A Storm of Revelations, page 11
Are you sure? They asked, no less than twelve times.
I know what it’s like to grow up in the Garden District. Enough to know it’s not for me.
Alastair understood. He dragged him by the arm, up the stairs to the loft on the edge of the French Quarter, on the border of Marigny. You are going to love this place! Alastair declared, as if he’d lived there his whole life. What a gas!
* * *
Julian set the newspaper aside and watched Alastair as he filed his nails. The young man was a stickler for all things hygiene, to the point that it was more than just a tic but a facet of his entire personality. Alastair’s hair never had a strand out of place, and his beard never boasted a shadow. He was ever the impeccable gentleman. He once even wore a top hat on one of their dinner dates, and it wasn’t to be funny.
“Didn’t you just do that?” Julian asked.
“Didn’t you just draw breath, Julian?”
Julian rarely knew how to respond to Alastair’s curious comebacks. There was no arguing with anything he said, even if it was nonsensical or irrelevant. “I was thinking…”
Alastair’s brows arched. He pressed his lips tight as he worked on a stubborn hangnail. “I love when you think, Julian. You have such an incredible mind. Was it about lunch? I’m famished.”
“No, not lunch,” Julian said. “Charlotte.”
Alastair tensed. His file stopped in mid-movement. “Darling, we’ve been through this. If your family is determined to keep secrets from you, you can’t stop them.”
“Why aren’t you ever on my side?”
“I am always on your side. I’m so on your side I’ve forgotten the view from my end of the table.”
Julian frowned. “Why is it okay for them to keep things from me, but it’s not okay for me to be mad about it?”
“Julian, my darling, you have every right to be angry. I’m angry on your behalf! It’s just a damn shame, when a family thinks secrets are more important than unity. Only, I hate more what it’s doing to you. You are the light peeking through the cracks of eternal darkness. You’re the spring emerging from a long winter. You’re the sunshine breaking through the storm clouds of life. Don’t let them change you.”
“I am changed, whether I like it or not. Paris changed me!”
“Paris looked good on you,” Alastair said, missing the point, maybe intentionally.
“I wish I could ignore it and move on, but I can’t. What if Charlotte is in danger?”
Alastair pointed his file at Julian. “If I know one thing about Miss Charlotte Fontenot, it’s that she doesn’t suffer men trying to save her.”
“But you don’t know her.”
Alastair shrugged, as if this was an unimportant detail. “You’re free now. Free from your mother and her expectations. Free as a bird! You told me you wanted to be free of the past, but I’m not so sure that’s true. Not when you spend most of your time living in it.”
“Speaking of living,” Julian muttered. “When are you going back to Paris?”
Alastair tilted his hand back and forth by way of answer, which was no answer at all.
“And you’re wrong, you know. I’m planning to go register for college courses again. Get my life back on track.”
“How wonderful, darling.”
“It is. You know my mother didn’t like it.” At some point, after he realized Alastair had become something of a fixture in his life, Julian had explained what life was like growing up with a paranoid mother. How he was never allowed to play sports, because Julia had read studies on all of them, and they were all dangerous. How even that was pointless because she didn’t believe school was good for you, either, and so refused to open his trust fund to let him pay for college. He’d had to sneak off and tell Uncle Luther about his predicament, and Luther sent the payments until Julia found out and raised hell about the betrayal.
“I know what your mother thinks is no consequence to anyone but her. Right?”
Julian took a moment before nodding. It was true, now, but that truth had only become a recent one for him. Even after moving out, he still feared her wrath, and her senseless statistics, aimed at scaring him away from anything resembling a future. Worse than that, he still feared for his sisters, who were too young to escape it yet.
Alastair set aside his nail kit and, with a weary sigh that had all the weight of a long-suffering parent, went to Julian. He leaned in and, with both hands, cupped Julian’s face and in the next second his lips were on Julian’s. Julian’s head spun as Alastair’s tongue parted his lips and deepened the kiss, taking it to a different level.
When Alastair pulled back, he wiped his hand over his mouth and wore a bashful look, as if to say, oops, did I do that?
Julian wore his questions of surprise so clearly on his face he didn’t need to speak them aloud.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alastair said, sounding not sorry at all. “I thought you could use that.”
“I, um…” Julian flushed so dark he wanted to bury his face in his hands. He could feel the burning heat searing the inside of his flesh. He wanted to run and hide and pretend he was someone else, and that this hadn’t happened.
“Ah. You’re not out,” Alastair said. “I suppose that makes sense, given everything.”
Not out. Out of the closet. Out in the open with his attraction to… to… Julian swallowed hard. He’d never let himself think too much about how his friends would study the cute girls walking by, but he’d linger on the men with them. He didn’t think too hard, either, about the chill he got when Alastair touched his fingers to the flesh on his inner arm, or laced his fingers in his in what seemed so platonic but felt so otherwise.
