by Arden, Alys
“They’re mine!” my dad said, laughing as he walked behind the counter.
I groaned. “You have leather pants? This is something I could have lived without knowing.”
“What do you think I wore to all of those Bowie concerts back in the day?”
“Who are you supposed to be?” Isaac asked, leaning on the bar next to me. “Tinkerbell?”
“Not exactly.”
My father reluctantly grabbed a bottle of green liquid from his secret hiding place and slid it across the bar to Isaac.
“Whoa, absinthe. Is this the real stuff?” he asked my dad and shot a smile at me, now understanding my comment from last night.
My father leaned over and grabbed it back. “Don’t even think about it.” He looked at the both of us.
“You do realize that no one is going to get your costume?” Désirée said to me, walking back into the room with a compact mirror in front of her face.
“You need to spend a little more time downtown, Dee,” I said.
“Everyone in the Quarter is going to get it,” my father agreed.
“Besides, that’s the least of my concerns at this point,” I mumbled, my nerves starting to fire up.
“Who are you supposed to be, Dee?” asked Isaac. “Catholic schoolgirl? Very original.”
The look of death she shot him was way scarier than her normal ones. She must have just put in red contact lenses. “Sexy Catholic schoolgirl,” she said and slowly opened her mouth into a sly smile, revealing two enlarged, pointy canines.
She lunged at him, hissing.
“Isaac!” I screamed as they crashed to the floor. Désirée landed on top of him and buried her face in his neck. I grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her off, but she burst out laughing. I fell back to the floor as she spit the two fake teeth into her palm.
“Désirée Borges, cracking a joke,” I said in between deep breaths. “Maybe today really is the day of reckoning.”
“I am so gonna get you back for that, witch,” Isaac warned as he took a deep breath of his own and gently pushed Désirée up to her feet.
“I’d like to see you try.” She smoothed out her costume and carefully reinserted her fangs. “I hope you are more ready than that tonight, feather boy.”
My father shook his head at us, trying not to laugh at Isaac, who was now adjusting his wig.
“Please be careful tonight, honey. All the loons will be out with a vengeance.”
“Oui…We’re counting on it.”
“Isaac, I’m holding you responsible. I’m tempted to give you a baseball bat so you can keep the boys away from these two.”
“DAD!”
“I’m serious. Be safe.” He kissed my forehead, grabbed the empty jugs, and walked out of the room with a glittered mouth.
I led the way out through the corridor. “Y’all ready for this?” I asked over my shoulder as we began to descend the stairs.
“Can we get some food first?” asked Isaac.
I turned to him. “How could you possibly eat before… you know?”
“How could you not eat at a time like this?”
“You’re such a guy.”
“Actually, food is probably not a bad idea.” Désirée patted her potion-clanking bag with a fangy grin as we stepped into the courtyard. “These are going to be pretty strong.”
“Bonsoir, Adele.”
The three of us whipped forward to find Sébastien and Jeanne standing near the old dormant fountain. Our anxiety-ridden laughs quickly faded.
“Bonsoir!” I said, surprised. They were the last people I’d expected to see tonight. I ran over and kissed both of Sébastien’s cheeks. When I moved towards Jeanne, she wouldn’t even look me in the eyes.
“You look magnifique,” he said, overcompensating for his sister’s silence. “Tu est envoûtante.”
“Watch out. She’s leaving a trail of glitter behind,” chimed Isaac, raising his sparkling arm.
“We’re here to see your father,” Jeanne said in a way that sliced right through me.
“Oh… d’accord.”
“He’s helping us organize the funeral arrangements,” Sébastien explained.
Jeanne looked at my two new friends and then back to me, apparently confused by the kindred vibe. “Double, double toil and trouble.” Only Jeanne Michel could insult someone by quoting Shakespeare.
“Fire burn, and caldron bubble,” I finished with a meek smile, not knowing a better way to comfort her.
