the peephole, I watched him walk down the street. That’s when I noticed the crow perched on top of the street sign, staring in my direction. I stumbled backwards into a small table and grasped the overhanging mirror as it slid on the wall.

  “Dad?” I called out into the dark house.

  No answer came. He must be at the bar. At least he wouldn’t know that I had arrived ten minutes past curfew.

  * * *

  A million thoughts spiraled as I lay on my bed, arms crossed, staring at the lamp light on the ceiling. You’ve got to relax, Adele.

  Like that’s going to happen.

  The Victrola suddenly cranked on, but the glam-rock beats just made me more restless. Without moving from my spot, I managed to move the needle off the vinyl, but I couldn’t get the record to budge. I paused from my ceiling-staring, swapped in the Louis Armstrong album, and quickly flopped back down.

  I didn’t want to believe that I had released a bunch of monsters into the city… monsters who had been trapped in a convent attic for three hundred years and who were probably really pissed off about it. I really didn’t want to believe that.

  My fingers strummed my stomach, and my feet rocked nervously back and forth – then a loud crack exploded.

  “Shit!” I sat up in the sudden darkness, clutching my chest.

  The lamp bulb had combusted. Breathe.

  As I sucked in air, all of a sudden a little flame slowly grew from a vanilla-scented candle on the fireplace mantel. This is not happening.

  This is not happening.

  I stared at the fire, and a second flame ignited from a neighboring candle.

  “This is happening.”

  I jumped up from the bed, flipped on the overhead light, and looked around the room, wishing there was a witness to tell me that I wasn’t going crazy. When my gaze landed on the closet, the brass handle turned, and the door slowly creaked open a few inches.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. At this rate, I’m going to have a heart attack before my seventeenth birthday.

  “C’est parfait!” I yelled like a lunatic, instead of giving into the fear. “A good cleaning project is exactly what I need!” I walked straight towards the little room and waved my hand through the air.

  The door swung all the way open.

  A yank on the rotting cord hanging from the ceiling bulb produced dim light in the claustrophobic room. I fought the urge to sneeze. Piece by piece, I brought everything into my bedroom: I stacked piles of books ranging from poetry to medicine along the wall, trashed piles of disintegrating linens, and moved a box of old vinyl to the Victrola. I consciously focused on each task, trying not to let the idea of vampires running around the city raid my thoughts.

  An hour later, the last thing to go was a large, antique steamer trunk that had been decorated with stickers from all around the world. In theory it should have been easy to move because it stood upright on wheels, but it weighed a ton, and the wheels needed oil badly. I pulled the beast of a trunk with all of my strength. It moved an inch, and I slid down to the dirty floor, exhausted.

  From the ground, I concentrated on the rusty metal wheels until they squeaked loudly and began to move. Slowly, the large chest wheeled itself into the bedroom.

  After needing both my fingers and my mind to open the series of intricate locks, I was surprised but delighted to find it full of beautiful textiles, from pre-Victorian dresses to costumes clearly meant for the stage or maybe masquerade balls.

  A lot of locks for a wardrobe, I thought, but could totally relate to someone cherishing the elaborate designs.

  I hung each piece on a cloth hanger to air out, and then realized I had managed to distract myself for a half hour. Of course, once I made this realization, the vampires rushed my mind with a vengeance.

  I grabbed the broom.

  Once the wooden floor was swept, I aggressively repeated the process with the mop, only stopping when one of the strings snagged on a nail. I bent over to free it, but the nail refused to let go.

  “Whatever.” Yawning, I jerked the mop, ripping the string from its head, ready to be done with it.

  When I reached up for the light, I felt my chain sliding off my neck. “No!” I yelped and tried to grab the medallion, but it clanked onto the floor.

  I squatted down, worried that the chain had broken; luckily it had just come unfastened. I held my hand out to retrieve the sun charm and the medallion – they leaped into my hand, along with the nail that had snagged the mop string. It was a long, black, handmade carpenter’s nail, like the ones I had picked up at the convent that morning.

  I restrung the necklace, made sure the fastener was secure, and reached back for the light.

  Again, I felt the slink of metal down my neck.

  I slapped my chest, again, not fast enough. The necklace clanked back to the floor, as if it had suddenly become magnetized.

  “What the…?”

  For the second time, I reached out and for the second time gained another nail from the floorboard along with the medallion. I dropped the nail to the ground, but it leapt right back up.

  “What the hell?”

  All the nails in the two floorboards beneath me were vibrating. I quickly glanced around the room. The rest of the floor seemed normal – it was just this spot. My heart rattled in my chest as I knelt down over the shaking nails. Instinct led me to raise my hand over the boards.

  Slowly, the nails wiggled themselves out and rose to the palm of my hand.

  The wood was so degraded, I easily squeezed my fingers in between the planks and then shook the boards until they loosened enough for me to pry free. I hastily cast the floorboards aside and peered into the dark hole, like a child about to discover a treasure – but I didn’t find anything at all.

  I slipped my hand into the small space and felt around. There was nothing but cool metal, like the inside of a safe.

  The lightbulb overhead flickered. My pulse climbed.

  I hurried back to my room, grabbed the vanilla candle, and set it inside the hole to take another look.

  Ugh.Nothing.

  As I stared at the flame, frustrated, the candle shuddered, and the metal floor underneath it appeared warped. I held my hand over the surface, and the metal rippled. My whole body began to shudder as I held my hand in position. At first it was just a slight tingle in my shoulders, but then the energy traveled down my arms like a current, until my fingers burned and I cried out.

  Just as I was about to rip my hand away, the metal parted like a wall of waves; I gasped as it revealed another compartment. The candle fell below, but before the flame extinguished, I saw something. Without thinking, I thrust my hand into the hole and grabbed the object of desire. As soon as I jerked my arm back out, the waves collapsed.

  I pounded o
n the metal surface, dumbfounded. It was warm but still. I raised an eyebrow at the leather-bound object in my hand and scurried back to my bed.All that trouble for a book?

  But it wasn’t just a book. It was a very old lock-n-key diary. The antique metal lock made the dense diary even heavier, and the hand-stitched leather binding and thick paper made me believe it must have been expensive in its time.

  “How old is this thing?”

  The edges of the pages were mismatched and browned, but the diary had been so perfectly preserved in the secret compartment, it was difficult to guess its age.

  I imagined the metalwork unlocking – and the tiny latch snapped open.

  An adrenaline I’d never felt before coursed through my veins as I carefully opened the cover of the unlocked treasure. A folded square of paper had been pressed in between the cover and the first page. Careful not to destroy the old stationary, I unfolded the paper and found a letter in handwritten French.

  25th May 1728

  Dearest Papa,

  Today we finally set foot in the city of La Nouvelle-Orléans, so this is my first opportunity to send a letter since leaving France those many months ago, for I did not trust the governor of Saint-Domingue with your location, nor did I consider one of the pirates we came across on the voyage to be a reliable postman. I will attempt to mail this letter today so you at least have news of our safe arrival. Although, I suspect you will be nowhere near the address you left me.

  I found the diary and letter you hid in my hatbox. As requested, I have documented my entire journey for you. At first I could not imagine why you would want such a boring account, but I did my best to fill the book each day nonetheless, and eventually, the days became more worthy of the ink.