When you have children of your own, and are carrying the weight of your father’s name, you’ll understand, Julia liked to say, and she said it often, reminding him that he, Julian, was their only son and upon his shoulders rested an especially important responsibility. One defined by others but designated for him alone.
Julian did as his mother asked, because to do otherwise was to invoke her terrible ire. It was the difference between the relative peace of no man’s land, where there was at least the perception of amity, and the extant chaos of a warzone that had long ago lost any semblance of beauty. He did as she asked, and he became who she demanded, and that was easier than wondering who he really was. What he really wanted.
“No, I’m not out,” Julian said finally. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”
Alastair kissed him again and brushed a thumb over his hot cheek. “One step at a time, with me at your side.”
Julian grinned. He was glad Alastair hadn’t returned to Paris.
Lauren
All Deschanels, if they chose to remain in New Orleans, were granted a property entitlement from the estate. This benefit wasn’t only for the heir’s line, but any descendants of August or Blanche, of which there were currently many, and of which only half had claimed their entitlement. Some had delayed out of pride and a desire to make it their own way. Many were wealthy in their own right. Others had moved away, or inherited through other means. For, once a property was bequeathed to a Deschanel, it remained theirs, and theirs to do with as they pleased.
Some chose a property already owned by the Deschanel Trust, and others chose a new one, often in up-and-coming neighborhoods like Bywater and the Warehouse District, instead of the obvious Garden District and Mandeville.
Others still had their entitlements chosen for them, like Augustus’ daughter, Anasofiya. Magnolia Grace, the second largest mansion along the stately Prytania, had been passed down amongst the second sons since the first generation of New Orleans Deschanels. Augustus was a second son himself, his brother Charles having inherited Ophélie and all the other heir’s properties, and Magnolia Grace was his from tradition. But as he had only one child himself, a girl, he gifted the beloved estate to Ana upon her marriage.
When Ashley married Christine, his pride had prevented him from accepting anything from the family. In many ways, he was proud to be a member of such a prolific and accomplished family, but in others… it was safe to say, he was not proud of being different; of being the only one in his college class who could turn a whole neighborhood into ground zero of a natural disaster. It was also no secret the Deschanels had employed mind reading, soothsaying, and other abilities in choosing their investments and building their empire. Accepting a house felt like accepting and embracing that part of their world, too, and, with one look at his beautiful, fresh-faced wife, he just couldn’t.
Ashley told all of this to Lauren as she rode the soft rise and fall of his bare chest. Both of them exhausted from each other. She’d known about the entitlements, but it was interesting to hear him explain his own motives against the program.
“Didn’t you sell your house, though?” she asked.
He nodded. His chin rested atop her head. “I had to. I couldn’t go back after everything.”
Lauren asked a question she should have known the answer to. “Where have you been staying?”
“Here and there. At first, with Amelia. She was in a bad place at the time. She’d broken up with Jacob, for reasons that made sense to her and no one else, and she was hurting pretty bad. I stayed there as much for myself as for her. When they got back together, I went to Mom’s, but the longer I was there, the more she fussed.”
“So…”
“I’ve been staying in the Pontchartrain Hotel,” he confessed after pausing. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking it’s none of my business,” she replied slowly.
“Hey, I’m the one who brought it up. If I didn’t want you to know, I wouldn’t have.” He pulled her hair back and re-settled his chin. “You’re thinking I need my own place.”
“I might be thinking that, but if I am, it’s because I care about you, and everyone needs some stability.”
“Yeah, well.” Ashley kissed her forehead. “I do have a place, actually.”
Lauren sprung up and propped herself on her arm, facing him. “Oh?”
His arms fell away, landing on the bed with a soft bounce. He stared at the ceiling. “Mom convinced me to take my entitlement. You know, since I’m a more active member of the family now.”
“And you did.”
“It’s an old Victorian at Third and Chestnut.”
“That’s a great little corner of the Garden District.”
“Funny enough, it was a set aside for one of my cousins. Nicolas’ sister, Lucienne. But then she died, and so did all his other sisters, except Anne, who nobody even knew about until a couple years back. She just took her entitlement not so long ago, when she found out she was pregnant, I think. I might be the last of my generation to take theirs. Hell, even Aunt Evangeline’s kids have theirs, and they grew up in DC.”
Lauren just listened. The more she came to know Ashley, the more he talked openly. But it was a thin trust, which could be frayed and broken easily.
“I’ve had this house for months, but I’ve never stepped foot in it,” he finished. “I’m sure it’s a great house.”
Lauren wrapped her fingers through his. Squeezed. “Why don’t we go check it out together?”
* * *
Ashley was right. The house was lovely. Fully furnished with what Lauren suspected were original pieces, or at least from the appropriate era. Oak and mahogany dressed the floors and accents. An old must permeated, but it was welcoming, a reminder of bygone and a history that painted every corner and crack. The darkness inside contrasted with the bright, welcoming Caribbean colors on the outside of the old house.
She followed him from room to room. He played tour guide, a role that quickly took the edge off and turned the mood to playful, as he pretended to know how to navigate the house he’d never seen, inventing new purposes for each room.
