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I’d gone to grab her, intending to toss her across the room, but she hopped off me just in time and nestled into the curve of Willow’s arms. Just like earlier that night, she set her furry little face on Willow’s shoulder and sneered.
“You watch yourself,” I’d said to a cat. A fucking cat.
I’d drawn the blanket over Willow’s shoulder and gotten up because that was the end of sleep for me. Given the time of year, though, could I expect differently? I changed into running clothes and went out to run, and when I reached the lake at the far end of the property, I sat looking at the tree where I found my brother almost a full year ago.
After too long at the lake and as the sun rose, I returned to the house, showered in a guest room so as not to wake Willow and headed to the library. Well, through the library and to the stacks where a secret door leads to the dark wing. To my hideaway. It’s where I find myself now, breathing in the closed-up smell that clings to this place. Trying to make sense of cobwebs swaying in a draft I’ve never been able to identify the origin of. I’ve lived here most of my life and this wing is still a mystery to me.
Abacus and I were born in France, as was Emmanuel. My grandparents had lived in the Paris house all of their married life, and I don’t think my father was expected to leave it. Mom worked in a Parisian café when she met dad. She’d been working to pay her way backpacking through Europe. Neither was older than seventeen. She’d graduated high school early and was taking a gap year before attending university. She never did get there because the way they told it, they fell in love at first sight.
I smile to think of it.
If Grandmother had been more welcoming or even simply accepting of Mom, I wonder if they’d have left France to take up residence in the New Orleans home that had been empty since my great uncle, Tobias, had passed away a decade earlier. Although, as Grandmother tells it, a Tithing was overdue, and with the Wildbloods settled in New Orleans, it was inevitable the next Penitent would come here. Given the tragedies that had been multiplying, and knowing my grandmother, I can see how her twisted mind would add two and two together and come up with eight.
The birth of Abacus and myself—well, the birth of Abacus—was a sign to her that my parents’ union was not blessed. Abacus was born average. Not deformed, not lacking in any way, but simply average. I was the stronger of the two of us, bigger and quicker to hit all those milestones doctors measure. But I was born second.
When Emmanuel came, my parents had a reprieve because Grandmother found no fault with him. However, after his birth, there were several miscarriages. My parents always wanted a big family, and that was one area where they and Grandmother agreed. But each miscarriage, always around the twenty-week mark, was another sign to Salomé Delacroix that her son’s marriage should not have been, that the next Penitent was not to be born to this woman.
Back then, my brothers and I didn’t know about the curse. Our parents kept us well sheltered as far as that went. But in time, as Grandmother became more and more adamant that our father leave our mother and marry an appropriate woman—a Society woman—they left Paris and took up residence in the New Orleans house. It was Dad’s anyway as the oldest living male of the family. Once they left Paris, they’d cut off all ties with Grandmother.
Rébecca was born shortly after our arrival in New Orleans. I still remember how small she was, how happy Mom especially was with her girl. She’d always wanted a daughter even though she loved my brothers and I wholly.
Before the time of Rébecca’s birth, they began renovations on the house that my great-uncle had let go to ruin. They were set to begin with the dark wing upon their return from the yacht trip they never came home from.
With a heavy sigh, I turn into the room that houses my mother’s beloved piano. Electricity is spotty in the dark wing and non-existent in this room, so I begin the task of lighting the candles and take in the boxes upon boxes stacked all around the room. My parents’ things, which Grandmother had ordered packed and put away first thing upon her arrival. I guess it could have been worse. She could have burnt them or made us move back to France.
But by then, there was no doubt that the time of The Tithing was drawing near as far as she was concerned. The Wildbloods had four daughters and one of them was rumored to be marked with the crescent moon. It was, to her, a sign from Shemhazai himself come to her in a dream.
