The Casquette Girls (40 page)

She let a little excitement slip through her placid demeanor. “Who do you recognize?” My finger slid from Adeline to each of the Monvoisin sisters. “Four? That’s three more than I was hoping.”

“What do you mean? Who did you expect me to recognize?”

“Um, the woman wearing your necklace, duh.”

My eyes flew back to the painting. It was small, but there was no denying that I was wearing the same medallion.

I took the heirloom off to show Désirée the bits of the engraving that weren’t covered by the star. “Adeline Saint-Germain,” I said, dropping it into her hand.

“This stone is so weird.”

“It’s kind of a long story, involving a pirate captain.”

“And how would you know that?”

“How do you have a picture of my great-great-great-something-grand-something?”

“Because it’s also a picture of my great-great-great-something-grandmother.” She pointed to an exotic woman in a headdress similar to the one her grandmother had been wearing the day we met. “Marassa Makandal.”

“What?” I lowered my voice. “This is so nuts!” I wasn’t sure why I was whispering, but it definitely felt like we were on the verge of discovering something that had been hidden for a very long time.

“Can we go back to the pirate comment? And how did you find her necklace?”

“Um…”

Ritha Borges emerged from behind the curtain. “Sometimes when things need to be found, they find you.”

The elderly woman came over to stand beside Désirée, and pointed to the canvas. “My ancestor, Marassa Makandal, was a remarkable woman. A very powerful woman.”

“She was beautiful,” I said.

They both nodded in agreement.

“So, how did you know about the triplets?” asked Désirée.

“Well, I’ve been translating Adeline’s diary—”

“Wait, Adeline Saint-Germain had a diary? And you have it?”

“Yeah, her father asked her to record her journey from France to New Orleans.” Excitement coursed through my veins. I was suddenly nervous, unsure of whether I should be confiding in the Borges, but it felt so good to uncork the bottle I could barely control what came out of my mouth. The mystery woman’s threatening warning pounded inside me. I was out of time. I was going to have to start taking some risks.

“The things parents ask of their children often seem silly at the time, but rarely are,” said Ritha.

“Yeah, it seemed he was adamant about it. Anyway, Adeline met Cosette, Minette, and Lisette Monvoisin on the S.S.
Gironde
– one of the ships that brought
les filles aux cassettes
from Paris to New Orleans.”

“Adeline was a casquette girl?” asked Désirée.

“Not exactly, but she came over with a couple of other aristocrats on the same ship.” I procured Adeline’s diary from my bag and gently rested it on the counter. As a trade, Désirée pushed over the large, leather-bound book she had been reading when I walked in.

“What’s this?”

“It’s Marassa’s
grimoire
.”

“Come again?”

“It’s where Marassa Makandal kept all of her most secret thoughts and experiments,” Ritha explained. Pride resonated from her voice. “You can think of it as a Voodoo spell book that has been passed down for many generations. Most of the magic sold in this shop is still based off of things from that book.”

Désirée seemed uneasy with all the talk of Voodoo and magic, but who could blame her?

I opened the book and carefully turned a few of the delicate, browned pages. Intricate sketches and diagrams were drawn between lengthy passages and lists that resembled recipes. I could only understand about one of every ten words, and those were in French.

“It’s a Haitian
Kreyòl
dialect,” Ritha said. “Very old.”

“Looks old. What are all these notes on the sides?”

“The entire volume has been translated over the years by different witches from different generations of our family. The marginalia discuss discrepancies in translations. New interpretations.”

Witches?

“Ugh, is this whole book in French
?”
asked Désirée, turning the pages of Adeline’s diary. “
Ma français est pathétiqu
e
.”

“Don’t beat yourself up too much. My French is okay, and it’s still taking me forever to translate it. I’m just up to the part where some, er, stowaways helped them survive a pirate attack.”

“How adventurous.”

You have no idea.

We all got lost in the old texts for a moment.

I looked back at the painting. There were still two unidentified girls. One wore a simple dress with an apron. Her fiery red curls had won the battle with the bonnet she held in her hand. The other girl had long, black, pin-straight hair styled in braids. Her copper-toned skin and accessories indicated that she was likely from one of the indigenous tribes that predated French colonization.

Désirée placed her hand on the painting. “Was this Marassa’s coven?” she asked her grandmother.

Cove
n
?
My brow furled.

A smile crossed Ritha’s face. I got the feeling Désirée wasn’t usually so interested in family affairs. “It certainly would have been unusual, as covens are usually formed by witches from the same variety of magic, but it’s not entirely impossible. An extremely dangerous circumstance could have brought them together.”