“Maybe the three of you can go as Macbeth’s witches next year?” she said sharply. “Where have you been, Adele? Too busy making Halloween costumes?”
“S’il te plaît sois gentille,” Sébastien pleaded with her.
And then I witnessed something I had never seen before – Jeanne started to cry. Even though her expression remained cold, fast streams of tears suddenly poured down her cheeks and rolled off her chin.
“Désolée!” I whispered as my eyes welled.
She pushed past me and ran up the stairs. Before I could go after her, Sébastien grabbed my arm and whispered in French, “Don’t listen to her. She’s still in shock—”
“Elle a raison,”I said. “You have no idea how right she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.Rien.”
He looked to Isaac and Désirée and back to me. Sébastien might not have been the beat-someone-up, big-brother type, but he was way too intelligent not to know something was up. Jeanne was too distraught to be thinking rationally; otherwise she, too, would have realized something was awry.
“Have fun at the parade,” Sébastien said to the three of us.
“You should come out later tonight,” I said. “Maybe it will take your mind off things for a little while.” Those were the words I said, but what I meant was, “Can you please stay in a very public, very crowded place for the rest of the night?”
Chapter 39 Fight or Flight
We headed over to Bourbon Street and only had to wait in line for ten minutes before snagging the corner booth at the candlelit Clover Grill. I never thought I’d be happy to wait in line for a table, but it was a sign of life coming back to the city.
A waiter I hadn’t seen since before the Storm greeted us loudly as Isaac and I slid in into the booth across from Désirée. It was always a letdown to miss Blanche's shift, but this guy had that happy-to-no-longer-be-displaced glow. For tonight’s festivities, he wore a teased beehive wig with a fake, bloodied nutria rat nestled into it.
“Is Blanche off?” I asked.
“She’s gettin’ into character, baby. You’ll find her on the royal float tonight. Queen of this Hallow’s Eve.”
“Rat’s nest.” Isaac laughed. “Nice one.”
Our waiter posed for a second, with the je ne sais quoithat occurs in New Orleans when someonegets your costume. This moment could happen on Halloween, Mardi Gras, any of the other two dozen holidays that require masquerading, or really, just any Saturday night in the French Quarter.
“And what can I get the Green Faery?”
I didn’t miss the opportunity to shoot Désirée a gloating smile.
“I’m not really hungry,” I told him. Giant crawfish pinchers seemed to have taken hold of my stomach.
Désirée took a small vial from her bag and waved it around, reminding me that I’d shortly have to consume something nasty. Our waiter gave us a those-crazy-kids-and-their-drugs headshake.
“It’s part of the costume,” I explained, grabbing the vial. The last thing I needed was for gossip about me taking drugs to get back to my father. Gossip that would falsely explain my erratic behavior as of late and get me grounded for life.
“Mm… hmm,” he hummed. “Addie, you aren’t gonna wanna take a pass today. We got two boxes of frozen patties this morning.”
“What? Actual meat!”
“You can beat our prices, but you can’t beat our meat!”
“I’ll take the lot!” I yelled. Everyone laughed. “Okay, you twi
sted my arm. I’ll take a patty melt.”
“We don’t got all that. How ’bout patty, with egg on toast?”
“We’ll take three,” Désirée said, eager to get on with it.
“Four,” corrected Isaac.
We all looked at him.
“What? I said I was hungry.”
Once our waiter was back behind the counter, performing with the spatula (it was a common theme here), Dee said, “Drink that now. I have no idea how long it will take to kick in.”
“What is it?” I asked, examining the small bottle of midnight-blue liquid. Little flecks of silver dotted the viscous substance, creating the effect of a star-swept sky.
“That is the Heightening Elixir,” she replied, as if no further explanation was necessary.
“It’s going to make her grow?” asked Isaac with sarcasm.
She rolled her eyes. “No. It’s going to heighten all of her senses. And ours.” She slid a duplicate bottle to Isaac, and turned back to me. “Please be careful, Adele. I’m hesitant to dose you because you’re alreadyso emotional.”
