Page 85 of Curse in the Quarter
"Yes."
“I don’t know what this is—what you are, what I am, or why it feels like we’ve been here before.”
"I know."
“But I can’t pretend I don’t feel it.”
Honesty in her admission broke something loose in his chest. Some carefully maintained barrier that had been holding back truths carried alone for too long. He wanted to tell her he knew exactly what this was—recognition between souls that had found each other across death and time. Love that had survived betrayal, loss, a century of separation. He wanted to explain that what felt dangerous was also inevitable, that they'd been drawing toward this moment since the morning she'd walked into his office with questions about family history.
Instead, he let his hand move across the table until fingers brushed hers. Contact sent electricity through his enhanced senses, confirming what he'd known—the connection between them was real, powerful, growing stronger with every moment they spent in each other's presence.
"Then we go slowly," he said, voice rougher than intended. "Acknowledge what's happening without rushing toward conclusions that might be wrong."
Her fingers turned beneath his, palm finding palm in a gesture that felt like coming home. Electric touch sent recognition waves through his nervous system, speaking directly to his fallen angel core. This was Charlotte's hand. Charlotte's gesture. Charlotte's way of accepting invitation while offering promise.
The realization devastated him. He wanted to lift their joined hands to his lips, press kisses against her knuckleswhile whispering her real name—the one she'd carried when love had nearly conquered death itself. Wanted to pull her across the table, bury his face in her hair, breathe the scent that had haunted his dreams for over a century.
The moment stretched, heavy with possibility, weighted with restraint. Her thumb traced patterns across his knuckles—unconscious ritual, muscle memory responding to connections her conscious mind couldn't access. Wine and candlelight softened the world's edges until nothing existed except skin warmth and recognition flowing between them like current through water.
Then she hummed.
Quiet, barely audible above ambient conversation, but the melody hit him with physical force. The same tune that had echoed through his office that morning. The same sequence of notes that had emerged from her lips in 1906 during those final weeks before everything fell apart. Her unconscious melody recall, surfacing despite every barrier death and rebirth had constructed between past and present.
"Mon Coeur se Souvient"—the song Charlotte had sung while working on ritual preparations, while crafting the locket now resting against his chest, while planning futures they'd never lived. Melody that had provided soundtrack to last conversations, final kisses, desperate attempts to forge connections strong enough to survive whatever fate planned for them.
She stopped abruptly, expression uncertain. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I?—"
"It's fine." His voice sounded strained even to his own ears. "Just a tune. Nothing significant."
But his free hand moved involuntarily to his chest, finding the locket's outlinebeneath his shirt. Metal felt warm against his palm, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat, responding to proximity of the voice that had sung it into existence over two centuries ago. His grip tightened until the locket's edges pressed sharp against skin, pain serving as anchor against the flood of memory and recognition threatening to sweep away his control.
"I should go." She pulled her hand back as if suddenly realizing how intimate their connection had become. "It's late. Early morning tomorrow."
Touch withdrawal left him cold, bereft in ways unrelated to physical temperature. But he recognized the retreat—self-preservation against forces neither fully understood. Wisdom warning against moving too fast toward conclusions that could reshape both their lives.
"Of course." He signaled for the check with mechanical movements. "I'll walk you to your car."
Spell broken, or suspended, both retreating to safer distances as they navigated transition from intimate conversation to public departure. But melody lingered between them, unacknowledged but unmistakable, carrying harmonics that spoke of connections too deep for casual explanation.
Outside, Royal Street had taken on the languorous quality of French Quarter evenings, tourists and locals blending in gentle chaos that was uniquely New Orleans. They walked in comfortable silence toward her parking spot, wine creating pleasant haze that softened intensity's sharp edges.
At her car, she turned to face him, expression serious but no longer guarded. “Thank you for tonight. The honesty. The company. For not making this weird.”
“Thank you for asking. For trusting me with your questions.”
Her fingers shifted on the keys, the small movement catching his attention. Streetlight softened the lines of her face, lending her an almost timeless quality that struck him like recognition. The pull between them was undeniable, a thread drawn taut no matter how far he tried to stand from it.
“Bastien.” Her voice carried weight. “Whatever this is, whatever’s happening between us—I want to understand it better before we go further. You feel it too, right?”
He held her gaze, no longer willing to pretend. “There’s something here,” he said quietly. “It’s something neither of us can explain, but it’s real. And whatever truth you find—about yourself, about your family, about what’s happening—it doesn’t change the fact that you get to choose your own path forward.”
She smiled then, her expression transforming her face in ways that reminded him why he'd fallen in love with Charlotte Lacroix in the first place, and all over again with Delia. "I'm glad we met, Bastien Durand. Whatever strange circumstances brought you into my life, I'm grateful for them."
The kiss she pressed to his cheek was brief, barely more than lip brush against skin, but it left him burning with want and recognition. Then she was in her car, driving away into the Quarter's maze of narrow streets, leaving him standing under streetlight with possibility's taste on his lips and the weight of centuries-old promises pressing against his chest.
He watched taillights disappear around the corner, then pulled out the locket and opened it in amber glow. Inside, Charlotte's miniature portrait smiled up at him, painted in oils that had somehow retained vibrancy across more than two centuries. The resemblance to the woman who'd justdriven away was unmistakable—not identical, but close enough to confirm what he'd been afraid to hope since that morning in his office.
Charlotte Lacroix had kept her promise. She'd found a way to return, to seek him out across barriers of death and time and rebirth. The locket's recognition that morning hadn't been malfunction or wishful thinking, but activation of a device crafted specifically to bridge gaps between lifetimes.
