Page 91 of The Child of Rue Royale
Inhaling deeply, I push my eyes open again. A rope’s wrapped around my stomach. My hands are bound behind me, my feet are bare, and I’m wearing a tattered, white dress. The color of purity, like my scarlet letter, intending to shout at my coven that I’m a traitor. I look up, a wooden pole behind my body, extending a few feet over my head. A stake in the bayou, resurrected for my death, and my stomach rots, folding in on itself. I’m tied to a pyre.
Grandmother, I think.Grandmotherhelp me. Help us.
My heart races as panic devours me—I’m set upon on a stage, and chairs are neatly arranged on the lawn before me, prepared for a trial, for my death, where my coven will watch. Just feet from the gazebo Aven was blessed under.
I scan around and see Mother next to me, tied on another pyre. She’s succumbed to whatever they drugged me with, her eyes closed, her face bruised.
“Mom,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes, my voice cracking, raw from screaming. “Mom!” But she doesn’t budge, her head hanging to the side, a smear of blood down her neck.
And there’s no sign of Aven, no sign of anyone.
I stand for what feels like hours but is most likely minutes, nothing moving but the wind through the trees, the smell of Mother’s perfume passing by on a breeze.
There’s a tingling in my fingertips, my circulation being cut off from my wrist being tied too tight on the stake. The stage has a gas can only inches away, taunting me for the fire it will help consume me in.
This can’t be the end, I tell myself. They can’t win. All of this, Cassius’s diary, my visions, my grandmother’s vision, it can’t be for nothing, for us to still end up dead. I look down at my bare feet, my heart racing, my head in denial of my impending doom.
I think back to the day Bastian walked into my shop, asking for an illegal potion, the night he slid me a down payment within the dark walls of The Playhouse, jazz in our ears. The night I wiped his blood tears from his face, the way he looked at me, so broken. The blood tears of desire. How I screamed “I’m your girl,” on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. The beach, California, the bloody hotel room. Nursing him back to health, Franklin finding out about us, Bastian’s death. Mother. Our revenge and Franklin’s death. It all travels through my mind, hitting me like relentless waves of an unmerciful ocean. Pregnant with a boy, running to California, Chantal, Chantal, Chantal.Where is Chantal?It keeps going, the life flashing before my eyes. My grandmother in the alley, her hand whispering up to Bastian’s ear, my son is born, and Bastian is brought back, visions, Bastian, Bastian.
When the sun can shine on the vampire…and the witch is tied to the pyre.
And my eyes shoot open.
“Mother!” I shout. We are witches tied to a pyre, and Bastian…the sun can shine on my vampire. Is this a part of the plan? I’m a witch tied to a pyre, who once loved a vampire. I look at the overcast sky, no sun in sight, yet my heart pounds like a war drum. It has to mean something, it can’t be a coincidence that I’m tied to a pyre. My head quakes when I scream her name again, but she does not budge.
And then Rosemary slowly walks up the stage and stands before me.
“Where’s my baby?” I bellow, and Rosemary ticks her head to the side, a vicious snarl pulling on her lips. She’s more poisonous than her sister, and she doesn’t care to hide it.
“I misjudged you. All these years. I found you dull with a sense of morality that bored me. I have to say, I’m quite impressed with you now. If only you had poured all that power into your coven instead of your own selfish pursuits.” Her hands fall into the pockets of her pantsuit as she bites her bottom lip. “It’s such a waste.” And for a moment, she looks deeply forlorn, as if I’m the witch that got away.
My head falls back against the pole, my eyes turning down to meet hers. “I was set up to barely survive. To fail. A rat in a cage. Did you think I would just let myself starve to death? I may have always been a pushover, a rule follower. But I’m not that anymore. So light the fire. Let’s see what happens.”
I look at my mother, the smell of gasoline quickly assaulting my nose, then at the chairs on the lawn. One would think they were perfectly aligned to watch a performance or a celebration. Not the murder of two witches.
I cannot say I’m so confident I won’t die. Life is cruelly unfair, and history tells us that just because you’re good does not mean you will win. Yet, I have no choice but to trust this is part of my grandmother’s plan. That the dominoes are all in place and I just have to knock the first one down. And I’ve always got hope.
“The coven will be gathering soon for your trial. Just hold tight.” Rosemary sighs, her vacant eyes taking me in as she crosses her arms.
“You touch my baby, and I’m going to kill you. I’m going to fucking kill YOU!” I scream.
But Rosemary only smirks, her hand rising to give me a thumbs up, and says, “That’s the spirit.”
My jaw clenches, and my heart drops. I will all the power that once came so easily to my fingertips, but nothing—not a damn thing comes out. And just when I’m going to scream for my mother to wake the fuck up, Violetta marches into view.
The handle to Aven’s car seat is in her hands as she balks in a high-pitched squeal to Aven, setting him on the corner of the stage.
A viper squeezes my stomach, my lungs filling with a pain I never could have imagined. I want to scream, but he’s content, green eyes staring at the toys attached to the handle of his car seat, and if he hears my voice, he may cry. Slamming my eyes shut, I chide myself not to get emotional so I can think with a clear head. There’s a reason I was called the heartless witch, so I channel that energy the best I can.
I peel open my eyes, meeting Aven’s car seat once again, as Violetta places her grimoire on the pulpit in front of me and Mother while Rosemary looks at her phone from a seat in the audience.
“Smile,” she says, snapping a photo of the three of us.
“How do I look?” Violetta asks, and she’s not even being a tiny bit facetious. She’s serious.
Their callousness knows zero bounds, and as they chat amongst themselves, I try to close off the horrid sound of their voices.
Soon the witches of our coven will gather, hear all the charges brought against me and my mother, and watch us burn. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, and I can’t seem to catch my breath, and just when I think I might black out from the intense and sudden panic that is shooting through my bones, two dark figures fall from the sky—right on top of Violetta and Rosemary.