“What do you mean, heighten our senses?” I asked, ignoring the dig.
“The spell is going to increase all of your natural abilities – your strength, your speed, and whatever else it is you do. But it will also increase the strength of your emotions. Happiness, hate, whatever – you’ll be extra susceptible to it all. So, ya know, just watch it.” Her eyes bopped between me and Isaac. “I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but this is a superconcentrated batch, so at least until midnight. You’ll probably feel some kind of lingering effect until tomorrow morning. Maybe longer.”
“So, that’s how you knocked me to the floor earlier,” Isaac said.
“Ha, you wish.” She smirked and pulled a third serving out for herself. “Bottoms up!” she cheersed as our tiny bottles clanked together.
I tilted the little glass back and waited for the contents to slowly seep out and coat the back of my throat. My hand slapped my mouth as I forced myself to gulp the bitterness.
“Gross,” Isaac said, shaking his head like he had just done a shot of tequila.
Other than the acidic taste lingering on my tongue, I didn’t feel any different. “So, that’s it?” I asked. “We just hope that the symmetry of this plan holds up and that the elixir will heighten our senses right as the wormwood potion disrupts theirs?”
“Pretty much,” Désirée answered. “But a symmetric balance would be a dream scenario. Don’t get overconfident because of the elixir. It’s going to give you a boost, but you won’t have anywhere near the strength of a vampire – not even with the wormwood.”
“So no arm-wrestling contests?” Isaac joked.
Désirée looked at him blankly.
My mind lingered on the problem of their strength.
“The Artemisia Absinthium is totally unpredictable. Assuming they all drink the moonshine, the spell will affect each of them differently, depending on how much they drank and how susceptible they are. At a minimum, they’ll start hallucinating and find their strength and speed muted because the connection between their minds and bodies has been compromised. In the best-case scenario, the ones that drank the most will experience a kind of berserk effect on their nervous and immune systems.”
“I wonder how long it’s been since any of those bloodsuckers have felt pain?” Isaac said with a little glee. “I don’t mind taking a hit or two if it means I get to see the shock on their faces when I hit back.”
I hesitated before asking the next question. “But… the potion’s not going tohurt them, right?”
They both gave me a funny look.
“I’m… I’m just worried about my dad. Since he’s inadvertently become the potion dealer.”
“It won’t hurt them,” Désirée said. “It’ll just give them the trip of a lifetime.”
“Don’t stress,” said Isaac. “Mac’s going to be fine. I’ll have them in the attic long before they even make the connection between their hallucinations and the moonshine.”
I didn’t even like hearing the words “Mac’s going to be fine” because that meant therewas a possibility that he might not be.
Désirée pulled four candles out of her bag. This might have seemed weird anywhere else, but carrying candles in your purse was a normal thing ’round these parts post-Storm. “Don’t light them,” she instructed me as she unscrewed the cap on the saltshaker. She circled her arm around her head, allowing the salt to pour out behind the booth, and then handed Isaac the shaker.
I shrugged when he looked to me, and then he mimicked Désirée’s motion, and I completed the circle, emptying out the remaining grains.
Next, Désirée placed a full glass of water in front of the empty seat next to her, put a large crystal next to the candles, and strung a long vine of ivy around her neck
“What else ya got in there, Mary Poppins?” I joked nervously.
Isaac tried not to snicker.
Désirée ignored us and grabbed Isaac’s hand.
My pulse picked up. Is this really the most appropriate place to be doing this? I looked around – the old diner was dimly lit with candles, patrons were yelling over the blaring music, and everyone in the place looked like freaks in costume. There was less of a chance being noticed here than in Vodou Pourvoyeur.
“What are we doing?” Isaac asked.
“Casting a circle for protection… to pool our magic and activate the elixir… and more importantly, to bind us. We’ll be stronger together.” Désirée took my left hand. “Hang onto your horses, kids; we’re about to be a legit coven.”
