Nineteen Seventy-Three, page 1
Nineteen Seventy-Three
The Seven Book Three
Sarah M. Cradit
Copyright © 2019 Sarah M. Cradit
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Sarah M. Cradit
Editing by Lawrence Editing
* * *
First Edition
ISBN: 9781790821549
* * *
Publisher Contact:
sarah@sarahmcradit.com
www.sarahmcradit.com
Contents
Preface
Also by Sarah M. Cradit
The Seven in 1973
Spring 1973
Prologue: Irish Colleen and the Seven
1. Elizabeth Has An Idea
2. A Major in Dance
3. Why Wait?
4. #1 Guy
5. To Change the Future
Summer 1973
6. Made in the USSR
7. Friend of a Friend
8. For the Sake of All
9. Only Lunch
10. It’s That Time
Fall 1973
11. Tantra
12. Strange Bedfellows
13. The Necklace
14. The Agreement
15. The Walk
Winter 1973
16. The Attempt
17. The Compromise
18. The Assault
19. The Answer
20. I’m Giving it Back
Epilogue: Irish Colleen and the Seven
Also by Sarah M. Cradit
The Family
Homes & Properties
Crimson & Clover Connections
About the Author
Preface
If you’re here, you’ve hopefully started with 1970, followed by 1972. And if this note looks familiar, here’s where I admit I mostly plucked it “as is” from 1972.
As with 1970 and 1972, I feel it’s important to add the disclaimer that I was not alive at any point in the ’70s. I was raised on the music, values, and results of that period, coming up in the ’80s with a vision of the world that matched what my parents had experienced in that pivotal decade. My musical tastes, then and now, are highly influenced by the music my parents raised me on, and even today I enjoy Pink Floyd, CSNY, Carly Simon, and other artists who shaped this decade, more than just about anything else.
Yet, as with all my stories, it’s imperative to me that I get it “right.” I leveraged the experiences of people who did live through the time, including the memories of my father, George Klepach, and my dear friend Deborah Burst, who not only grew up in the ’70s, but in New Orleans, where this story takes flight. She’s been invaluable in helping me visualize those experiences unique to New Orleans in that period, such as the incredible music scene of The Warehouse (before there was a district of the same name), and the allure of the Playboy Club, for my own playboy, Charles.
Any errors, however, are entirely my own.
Beyond the setting, beyond the time, is the story, and the story is one only these characters can tell. I’m grateful they’ve given me the voice to find theirs.
Also by Sarah M. Cradit
KINGDOM OF THE WHITE SEA
* * *
Kingdom of the White Sea Trilogy
The Kingless Crown
The Broken Realm
The Hidden Kingdom
* * *
The Book of All Things
The Raven and the Rush
The Sylvan and the Sand
The Altruist and the Assassin
The Melody and the Master
The Claw and the Crowned
THE SAGA OF CRIMSON & CLOVER
* * *
The House of Crimson and Clover Series
The Storm and the Darkness
Shattered
The Illusions of Eventide
Bound
Midnight Dynasty
Asunder
Empire of Shadows
Myths of Midwinter
The Hinterland Veil
The Secrets Amongst the Cypress
Within the Garden of Twilight
House of Dusk, House of Dawn
* * *
Midnight Dynasty Series
A Tempest of Discovery
A Storm of Revelations
A Torrent of Deceit
* * *
The Seven Series
1970
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1980
* * *
Vampires of the Merovingi Series
The Island
and more
* * *
The Dusk Trilogy
St. Charles at Dusk: The Story of Oz and Adrienne
Flourish: The Story of Anne Fontaine
Banshee: The Story of Giselle Deschanel
* * *
Crimson & Clover Stories
Surrender: The Story of Oz and Ana
Shame: The Story of Jonathan St. Andrews
Fire & Ice: The Story of Remy & Fleur
Dark Blessing: The Landry Triplets
Pandora's Box: The Story of Jasper & Pandora
The Menagerie: Oriana’s Den of Iniquities
A Band of Heather: The Story of Colleen and Noah
The Ephemeral: The Story of Autumn & Gabriel
Bayou’s Edge: The Landry Triplets
For more information, and exciting bonus material, visit www.sarahmcradit.com
The Seven in 1973
Children of
August Deschanel (deceased) &
Colleen “Irish Colleen” Brady
* * *
Charles August Deschanel, Aged 23
Augustus Charles Deschanel, Aged 22
Colleen Amelia Deschanel, Aged 21
Madeline Colleen Deschanel, Deceased
Evangeline Julianne Deschanel, Aged 19
Maureen Amelia Deschanel, Aged 17
Elizabeth Jeanne Deschanel, Aged 14
For Charles
SPRING 1973
* * *
VACHERIE, LOUISIANA
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Prologue: Irish Colleen and the Seven
Colleen Deschanel, known as Irish Colleen to her family and friends, peeked her head into the bedrooms of her seven children, one by one, as she did every night of her life.
