by T. A. Foster
“You knew he was going to take his parents’ car and crash into a tree?” My mother was trying to steady her voice.
“I saw the whole thing. His dad was playing golf with his friends from work today and left his car in the garage. Tommy’s mom was at the mall shopping. Tommy grabbed the keys off their key ring next to the door and took the car for a spin.” I couldn’t even look at them. “I tried to stop him in the dream. I did. But he wouldn’t listen. I watched him back out of the driveway, and creep down the street and around the corner. Next thing I knew, I was standing next to the tree, and Tommy was lying next to it. Then, I woke up.” I cried into my hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want it to be a Foresight. I wanted it to be a dream so I didn’t tell you. I thought if I ignored it, maybe it wouldn’t happen, maybe it really was a dream.”
“Ivy, come here.” My mother wrapped her arms around me. “Shhh. You couldn’t know it was a Foresight. You’ve never had one before. This isn’t your fault.”
“But I should have been studying, paying attention, and I would have known.” I cried into her shoulder.
My father shifted behind us. He was taking up what little space was left in the bathroom. “Let’s go to the hospital. Maybe there’s something we can do.”
I choked back more tears. “Really, Daddy? Can we do something?” I unwrapped myself from my mother’s arms and stood.
“I reckon there’s something we can try. Violet?”
“Oh course, dear. Let’s go.”
It was one of the few times when I wished we had flown instead of driven to the hospital like normal people. My father was particularly cautious on the route to St. Mary’s. News of a terrible auto accident tends to breed newfound respect for the road.
Tommy was in intensive care, and we found his parents huddled around his bedside. Tubes, wires, and beeping machines bordered the sandy-haired boy. I trembled at the sight of his almost lifeless body. My father had a firm grip on my shoulders and ushered me in. The overwhelming sense of guilt wrenched my senses when I saw the look of utter anguish on his parents’ faces. I had to hug myself to keep the vomiting sensations at bay.
Mr. and Mrs. Nichols hugged my parents, and each gave me an extra squeeze. They told us Tommy’s condition was fragile. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt when he hit the tree, and the impact with the windshield and the ground had caused internal injuries. They were throwing out medical terms and surgery schedules, but I didn’t hear most it. I watched Tommy.
Somehow, my parents shuttled his parents out of the room and toward the coffee in the waiting area. The door closed behind me, and I shut the blinds on the long, rectangular window. I might only have a minute or two before they came back in to sit next to their son.
My mother had told me how to carry out the plan. I listened carefully and followed her instructions. I looked over at the sleeping boy who played JV football, surfed all summer, and told me the funniest stories I’d ever heard after school. I was the one who could have saved him from this pain; maybe I still could. I hurriedly pulled the saline IV bag off the rolling stand and created a little hole at the top. I retrieved the vile my mother had given me out of my purse and poured in the clear liquid.
“Remedy.” I pointed at the little hole I had made, and the plastic rippled until there wasn’t a single trace of the hole. I gave the bag a little jiggle to mix in the contents, and rehung it on the silver hook, making sure not to disturb the line running to his arm. I walked over to the window and opened the blinds again before taking my post next to Tommy.
“I’m sorry, Tommy. So sorry,” I whispered.
I carefully squeezed his fingers. I realized this was the first time I had held his hand. I didn’t really count the time in the pool last summer when we teamed up for a chicken fight against Lisa and Paul. It wasn’t the way I imagined it happening. I brushed a tear from my cheek as the parent brigade entered the room.
“Ivy, you ready?” My mother’s eyebrows arched. “The Nichols want to sit with Tommy.”
I nodded to her so she would know I had added the elixir to his IV bag.
“Yes, Mama. I’m ready.”
We said our good-byes, well wishes, and promises for prayers.
Two weeks later, Tommy Nichols was released from St. Mary’s Hospital, and though he would never be able to throw a football again, he was alive. The insurmountable internal injuries healed. His case was hailed as a medical phenomenon. Tommy might be the only boy in our high school who wasn’t excited about getting his driver’s license when he turned sixteen, but at least he was alive; nothing else seemed to matter.
That period wasn’t the only time I fought being a witch, but it was the last time I fought any magical warnings or signs. Seeing Tommy and his family suffer like that changed me forever. He would have had a completely different life if only I had stopped him from driving his father’s car that day. The only reason he lived was because of my mother’s magic.
Magic could do so much good; I could do good with it. I promised myself if I ever had another Foresight, I wouldn’t ignore it. I would do whatever I had to do to prevent pain and suffering from snaking their way into other people’s lives. Whether I liked it or not, a tremendous responsibility accompanied my witchy status. I wasn’t always sure what it was, but I knew there was a reason for my magic.
New Orleans, Present Day
THIS WAS one of those times.
Somehow, I was a part of something bigger, something important. Finn and I looked at each other in the blindingly white room of Madame Chantilly’s studio. Neither one of us seemed able to register the enormity of what the fortune-teller was saying. I was the key to squashing the evil holding Emmy hostage. I had the power to eliminate his energy. Meyers’s soliloquy seemed like the ranting of a lonely man who had lost touch. He couldn’t possibly know that I was special or some sort of magical “one.” I had dismissed all of his statements, until now.
