by Reinke, Sara
“I see it only takes a minute, eh, Augustus?” he remarked, sparing a cool, brittle glance at the Grandfather. “Not two footsteps through your door and your granddaughter forgets her place.”
“She’s not my granddaughter anymore, Allistair.” Augustus had turned his eyes to the fire, his words—his cold dismissal—hurting Tessa more than any physical blow ever could. “She’s yours.”
Rene woke again as she got back into the car. “You all right, pischouette?” he asked, squinting blearily and wincing as he inadvertently moved his hand.
“Yes.” Tessa nodded, muffling a sniffle against the back of her hand. She’d already rubbed at her eyes before opening the door, and hoped he couldn’t tell she’d been crying. “I…I’m fine. How are you doing?”
He looked bad, pale and haggard, but managed a smile. “Still here.” He tried to wiggle the fingers of his wounded hand, but sucked in a hurting breath at the effort.
“Try to rest, Rene,” she said and without thinking about it, she reached out and brushed his hair back lightly from his brow. Her fingertips trailed briefly against the side of his face, and he closed his eyes, as if drawing comfort from her touch.
“Sounds good,” he murmured, then faded once more.
Chapter Seven
Rene had met Irene in the fall of 1967, his senior year in high school. He remembered sitting beneath the cool eaves of a magnolia tree on the grounds of Thibodaux High School. It was the first day of classes, his lunch break, but he hadn’t touched much of the bologna and cheese sandwich his grandmother had packed. Instead, he sat pinching bits of bread loose between his fingertips and flicking them out onto the lawn, where a small finch waited.
He’d lured the bird to him by opening his mind. Although at this point, he was unaware of what exactly he was, and the bloodlust hadn’t yet come upon him, he knew he was different. It hadn’t taken a fucking rocket scientist. If you could make animals, and birds in particular, do whatever you wanted them to just by thinking about it, you definitely weren’t your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill teen in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
He’d been able to summon birds for a long time, since his early childhood. He had always felt like an outsider in the small community he called home and had never had many friends growing up, so the birds had been companions to him. They didn’t judge; they didn’t care if he was poor, his clothes secondhand, or that his grandmother worked in the local grocery store while his grandfather drew disability. They would come to him, their thoughts innocent and simple; he could close his eyes and have them fly about him in a fluttering swarm, their wings brushing against him, tickling his flesh and tugging at his hair. He could see through their eyes, hear through their ears and lose himself in their world of sensory perceptions.
The finch hopped closer, its small, dark eyes glittering like polished buttons as it drew within a few inches of Rene’s foot. He sat with his knees drawn toward his chest, his elbows resting atop, and when he dropped another crumb, the bird darted for it, snatching it up in its beak. Holding its gaze with his own, Rene reached out, a piece of bread balanced on his fingertips. As his hand lowered to the grass, the bird crept closer, its head turning this way and that, wary and curious, until it stood only millimeters away.
“Oh, my God!”
The voice was soft, nearly breathless with wonder, but enough to startle both the bird and Rene, snapping the mental bond he’d forged between them. The finch flew away with a sudden rustling of feathers, darting back for the shelter of overhead magnolia limbs.
Rene turned and saw a girl standing behind him, having just ducked her head to walk beneath the tree. He froze, paralyzed, unable to speak, breathe or think clearly.
Mon Dieu, she’s beautiful.
She blinked at him, blue eyes wide and filled with wonder. “Did you see that?” she gasped. “That bird almost jumped right into your hand!”
He knew who she was, of course. There wasn’t anyone in Thibodaux who didn’t recognize Irene Hunt. Her father was president of the Thibodaux branch of Whitney National Bank. While Rene’s family was probably the poorest in Lafourche parish, the Hunts were undoubtedly the wealthiest.
Rene stared at her until she giggled, drawing her hand to her face. “Of course you saw it,” she said. “It’s your hand.”
