Bayou Fairy Tale

by Lex Chase

  But there was wonder here too. The light filtered through the thick sheets of ice encasing the spanish moss and cast prismatic webs of light over the grounds. The pattern painted over Taylor and Corentin as they stood together. For the moment they could forget why they came.

  “It’s… beautiful…,” Taylor whispered. He reached for Corentin’s hand, but Corentin stepped away. Ashamed, Taylor put his hand to his chest.

  Corentin put his hands in his pockets and pressed his lips together in a pensive line. There was no telling where he was right now. As far as Taylor knew, he wasn’t even mentally in the same place as his physical body. Would he say anything at all?

  Taylor’s stomach clenched. Please, he wanted to say, please say something.

  The silence persisted.

  Taylor shivered from the creeping anxiety prickling through his nerves.

  “Many friends died here,” Corentin said in a detached tone, as if he were stating a fact on a chart.

  “I’m sorry,” Taylor said and tried to swallow against the cold in his throat. “I’m learning a lot about you here. I thought I knew all there was.”

  “I know.” Corentin wouldn’t look at him, and his tone enforced the distance between them. “I’ve kept things from you. I shouldn’t and I know that.” He sighed a long, tired breath. “You’ve made such an effort to let me in, yet I’ve barely extended the courtesy.”

  Taylor smiled. “Well, we can start now.” He looked at Corentin, but Corentin was still a million miles away. “We’ve been through so much together, and I’m with you for all eternity it seems like. No matter what forms we take.” He rubbed his hands together and puffed a hot breath into them. He chuckled. “Maybe I’ll come back as a pretty girl next time.”

  Corentin snorted. “Storyteller, I hope not.”

  Taylor blinked and cracked a slow grin. That seemed to get through to him. “Really?” He ran his top teeth over his bottom lip. “I was sure your next incarnation would be all about the hot chicks.”

  “I like you like you are,” Corentin firmly.

  Taylor blushed. “It’s been a while since we’ve been like this.”

  “In over our heads with no possible way out?” Corentin scratched his chin.

  “I have fond memories of that.”

  “Sure you do.” Corentin didn’t smile. He listened as more branches snapped and shattered.

  Taylor chewed the raw patch of skin on his lip.

  “I’m….” Ringo pointed to a cypress branch over their heads. “Just gonna go take a chill over there while you kids get sorted. ’Kay?”

  The silence returned.

  Ringo didn’t need to be told twice and fluttered away.

  “Are you the Axeman? Is it true?” Taylor reached out, and Corentin permitted him to take his hand. “You can tell me. I love you, you know I do. We’ll get through this.”

  Corentin finally looked at him, and Taylor shivered. His dark eyes seemed to swallow Taylor into the depths of his emptiness. His mouth pressed in a grim line, holding back words, yet fighting to say them.

  Time had not been kind to Corentin. The crow’s feet drew jagged lines from the corners of his eyes, and his cheeks had become hollow. How did Taylor not notice before? Corentin was old. In the moment, he let himself become old. Corentin let his guard down and let Taylor see who he really was under all the Creole charm and rapier wit.

  He let Taylor see the tired old killer who had long ago lost his way.

  “I am.”

  His words came with such a calmness, they stabbed Taylor sharper than any dagger ever could.

  Taylor breathed a steadying sigh. “Okay.” It was all he could say. He took another slow breath to keep his heart from hammering. “Okay.”

  Together they looked out over the bayou.

  Taylor swallowed and took a guess. “They weren’t your friends who died out here, were they?”

  “No.”

  Taylor forced down the bile bubbling up his throat. “Okay.”

  Corentin pointed to a distant patch of cattails. “Over there? I disposed of a baker’s wife. She owed a witch their firstborn and she wouldn’t pay up.” He pointed to the left at a tight-packed row of cypress trees. “Those trees there? I lashed a prince to the roots and left him for the gators to deal with.” He pointed to the shore across from them. “There? I sank a kindly princess to the bottom of the bayou. No one ever found her.”

  Taylor lurched forward as his stomach acid refused to go down. He gagged as he swallowed.