Then the question just vomited out of my mouth. “Would a clan of vampires running amuck and murdering people be a dangerous enough circumstance?”

Désirée and Ritha both raised their eyes from the picture to look at me
. Then they looked at each other.

“Hypothetically,” I quickly added.

Ritha smiled again. “Protecting life is always a good reason.”

Encouraged by their lack of mockery, I continued. “Can I ask you something… about magic?”

“Sure, suga’. What’s on your mind?”

“What happens to a curse after the caster dies?”

“Unfortunately, there is no simple answer since all spells, and all witches, are different. In most cases, the spell is passed down to a descendant. If the witch dies without any progeny, then the spell usually breaks instantly.”

I struggled to keep my face composed at her use of the W-word. “And if it was passed on, would said progeny be able to break the inherited spell?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Break it. Bend it. Enhance it. Once the spell is passed on, the new witch has complete control of the cast.”

I could sense the medallion start to vibrate on the table. I quickly slipped it back on and hid it under my shirt.
What did you do to me, Adelin
e
?

I looked back at the painting of the girls. “And what if the spell was cast by a coven?
How would you break it?”

“If the spell was cast by a coven instead of just one witch, each descendent would only be able to break the part of the spell that her ancestor was directly responsible for: the part she inherited. To completely break the old spell, you’d have to reform the coven with the complete new generation of witches who had inherited their ancestors’ powers.”

I looked at Désirée and then back at the painting.
Are we inheritors?

No.

No.

No.

Did I…? Shit. No. Did I break Adeline’s part of a curse by opening the attic windo
w
—

“Of course, there is one other way to break a coven’s curse.”

“How?” Désirée and I said at the same time.

“Just the same as for a single-caster spell. Break the spell line. If all the inheritors die without any progeny, then the original coven’s spell will break piece by piece until the last inheritor is gone.”

A breath escaped my tightly pressed lips.

“Death?”

Giant flames suddenly exploded into the fireplace, causing me to jump back. Désirée and I exchanged glances, but Ritha, as usual, didn’t blink an eye.

“Mother Nature has a way of bringing people together in times of woe.”

“That’s very esoteric,” I said.

“Welcome to my life,” Désirée replied, cracking a smile.

At eight-thirty, I started gathering my things, shocked by how much time had passed. “I should go. Curfew and all.” The idea of obeying a curfew seemed so insignificant now, but I was starving and wanted to get home in case my father had changed his mind about closing the bar.

“See you in the morning for carpool,” said Désirée.

“What about your car?”

“I’m sure I’ll figure out some way to coerce my father into giving it back. He can never really stay mad at me for more than a day.”

I guess we had that in common. I waved to Ritha as I headed towards the entrance.

Désirée’s mother was in the front of the shop, talking to a woman whose back was to me.

“Calm down, Ana Marie, you have much bigger problems on your hands than me being back in town.”

I turned my head as I passed them; the woman looked
me directly in the eyes. Horror stunned me. Without thinking, I rushed through the door without saying a word. The woman was my mother.

(translated from French)

1
st
June 1728

It will take me several days to recount all that has happened since we docked in
La Nouvelle-Orléan
s
one week ago. So many reasons have inhibited me, I hardly know where to start.

On our first night aboard the pirate ship, I went to sleep with an odd feeling of gratitude towards them: our monsters. Despite their brutality, I could not deny the fact that they had saved us, even if their real motive was self-serving. Of course, this feeling disturbed me greatly. I wasn’t so naïve to have forgotten it was they who were our original predators, leeching on us before the pirate attack. With only half of the voyage complete, I feared for the lives of the girls, especially after witnessing the murderous spree aboard the S.S
.
Gironde.

The conflicting feelings are maddening, Papa! I, for one, would rather be dead at the hands of a monster than a slave to one of those vile pirate men. This, of course, is easy for me to say because I was not the one being fed upon. Had it been me, or Cosette, or one of her sisters, there would be no sympathy.
Je promets.

My gratitude changed one week later when I entered my cabin and found the ribbon I use as a bookmark in this diary left on a different page. My palms immediately inflamed as I scanned the small room. Nothing else seemed out of place, but still panic grew inside me.

It’s hard to believe that any of the passengers would dare enter my cabin. It’s unlikely that any of the orphan girls or any of the crew could even read, and even more unlikely that one of the nuns would pilfer, which left very few to suspect. My mind couldn’t help but wander to our hidden passengers… but why would a vampire want to read the simple musings of a sixteen-year-old girl, Papa? Paranoia got the best of me when I thought about the unusual circumstances that had led to me being on this ship. Alone. You somewhere in the Orient. It had all happened so quickly – shutting down the estate as if neither of us would be back for a very long time.