She wore a sleeveless dress in a colorful print of scarlet, black and white horizontal bands with a short hem cut to mid thigh. Her blond hair fell in a heavy sheaf to just below her shoulders, fastened back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore little discernable makeup, and her face was round, her features gentle and sweet. She smelled good to him, even at a distance, like lavender soap and baby powder.
Mon Dieu, he thought again. She’s beautiful.
“Hi,” she said with a small, clumsy wave, as if his silence disconcerted her and made her feel shy. “My name’s Irene.” When he still said nothing—because his throat felt like it had closed, nearly strangling him—her bright expression faltered further. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” She turned around. “I’ll leave you alone.”
“No,” he said, the word bursting out of his mouth as he forced himself to speak. “No, wait. Don’t go.”
She turned, smiling hesitantly again, and that was probably the moment he’d fallen in love with her, utterly, hopelessly, helplessly.
“I’m Rene LaCroix,” he said, because it would be years yet before he met Arnaud Morin, his father, and assumed his last name.
Irene was new at school that year. Her father had sent her to private schools in Shreveport prior to that, and Rene later learned that it had only been through her near-constant pleading that John Hunt had eventually consented to let his daughter attend public school in the parish.
“You hassling this young lady, LaCroix?” a loud voice asked, and Gordon Maddox, one year Rene’s senior and a good twenty pounds heavier, strode into view, shoving aside tree boughs with his big, meaty fists. His family was wealthy, too; his father was the third-generation owner of the town’s leading drug store. Gordon was your garden variety privileged pretty-boy asshole type—quarterback on the football team, president of the student council, homecoming king. All that happy horse shit. He’d bullied Rene since grade school for no reason other than the fact Rene was poor, and Rene had long since lost count of how many times Gordon had punched, pounded, pummeled or otherwise plowed the shit out of him over the years.
“I wouldn’t stand too close to this Cajun trash,” Gordon had warned Irene as he’d draped his arm around her shoulders. “You might get shit on your pretty dress.”
“Funny…” she’d replied, and she’d made a point to deliberately duck away from him. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
She was fifteen; Rene was seventeen. Because her family would never have approved of their relationship, they spent that academic year meeting in secret, late-night rendezvous. After his graduation, he’d enlisted in the Army, hoping to make enough money to build a life for himself with Irene. Before he’d shipped off to basic training, and from there, to Vietnam, he’d given her an engagement ring, a thin gold band with a chip for a diamond solitaire; the best he could afford. She’d tearfully accepted his proposal, and that more than anything had seen him through his tour of duty at Dong Tam in the Delta.
But he’d returned from Vietnam a changed man in more ways than one, and while Irene had tried her best to make things work between them, Rene knew that it had been impossible. The wound to his gut had left no visible scars, but the damage from his stint in Vietnam had run cruelly and deeply. He’d retreated from her and his family; he’d rejected and repelled anything in his life that might have made him happy. He’d started drinking heavily, the first of many times in his life when he’d turned to the bottom of a liquor bottle for comfort.
The added discovery that what had happened to him in Vietnam—the rush of the bloodlust—wasn’t a one-time deal, but something recurrent and beyond his capacity to control was especially devastating.
When Irene had come upon him in his grandmother’s pigpen early one Sunday morning, the fresh carcass of a spring suckling between his hands, his face smeared brightly with blood, it had been the last straw.
“Just go!” he’d screamed at her—hateful, hurtful words he wished he could take back. He’d followed her back into Odette’s house, letting the screen door slap shut behind him. She’d told him she was leaving; she’d crossed the kitchen for the corridor and the staircase beyond to pack her bags. “Go back to your daddy! Let him buy you a fresh new life! I don’t need you here! I don’t want you here! Do you hear me? I don’t need you!”
