by Laury Falter
He laughed under his breath and then shook his head. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Next time, we’ll just make sure to pace ourselves so not everyone is healed at once. Maybe take the worst patients first…” I suggested and his eyes widened in frustration.
“You don’t think I’d agree with you going again?” he asked in disbelief.
“You can’t stop me, Jameson. I already know where to find them and if they need my help I’m going.”
His jaw shifted in disapproval as he returned his attention to Ms. Wizner, or so it seemed. By continuing to hold my hand, our connection to each other, he told me that he wasn’t ending our conversation but calming his anger before continuing.
Or maybe he was waiting for me to back down. If so, he’d be waiting a while. I’d coursed through my life until this point, teasing those who had authority over me, denying my gift, never truly considering anyone else’s needs, sneaking out to look for trouble and if I didn’t find it then starting it. Those were the actions of a little girl, an immature and insignificant child. But I was no longer that child. The night in the backyard when I’d accepted my fate, my heritage, I’d accepted something else - I had a responsibility now. For the first time in my life, I had a reason for being, a goal, a hunger that didn’t seem capable of being fulfilled. I was now here to help others and I would do it to the best of my ability.
Satisfied, I drew in a deep breath and found Ms. Wizner discussing 18 century novelists, the same lecture Professor Clements had been giving the day my life had suddenly and drastically changed. So much had happened since then…I mused. And whatever kind of danger I might be in now, I was happy with my new, altered life’s direction.
Then Jameson’s voice ran through my mind again. “Umm, I heard all that…” he admitted sheepishly.
“Everything?”
He tilted his head to the side and gave me a look that meant…yes. “Thought you should know. I wasn’t trying to violate your private dialogue, I just…I couldn’t avoid it. Your voice gets louder when you’re…determined.”
“Well, I meant what I said…thought,” I corrected myself. “I’m not backing down.”
He didn’t agree with my decision, which was clear by the expression in his face. Figuring there was no possible way he would win this argument, he changed the subject. “In case you don’t have enough danger in your life…there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you.” He paused and looked directly at me, his hand flinching as the nervousness coursed through him. “Will you go out with me this Saturday?”
My obstinacy fell away and I was overtaken by flattery.
“What did you have in mind? Planning to pick me up at my house?” I asked playfully.
“Not sure I’d make it passed the driveway,” he said through a laugh. “No, I had something else in mind.”
Then he laid out his plan and by the end of it I was having trouble containing the excitement surging through me.
With a content grin, he released my hand and I sat in a surreal state, realizing we’d just held an entire conversation, had agreed to a secret date, all without anyone hearing us or the need to open our mouths.
It dawned on me that since I’d met Jameson we’d managed to keep the true nature of our relationship a secret, limited to platonic, even if contested, interactions in evening classes once a week. No one knew of our private conversations or secret rendezvous’ and it made me feel as if we were getting away with something.
I had no idea, no premonition at all, that everything was about to change.
14 DATE
Halloween was treated entirely different in New Orleans than it was at Wentworth Preparatory Academy in New York. There, we were given juice and an extra cookie for dessert while treated to an obligatory talent contest in order to satisfy the need for costumes. New Orleans, on the other hand, exploded in to a visual parade of colors and disguises. Houses hosted sophisticated galas and Frenchmen Street prepared for thousands of people to descend on it during its annual, elaborate parade of frighteningly detailed floats. Local bars boasted contests while stores throughout The Quarter sold costumes ranging from fancy to startling. It felt as if electricity buzzed in the air as the city transformed itself.
Then, of course, there were the clandestine preparations made within our world to which few were privy. Specialty candles and exotic scents were bought in mass quantity from stores hidden to the regular public. Decorations of a different kind were taken down from the rafters. Rather than witches with broomsticks there were wreaths of dried herbs hanging at the door. Instead of ghosts and tombstones propped in the front yard, there were books of messages and family keepsakes left for dead relatives in case they decided to stop by.
As signs of Halloween crept up around New Orleans, Jameson and I continued meeting at the back of the gym after school for our unusual tryst to find people to heal. Wednesday was included because Ms. Veilleux’s school needed it to prepare for their own Samhain celebration, giving Jameson and me an extra day together. Against his preference, I accompanied him to the village and helped deliver supplies. There and on the way back, our hands found each other across the car’s console and remained entwined for the duration we were driving. There were no more instances of La Terreur so we saw Isadora briefly, where she again wrapped my family stone in a red cloth.
The rest of my free time that week was spent preparing for Saturday, either deciding on a costume for myself or helping my cousins select theirs.
Then Saturday arrived and all I could think about was my date with Jameson.
“Can you help me?” was the first time I really heard anyone speak that day. It came from Estelle sometime around five o’clock in the evening when the sun was just about to drop below the horizon.
“Sure,” I said, glancing up from a book I’d found in Aunt Lizzy’s library on medicinal herbs. While it captured my attention for the first five minutes, the last two hours had been spent gazing impassively at the words on the page and wondering how tonight would evolve with Jameson.