Stealthily, I hid the diary in a place where only you or I would be able to retrieve it, and there it would remain, secure, until we abandoned the ship.
And thenI warmed my medallion in my hands. When it was glowing hot and pliant, I pressed the captain’s opalescent eyeball into the metal. From then on, not only would the medallion remind me of you, Papa, but also the massacre aboard the S.S
.
Gironde
– just in case my feelings of sympathy ever resurfaced.

(cont.)

Unfortunately, the happiness that arose from our victory over the pirates was soon superseded by sadness. It is with a heavy heart that I report the death of Monsieur Claude DuFrense. He never recovered from his “seasickness.” Needless to say, poor Martine was completely distraught, for she had never wanted to be on
the voyage to begin with. At times, she became completely hysterical and demanded the captain return her to Paris. Cosette was the only one who could calm her down – with her smiles and her lullabies and her herbs.

The next two weeks aboard the ship were relatively uneventful, but you won’t have heard me complain of boredom. The orphans finally began to relax, the nuns continued to pray for our journey, and the crew was elated as much by the strong gales as by the endless barrels of sugary rum the pirates had hoarded.

Mother Nature finally took mercy on us as we entered a waterway called the Caribbean Sea. After weeks upon weeks of endless ocean, I did not think water could impress me, but the wild spectrum of greens and blues of this sea sparkled like a million jewels leading the way to adventures, romances, and happily-ever-afters. I hoped all of these would be our fate.

The best news was, no one came down with the seasickness. After all, our children of the night had just feasted like vampire kings. Regardless, each dusk, I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d reached the night their thirst would unquench. How long would the pirates’ blood hold them over?

Luckily, we made very quick progress; the captain was eager to be rid of the pirates’ vessel, so he slept very little, pushing the crew to our next port of call. We were in high spirits when we entered
Port-au-Prince
in the French colony of
Saint-Domingu
e
.
This common resting point for those en route to
La Nouvelle-Orléan
s
was nothing like the beaches ofFrance
:
the small isle was like a page from M. Defoe's novel
Robinson Crusoe
, with trees that stretched towards the sun and bore fruits with hard shells and hair.

We were greeted with a grand welcome, and I, along with Martine, Captain Vauberci, and the top members of the Holy Order, was invited to dine at the governor's mansion, or plantation, as the
châteaux
are called here. At dinner, the governor told us that his plantation yielded enormous crops of sugar, coffee, sisal, and indigo.

“Very lucrative,” he said.

“Lucrative but labor intensive,” said the captain, gritting his teeth before excusing himself from the table.

When the dessert came, even though it was my favorite,
crème brûlé
e
,
I politely excused myself and slipped out. I found the captain in a chair on the second-story balcony, which overlooked the expansive back of the property, smoking his pipe and taking swigs from his flask. It didn’t take a mystic to sense he was upset.

“Lovely night,” I said, breathing in the warm, moist air. He stayed silent. I took the chair next to him. “Everything seems so much more vibrant on this island, or maybe I am just used to the monochromatic palette of the ocean?”

“I prefer the sea,” he said and then aggressively spat over the rail.

A moment later, he looked at me with the concerned expression of a father. “Adeline, now that you are out of Paris, there are many things you are going to learn about the French. About men.”

Oh, if you only knew the irony in that statement, Monsieu
r
,
I thought, but held my tongue and looked at him with innocent eyes.

“This isle has become nothing more than a miserable hive of filth and depravity. It's a haven for pirates, bootleggers, and smuggled slaves. And it flourishes thanks to French involvement in triangular trade.”

I asked him to elaborate. He nodded, but first unscrewed the top of his flask with a single flick, took a swig, and then offered it to me, a gesture he had never made before. It seemed impolite to refuse. I took too large a sip and immediately coughed as the fiery rum trickled down my throat.

“Easy, now,” he said as I passed it back. He took another swallow and began again. “The triangle model refers to the route of the ships. In this most despicable example, French ships travel to Africa, exporting European goods in exchange for slaves. Then they sail to
Saint-Domingue
,
sell the slaves en masse, and return to France with ‘white gold’ from the New World.”

I gasped, thinking about the countless spoons of sugar that had passed between my lips in Paris, wondering if any of the delightful confections had come from this tropical isle. I hoped not.