I had accepted that it was a lucky break when I flattened Helen’s Proxy strength. It was a fluke. It was a random chance that my plan in Vegas worked. Now Madame Chantilly was telling me it wasn’t any of those things. There was a reason. She gave me a name. I’m a Laurel.
It took years of practice to perfect the Fade, Open, and Radiance Spells. How could I not even know there was something more? Was she actually saying I was given a gift more valuable than the Time Spell abilities? I always thought they were my biggest witchy achievements. Maybe if I hadn’t spent my life trying to escape the magic that was a part of me, I would have known more about Laurels or at least have heard of one.
The light jingle of the front doorbell shook us out of our shocked state. Madame Chantilly rose from her seat. “Wait here. I have customers. I’ll see them out and be right back.” She closed the door behind her, and left Finn and me to face the new revelation together.
“Ivy, holy shit. Did you hear what she said? They’ve been waiting for you.” Finn was fiddling with the jasper again, but his eyes were glued to mine. “Meyers said the same thing. What is a Laurel? I’ve never heard of it. What are you?”
His questions made me feel slightly less guilty about dodging my magical heritage. Finn didn’t know what a Laurel was either. Then, he didn’t grow up with a family of witches trying to teach and mentor his magic as I did.
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of one or it. I can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t want to worry about me, just Emmy. We need Madame Chantilly to tell us how to defeat the consul so we can return Emmy to her family and friends.”
“Seriously? Babe, I’m usually the one who ignores the heavy stuff, not you. You can’t pretend you didn’t hear what she said.”
It was too much, everything that was happening was too much, and my pulse raced. I had to regain control of the situation or I wouldn’t be able to help Emmy. I needed water or even better, an icy diet soda.
I shook my head. “I can’t. I can’t talk about it now. Be you, Finn, and ignore what she said. Ignore the heavy
.” He looked wounded by my words. I reached over for his hand. “I mean, that’s what I need from you right now. I need you to leave it alone. We can defeat the consulate, and then I’ll figure out what I think about everything else. Laurels and—” I stopped.
He smiled at me. “Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t matter. We get the guy, get the girl, and then see what happens.”
I knew appealing to his drifter instincts would work. I took a deep breath, and looked around the room for a water cooler and some cups.
“So, it sounds like we need to isolate him from his little army of guards, and if you can get alone with him, you can extinguish his power.”
Madame Chantilly had given us a brief and vague outline of the ins and outs of defeating someone who had the immortality curse. In this case, his power was coupled with a mini army that was well paid and had vast connections throughout the city.
“Yep, that’s what it sounds like to me. Although, I hope she can give us something a little more specific. Everything she says seems like a magical riddle.” I tried to play the scenario out in my head, picturing myself cornering the angry Frenchman, when Madame Chantilly reentered the room.
“They are gone. I don’t know how much more time I’ll have. This is a busy time of day for me.” I couldn’t believe she was trying to rush us out of the white room so she could garner more fortune-hungry clients. “Have you two decided what you’re going to do?”
“You don’t think we’re going to let some deranged, immortal evil terrorize the women of New Orleans, do you? I know you don’t know me, but I’m a Guardian and I’m not about to let this maniac kidnap any more women in this city.” I noticed Madame Chantilly’s eyes light with recognition when Finn mentioned his Guardian status. “So, if you’re asking if I’m going to do everything in my power to stop him, yes, I am. We’re going to do it. We’re going to take the guy down.” Finn’s voice was charged with confidence. “But, there’s one issue.”
Both of her eyebrows raised. “What’s that?”
“We can’t perform our magic in front of anyone. It sorta complicates the situation. We don’t know how many guards there are, but we do know for sure there is one actress, a human actress, and she can’t see all of this go down.” Finn seemed hesitant to tell the voodoo queen the serious ramifications of sharing our magic.
“Aah, you don’t want to give up your magic and become weaker?” Well, I guess she already knew the consequences. So much for keeping part of our secrets a secret. Her eyes darted between Finn and me. “What about one of you? Would one of you do it?” I wasn’t sure where she was going with this line of questioning, but as if we were in school, I raised my hand.
“I can do it. I’ve done it before, and it only took a month to get back to full strength.”
I avoided Finn’s stare. He knew Jack had seen my magic. We never really finished that conversation last night, and I definitely didn’t want to go into it in front of Madame Chantilly. Finn was already on edge, and there was no way we could talk about it right now.
I felt the heat from his eyes, but I looked straight ahead at the white wall. He spoke calmly. “Wait, before either of us agrees to give up more magic.” I felt the stare penetrate a little deeper into the side of my face as he emphasized more. “What are you talking about?”
The queen leaned in closer. “Cover Spell. Perform a Cover Spell, and only one of you is vulnerable to any magical loss. You seem like strong witches. You should be able to do it. Complete the spell and you can save one set of your powers. It’s a sacrifice one of you makes for the other. Not many witches are willing to even attempt it, but it is possible.” The bangles on her arm shook as her hands joined each other in her lap.