  “Over there?” Corentin pointed to what looked like a gator nest. “I tracked down the asshole who tried to kill me. I took his sister. I mailed her back to him in pieces.”

  Taylor slapped his hand over his mouth as his anxiety punched him in the gut. He stumbled and then caught himself on a cypress root. With one more gurgling cough, he expelled pure stomach acid.

  Corentin didn’t move.

  After three heaves, Taylor clung to the tree root, waiting for the world to stop being so bright. He refused to swallow; instead, he repeatedly spit. He looked up overhead to Ringo and shook his head. The sorrow on Ringo’s face said it all.

  Taylor could weather any storm with Corentin, but this time….

  “But you’re not that guy anymore,” Taylor croaked.

  “Tell him about Goslynn,” Aliss said from behind them, her voice sharp like a hot razor. “It sounds better coming from you.”

  Taylor’s skin tingled with the remnants of nausea. “G-G-Goslynn?” Taylor didn’t want to know the answer, but Aliss was determined to torture it out of Corentin.

  Corentin looked out over the bayou, and the silence returned.

  “Tell him, Devereaux,” Aliss commanded.

  “She was a friend.” Corentin turned to Taylor, and Taylor couldn’t hide his worried expression. Corentin smiled brokenly. “She was going to fix me. Break my curse.”

  Taylor spit again, refusing to swallow. “And she didn’t?”

  “I killed her.” Corentin ran both of his hands through his damp hair. “I made it hurt.”

  “You’re not that guy, Corentin.” Taylor got to his feet. “Listen to me. You’re not that guy anymore. You’re good. I know you’re good.”

  “It’s because of him the Library has been crippled,” Aliss said, crossing her arms. “We haven’t been able to keep track of destinies since she died.”

  “But that was years ago.” Ringo grunted as he descended from the tree. “There’s no way you couldn’t have recovered.”

  Aliss nodded once at Corentin. “Tell them. Go on.”

  “Tell me what?” Taylor looked between them. He didn’t know whom to believe anymore. He had been wrong about Ray. Was he wrong about everything else? Had he been wrong about Corentin all this time?

  “Goslynn was a Grand Storyteller. A direct descendant of Mother Storyteller herself. Through her power, she held together Idea and the Library.”

  “Goslynn had the power of Words. She could teleport us anywhere there was a printed page. Now, all of our agents can only go where literature about them exists.” Aliss nodded to Taylor. “It’s how I was able to appear in Bar Harbor, because your library kept a copy of Alice in Wonderland. But thanks to various mundane communities arbitrarily deeming certain stories obscene, we can’t get there. And by then it’s too late.”

  “Hurray censorship.” Ringo snorted.

  “And now Idea and the Library are barely hanging on,” Aliss said as she adjusted her fur-lined collar. “We were the razor that struck from the shadows.” She narrowed her ruby eyes at Corentin. “Now we fumble along like a butter knife across a tomato.” She stepped away from them and headed for the water’s edge. “When Goslynn died, the Library chose me as the interim leader until they could find a suitable Storyteller.” She wrinkled her nose in derision. “But Storytellers are more interested in sitting in their sacred studies writing Happily Ever Afters instead of enforcing them.”

  She sighed and pulled down her hood, letting it
rest on her shoulders. Aliss held out her hand, catching a snowflake upon her palm. “I’m tired, Mr. Devereaux, Princess Hatfield. And as much as I’ve wanted to run Mr. Deveraux through for years, we need you.”

  Taylor’s eyes widened and his heart slammed once. He looked to the ground to hide his dread. Ringo stayed close, but seemed thankfully distracted from Taylor’s worry.

  Aliss continued, and Taylor clenched his fist. “New Orleans has been a proving ground, and now we believe we can trust you. Princess Valentine, the regrettable son of a bitch he is, hadn’t lied that someone is trying to harness the magic here and use it to their advantage.”

  “I know who,” Taylor interjected firmly. “My brother and his true love, the Witchking.”

  Corentin sighed and then crossed his arms. “At first I thought Taylor just wanted it to be true. Atticus escaped his mental institution shortly before the storm came here. Now….” He glanced at Taylor and gave a resigned nod. “Now, I believe he might be right.”

