Page 79 of Phantom
“No… reason? None at all? You’ll just let me go and we’ll be done?”
My brow furrows, pulling at my mask. “Done? Oh, no,ma jolie petite muse. I’ll never be done with you.”
She smiles back at me, but a curious narrowing of her eyes betrays her uncertainty.
You and me both.
Whatever this is can’t be good for her and it’s impossible to maintain for me, but I have no idea how to fight this pull between us, and I don’t want to.
She blinks away her hesitance and returns to my chest. “Well, if I’m stuck with you, tell me what we’re doing.”
I take another glance at my watch and a thought crosses my mind.
“Get ready for the day. There’s something I’d like to show you.”
Scene 20
SNAPDRAGON SKULLS
Scarlett
Iworry the hem of the gray sheath dress Sol set out for me while I showered. Since I don’t even own one like this, I suspect Sol’s been collecting outfits for me somehow. Maybe sending his more stylish shadows to fetch them.
The dress is going to be hot though. The humidity here in New Orleans makes even the coolest day stifling, and I have to put a ton of product in my hair to keep the curls from acting wilder than normal. It’s a good temperature in Sol’s Aston Martin and he’s looking practically edible in his black designer suit and white button-down, with a gray tie to match.
Instead of my favorite bone-white mask, he’s wearing the one that looks like Ben, and his midnight glass eye is back in. More than once, he’s scrutinized himself in the rearview mirror, and he seems unable to stop itching around the mask and rubbing his eye. The combined move makes me wonder if he’s more uncomfortable physically, or mentally, with them on. If he keeps drawing attention to it, there will be no way he’ll fool people up close in the broad daylight. But it’s at least less conspicuous than his favored mask and eyepiece.
Not knowing why he’s pulling another smoke and mirrors act, nerves have me brushing away invisible dust from the remnants of my powdered sugar–covered beignet.
When we left, a bouquet of burgundy snapdragons and still-warm beignets were at his door, dropped off by a shadow. At first I thought the bouquet was for me, but he told me to bring it along. Obviously, I couldn’t leave warm beignets behind, and I was surprised as hell that he let me eat them in the car with the caveat that he get one, too. I took that deal in a heartbeat, scarfing the other two down in seconds, despite the fact that I was in nice clothes.
It was embarrassing when I got the white sugary cloud all over me, but he only grinned and provided me some napkins from the center console, as if he’d expected my disastrous eating habits, which, I guess after last night’s near-catastrophe with my gumbo and satin dress, I don’t blame him. Though, I was equally pleased when he didn’t bat an eyelash as I dumped the remaining sugar in my chicory coffee.
He slows to a stop on a random side street outside a brick wall portion of St. Louis Cemetery No.1. A man, nearly as tall as Sol, in a hoodie and bone-white skull mask comes to open my door. He takes the bouquet from my hands to help me out, and when Sol rounds the hood, he trades the flowers for the keys.
“We’ll be back at the normal time. Do you have your other mask?” The hooded shadow nods and pats his pocket. “Good, drive around with it on.”
“Yes, sir,” the hooded man responds and slides into the driver’s seat, moving almost as gracefully as the Phantom.
“What was that about?” I ask Sol before turning back to the Aston Martin. Sitting in the car now is Ben. Or, the shadow with Ben’s face on.
“How many people have one of those masks?”
“Very few. My prosthetist fitted my most trusted shadows with full silicone masks that look like Ben. We authorize them to wear them so they can pass as one of us behind tinted windows or in low light. It’s not perfect, but the mask protects people like Miss Mabel, and gives the illusion that we’re—”
“—everywhere,” I finish.
As I watch the shadow drive away, Sol whispers a kiss against my temple. “Exactly. It’s easier to be nowhere when everyone thinks you’re everywhere.”
“And where are we now?” I ask, leaning into his touch.
“A disguised entrance to St. Louis Cemetery No.1.”
“Where Marie Laveau is buried?” I ask about the most prominent name I know entombed within New Orleans’ most famous cemetery walls.
His masked side is seemingly disinterested as he nods and I again find myself wishing I could see all of him. Will he ever again be as vulnerable with me as he was this morning? Will he show me the rest of his past?
Is it fair for me to want that, when I’m still not comfortable sharing my own?