Isaac conceded and took my right hand.
“Close your eyes and concentrate, just like we practiced last night.” She took a deep breath and began to murmur indecipherable words. Through one cracked eyelid, I watched the candles spark until all the wicks burned bright.
“Repeat after me: Let all who enter the circle of the casquette girls and all of our lineage under your guidance do so in perfect love and perfect trust, Mother Earth, we invoke you.”
Warmth began to swell from their hands to mine. We repeated the verse with her again and again, until her words turned back into gibberish. Energy radiated through my veins, causing the beads on my costume to ripple as the warmth spread to my chest and neck and then to the back of my head.
Static broke up the radio waves. Isaac squeezed my hand.
I felt all the candle flames in the room flicker as we repeated the last lines of the incantation faster and faster. The coffee mugs on top of the espresso machine rattled. The booth trembled.
I tried to contain myself, but a small gasp escaped my lips as I absorbed the supernatural essence. My eyes popped open.
“Wahoo! I love bein’ home!” came a cry from the grill, which in turn got a receptive roar from the room of patrons.
Everything looked as normal as normal gets on Bourbon Street.
And so the casquette girls coven was re-awoken at the Clover Grill on All Hallow’s Eve, the year of the Storm. The three of us exchanged smiles, and my nerves slowly began to subside. I can do this. We can do this together.
Or maybe it’s just the elixir talking?
“Don’t remove your gris-grises,” Désirée continued, as if we hadn’t just caused something totally freaky to happen. “My gran might look old and quiet, but she’s, like, as high up as high priestesses go – so those protective amulets are as good as it gets in this town.”
My hand rested on my chest where the little satchel lay beneath the glitz of sequins.
“Four patties,” said Rat’s Nest as he dropped the plates onto the table.
The glorious smell of grill-marked beef encased us, and I was immediately grateful Désirée had changed my mind about ordering.
The very first swallow of previously frozen protein felt like a sponge absorbing the tidal wave of anxiety crashing in my stomach. I eagerly took a second mouthful. Dee spit out her fangs and munched her sandwich with the small,
controlled bites of a supermodel, smiling with verve, and Isaac grabbed his second patty before he had finished his first, making us both laugh. Then for a few minutes, the only sounds coming from our table were the rustles of napkins wiping grease-dripped chins.
But, as the last bits of crust disappeared, the vibe became heavier, and I knew the same question weighed on all of our minds: Is this our last supper?
“Merci beaucoup, Dee, for everything,” the words flew out of my mouth in a garble.
“I don’t think you need any more stimulants.” She pushed my coffee cup away. I grabbed one more sip of mycafé au lait before relinquishing my mug to her.
“You ready?” she asked me.
“Laissez les bon temps rouler.”
* * *
The door dinged as we exited onto a sunset-pink-hued Bourbon Street.
Despite the confrontation to come, I couldn’t help but feel happiness at the sight of people lollygagging. The post-Storm haze was enlivened by the brewing energy coming from folks in brightly colored costumes.
“I wonder if they are going to try and enforce the curfew tonight?” Isaac asked.
Désirée and I laughed in response. He raised one eyebrow.
“You’ve never been to a parade in New Orleans,” I explained. “The cops are going to have many a thing to enforce tonight before they get around to the curfew. Plus, if everything goes according to plan, they can count on extra mayhem tonight.”
Désirée smiled in agreement.
“All right, everyone’s dosed. We bound our circle. Time for me to head back to the shop so I can start casting those protection spells Marassa and Susannah used three centuries ago.”
My pulse began to race, and my chest tightened as Désirée continued, “I’ll hold off as long as possible on activating the Artemisia Absinthium so they don’t suspect anything too soon.”
I turned to Isaac. He had the hardest job… provoking the vampires to chase him into the attic. “Are you sure you’re okay with this, Isaac? It’s so dangerous.”
“Maybe the leather pants were a bad idea?” he joked, pretending to stretch his leg.
