by Arden, Alys
Adele 3:30 p.m. Hi! I know this is going to sound really random, but do you still have the star charm I gave you a couple of years ago? Is it with you in L.A.?
A few years ago, I had found a star-shaped charm in an old cigar box, along with a bunch of other buttons, lose stones, and metal scraps that had been collected in my dad’s studio over the decades. An eight-pointed star charm,if my memory served me correctly. I had fallen in love with it instantly. My father taught me how to polish it, and, afterwards, I didn’t take it off for months. Not until freshman year, when Brooke was chosen to sing the “Star Spangled Banner” at the Superdome before a Saints game. It was the only time I’d ever seen her nervous before a performance. She was terrified. I took it off, wrapped it around her neck, and told her she was going to be a star one day. She killed it on stage and claimed the star as her good luck charm. Afterwards, my father surprised me with the sun charm currently hanging around my chain. I hadn’t really taken it off since. Surely she had taken the star with her to Los Angeles?
I texted her again:
Adele 3:36 p.m. It’s kind of important. Just want to know if it’s here in the city. If not, maybe you could mail it back to me? I know you don’t need luck anymore (not that you ever did).
What else could I say? “I am looking for clues about the vampires I accidentally released from a convent,” seemed slightly out of the question, although it may have elicited a quicker response.
A few minutes later, my phone buzzed.
Brooke 3:46 p.m. Just b/c I’ve been busy, you want your necklace back? Why?
Adele 3:47 p.m. Umm… it’s kind of complicated. Do you have it? My dad is teaching me to cast, so I can make you a better one, completely made by moi!
Brooke 3:48 p.m. Um… you want your charm back. Doesn’t sound complicated to me.
Brooke 3:48 p.m. And how can you say that I don’t need luck anymore? Have you suddenly forgotten about everything that has happened to me in the last 3 months?
Brooke 3:48 p.m. Whatever…
Adele 3:49 p.m. Maybe it would sound more complicated if you ever returned my calls!? There is a lot of crazy shit going on down here! You aren’t the only person going through a lot these days.
Brooke 3:51 p.m. I’d know what’s going on with you if you had moved to L.A.!!!!!!
Adele 3:52 p.m. Thanks for understanding… can you just tell me if you have the charm?
Brooke 3:53 p.m. I didn’t bring it. Have fun digging around in what’s left of our house. I’m sure one of your new friends at THE ACADEMY would love an old piece of tarnished silver.
I slammed my phone down.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Isaac asked again.
“Fine.” I tried to contort my scowl into a convincing smile.
In the past, fighting with Brooke would have brought me to tears, but this was actually some semblance of good news: she hadn’t taken the charm out west. I gave myself a reality check – the likelihood of being able to find something so small in her house was slim to none. But who knows? It was certainly worth a try. Plus, I needed time off from translating Adeline’s diary – time to process the fact that one of my ancestors could apparently make fire appear from thin air.
“Dad, we’re almost done for today, right? Brooke needs me to go over to her house and look for something.”
“I have to go to work when we are done here.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“I can’t take you.”
“Take me?” Brooke’s house was a fifteen-minute walk, tops, and an even quicker bike ride. I’d probably done it a thousand times. “Dad, I don’t need you to come with me.”
“Adele, I don’t want you going out that far by yourself. It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Far? It’s not far!”
“That’s final. I don’t want you going to the Tremé by yourself.”
“What? That’s ridic—”
“In fact, I don’t want you leaving the French Quarter by yourself, Adele. The Jones’s house might have structural damage.”
“Dad…”
“I can take her,” Isaac volunteered. “We won’t go inside the house if the conditions are too bad.”
“Don’t do that!” I yelled at him.
“Do what?”
“Don’t talk about me as if I am not here! It’s you. I can take you.” The carving tools on the table started to tremble. Breathe. Thank God both Isaac and my father were both too distracted by my outburst to notice.
“I’m sorry, Adele, I can escort you on your errand, if you’ll allow me the privilege.” He smiled at me in a way that was not meant to antagonize, so I tried not to take it that way.
Dead, blue eyes flashed in my mind.
“Merci beaucoup,” I said through gritted teeth, knowing this was my only chance of charm-hunting today. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to find a missing puzzle piece.
“We’ll be back before curfew, Mac—”
“Be back before sundown.”
“Uh, okay, sir.”
“Fine with me,” I said with more bite than necessary. “There’s no point in staying after dark given there is no electricity.” What was my father’s obsession with getting the bar in order? Nothing indicated that the curfew was going to be lifted any time in the near future.
“Here, take the car.” My father tossed his keys to Isaac. “It will be quicker and safer.”
Did that really just happen? My father is letting Isaac take his car out?
“Now I really feel like I am living on another planet,” I said under my breath.
A huge grin spread over Isaac’s face. “Thanks, Mac! You have nothing to worry about.”
“You’ll have my daughter and my car. I have everything to worry about.”
Almost blushing, Isaac skirted out of the room to change into a cleaner set of clothes. My eyes rolled.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I know this isn’t easy, but it’s just the way it has to be right now. Things will go back to normal eventually.” He kissed my cheek.
