by Kira Saito
The tears continued as I exposed that everything I had ever known about Sabrina had been an outright lie and how she was Emilie. What I had seen on the other side regarding the civil war, and Louis' future came spilling out of my mouth. I was half afraid that he was about to get up and leave. He didn't. I told him all about the spiritual war and how it was manifesting into the physical world. This led me to discuss Erzulie’s demon child and how his spirit was pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
I didn’t hold anything back. I was risking it all and putting my heart and soul on the table because Lucus was worth it. After I had finished, I searched his face for a reaction. He was frozen. His dark eyes were distant and once again tormented as he tried to process the information that had been thrown at him. Hope fled me, and I felt him slipping away into dark and dangerous places.
"Please say something," I urged. "Anything at all." I knew I was being demanding. I should have said something more mature like I'll give you some time to think this over. If you need time to think this over, I understand and a hundred other cliché lines I could have pulled out.
"Cecile," he whispered as if it were some strange ghostly word from the long-ago past. "Cecile. Cecile. Cecile," he said over and over again which kind of freaked me out, given the fact that there was much more to the story than me being Cecile. If anything, he should have been terrified that an hour ago I had buried Viola or that there was a horrific New World Order being birthed. What about brotherly concern for Louis who was on his way to becoming some dictator?
“Yes.” I looked at him in expectation, trying to read his stony expression. Trying to decode what the slight arch in his brows and the quiver in his lips meant.
"Why are you back?" he asked his voice cold, distant and devoid of the affection that I desperately craved. "You left. You placed this horrific curse on Louis and me. Then, you simply left. Did it give you pleasure to get revenge on me for the manner in which my cousin treated you? Was that your goal? To have me fall madly in love with you and then brutally betray me? Are you back to rub salt into the wounds to take some sadistic pleasure in knowing that despite what you've done to me, my feelings for you are unwavering. You're back to taunt me, aren't you? You are the one my soul loves and will always love, but you have never felt the same way about me, have you? This time, we’ve spent together has been nothing but a lie, hasn’t it? You’re leaving again, aren’t you?” His calm manner had flown out of the window and for a moment I caught a glimpse of the passionate, determined Lucus who fought his cousin for me. He had been the one who stood up to society and his parents to protect me, the one who had made me a million promises and had intended to keep everyone of them.
My heart stopped. I had put all of my cards on the table except for the tiny fact that I had been murdered by none other than his mother, the beautiful but horrifically cruel Madame LaPlante. I was too afraid to reveal that his past had been nothing but a carefully constructed fantasy, and his parents were not the perfect couple they presented themselves to be. How would I be able to shatter his illusions about their undying love? Or confess the fact that his mother was not the one his father wanted to be with. It would mean that Lucus' birth was not one out of love but out of forced affection. How would I tell him that Marie was still tormented because of what had happened to her? I remembered how he recounted fond memories of his family and how he put fresh flowers on their tombs every week. These were the things that I knew would devastate his world, and I would be the unwelcome messenger. I decided that I would break it down slowly. "I never left this plantation. I never left you."
Chapter Seventeen
Darkwood Plantation – Present Day
The Ugly Truth
"What strange games are you playing with me?" His voice was low and suspicious as he got up from his chair and backed away from me as if I were some evil spirit.
“Please believe me when I say I never left you,” I said the words slowly so he would somehow piece together the puzzle himself without me saying the dreaded words.
He didn’t. “Dear Lucus, Thank you for your kindness. I treasure the time we have spent together, but I have come to realize that I cannot be with someone like you. Having spent a short amount of time in your world has made me realize that your life is based on ugliness, which in turn makes you an ugly person. I find it funny that you preach kindness, yet you are blind to what happens under your roof. It's not your fault. You are what you are. After all, you do share the same blood as Edmond. You deserve someone from your world. Please do not try to find me as I never want to see or hear from you again," he recited the letter that most hadn't been written by me. After all this time, he hadn't forgotten the awful words.
“Lucus, please listen to me. I didn’t have a chance to write that letter. I was murdered on this plantation. I never left.”
My words and their implications finally registered. For a moment or two, he looked up at the ceiling as if fully processing the deeper meaning behind my words. He remembered how cruel those days had been and how the slightest protest from a person of color could have meant death. His expression immediately softened and then quickly and without warning he pulled me off the stool. I crashed into his arms. His fingers stroked my hair softly, and his lips grazed mine before consuming me with a kiss full of fire, cinnamon, and coffee. “You never left?” he asked covering me in another kiss before I could respond.
Hope was back, and the world was full of jasmine, honeysuckle, moonlight, and sweet-tea again. “No. I am the one who will always love your soul. I never wanted to leave. I wanted to go to Paris and get married… I never wanted a zombie daughter or to be a participant in a war that my ancestors started. I’m so terribly sorry that I trapped you in this house. You deserved a full life, full of love, laughter, and children. You deserved to grow old with someone who adored you and would have gone mad at the thought of not laying next to you in bed every night and kissing you good morning. I stole all of that from you and for that, I will never forgive myself for.”
