A Circle of Ashes (15 page)

And he would be a man, a man that Cerise could have, if that sap Marcel hadn’t managed to blackmail her into wifery by then. Another two years, Richard thought. He would be seventeen. Plenty old enough. In the meantime, he had to hold Cerise’s interest. Which he seemed to be doing pretty well.

After months of chasing, where she’d laughed at him and called him a child, he thought he finally had her attention. She’d never been unkind, but she was older than he, and she had Marcel wooing her in his stolid, persistent way. Last month Richard had finally caught Cerise, caught her and held her against a tree, and kissed her till they were both breathless. They’d kissed twice more since then, longer and wilder each time. She wasn’t laughing at him now. Now when she looked at him, he saw his own hunger reflected in her eyes.

Then last week Richard had seen Marcel’s patience finally break. After a circle he’d walked her home, while Richard followed in the darkness at a distance. After Cerise’s mother and sister had gone in, Marcel had grabbed Cerise and kissed her. She’d squirmed gently out of his arms and held one hand against his cheek. “Dear Marcel,” she’d said, and Richard had caught the words as if they were leaves borne to him by the wind. His hand had closed around the hilt of his hunting knife, but then Cerise had gone inside and Marcel had gone home.

She was old enough to marry Marcel, and Marcel was old enough to take her for his wife. Legally, Richard could marry at fifteen—he was of age, but he had no profession yet, no way of keeping a wife or providing for a family. It burned him.

But he and Cerise had lain in the meadow together, clinging together, kissing as if their lives depended on it. They couldn’t stop
themselves; they were wild with wanting, the air hot and damp on their skin. Richard surely had her attention now.

Then the dream changed and Richard was once again standing outside the general store, which was really just one front room of the Chevets’ house. Marcel and Cerise were arguing. “You have to marry me,” Marcel had said, his pale skin flushed and his fair, reddish hair burning in the sun. “You carry my child.”

Richard’s heart had squeezed as if in a vise, his breath knocked out of him.

“I’ll not marry anyone,” Cerise had hissed, while Madame Chevet had watched with fascination. “The child is mine alone!”

She’d grabbed her skirts and swept away, the market basket hanging heavy from her arm. Marcel had stood watching after her, grim determination on his face.

Several minutes had passed before Richard could breathe again, leaning against the building wall, out of sight. He felt like he was coming down with blood fever.

One truth was seared into his brain: Cerise had not admitted the child was Marcel’s, but she hadn’t denied it, either.

With a gasp Richard woke up, jackknifing into a sitting position. He was disoriented, looking around wildly. His heart was pounding and he was covered in a thin film of sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature.

Okay. He was in his room at Luc’s. The bed felt clammy and he got up, sitting on the mattress edge as he fumbled for his cigarettes. He lit one with shaking hands and swallowed the hot smoke down. With his other hand he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

Sometimes he still hated Marcel so much his soul was black with it and it was hard to breathe.

Cerise. How could she still haunt his dreams after two centuries? God knew there had been hundreds of women since then. But Cerise had been the first.
Déesse
, how he’d loved her. He pictured her in his mind, then frowned—Cerise didn’t have black hair.
Oh no.
Richard sucked in a breath so sharply it hurt. Cold sweat broke out on his skin and his hand trembled. Cerise with black hair was Clio. Or Thais.

He shook his head to clear the image out of his mind. He’d kissed Clio. He hadn’t meant to, never planned to. The other day he’d just been rattling Luc’s cage, teasing him about the twins just to mess with him. Last night Clio had been snide and unwelcoming—he could tell she didn’t like him. He’d gotten a kick out of seeing her work like a dog. Even hot
and sweaty and covered with dirt and grime, she was a beauty. They both were. Clio had been wearing that thin tank top and those itty-bitty shorts, and suddenly he’d wanted her. Which had been deeply disturbing and totally unwelcome.

But the way women dressed these days—Cerise had always been covered from neck to ankle. All the village women had. The naked female form had been a wondrous revelation that had almost made his head explode.

And here was Clio, on display. Those long, tan legs, slim, strong arms. Black hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Green eyes snapping fire at him. He’d wanted her, wondered how those legs would feel wrapped around his waist, how tightly her arms could pull him to her. He still hadn’t meant to kiss her, but then he had, and if she hadn’t pushed him away, he wouldn’t have stopped.

But she had. Which was good. He wished he’d never done it. He knew he’d never do it again. Never.

“
D
o you want to get some coffee?” Kevin asked. “Or something? Before you go home?”

I smiled at him, which made my face sting just a tiny bit. It was almost all healed. “That would be great.” Just for a little while, I would play hooky from the massive house-cleaning job at home. Clio had said it was okay, and I was seizing the opportunity. These days I was so stiff and sore from all the cleanup work we were doing I could hardly move. I deserved a little break.

“Great.” He started his car and pulled away from the curb outside of school. I watched him for a second, driving his little red Miata. “How about Botanika?”

“Uh, no,” I said. No place where I might run into Luc. I had chanced it when I was with Clio and Racey but couldn’t meet him like this, on my own. “How about that other one, on Magazine, off of Jefferson? What’s its name?”

“Café de la Rue,” said Kevin easily, turning off St. Charles Avenue toward the river. I had learned that no one used north, south, east, or west here when they gave directions. It was either toward or away from the river or toward or away from the lake. Since the river curled around the city like a shell, you had to know where you were, first, in relation to those two things before any directions made sense. In my mind, I thought of the lake as being north and the river as being east. But if you went east and crossed the river, then you were on the West Bank. I didn’t get it, but I already knew that New Orleans had lots and lots of eccentricities that people accepted as normal and everyday and didn’t question. It was kind of charming in a way, but it also made you feel crazy sometimes.