“And that,
chérie
, is how this island has become the richest colony in the West Indies.” He guzzled the remainder of the flask and leaned back in his chair.

“That is preposterous! How could the King allow this to carry on?”

“Gold, Adeline. Gold and power. Power and gold. The more a man has, the more he wants,” he answered, but his mind was drifting far away. Without the familiarity of the waves, we rocked in our wooden chairs and lost our attention to the waxing moon.

Later that night, just as I was dressing myself for bed, there was a light knock at the door. I thought it would be one of the triplets looking to gossip, so I was surprised to find a pretty
Kreyòl
girl carrying a tray. “
Bonsoir
,” I said and opened the door to let her pass. She put the tray of dishes on a small table.

“You left before dessert, and I saw how you was eyein’ dem sweets. My mama makes the best
vani krè
m
on dis islan
d
,
”
she bragged with a smile as sweet as th
e
crèm
e
.

And she was right, Papa. It was an amazing
crème brûlé
e
.
But I was only able to take one bite out of politeness as she lingered. Once the girl left, I had a hard time even looking at the dessert, remembering what the captain had said about the sugar.

(cont.)

We stayed on the island of
Saint-Domingue
for seven more nights while a new ship was prepared. On the eve of our departure, the governor threw a
soirée
in our honor, to which all of the orphans were invited, fortunately. Even the pirate captain’s red bird, whom Cosette had practically adopted as a child, attended the party. We were having so much fun dancing and singing around the piano we almost forgot that we were not in Paris, for everything was prepared in such exquisite French style. After hours of socializing with the
crème de la crème
of island
sociét
é
,
Cosette and I escaped to the balcony for some fresh air. We leaned over the railing and let our minds disconnect from the
fête
inside.

After a moment of silence, we could hear drumming in the near distance.

“What is that music?” Cosette asked and then pointed out into the darkness. “Is that a fire?”

The light was so faint and flickered so quickly, it was hard to be sure. With a mischievous grin, I answered, “There is only one way to find out.”

We snuck down the stairs, letting the drum guide us. The beats were so round and full, they seemed to reverberate through the earth and pull us through the lavish flower beds and intricate patchworks of vegetable gardens. We passed fields of crops and finally came to a path that was dotted with several small wooden houses, one of which contained not only the drumming but several strange rhythmic sounds, foreign to my ears.

I never felt fear, only pangs of guilt for trespassing, but we were too far under the spell of curiosity to stop ourselves from taking a peek. Entranced, we perched our heads on the glassless window like children.

The house was nothing but a simple square room, crudely made of wood and leaves. An old man with the darkest skin I had ever seen sat in the corner with closed eyes, smacking his large hands against a drum made of animal hide. A woman, whose mind seemed to be in another world, danced in a way my body has never moved, as if her spine was possessed by a serpent. She carried a stick with an attached gourd, decorated with strings and feathers, that made a hissing noise when she shook it. Another man danced, holding a glass bottle with no regard to the liquid he was spilling onto the packed-earth floor. There was a table in the middle of the room with a centerpiece of unrecognizable wooden statues and bowls that must have contained liquid of some sort because flames floated in them like magic.

Three others were gathered around a
Kreyòl
girl at the head of the table. Her face was covered with a scarf, and her lips moved quickly under the fabric as if in song. A man drew a knife and carefully cut her upper left arm, chanting as he worked. I would have been screaming in horror, but the girl seemed to be in no pain. In fact, her mind seemed to be far away. It was one of the strangest events I have ever witnessed, Papa.

Before she lost much blood, the man packed the wound with a concoction of herbs and then dressed it with a tightly tied red scarf.

I was enthralled by the whole ceremony.

I knew not whether it was barbaric or divine, but the power in the room was undeniable. Lost in my own thoughts, I only noticed the fiery itch in my palms after rough hands were already over our mouths, dragging us away from the house.

“You are brave li’l girls to be out in da night spyin’!” said the man as he pulled us to a patch of tall green stalks that resembled bamboo. Even though he immediately let us go, two flames reflexively bolted from my hands, aimed straight at his chest. The balls of fire disintegrated into thin air just before they singed his bare skin. He did not even flinch – only stood smiling as if we were playing a game – and then looked at Cosette, who was smiling back at him without a flicker of fear in her eyes.

“Your witchy juj
u
isn’t gonna work on me either,
ma chérie
,” he said in a strange French dialect, with a deep-throated chuckle. The
Kreyòl
, who couldn’t have been but a few years older than us, also had a red scarf tied around his left upper arm, which was now dripping with blood.