“I just need you to thip me up.” Estelle had chosen to be a fairy with fangs, which made it difficult for her to speak.
I stifled a giggle at her expense and secured the back of her deep purple layered chiffon dress. She looked exquisite.
“We leafff in thirty minutes,” she said with a clap of her hands. “Do you need helf getting ready?”
“No, Miss Mabelle found something for me to wear.”
I didn’t mention how oddly appropriate her selection was either. Part of Jameson’s plan to escape the prying eyes of our relatives was to dress in masquerade and the outfit Miss Mabelle left in my closet without my having to ask, fit the occasion perfectly.
Taken directly out of a fairy tale, the dress was entirely white, sleeveless and narrowed at the waist to flare out until reaching my feet. It came with a white chocker and a mask that looked as if it had been dipped in diamonds. And, what stood out the most was that it seemed to be custom-tailored to my tall height. With my hair coiled and loosely pinned up, the ensemble fit me perfectly.
I heard gasps as I came down the stairs, confirming it.
Having no interest in being the center of my cousins’ doting attention, when they looked stunning themselves, I asked before anyone could comment, “Ready?”
“Abtholutely!” exclaimed Estelle.
Then we left, with me trailing behind Oscar as a mobster, Nolan as a barbarian, Spencer as a mad scientist, Estelle in her wicked fairy outfit, and Vinnia as a traditional witch. Each of their costumes fit them perfectly in size and personality and I knew before they mentioned it that they’d found the outfit hung in their closet by Miss Mabelle, too.
The rest of the students showed no shortage of creativity. With ten-foot tall wings, a Pinocchio nose two feet long, and Pippi Longstocking braids extending out arms length on both sides it was intriguing to walk into the courtyard.
Our evening school had been transformed, too. Ms. Veilleux and her staff
made the most of their spare days to set up tarot card stations, palm reading stations, food stations with dishes like edible fingers and spider popcorn, drink stations with cauldrons of steaming brews, and a place for leaving private messages for the dead. If there was music, however, it couldn’t be heard over the squeals of laughter as we assessed one another’s costumes.
No one seemed to notice when the Caldwells arrived, me included even though my attention was on that sole purpose since entering the courtyard.
“Tarot cards?” he whispered, referring to the fact I was standing beside Miranda having her cards read. “And I thought you didn’t believe in this hocus pocus…”
My lips turning up in a smile, I rotated at the waist to find him standing beside me. Dressed in a black tuxedo, his sturdy build showed the outline of his muscles through the fabric, and the diagonal white face mask revealed only his cheek, half of his seductively contoured lips, and the remnants of the scar above his lip. I was momentarily distracted.
Apparently, he was too, because his grin fell and he swallowed back the passion so evident in his eyes. “You’re stunning,” he whispered passed an unmistakable lump in his throat.
“Thank you,” I said demurely though not intending it.
We stood awkwardly in silence, drinking in the sight of each other, and then another voice broke through our focus.
It was more of a gasp actually.
Jameson and I turned in unison to find Miranda was no longer at the table but tarot cards were, nonetheless, laid across it. The woman, dressed in a colorful silk wrap, spoke limited English with a thick Spanish accent as she placed a painted nail on top of one card.
“Enemies,” she stated.
Her finger moved to the card next to it.
“Lovers…”
Her face contorted into confusion then.
“Enemies…but lovers?”
Jameson briefly placed a hand on her shoulder while he explained through a chuckle as best he could. “It stumps us, too.”
Then Jameson’s hand was on my back, guiding me through the crowd. He directed me toward the stairs running up the side of both ends of the courtyard to the second floor where the voices from below became more muffled. This level was vacant and dimmer, without the gas lamps lit like those on the bottom floor. We took a third flight of stairs, curving around the edge of the building until the courtyard was behind us and the city lights extended out ahead.
It took me a second to realize we were on the roof. In fact, only when I finished surveying where we’d ended up did I find what Jameson had done.
To our right, on the flattest part, he’d brought up a canvas bag similar to the ones used on deliveries to the village. It leaned against one side of the layered rooftop, unidentifiable items protruding through the top. Other than that, the roof was empty.
“We’re not supposed to be up here but I wanted to show you…” he said while removing his mask.
I took my mask off too and glanced around before teasing, “You shouldn’t have…”
“Wait,” he chuckled. “Just a second…”
He moved quickly then and I got the impression it was because he didn’t want me to lose hope he’d put any effort into his first date with me. Pulling a lantern from the bag and lighting it, he stooped down in the front of the horizontal wall.
“Here,” he urged.
Curious, I stepped forward, although I did it cautiously. The building we were standing on was old enough to send us through the ceiling at any given moment. But once at his side, the age of the structure became unpredictably heartwarming.
In the lantern’s glow, Jameson pointed to carvings made in the wall - a list of names. They were cut into the wood with various techniques and angles so I deduced each one was made by their respective owner.