Café de la Rue was very different from Botanika. The people seemed to be mostly college students, and it had a slightly more formal, Old World feel, whereas Botanika was all about being funky and mystical and on the fringe.

We ordered our drinks and sat down at a little wooden table by the big sidewalk windows. There was a wide ledge there with potted plants
and one of those little tabletop fountains that run on electricity. Its subdued trickling sound was soothing. All around us, people were working on laptops, alone or in pairs, some with headphones on. I drank my iced coffee, looking around, and I realized two things: one, I had drunk more coffee in the last month than I had in the seventeen years before then, and two, New Orleans has some of the best people-watching in the world.

“The whole long-lost-twin thing with Clio is so weird,” said Kevin, dumping sugar into his iced tea.

He had no idea. “Yeah, it really is. But it’s great because I have a family again. Without my dad, I was just lost.”

“That must have been really hard on you,” Kevin said sympathetically. “My mom died when I was seven, and my dad got married again within a year. I still think it was because he didn’t have any idea of what to do with me and my sister.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you get along with your stepmother?”

Kevin nodded. “Actually, I do. I mean, I remember it as being horrible at first, but she’s been really good to me and my sister. Now she really seems like a mom.”

“That’s good,” I said. “My dad never got married again, so it was always just me and him. Then he was gone. But now I have Clio and Petra, and things are starting to feel almost normal again.”

“I’m glad.” Kevin gave me a smile that went right from his eyes to my heart. He was just so sweet. Unfortunately, it was impossible not to compare him to Luc, and every time Luc seemed like the movie and Kevin like the TV show. Which was so awful and unfair of me. But Luc wasn’t going to happen, and Kevin definitely could. I was determined to like him. And so far, it wasn’t hard.

I don’t know how long we’d sat there—Kevin was telling me stories about some of the teachers at school, and I was cracking up. He told me about getting cut off the football team after he broke his wrist, and he gave me the lowdown on some of the kids at school who I’d wondered about.

“Yeah, so she was on the debate team, and she was so stuck-up,” he told me. “She just looked down on everyone, you know? And I worked my ass off—no one was more prepared. I mean, I had notes taped inside my shirt, I practiced on my whole family, I just got everything down cold, because I wanted to crush her.”

“What happened?” I loved stories like this, especially because the girl he was talking about was in my French class and I couldn’t stand her.

Kevin grinned, and I couldn’t help laughing. “She never had a chance. Every single thing she came up with, I was totally ready. I just
demolished her. If it had been anyone else, I would have felt really mean. But that girl so had it coming. I tore apart her arguments and hung her out to dry. She was near tears by the end.”

“Oh, I wish I could have seen it,” I said. “I would have loved it. What was your topic anyway?”

Kevin smiled wider. “Women on pro football teams,” he said. “I was for.”

I started laughing again and put my hand on his arm. Then suddenly I felt, literally felt, someone staring holes into the back of my head. Slowly I turned around.

Luc stood there with Richard. He looked better than when I had seen him at Axelle’s—he had shaved and was wearing clean clothes—but his face was still drawn, almost haggard, and his eyes were filled with pain. And, uh, a bloodthirsty hatred.

And here I was, my hand on Kevin’s arm, laughing up at him, our knees touching.

I was so, so thankful that it was here and now that I was running into Luc and not, say, when I was sobbing on Clio’s shoulder or alone in a grocery store with a big zit or something.

Except, of course, that he was looking at me and Kevin like he was about to pull out an ax and come for us.

Kevin turned to see what I was looking at, and his eyes widened as he caught Luc’s glare. “You know him?”

I shook my head. “Just a little,” I said, thinking sadly how true that was. “He goes to the same church as … my grandmother.”

Kevin looked back at me. “Well, he seems to have it bad for you.” There was a question behind his words, but I couldn’t go into it. I shrugged and shook my head.

Richard was grinning at me, the jerk, and I gave him a careless smile and wave. He’d come over twice to help with the windows, after all. Luc I ignored. I turned back to my coffee and took a long, slow sip, trying to get myself together. My heart was pounding, and my cheeks felt hot. I felt Kevin still looking at me, but I took another couple of moments to get a grip.

I swallowed hard, feeling like a wave had just rushed me off my feet at the beach. Oh God, I still wanted him so much. Loved him so much. I just
loved
him, wanted to be with him, to have him hold me. Wanted him to be mine, like he said he was, and for me to be his. My whole body was flooded with memories of Luc, how he felt, how he tasted….

Of course, Clio had those same memories.

I swallowed again and looked up at Kevin with a bright smile. “This has been really great,” I said. “Do you think—would you want to go to a movie sometime?”

Kevin looked happy, and I felt better. “Yeah, I’d like that a lot. Maybe this weekend? Should I call you?”

I wrote down Petra’s number for him, and he put it in his pocket. I still felt awkward, still felt Luc’s presence, and absently I reached over to trail my fingers in the little fountain on the window ledge. Then, out of nowhere, a rhyme popped into my head.

It was a spell, I knew, but I had no idea where it came from or why. Or what it would do. It didn’t exactly seem to have a point.
A spell
. Quickly I looked around, expecting the mirror over the counter to shatter or people’s computers to start shooting sparks. But all was quiet.

“Uh,” said Kevin.

I looked up at him to see him blinking dully at the table, then he started to slump sideways out of his chair.

“Kevin!” I got up quickly and grabbed his shoulders, easing him back into his chair. He felt slender and hard, like a statue, and he shook his head to clear it. “Are you okay?” I asked, trying to keep my voice down.