Normal?I thought, watching him hurry off to work. What does that even mean anymore? Coexisting with a bunch of severely undernourished vampires?Things were never going to benormal again.
As I waited for Isaac, I eyed his sketchpad on the table. Seizing the opportunity, I flipped it open, whispering, “This is a total invasion of privacy, Adele.”
There was the sketch of his feather. I turned the page. More feathers of all shapes and sizes – some beautiful, others dark with severe lines and shading. I flipped through a few more pages and stopped, letting the book fall open on the table.
There I was, staring back at myself.
Or was it me? The girl in the portrait shared some of my facial features, but her hair was longer and swept up in an intricate style, and she wore a gown more likely to be found in Marie Antoinette’s wardrobe than mine. On the next page – there she was again, and again, and again. I stopped when I landed on a sketch of the girl holding out a candlestick. There was no wax candle in the holder, and yet there was a bright flame, causing her face to glow. “What the hell, Isaac,” I whispered.
“What the hell what?”
I slammed the book shut and spun around.
“Obsessed with feathers, much?” I squeaked.
He gave me a strange look and stuffed the sketchpad into his knapsack.
* * *
The Faubourg Tremé bordered the northern perimeter of the Quarter, so the ride was quick, but nonetheless awkward. Surely Isaac knew I had been snooping, but he didn’t seem angry. In fact, he seemed a bit sheepish, which was exactly how I felt. In a way, we were both guilty of the same thing: we had both been caught spying on the other.
To fill the silence, he gave me a progress report on the back wall. Apparently they’d have finished fixing it by now if supplies weren’t so scarce. I listened overattentively as I directed him to the Jones’s, but he stopped mid-sentence when we crossed North Rampart Street into the
Tremé.
I mentally prepared myself as the conditions gradually got worse – I did not want to appear weak in front of Isaac. He was used to seeing this level of devastation every day.
We had no choice but to park three blocks away. Isaac looked nervous about leaving my father’s baby out of sight with looters still running amuck, but I took off, giving him no choice other than to catch up.
Glass crunched underneath our feet, a sound I was getting used to, and even though the sun was still up, the street felt gloomy. We walked past a house that had been torn in half by a fallen oak tree, and another’s whose façade had been smashed by a truck.
My nervous excitement about finding the charm fizzled as I walked up the porch steps of Brooke’s house, which was painted a robin-egg color that used to make Tiffany’s blue seem dull. Now the residence, like all the others on the block, looked as if it had been abandoned seventy years ago. The screen door was missing, and the porch was not much more than a pile of tinder. The water line cleared my head by several feet, and the now-familiar X had been spray-painted on the exterior in black and orange. Fortunately, it was filled with zeros.
I wrestled with the spare set of keys in the front door. My hands were already raw from filing away at my sculpture, but only when they nearly bled did I step aside and let Isaac bully the door open. Before we even entered, my hand jerked over my nose and I gagged on the overwhelming sour stench of rot.
I forced myself to walk inside.
Hundreds of thousands of tiny black specks of mold had spread up the walls, all the way up to the high ceilings, like an attacking virus. My entire body shuddered as I tried to keep my stomach muscles from jerking.
Isaac produced a square of fabric from his pocket. “Sorry it’s not fresh. I used it this morning onsite, but it should help.” He struggled not to cough as he tied the bandana loosely around my face like a bandit. I breathed slowly through the fabric, forcing myself to adjust to the disgusting, sticky air. The first two breaths into the cloth smelled like him, but that didn’t last. Nothing would mask the smell of the Storm here in the Tremé. Not for a long time.
Tears welled as I looked around.
Every single thing the Joneses owned had been destroyed. All the furniture was scattered and upside down, chunks of sheetrock had vomited from the walls, and the fan was hanging dangerously low from the living-room ceiling. Nearly the entire ground level had been submerged. Only the attic’s contents might still be dry, which was why so many people had died in attics during the Storm – they had sought refuge in the driest place in the house and become trapped.
I made a beeline to the back. Isaac trailed me, staying close.
When we got to Brooke’s room, shock paralyzed me – I'd probably spent just as much time in this room as I had in my own bedroom in junior high.
It got harder to keep the welled tears from spilling; I quickly blinked them away.
Isaac’s hand touched the small of my back as he moved around me. He picked up her desk and set it upright and then retrieved the chair from across the room and set it in place on its remaining three legs. It only stood up for a second before falling against the desk. It would all have to be thrown out, but I understood why he was doing it – it felt disrespectfulnotto.
He moved to her giant dresser, which had toppled to the ground. I ran to help him lift it.
Once we got it standing, I took a deep breath through my mouth to avoid the smell.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded, despite being utterly overwhelmed.
“I’m going to go and check the rest of the house. Just yell if you need me, okay?” My head continued to nod as he walked out the door.
I took another deep breath through the fabric, thankful for both the handkerchief and the privacy.
Focus, Adele.