“I didn’t want and don’t want any of those things if they aren’t with you.” He kissed away the tears that fell with tight bird-like pecks as if trying to catch the next one before it had a chance to roll down my grimy cheeks. "I have had my share of women, but none of them came close to you or ever will. Only you hold the key to my heart and soul.”
“You forgive me?” I asked
“What you did, you did out of love. How can I hold a grudge? What’s important is that we found each other again.”
“I love you. I love you so much, Lucus.”
“I knew it was you all along,” he whispered. “I would recognize you as a bird or a bee. I was too afraid to admit it to myself because I was afraid of getting hurt again, fearing that your affections were not entirely as sincere as I hoped they were.”
“You had me buried in this dress, didn’t you?” I asked glancing down at the dress I had once loved so much.
"Please don't be angry. The arguments over what clothes you were going to be buried in were endless. In the end, Bea gave me the honor of deciding. I truly was torn between your Oscar the Grouch t-shirt with its one armpit hole, but I felt that this was more of a reflection…"
"Of who I was, and who I am becoming again. I loved this dress and still do, but I'm not the same carefree girl that I used to be you know, the one who wandered down the Vieux Carre, stealing pralines and trying to help everyone who asked. Time, life and circumstances have taken their toll on me.” My bones felt weary even though my soul was elated. “Maybe if you get to know me better as Arelia you’ll change your mind and…” My mind went down ugly paths. He would get to know me more and then hate me... The twisted wheels wouldn’t stop turning…
“Je t'aime, Arelia," he said before lifting me in the air and gently pushing me against the wall and kissing me as if making up for lost time. My knees buckled, and my limbs were lost in his. I wanted to feel and remember every part of him including the creases in his forehead, t
he width of his chest, the curve of his lips, strength of his arms and length of his back. The desire to pull him into the dark hallway and up to my bedroom overcame me as our passionate dance heated up. I yanked off his shirt and traced the tight lines of his stomach with the tips of my fingers. “Je t'aime, Arelia. I do not love a memory. I love you as you are at this moment in time.”
"Let's go upstairs," I whispered relapsing into hormonal mode even forgetting that I smelled like a graveyard and had just come back from the dead.
“We have plenty of time for all things,” he said seductively. I cursed myself for telling him I wanted to take it slow the last time we had spoken about this particular issue. It was probably for the best. My body tensed knowing the dreaded question would come sooner rather than later. “I’m sorry for all the pain that you’ve been through including the trauma and the ugliness of our past. I’m sorry that Emilie has hurt you so much when you’ve tried to reason with her. I know how that feels.”
“How are you and Louis doing?” I asked curiously as to how that relationship was progressing. He truly did understand what it felt like to have a half-sibling who despised you to no end.
“It’s the oddest thing. You’re the one who’s brought us closer together. Since your death, Louis has been a great comfort and help to me even schooling me on how to discern the spirits.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief. There was still time to change what I had seen on the other side. “That’s incredible. A miracle.”
"All of this is a miracle. We've been given a second chance, and nothing will ever separate us again. I promise that I will stand by you, and we will fight this war together. We'll help Louis, defeat Emilie and save the city that brought us together. We won't repeat the mistakes that our ancestors made. After all of that is said and done, we'll get married and have ten children."
"You haven't proposed, and you've already figured out how many children we're going to have. I know you haven't been out of the house for a while, but you know how high the cost of living is? We'll be utterly broke if we have ten children."
He laughed. “You let me worry about that.”
“You know I won’t.” He covered my protests in fervent kisses, and time disappeared. Once we stopped, he stared at me intently. “If I could get my hands on whoever murdered you, I would beg Dieu to send their soul to the fiery pits of hell for eternity.”
I giggled nervously. "Everyone makes mistakes. I don't hold any more grudges. A wise spirit told me that the Judge will eventually make all things right."
“I will never forgive the one who tore us apart. You can call me petty and childish, but I am hard headed when it comes to protecting you.”
“I know. Remember how you rescued me from Edmond?”
“I didn’t do nearly enough. We have to get rid of his spirit immediately,” Lucus said with venom. “Was it him who killed you out of jealousy?” Back in the day, Creole culture was filled with duels and rampant crimes of passion.
I would have to spoon feed him the truth. “No. It wasn’t Edmond who specifically had me killed.”
“Emilie?” he asked.
“She pulled the strings but…”
“Who was it? Arelia, you have to trust me. Who buried you? I will never forgive them.”
I decided to rip off the band-aid. “It was your mom.”
Lucus smiled as if he heard some ridiculous joke, which had a terrible punch line. He examined my serious expression, and his smile vanished. "You must have it wrong. You said yourself that it was dark, and you were confused," he pushed me gently hoping that I would change my story. Sadly, I remembered every lash that had been dished out by her.
I forced back my pride and decided that kindness was more important than making him pick a side on the spot. It was too early to tell him about his mom’s use of tricks to entrap his dad. “I remember everything vividly, it was her, however, I don't know if Emilie was the one who was controlling her. What I do know is that your mom loved you more than anything and was devastated when she thought that you had died. She reacted the way anyone in her position would have back then. Life was cheap, and the color of my skin was enough to justify her actions."