  “We all tried to convince him otherwise,” Ringo said, and Taylor nodded to him. “Boyo wouldn’t let it go, and we should have trusted him from the start.”

  “I have a proposal,” Aliss said, and Taylor gnashed his teeth. “If you help us, I will happily break your curse, Mr. Deveraux.”

  Corentin’s eyes widened, and he snapped his gaze to Taylor and then back to her. He turned back to Taylor and arched a concerned brow.

  Taylor knew his encouraging smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Just hear her out,” he urged, but internally his heart shredded.

  “Nothing’s worked,” Corentin grunted. “Not Goslynn. Not even Taylor’s true love’s kiss. I’ve always been like this. How can I trust you?”

  “Have you ever thought it’s because you’re a huntsman?” Aliss asked. “Only princesses and princes can break each other’s curses. But you?” She pointed toward his chin. “You’re different. Of course Princess Hatfield’s true love’s kiss would never work.”

  “There’s a catch, isn’t there?” Corentin asked.

  Aliss smirked and made a pointed glance at Taylor. He looked away, wiping at his watering eyes. He lied to himself that it was the cold making him tear up.

  “There always is, Mr. Devereaux,” she said with a slow, predatory smile. “If I break your curse, you will remember everything. Who you are, what you do, your purpose, your mission in life, your allegiance to all witches, your devoted service to Idi the Witchking. You will be the huntsman you have long forgotten how to be. And you—you, my dear—will be our weapon.”

  “You want me to be your dog on a chain,” Corentin rephrased for her.

  “Think of it as having your mind set free of all of this superficial nonsense.” Aliss raised her hands and indicated the bayou around them.

  Taylor fought to keep his lip from trembling. “Your curse has been holding you back,” he muttered and then swallowed. “You could be free.” The words came so confidently, Taylor prayed Corentin couldn’t sense his tightly reined-in hysterics.

  “What about us?” Corentin said, and Taylor wiped at his face.

  “This is your chance.” Taylor smiled. “This is what you’ve always wanted.”

  “This?” Corentin balked as he held out his hand to Aliss. “To remember I hurt people? To remember I enjoy it? This is not what I want, Taylor. You know that. You know that.”

  “But you can help them. You’d be a strong asset to the Library,” Taylor said with a nod.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Corentin snapped.

  Taylor reached out for him, but Corentin recoiled. “But you’d be able to start over. A completely fresh start,” Taylor said, his voice cracking. “You could learn to control it. You could be the huntsman who had the change of heart. You told me it was possible once.”

  Corentin shook his head. “Taylor, please.”

  “And you want to keep him always looking out for you?” Aliss’s cold tone drove dread into Taylor’s heart. “You want to keep relying on monstrous journals? You want to keep fighting every day to piece together your personality and convince everyone you don’t exactly remember them?”

  “Stop,” Corentin growled.

  Aliss didn’t bat a lash. “That you rely on Taylor’s love for you to let you know you love him? You don’t even feel anything for him during some cycles, do you? Do you just fuck him and let it be meaningless?”

  “Fuck you, stop!” Corentin snapped.

  Taylor backed away and shook his head. “Corentin…,” he whispered. “Let her go.”

  Corentin shot an angry glare at Taylor and then back to Aliss, his knife raised at the ready to gouge out one of her eyes, his hand tight on her throat. He released her, then stumbled back. “My answer is no.” Corentin spat at her feet. He turned and stalked away without a glance back at either of them.

  Ringo held up his hands and whispered, “I’ll go try and smooth this over, okay?”

  There was no smoothing anything over. Taylor was too grief-stricken to stop him. Ringo seemed to take that as permission and fluttered after Corentin.

  “Hey, hey, boyo,” Ringo called to him. “Wait up.”

  Taylor watched Corentin answer Ringo by slamming the truck door in his face.

  Aliss pulled up her hood and smiled out at the bayou. “You still have the knife I gave you?” she asked Taylor.

  He shivered and wiped at his face. “Yeah.” His lip trembled.

  She nodded. “You know what must be done.”

  Taylor watched Corentin as he held his head in his hands. “Will he remember me?”