Charles, her oldest, was inside sleeping for a change. She’d spent many, many nights worrying about where he was and what he was doing, but now that he was home more often, her worries hadn’t subsided. A spark in her son had begun to die, and soon, he’d be married. Married to a woman Irish Colleen had no choice but to pair him with, even knowing he’d be doomed to a miserable marriage.
No one ever told her being a mother would be a constant struggle between difficult decisions and challenging consequences.
Augustus’ room was still just as he’d left it. Although he’d moved into his own house, it was important to her that he always knew where home was. She’d hoped it would encourage him that he didn’t always have to leave family dinners so early; he could stay the night from time to time, too. But the truth was, he’d been home for dinner twice since moving out, and she suspected he did it only to be polite.
Evangeline was gone now, too. Off to live with Augustus, for reasons that made sense at the surface, but felt more like a knife wound when Irish Colleen dug deeper. Augustus lived only a couple miles from Tulane, where Evangeline was now a student, but she would have left either way. She’d changed, and Irish Colleen had failed to see how or why, or to do anything about it. But her failure would hopefully open the door for Evangeline to explore those big things in life she was made for. She was not like the others. She was too big for their world.
Colleen’s room was as neat as a showroom. Unlike the other children, who left their mark through strewn clothes or inexplicably odd posters conveying their musical tastes, Colleen’s fastidious space could belong to anyone. No signs of personality to mar the neatness. Only her textbooks gave her away. The more she dedicated herself to her studies, the more sterile the rest of her life became.
She slept, though Irish Colleen had only just seen her light go off.
Irish Colleen had learned not to linger outside Madeline’s door. She let Condoleezza in once a month, to dust the furniture and curtains, but the contents were exactly as Madeline had left them, when last they’d stayed over the prior summer. Irish Colleen knew this limbo was nearing an end. She would be moving herself and her youngest daughters back to New Orleans so Charles could assume command of his ancestral property, as a new husband. When she did, Madeline’s belongings would find themselves in boxes, and later, in an attic.
Later. Not now. Not yet.
Maureen whispered to someone in her room. Irish Colleen often heard her daughter talking to others who weren’t there, o
Irish Colleen told herself to focus on the positive. God would not want her to linger on her fears. Maureen was improving in her schoolwork and was on track to graduate. Even her attitude had eased.
So she moved on.
As always, Irish Colleen stopped at Elizabeth last. Lizzy was no longer such a baby, either. She’d start ninth in the fall, and though she might never roam the halls of an actual high school, it didn’t exempt her from the pains and tribulations unique to a young woman of her age. Connor, that shy but sweet boy who had been the only real friend Elizabeth had ever had, still came around, but Irish Colleen had not missed how his eyes stayed on Lizzy just a little longer now… how he watched her.
“Mama? Is that you?”
Irish Colleen broke from her reverie and stepped into the room. “Hi, darling. I hope I didn’t startle you.”
“No, but usually you come right in.”
“Your mother is getting scatterbrained in her old age, I’m afraid.”
“Mama, you’re forty.”
Was that all? Irish Colleen mused at this, how young forty seemed, and how old she felt. She’d lived several lifetimes, and not one had been lived for herself. “Just wait, Lizzy. Forty isn’t too young for back pain and gaps in your memory!”
Elizabeth smiled. She folded the book she was reading and set it aside. “Usually it’s this time of year you start to ask me about my visions.”
Irish Colleen settled at the end of her youngest daughter’s bed. She hadn’t consciously put a timetable on her curiosity, but she supposed Elizabeth was right. “Should I be asking you about them?”
Elizabeth shrugged. She leaned back into her bed, and as the moonlight caught her face, Irish Colleen saw the woman her daughter would one day become. Beautiful. Hardened. “I don’t know if Tante Ophelia is right about this family being cursed, but I wouldn’t have a better explanation if anyone asked me.”