He turned his head down, unable to meet my eyes; he was eerily silent for a few seconds as he reflected on what I had said. “Please tell me it isn’t true. Please,” he whispered in an unsteady voice. He wasn’t fully ready to give up the ghosts of the past yet.
“We promised that we wouldn’t keep any more secrets from one another. I've hidden terrible things from you for far too long. Half of it was out of my fears, and half of it was to protect you. In a world that is full of delusions and illusions, the only truth I see is in your eyes." I thought of the man in the mirror, and I recognized him before I even remembered. I felt my cheeks growing hot at the possibility that this is what would divide us.
His eyes met mine. He appeared as if he had awakened from a long uneasy slumber. “Are you sure?” he asked again. “Are you certain it was her?”
“Yes. It was her, but I forgive her.”
“But she was the kindest woman I knew. My father worshiped her, and all of the other socialites wanted to be her. The slaves only spoke well of her. The house slaves never feared her. It wasn't in her nature to be cruel or hold the slightest bit of hatred towards others. We had our disagreements about you living here, but that was only because she thought we ought to have been married first." He placed his hand to his forehead as if fighting off a stubborn migraine that refused to go away.
I wanted to laugh like a maniac at the saintly image he held of his mom, but that would have been cruel. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I know what it feels like ripping the masks off people we believed were perfect and faultless. It is the most devastating experience and wretched feeling in the world. The house of cards comes crumbling around you, and you find yourself naked and exposed."
He reflected on my words. "I've been living in a house of cards that is about to fall." He cupped my cheeks gently with both of his hands and took a deep breath. "Forgive me for doubting you. I should be the one apologizing. I have no explanation for why she did the things she did. Perhaps she was controlled, or maybe she was out of her mind with grief, but that still doesn't make it right. I'm sorry for the grief my world has caused you. Perhaps it would have been better if you did leave."
I shook my head frantically. “No. It wouldn’t have. I needed to see things and experience life as I have otherwise I wouldn’t have been born for a time such as this.”
He let go of my face and brought his hand to his forehead again. His brows knitted in pain, and his eyes glazed over in a crazed faraway look as if he had been given some heavenly shock.
“Lucus, what is it?” I asked as I stroked his temples lightly.
"I have to go. I hurt you. How could I have let her hurt you? How could I have been so naïve and painfully blind all of these years? I have to go and find out answers. I have to ask them why she did this to you. I love you, Arelia. Please forgive me and have mercy on me. Don’t come after me. Stay in the house and stay safe. I’ll come back soon. I promise.” With those words, he ran out of the kitchen and into the dark hall.
I stood in shock at the rapid turn of events and sprinted after him. I chased him down the hall and out onto the icy marble porch. He was a much faster runner than me, and by the time I made my way down the stairs he was well on his way down the tree-lined path. I could hear him repeat the same words over and over again. “Why? Why? Why?”
The wind howled, and a deathly cool crept up my flimsy gown and ran up my tired legs. My skin froze, and my body refused to move any further. "Lucus! Come back! Where in the world are you going?”
“Didn’t you hear him?” Bade hissed.
“Bade, please, I have to make sure he’s alright. He’s in shock and who knows what he might do.” I thought of the countless number of spirits who were lurking out there and the fact that Emilie would want to get revenge on me by attacking him.
&n
bsp; “Don’t start to be silly again, Arelia. He is in shock. You have destroyed his illusions, and he's discovered that the world that he desperately loved was nothing more than a lie and the one he loves more than life itself was killed by his mother. Nothing you can say can make it better at this exact second. You're not the only one who has the right to be emotional. After all, he is only a mere human and you humans get sentimental at the oddest times. You should know that the LaPlante men are rather dramatic creatures. Don’t you remember how many trials and tribulations Louis put you through before he finally decided to trust you?”
"I remember, but I need to make sure he's safe. There are alligators out there and nasty spirits. Please let me move." The sudden need to protect him from the cruelty of the world bubbled up within me even though my rational mind told me he was a grown man.
Bade’s laughter prompted the trees to shake and howl in amusement. "He can take care of himself. He's been living on this land far longer than you have. The only place you're going is to your room and bed. You need rest."
“But.”
"No more arguments." I was about to open my mouth in resistance when a gust of wind knocked me on my back and into the house. A heavy chandelier crashed to the floor and shattered into a million tiny little pieces. Thankfully, they landed beside me and not on top of me. I got up and tried to open the doors but discovered that they were sealed shut from the outside. I fell to my knees and convinced myself that this episode would pass, and we would overcome all of this drama, however, for some reason, I couldn't help shake Marie and Jacques’ story and that somehow I would find myself in her shoes. My thoughts then drifted to the lovely Wild Rose and her tragic past. Her tormented voice rang into my ears, and it occurred to me that the past was coming back to haunt not only me but the city and country that I loved so dearly.