  “I’m sure we can arrange that,” she said.

  “Don’t.”

  Chapter 20: Done With Graceless Hearts

  May 9

  Idea, Guest Quarters

  THE TRIP back to Idea had been a quiet one. Corentin had kept his attention out the window and refused to engage anyone. Taylor had concentrated on his breathing and tried to ease away the nausea. His thoughts were such a ruined scrabble that he didn’t know how to say anything, or whether to leave it all unsaid.

  Upon their arrival, Corentin merely grunted and nodded when directed. Taylor followed behind, uncertain to walk alongside him. The titan of a man Aliss had called Jax led them to the third floor, and neither spoke. Even Ringo remained silent.

  “Here you go,” Jax said, his voice like he gargled with rocks. They stopped at a particularly unassuming door. It didn’t seem to match with all of the other opulent ones. This one was institution white, with various scuffs and scratches. Faint yellow stains dappling the door inspired Taylor with the very idea of comfort. For a roach, maybe.

  “You can rest here,” Jax said as he turned the rusty key in the lock.

  The door swung open with an unnerving creak. Taylor took a sharp breath at the dingy motel room. Familiar with rat-trap roach motels, the room made a Motel 6 look like a day spa. Moldy gray carpet, wobbly dated furniture that looked like they picked it up at a Bates Motel rummage sale, an unmade bed with the sheets tangled into a wad and the fitted sheet half torn off the bed. Someone had made off with the TV a long time ago. The severed coaxial cables dangled from the outlet. A thunderstorm rumbled outside the narrow window, and the tattered curtains flapped in the wind. Just outside the window, a red neon motel sign flickered, only half of the bulbs lighting up at any one time.

  “Excuse me.” Taylor stopped Jax. “You expect us to sleep here?”

  Jax didn’t seem to understand. “It’s one of the nicest rooms in Idea. The fireplace? The Jacuzzi tub? The fluffy pillows?”

  Taylor shook his head. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

  Jax rubbed his chin. “Ah. That’s not what it looks like to you, does it?”

  Taylor winced. “That’s an understatement.”

  Corentin didn’t say a word as he brushed past them into the dingy room. He slipped out of his coat and tossed it over the desk as if he knew where to go. He worked at his belt buckle while he made his way to the showers.

&n
bsp; Jax pulled Taylor aside. “Idea is just that, an idea.” He glanced at Corentin. “Whoever has the strongest ideas of the moment replicates those into the fortress. So this room? Whatever you’re seeing? That’s his idea.”

  “How do I change it?”

  “Compromise.” Jax’s explanation was so simple, it was insulting. “Good night, Princess Hatfield.”

  “It’s Taylor,” Taylor corrected. “Just….” He looked into the room again and frowned. It even smelled like something died in there. “Just Taylor.”

  Jax nodded. “Good night, Taylor.”

  As if it helped, Taylor crossed himself as he slowly shut the door behind him. The door stuck on its crooked hinges. Taylor gave it a steady push and was rewarded with a sudden crack into place.

  Ringo startled. “Whoa.” He flew in a circle. “It just… needs a few throw pillows, is all.”

  Taylor listened to the rush of water in the bathroom. Corentin didn’t only need to be by himself, but he seemed to drive the point home by heading straight to the shower. Taylor had done the same thing to him once upon a time. So flustered and needing to get away from Corentin, he had practically run to the shower at the Wigwam Motel.

  “Hey,” Taylor whispered to Ringo. “Can you give us a bit?”

  Ringo blinked and glanced toward the bathroom as Corentin stepped out in only a towel at his waist. He didn’t acknowledge either of them as he toweled off his hair.

  “Oh,” Ringo said, pursing his lips. “Gotta get it when you can.”

  “Ringo!” Taylor slapped his hand over Ringo’s head and squeezed.

  He squirmed under Taylor’s grip, his wings flapping in defense. “Okay, okay,” Ringo squeaked.

  Corentin turned to the window, the red neon glow outlining the musculature of his arms and back. The tree tattoo weaving up his left arm shifted with each flex and twist.

  Taylor’s stomach turned. “We just need to talk,” he said in Ringo’s ear.