“Remember when Ms. Veilleux disciplined us that night in the courtyard? She mentioned that this school had created some of the most gifted of our kind? These are their names…”
“Huh, think we should add ours?” I asked mischievous but joking with him.
He smiled and then insisted, “Look at the names, Jocelyn.”
I did take a closer look and then I couldn’t take my eyes off them, not only because of their significance, but because of the surnames. Ms. Veilleux was noted among them along with ten others, but it was two names in particular that made my lungs freeze for a few seconds. One was Louis Caldwell, Jameson’s relative I figured, and the other one I lingered on much longer. It was Isabella Weatherford…my mother’s name.
I drew in a breath, finally, and then absentmindedly reached out to touch it, instantly missing her, trying to reach across to her through the carving.
“She was a student here…” I sighed. “I never…I never even considered that to be possible.”
“So was my dad,” said Jameson and I knew he was referring to the name Louis, the one above my mother’s.
“If these are in order, they went to school here close to the same time,” I pointed out.
Jameson nodded. “Or during the very same time.”
The comparison was striking. Jameson and I. His father and my mother. I wondered if they had a volatile relationship like the rest of our relatives had throughout history.
“I…I’m sorry about your father,” he said with sincere empathy. “Do you know if he went to school here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know much of anything. My mother never talks about my family.”
“Ever?” That seemed to shock him but with the Caldwell’s being so close knit I understood why.
“No, I didn’t have a clue about my family here in New Orleans until I met them a few weeks ago.”
“Nothing at all?” he said but didn’t wait for an answer. He already knew what it would be. “What do you talk about with your mother? Wait…maybe I don’t want to know…”
“Not girl stuff,” I alleviated his fears.
“Oh…all right.”
I laughed with him for a second before explaining. “When she picked me up for the holidays, she mostly spent the time quizzing me.”
“On what?” he asked, deeply intrigued.
“Herbs, stones, Latin. Although I didn’t pay as much attention to the language part and now I wish I would have.”
He laughed to himself. “I know the feeling. Those seem like…if you don’t mind me saying…like odd things to talk about with your mother.”
“I think she’s been preparing me for this world, our world, for a long time. She just never specifically mentioned it.” I shrugged. “But it’s what we do. We travel, she teaches, I learn.”
“Travel?” He lifted his eyebrows curiously. “Where do you go?”
“Everywhere. My mother introduced me to her friends in every major city. London, Rome, Amsterdam, Munich. Name it and I’ve probably been there.”
His forehead creased as he analyzed something he’d picked up on. “Hmm, that’s interesting…”
“What is?” I asked trying to understand whatever it was I’d missed.
“It’s probably just coincidence but those are the cities where our world has major provinces.”
That was stunning and for a moment I was speechless. Then, without much else to say, I replied, “Well…if there’s one thing that’s certain about my mother it’s that she’s mysterious.”
I looked up when he paused to find him openly evaluating me, a content smile hovering below the surface. “I heard your mother is breathtaking…You must have gotten her looks.”
Before I could even respond, he’d stood and walked to the canvas bag. From it, he pulled a blanket and pillows to lay them out against the back wall.
“That’s…” I started and then contemplated whether I should finish my sentence.
“Hmm?” he said over his shoulder as he finished setting up and then sat down with his back against the wall. “That’s…what?”
Still hesitant, I stated, “That’s not exactly the kind of description I’d expect about my mother coming fr
om the Caldwells.”
His eyebrows rose. “We’re not as bad as you probably assume. Actually, we’re pretty fair when describing you Weatherfords.”
I believed him. Everything I’d seen so far from both families had involved childish behavior, but they’d always respected their adversaries nonetheless. There just wasn’t any trust between them.
“I’d have to say the same for my family,” I said, moving to sit down beside him. Not so close that we touched but close enough that I felt the tension arise between us.
“Is that right?” he replied stiffly, reacting to my presence so close. And then he relaxed a little. “What do they say about us?”
I described his family like Oscar had during lunch on the first day of school and when I was done his gaze drifted to the city landscape, contemplating, an amused expression lifting his lips.
“I’ll have to tell them,” he said finally. “Maybe it’ll stop the haranguing I regularly get for choosing you as a partner during our Wednesday classes.”
“Might take a little more than that,” I warned and we laughed together knowing the truth behind my statement.
“Your family still doesn’t know, do they?”
I shook my head. “I figured those in our class aren’t the gossiping type.”
He snickered through his nose. “I have another theory.”
“Which is?”
“Sometimes it’s more frightening to be the messenger of bad news than it is to simply avoid delivering the message at all.”
“Fear is a strong motivator,” I agreed.
“And so is courage,” he stated before reaching for my hand. I felt his fingers gently touch mine in the dark, curling around mine, sending a current of pleasure through me.
“Is this all right?” he asked tenderly.
“Yes,” I breathed, still trying to control the emotions coursing through me.