I tried not to get emotional as I started scavenging, but every single thing I looked at brought me closer to a panic attack. It felt like my heart was shaking inside my chest. It took another moment to realize that the medallion was actually shaking underneath my shirt – it felt warm against my skin. Unnaturally warm. I pulled it out.
“I could really use some help right about now, Adeline.”
The warmth crept through my hands and up my arms until a current of energy bolted through my shoulders, making me gasp.
“What the…?”
The medallion floated up on the chain and then moved to the right, pointing like a compass to a mountain of moldy fly-infested clothes.
I choked, trying not to gag on the bad air, as the medallion practically pulled me towards the pile, which appeared to be shaking. Beneath the pile, I saw the edge of a familiar black leather case poking out.
She left her box? She always brought it on evacuations.
I pulled the old trumpet case out and nearly threw up as her ruined clothes, which were damp with mildew, spilled onto me. I quickly swatted them off and moved the case back to the other side of the room. I knew it well: it had originally contained her father’s very first trumpet, an instrument he’d once been forced to hock in his harder, younger years, and which he’d been able to buy back after his first gig at Tipitina’s, where he had to perform with a borrowed horn.
The family had mounted the trumpet over the piano in the living room, but Brooke refused to allow the case to be thrown out. She used it to store her most precious things.
I opened the now-warped leather box and let out a delighted yelp. Its contents were dry.
Relieved for Brooke, I quickly rifled through her treasures: photos, her NOSA acceptance letter, notes from boys, several talent show ribbons – and there it was, threaded on a strand of black leather: the good-luck charm. Adeline’s eight-pointed star.
My pulse began to race as I ripped it off the leather cord and placed it onto the impression left behind on the medallion. With a quick jerk, the star twisted itself so all eight points lined up with the setting. It fit perfectly. Another wisp of sparks traced the edges of the star, welding it into place.
I’m not sure what I had expected to happen next, but nothing else did. I flipped it over and over, trying to understand what I was missing. “Come on…”
I slammed the case closed. Ugh.
* * *
As I stepped into the den, looking for Isaac, I accidentally sent a piece of a clarinet rolling across the once-beautiful wooden floor, which was now warped like a roller coaster. It only stopped rolling when it smacked into a twisted tuba. The room contained enough musical instruments to supply a small orchestra, or at least a couple of Second Lines. I sucked in a big breath – the air in this room was much clearer than it had been in Brooke’s – either that or I was just getting used to the Storm stench.
I put down the trumpet case and stood, frozen, staring at the graveyard of brass. It was heartbreaking. The golden records, awards, and other recording paraphernalia that had once decorated the walls were now wrecked, and thousands of sheets of music had been strewn about the room. Most had dried into crisp leaves while others had been pulped into giant lumps of papier-mâché. Most of the melodies and lyrics had washed away from the papers, but hopefully they were still stuck in the head of Alphonse Jones and not lost forever.
No wonder he had said there was nothing left for them here.
Guilt washed over me, and I struggled not to completely break down. How could I have fought with Brooke? How could I have acted like such a brat?
I suddenly realized Isaac was standing next to me. My throat clenched when I tried to talk, and the bandana slipped down to my neck. My muscles began to shake as I used every ounce of strength not to cry.
He looked me in the eyes, and for the first time I saw sympathy in his.
Even in all the chaos, the way he looked at me made my stomach flutter. What the hell? And that was all the emotion I could contain—my bottom lip started to quiver—but before the first tear could escape, he leaned in and kissed me.
The world stopped as Isaac lingered for a mome
nt.
“Breathe,” he whispered, breaking away just a couple of inches.
My heart rate soared as he brushed away the hair that had slipped in front of my eyes. I nodded and inhaled.
My hand moved to his face as if I no longer had control over it, and his arm snaked around my waist, pulling me closer. His touch made me forget about all the bad things that had been happening. My nose brushed his, and I paused, intimidated by my own behavior. He must have sensed the limit of my forward actions because he moved the last couple of inches to meet my lips.
My eyes closed. I couldn’t think about anything else as he kissed me – as I kissed him back. I couldn’t hear anything else, smell anything else. Only him.
For a moment, I felt like I was floating, like we were floating.
Like two joined feathers.
I pulled him closer, and a whimper escaped the back of my throat, followed by a pang of self-consciousness. He kissed me again, but this time a little voice in the back of my head screamed, What are you doing!
My body reflexively tensed.
It had only been for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for him to pull back. Suddenly we were back on solid ground, back to reality. I opened my eyes, a little terrified of having to face him.
I wanted to slap myself for giving in to him, and then I wanted to slap Isaac for taking advantage of such a vulnerable situation. And yet, I was desperate to pull him close and go back to that moment where I had felt nothing. That moment where all of the pain went away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, flustered. “You just looked so sad. I didn’t know what to do.”
I couldn’t keep my eyes from opening wider, nor could I get words to come out of my mouth. What had I just done? I don’t even like Isaac – not like that. Right? Why is it taking every ounce of my strength not to close the distance between us?
I took a step backwards without thinking – a protective reflex I immediately regretted when I saw how the small move stung him.