Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
“We don’t exactly advertise it,” Poe was saying. “Since people believe we sacrifice virgins and all that.”
Edgar said, “When we were kids, our mom would tell us stories about ghosts she saw. How this one was juggling and that one was walking a dog.”
“She was trying to prime us not to be afraid,” Allie offered. “She thought if we got used to knowing there was something there that we couldn’t see, then maybe we wouldn’t be so freaked out when we started to see them.”
“Did that work?” Jamie asked.
“No,” Edgar said, shivering, as Allie replied, “Kind of.” Poe just narrowed his eyes.
“I was twelve, my first time,” Allie said. “Walking home from the river with a friend, I laughed at a parrot on a woman’s head. My friend asked what was so funny, but when I pointed at her, my friend didn’t see anyone there. And even though the ghost itself didn’t look scary, I would have been super freaked out to realize my friend couldn’t see her if I hadn’t been prepared for it.”
“It wasn’t necessarily your first time, though,” Poe pointed out. “Just the first time you were aware what you were seeing wasn’t alive.”
“True,” Allie allowed.
“What about you, Poe?” Jamie asked.
“Uh. I think I was like nine or ten? I don’t really remember. But it was near the aquarium, and there was this guy dressed in old-fashioned clothes, juggling. He looked like he came from one of those Depression-era traveling carnivals, y’know? At first, I thought he was entertainment for people going into the aquarium or something, but then he disappeared while I was watching.”
Jamie turned to ask Edgar the same question, but before they could, Edgar turned to Allie and abruptly asked, “So have you picked a name yet?”
The conversation then devolved into more absurd suggestions—Idont, Dontyou, and Cantwee Lovejoy, among many awful others—and Jamie sank into the sweetness of being included in the intimate family gathering.
But even as they enjoyed cheesecake and sibling razzing, Jamie didn’t forget that Edgar had dodged their question. And Jamie wanted to know why.
20
Edgar
A few days after revealing that he was part of the Rondeau family, Edgar found himself walking hand in hand with Jamie toward Le Corbeau. Once they’d found out about the connection, they’d immediately begun speculating about what answers Aunt Alaitheia could provide to Edgar’s many uncertainties.
“I can’t believe you haven’t asked her before,” Jamie said for the third time, squeezing Edgar’s hand excitedly.
Poe snorted from beside him. “You’ll believe it after you meet her.”
But nothing could quell Jamie’s delight at meeting another member of the Rondeau family. “She must have such amazing stories!” Jamie kept saying.
Edgar didn’t think revealing that those stories had terrified him as a child would do anything to dampen their excitement.
“She’s kind of…” Edgar trailed off as he thought about how best to describe his aunt.
“Infuriating,” Poe suggested.
“She can be a bit…vague,” Edgar admitted. He hadn’t seen her in years, but he doubted that had changed.
Poe muttered something under his breath that Edgar couldn’t hear and pushed the front door open, the cool dark beckoning them in from the heat of the day.
Once, Edgar had been a frequent visitor. Before his father left, he, Poe, and Allie had done their homework in the polished wood booth at the back while their mother and aunt talked away long afternoons. Cameron and Antoine knew to find them there and would often join them, sneaking glances at Aunt Alaitheia until one of them (usually Cameron) worked up the courage to ask her for a potion. His aunt would look deeply into Cameron’s eyes as if searching for the truth of her, then mix drinks for the table that always seemed to be exactly what they were craving at that moment.
But after…after his father left and Antoine was dead, the visits to the bar stopped. Aunt Alaitheia would appear at their front door on the nights when their mother was at her worst. The sisters would climb out on the balcony, close the window behind them, and talk long into the night.
After their mother had lost too much of herself to have anything left for her children or anyone else, Aunt Alaitheia had been the one to lead her, hand in hand like frightened children, out of the house for the last time.
Le Corbeau looked just like Edgar’s memories of it. In fact, it didn’t look all that different than it had a century before, in the oldest pictures Edgar had seen. It had weathered Katrina as it had every storm that had come before it, though whether the rumors of otherworldly intervention were to be believed, even Edgar wasn’t sure.
“Wow,” Jamie murmured as they walked through the heavy wooden doors. Edgar had to admit the place had ambiance.
The elegant curve of the long wooden bar was polished to a mirror shine. Behind it was a huge ornate mirror, de-silvered in spots. Glass shelves held a rainbow of bottles, some familiar and others unlabeled, concocted in-house from family recipes passed down with the bar and only available to those who knew to request them. The wood plank floor was worn smooth in places from a century and a half of dancing, stomping, and sweeping, and the walls were painted a glossy midnight blue that made the place feel cool and dark, even when the sun blazed outside.