He’d kept screaming because she’d kept walking, and she hadn’t stopped until she’d gone out the front door. She’d cried the entire way, her shoulders twitching and shuddering with hiccuping sobs. When Odette had come home from her shift at the Piggly Wiggly and found out what had happened, she’d slapped Rene across the face.
“Tu êtes un couillon!” she’d cried. You’re a fool! “Quel est le problème avec tu, laissant cette fille marcher hors d’ici?” What’s the matter with you, letting that girl walk out of here? She’d shaken her head, her eyes filled with tears. “You push everyone away—anyone who tries to love you. Tu êtes un couillon!”
Odette had never forgiven him for driving Irene away, not even after Arnaud Morin had shot and killed himself, leaving his fortune to Rene and rescuing them all from a life of abject poverty. She’d been diagnosed with stomach cancer a year after his inheritance, a particularly aggressive and ultimately lethal variety. Even though he’d kept a constant vigil at her bedside and made sure she received the best medical care money could afford, he knew that Odette had still died angry with him, her heart broken because of what he’d done.
There had been something so innocent and vulnerable about Irene; she’d lived a spoiled and sheltered life but hadn’t been jaded because of it. Come to think of it, there were a lot of things about Tessa that reminded him of Irene.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking so much about Irene lately, Rene thought, his head resting back against the passenger seat of the Audi, his eyes closed. And why I’ve been so hard on Tessa.
Tessa had surprised him—something few people did anymore, and never women. He’d worried that what had happened at the rest stop would cause her to have some kind of irreparable break down, but it hadn’t. Her initial tears had waned, and she’d helped him with a relentless and stony sort of determination as they’d hidden the body together. She’d helped him dress his wounded hand and taken over driving duties without complaint. There was something tough beneath that pretty, pampered exterior, just as there had been in the end with Irene. Rene had to admit that it had shocked the hell out of him and he had to admire Tessa for it.
He opened his eyes and glanced at her. The hot Texas sun streamed through the windshield of the car, spilling directly upon them, and even with the air-conditioning at full blast, beads of perspiration had formed along the contours of her face, dampening her bangs. She’d tucked her hair back behind her ears and sat somewhat scooted forward, her hands draped against the top of the steering wheel as she kept her gaze pinned on the road ahead.
Mon Dieu, she’s beautiful.
“It wasn’t fancy,” she said, seemingly out of nowhere, and he jumped, startled.
“What?”
She looked at him briefly. “My wedding. It wasn’t fancy.” Her gaze returned to the highway. “We don’t do anything to celebrate marriage.”
She adjusted her grip on the steering wheel, craning her neck slightly from side to side to resettle her spine. “The Elders arrange all of our marriages. They use the Tomes, like the one I found in Louisiana…” She pointed over her shoulder, toward the backseat, where the voluminous book had been stowed. “…to determine who marries whom. The Tomes keep each clan’s records all the way back to the beginning. That way, the bloodlines stay clean and they can make sure there’s no inbreeding among the clans.”
“The beginning of what?” Rene asked, and she shrugged.
“Everything, I guess. As far as the Brethren are concerned, anyway; back to the thirteen hundreds, I think. Around the Middle Ages.”
“Is that what you read in that book?” Rene asked.
Tessa shook her head. “I can’t read it. At least not so far. It’s written in French, but it’s not like any French I recognize—an old dialect, I think, maybe medieval. Maybe you can take a look at it later, see if it makes sense to you.”
“Yeah. Because I’m that fucking old,” Rene remarked, and immediately felt bad. Here, they had been having the introductory strings of an actual, honest-to-Christ conversation—the first he and Tessa had enjoyed thus far in their travels—and he had to go and blow it with a smart-ass comment.
To his surprise, Tessa laughed. “No, because your French is better than mine,” she said, seeming completely unbothered by his remark. “Didn’t you tell me you grew up speaking it?”
“My grandmother seldom spoke anything else when she was home,” Rene admitted. His mother’s side of the family had come from long-standing Acadian lines, and Odette LaCroix had been fiercely proud of this distinctive heritage.