“You don’t have to be so mysterious, Lizzy. Just say it.”
“Haven’t you realized, it’s all so pointless?” Elizabeth rolled her head to the side. “I could tell you we were all going to die tomorrow and you’d be helpless to do anything about it.”
Irish Colleen’s eyes flew wide. “Are we?”
Elizabeth laughed. “No, Mama.”
“Then what, Elizabeth?”
“Why do you torture yourself? What good is knowing?”
Irish Colleen’s Irish temper was quick to respond, but she tempered it and gave her daughter’s question serious consideration. “Helpless or not,” she replied, after a thoughtful pause, “maybe I don’t want you to live with this by yourself.”
Elizabeth fidgeted with the hem on her nightgown. She dropped her head. “All I can tell you, Mama, is that for all the love and marriage and relationships coming our way this year, there won’t be any happiness to go with it.”
Irish Colleen nodded. So many times, her daughter’s prophecies had driven her from the room, afraid of the very thing she’d asked for, running from the truth. But tonight she’d made a silent promise to Elizabeth: she would take whatever her daughter sent her, whether she was strong enough or not.
“Charles?” Irish Colleen asked.
“It starts with him,” Elizabeth said. “But he’s only the beginning.”
Chapter 1
Elizabeth Has An Idea
Elizabeth scribbled her words in a small notebook. There were few ways of sharing the burden her visions had placed upon her, and writing them down was the safest. No one else got hurt. And there was no chance of anyone ever finding the terrible pages, for she burned them once the words were out.
From there they went… well, she didn’t know. Returned to the universe, she supposed, though the words never left her, not really.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Elizabeth tore the sheets from the metal spirals and placed them in the large tin bowl. She’d stolen it from one of the kitchens at Ophélie, and now it was almost entirely blackened from her devious designs. From her drawer, she plucked the matchbook, extracted a fresh match, and prepared to strike.
Elizabeth paused in mid-action. The undisturbed sulfur burned her nose. She hated the smell, though she’d come to tolerate it.
Not this, not again.
The future can’t be changed, Colleen. It just can’t.
But how do you know?
I know!
Yes, but how?
“It just can’t,” Elizabeth whispered. She chewed her lip, tensing as she focused, willing herself to light the words on fire and release them to their new chemical form. Ashes she would toss to the wind, when the weather changed.
But she couldn’t. Those words had haunted her nearly a year, hiding in her subconscious, poking at the walls to see where they were thin. Her vulnerabilities were a legion, and she feared the day they all found one another and began working in partnership to overthrow these small, but important, methods of self-care.
But how? How did she know?
And therein was the truth, formed of a glue that held her together like so many used matchsticks. Just because. Because, because, because! Because even if they could change the future, it would create new chaos. Her visions were the chaos she knew. She feared, more than the truth, the chaos of the unknown.
Besides, she didn’t make the rules. People older and smarter than Elizabeth had tested and re-tested this theory and had deigned that the future was what it was. It was written in stone, in the stars, in whatever.
Still… she’d never talked to any of them. Not in any meaningful way. Family reunions and such, sure, but never about this. Her one and only conversation about this with Tante Ophelia had been when she was around seven and just coming into her abilities. Her mother had thrown her in the car and deposited her at The Gardens. I’ll come back when you’ve had some education from that woman, she’d declared as Elizabeth stood alone upon the massive porch, wondering what the hell was expected of her.
Ophelia seemed to know the conversation was imminent, for she’d already had some refreshments waiting. Elizabeth remembered very little from that day, for most was filler and the words of an aging matriarch, but she remembered what Ophelia called The Three Rules of a Seer.
One, you must never seek to see what has not been given to you freely.
Two, you must never wield this power in harm to others.
Three, what has been seen cannot be changed.
These are the truths we know unequivocally, and that we live by, in order to exist freely and happily in this world, by the by. We carry a great burden, Elizabeth, but in knowing our limitations we can cease the surrender of all our joy.
If Ophelia said it was true, it must be. Elizabeth had lived hard by this belief, because her great aunt’s reputation was unimpeachable. It was like questioning God, in her estimation, though she held very little belief in the idea that God was loving and benevolent. Though Elizabeth was slightly scared of her tante, she trusted with her whole heart that the old woman put her family before all else. Anyone who could choose not to have children because she saw her family as her charge was a special kind of human.