I had never heard of the spell before, but knowing about it now didn’t change my mind. I knew I could take the hit to my magic. With the new information today from Madame Chantilly that I have some kind of place in the magical continuum, I was starting to feel slightly invincible. There was no reason for Finn to take the risk when I was positive I could handle it. A blurred image of Jack scooping me up after I performed the Locality Spell flashed through my mind. His strength is what steadied me when I felt the nauseating effects of trying to use more magic than I had the power to perform.
“Just tell us how we do it.” Finn glared at the woman. “Stop jerking us around.”
I could tell the voodoo queen was tormenting Finn at this point. The silence lagged on for heavy, tense seconds.
“Ok, listen closely.”
We bent forward to capture every whisper as if our lives depended on it.
The door of Madame Chantilly’s fortune-telling parlor closed behind us with a muffled jingle of the front doorbell. I clutched my leather bag on my shoulder and looked up into the blindingly bright sky. Tiny beads of moisture were already dotting my arm from the rising humidity.
Without a word, Finn opened the passenger car door for me, and shuttled me into the car. I threw my bag on the floorboard by my feet, and waited for him to slide into the driver’s seat. I couldn’t read his mood anymore. Too many of the threads that had knotted us together last night were snipped after the discovery of the jasper, Meyer’s disturbing tales, and the Cover Spell instructions from the voodoo queen.
I knew I had made the right decision to help the butler. Listening to Meyers describe the events of the past seventy years while we sat at the plantation was unbelievable. The details of his imprisoned life tugged at my heartstrings. He was trapped in an endless life of carrying out the bidding of a wicked man. He needed our help to be released from the bond forged between him and his master. As long as the master lived, the bond that tied the two together would go on indefinitely. What was worse was that Madame Chantilly’s mother had helped the master with an immortality curse. Like a vampire, he would never die by natural causes. He could go on living year after year, wreaking emotional pain on innocent people. And now we knew why. He was still searching for Josette. He kidnapped anyone in her likeness and held her hostage until Meyers found some way to free them.
The master had created an empire and a life that suited his power-hungry nature. Josette’s disappearance had little to do with the kingdom he had created in New Orleans. Madame Chantilly was admittedly scared of his tyrannical power, and Meyers snuck around the city in the shadows.
Meyers said he had been the one to release all eight of the girls kidnapped by Consul Henri over the years. One by one, he set them up with new identities and lives so they could evade him.
Finn and I sat in the foyer of the plantation for at least an hour listening to Meyers recant the price he had paid for binding himself to Consul Henri. Now, it was happening all over again. Another girl. Another kidnapping. The butler wanted to help Emmy, but she was under special protection.
The release of Masquerade and the making of the movie had sent the consul into an emotional tailspin, and he was convinced Emmy was Josette. I assumed when I wrote my version of Masquerade that the people within the story were gone—disappeared and dead. However, the movie was filmed in his own backyard, and the overwhelming amount of local publicity brought Emmy Harper to the center of his attention.
He had a small army of men in New Orleans paid to carry out his demands. It took the work of his team to trap Emmy in the house after her public fight with Evan and take her away from the plantation house. Meyers explained that the gang had used the underground passages that tunneled under the depths of the plantation to remove the star without as much as a single eyewitness. Emmy had made a habit of isolating herself on the set, and the kidnappers waited for the perfect opportunity to snatch her when she was distracted by one of her solitary pouting episodes.
Once captive, Meyers tried to be alone with her so he could help her escape, but it was impossible. The consul wouldn’t leave her side. He was determined to keep her locked away. He wasn’t willing to take any chances on a local witch casting a Locality Spell in the hopes of helping with the investigation. The first night Emmy went
missing, before the movie producers became suspicious, the consul sent his army to collect every personal belonging Emmy had brought with her to New Orleans. She might be a hostage, but he made sure she was generously supplied with makeup and shoes.
Meyers was instructed to keep a close eye on the investigation and any unfolding leads the police might leak. Part of his surveillance detail brought him to the Hotel François, where he saw me the morning of the press conference huddled behind the palm fronds. It didn’t take him long to recognize my magical skills. Enough years in New Orleans surrounded by magic, voodoo queens, and the ever-present curse he lived with had gifted him with the ability to spot magical beings. When he recognized Finn and saw us talking together, he decided he found the pair who could right all the wrongs.
Meyers was tired. He had been rescuing young girls from the clutches of evil for seventy years. He lived with secrets, dark secrets, and I could only imagine how exhausted he was. He wanted to be released from the bond, and from the life that was now a daily torment.
We could help him. We could be the ones to give him the ultimate opportunity to make amends for accepting the immortal curse. We could keep the consul from kidnapping more girls, and we could set Emmy free. I wasn’t worried about whether Finn wanted to help. Of course he did. He put his life on the line every day to protect and to serve, but this case had taken a turn in a direction neither of us could have anticipated.
I sank back into the seat and looked out of the window as the buildings raced past me. I saw Finn plug in the address into the GPS on his phone before he started the car, but he hadn’t glanced at it once since we left the fortune-teller’s shop.
“Finn?” I eked out his name.