“Anyway, you said something earlier about my fancy wedding, and it wasn’t. I was Martin’s sixth wife.”
“His sixth wife?” Rene asked. Jesus, and I couldn’t keep one happy long enough to make a go of things.
She nodded. “He was older than me. Much older. Brethren men can have multiple wives as long as they’ve passed their bloodletting and are members in good standing of the Council.”
“The Council? You mean the ones who are after you and Brandon?”
Tessa glanced at him and smiled. “No. Those are the Elders. They’re different. The Council is made up of all married adult males who have undergone the bloodletting. They propose rules and regulations, vote on things that affect all of the Brethren. The Elders are the head males from each of the clans, the strongest ones, our leaders. Whatever passes at the Council has to be agreed upon by the Elders before it becomes mandate. And my grandfather has final say on everything, because he’s in charge over the Elders.”
The bloodletting. The Council. The Elders. Clans and mandates. Jesus Christ, it sounds like they operate their own goddamn third-world country. “So how did your grand-père wind up in charge? Is he the oldest or something?”
Tessa shook her head. “He has the most male heirs. You know, sons and grandsons.”
“He with the most bibettes wins, no?” Rene remarked, arching his brow, and Tessa laughed.
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m pretty sure the answer’s yes.”
He tried to re-situate himself more comfortably in his seat, and accidentally jostled his hand. To that point, the pain had grown if not tolerable, then at least not overwhelming anymore, but at the movement, fresh pain speared up through his arm and into his chest and he grimaced.
“Are you all right?” Tessa asked, draping her hand against his arm. It was the second such time she’d touched him like that; she’d caressed his face earlier, if only for a moment, and he had to admit, there had been something welcome in the gesture. Now, as before, she let her hand linger against him, and again, as before, he found he didn’t mind at all.
“Yeah,” he said, managing a smile. “It’s feeling much better, in fact.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” he lied, because he didn’t want her to worry. “How about you? How’s your belly?” When she looked puzzled at this, he said, “You stopped earlier. Said you felt sick.”
“Oh,” she said. “That. I…I’m all right. Much better now.”
He had the distinct impression she was lying, though not necessarily about feeling better. Rather, he thought maybe she’d lied to him about stopping in the first place, that something else and not nausea had caused her to pull the car off the road.
What are you hiding, pischouette?
He could open his mind to her and try to find out,
but Tessa had telepathic abilities of her own and she could keep him out of her head if she wanted. There would be nothing surreptitious on his part about it, as there would have been had she been human; she’d know what he was trying to do and she’d undoubtedly get pissed.
And he couldn’t blame her for not trusting him enough to tell the truth. He hadn’t exactly proven himself trustworthy with his behavior. She’d been right earlier when she’d said he treated her like an idiot or a child. Not the sort of thing that endears you to someone else, he thought.
“So your husband had six wives, no?” he asked. She had started fidgeting in the seat, alternately relaxing and tightening her grasp on the steering wheel, and he respected her nonverbal cues to change the subject. “He must have kept busy.”
“With his work, yes. Martin works in the accounts payable department for the distillery. I didn’t see him much.” She continued fingering the steering wheel anxiously, keeping her eyes fixed on the road. “He’s a very hard worker.”
It felt like she was feeding him some sort of rhetoric, something she’d regurgitated so many times, it came out sounding nearly robotic. And like absolute bullshit. So what’s the truth? Rene wondered, raising his brow. “How long have you been married?”
She slipped her hands from the steering wheel one at a time and swatted them against her pant legs, as if her palms were suddenly clammy. “Four years.”
“Oh.” Rene nodded. “And here you are, coming along with his bébé. I bet he misses you. It must have been a hard choice, leaving him behind to come after Brandon.”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said, the sharp edge to her voice startling him. After a moment of uneasy silence, the tension in her body visibly drained, loosening through her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I…”