“And this is where I store my collection of dead butterflies.”
“Ah, yes, it’s teatime in the stuffed animal room!”
“This one is mostly used for wakes. We just move the taxidermy to the basement when someone dies.”
Lauren giggled, letting him drag her by the hand as he let his creativity fly, and more to the point, his reservations fall aside. She’d known Ashley for many years, off and on, and while she’d always thought him very handsome—that smile, ahh, it just melted your heart; most women fancied his stark, pale eyes and white hair, but she loved his smile, which was more real than real itself—she’d never seen a playful side to him. Always so serious, always focused. He went from boy to man, from child to husband, to financier, to father. Where in his life had he found room for the invention of stories and the flourishment of imagination? Had he ever?
At the top floor, they climbed a set of stairs that wrapped in tight circles, round and round, ascending into a small tower. When they reached the top, Ashley cried out in wonder, laughing.
The small round room was decorated, wall to ceiling, with tiny stars and moons, ones that would glow later when the sun went down. She had the same in her own room, at least until she was seven or so and her father ripped them from her room in a rage.
In the center, a thick telescope held court.
“I guess this got overlooked during the clean-up,” Ashley said. He shook his head, musing. “Man, Ben would have loved this. He wanted to be an astronomer. He used to freak out my mother so bad, climbing on the roof, charting the stars in his old sketchbook.” He exhaled. “Wow. Man.”
Lauren settled in beside him in the doorway. “You were close to your brother.”
“When we were kids,” he said. Ashley kept on scanning the little tower of astronomy, shaking his head. “Not like he and Amelia, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Ben had a gentleness to him that’s not real common among Deschanels. We… well, we know how to put our armor up. But Ben wore his heart on the outside. Married his high school sweetheart, and they had a little one before he could even enroll in college. And Amelia, maybe because she’s an empath, or maybe it was more than that. She always tried to protect him. Always. She protected me, too.”
Lauren smiled. “She sounds like Colleen in that way.”
Ashley thought about that. “Amelia is all focus, like Mom, but she has a softer edge. I think she always felt she would have to carry the torch when Mom laid it down, so she’s prepared herself for that, even if she never wanted it the way Mom did. I know Nicolas is stepping up now, but you have to know, in the past, it was never the heir’s line who led this family. Never. Before Mom, it was my great-aunt Ophelia. None of the heirs wanted anything to do with it, and so Amelia assumed she would be called on like Mom was. But Mom didn’t want that for her. She just wanted Amelia to marry and have a normal life.”
“Seems like she’s living that life now.”
A darkness passed over Ashley’s face. “You don’t know what she went through, what they went through, to get there. She never wanted to marry Jacob.”
“Why not?”
He sighed and looked across the room, past the telescope, into the nothingness of the endless stars and sky of the unusual room. “The Curse is the simple answer, but I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense to someone who wasn’t raised in the madness of this family. She was afraid something would happen to him, and she loved him that much. Before she met him, I don’t think I’d ever seen her in love with any of the men she dated. But then Jacob came along, right after Benny died, and he was wicked smart and clever like her, but his goofy humor is what sent that crack down her armor. I don’t think it could have ever been anyone but Jacob to crack the armor. And now they have Moira, and they’re happy. My big sister is happy, and… I’ve never been violent with anyone, but I would kill the person who tried to take that from her. I didn’t do enough to protect my family, but that’s what I need now. To be their protector. It’s why I offered myself to my mother in service. I have a lot to make up for.”
From inside her sweater, Lauren’s phone buzzed. It was her work phone, the one she used for Project Apocrypha, so it could only be one of their field teams, or Nicolas. She ignored it.
She had known so little about Amelia, that beautiful but aloof Garden District princess who always seemed just out of reach of everyone, man or woman. To hear Ashley share not only of her, but of Ben—a horrible accident that had sent a pall over the entire community, all those years back—was a privilege she promised herself she’d never squander. This was his history; it was who he was, but also, what he wanted her to know about him.
His family was everything.
She couldn’t relate to this, but she understood it, the way anyone yearns for something essential to their survival but out of their reach.
Lauren reached forward and took his hand. “Thank you for sharing a little more of yourself with me.”
He looked down at his feet, but wrapped his free hand around their conjoined ones. “Christine left not because she didn’t know who I was, who we were, but because she hoped she could change it. Take me away from it… separate me from it, I guess, I don’t know.”
“That was wrong of her,” Lauren said. “I know that doesn’t make it easier.”
“I don’t miss her. I did at first, until I realized it wasn’t her I missed, but the ideal of the life she presented. I was naïve to think, to ever expect, that I could pick and choose the parts of myself to be when I was with her. Looking back on that part of my life feels like watching a movie about some other man’s experiences.”
“You aren’t the only one,” Lauren said. She narrowed the gap between them, unwinding their hands. She slid them up his arms and then around his neck. “We do what we think we need to do to make it in this world. It’s human instinct.”
