Page 87 of Curse in the Quarter
“Then she becomes a doorway that cannot be closed. A conduit through which the past pours into the present until the distinction between what was and what is dissolves entirely.” Maman’s voice carried the weight of terrible knowledge. “New Orleans could become a city where every death that ever occurred here walks alongside the living. Where every love, every loss, every moment of joy or sorrow plays out simultaneously across all time.”
They returned to ordinary perception with jarring suddenness. Bastien slumped forward in the rocking chair, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what approached. All his careful planning, his belief that gradual revelation could ease her transition—rendered meaningless by forces beyond his control.
“I wanted to protect her,” he said, the words tasting like ashes. “Give her time to adjust before telling her what she really is. But is keeping the truth worse than revealing it? The delayed revelation cost keeps growing. Each day I stay silent, each conversation where I deflect her questions—am I making this worse?”
Maman reached for her embroidery, fingers working at patterns that seemed to shift in the lamplight. “Truth is a blade, child. Sharp enough to cut through any deception, any comfortable lie we wrap around ourselves. But like any blade, it depends on the hand that wields it. Cut with love, and truth can liberate. Cut with fear or anger, and it destroys.”
“Then what do I do? How do I tell a woman that everyone she trusts has been lying to her? That her nightmares are memories, her visions are real, and she’s carrying the soul of someone who died because of me?”
“You tell her with love, not guilt. You give her truth as gift, not burden. And you accept that once spoken, those words become hers to use as she sees fit.” Maman’s needle paused in its work. “But first, you must decide if you’re ready to lose her again.”
“What do you mean?”
“The awakening will likely give her back her memories, child. All of them at some point. Charlotte’s dedication to her magical research. Delia’s joy in your love. But also the pain of every death, every separation, every moment you were unable to save her.” Maman’s eyes held sympathy tempered by hard wisdom. “She may not forgive you for carrying this burden alone. She may not forgive you for the choices that led to her deaths. Love across lifetimes is beautiful in theory, but the reality includes all the times love wasn’t enough, or even the times you simply weren’t there.”
The truth settled hard in his bones. In all his planning, all his careful consideration of how to reveal the truth, he’d focused on protecting her from the shock of learning about her past lives. He’d never considered that remembering might make her hate him for the role he’d played in creating this cycle of death and rebirth.
Now here he was again, bound to someone he couldn’t protect, watching power build in her like pressure in a kettle. The same impossible choice: tell her and risk breaking her or stay silent and let the awakening tear her apart from within. His choice would determine which outcome—liberation or destruction.
“I should go,” he said, standing on unsteady legs. Thespiritual download had left him drained, hollowed out by the enormity of what was coming.
“Where?” Maman asked, though her knowing eyes suggested she already understood.
“To see her. To watch from a distance. I need to know she’s safe, even if I can’t do anything to help.”
“And if she’s not safe? If the awakening begins while you’re watching from the shadows like some lovesick ghost?” Maman’s tone carried gentle reproach. “We do not know the true ramifications of getting the memories back, or how quickly it will come. Will you step forward then, or will you let her face the return of lifetimes alone?”
The question followed him as he left Maman’s sanctuary and walked back toward the Quarter. The streets pulsed with increasing intensity, reality wearing thin under the pressure of approaching transformation. Every step closer to Delphine’s neighborhood brought new signs of magical disturbance—fire hydrants leaking water that glowed faintly blue, street signs displaying names of roads that had been demolished decades ago, the scent of flowers that only bloomed in Charlotte’s era wafting from empty lots.
A police car sat parked outside a hotel on Royal Street, its driver speaking rapidly into his radio about guests who’d checked out of rooms they’d never rented, leaving behind belongings from eras that predated the building’s construction. The officer looked haggard, as if he’d been fielding similar calls all night.
Bastien paused to listen, catching fragments of the conversation: “ . . .woman claims she lived here in 1823, knows details about the property that aren’t in any records . . . man speaking only Creole French, says he died here in 1871 . . . need someone from the psychiatric unit . . .”
The awakening and opening in the Veil weren’t just affecting Delphine anymore or even those with bloodline ties of one kind or another. It was pulling anyone with even the slightest psychic sensitivity into the vortex of her expanding consciousness. The city itself was becoming a conduit for memories that had been safely contained for generations.
He found her at a café near the French Market, sitting across from a woman with silver hair and kind eyes. Someone new, someone unconnected to the web of deception that surrounded Delphine’s existence. She was animated in a way he hadn’t seen in weeks, gesturing with her coffee cup as she told some story that made her companion lean forward with interest.
“ . . . and then the tour guide started crying,” Delphine was saying, her voice carrying clearly across the space between their table and Bastien’s hiding place in the shadow of a newspaper stand. “Right in the middle of describing the architecture. Said the building was telling him about all the people who’d died there, but it was built as a department store. No one ever died there.”
Her companion leaned back in her chair, expression thoughtful. “The city’s been strange lately. My neighbors are having the most vivid dreams. Mrs. Guidry swears she spent all last night at a Mardi Gras ball from the 1890s. Could describe every detail—the decorations, the music, even what she wore.”
“You think it’s just the heat? Summer makes everyone a little crazy.”
“Maybe. Or maybe New Orleans is remembering things it had forgotten.” The older woman’s voice carried the weight of someone who’d lived in the city long enough to recognize its rhythms. “This place has always been thinbetween worlds. Sometimes the past bleeds through more than usual.”
Delphine laughed, the sound so purely joyful that Bastien felt his resolve crystallize into painful certainty. “You make it sound like the city is haunted.”
“Child, this whole cityishaunted. The question is whether the ghosts are waking up.”
For once, she appeared simply herself—not plagued by questions she couldn’t answer, not confused by visions she couldn’t explain, not frightened by abilities she didn’t understand. She looked genuinely happy, engaged in normal conversation with someone who saw her as just another person navigating the strangeness of living in New Orleans.
Her companion said something that made Delphine throw back her head in delighted laughter, the sound so pure and uncomplicated that it cut through Bastien’s chest like a blade. This was what she could be without the weight of destiny crushing her shoulders. This was the life she might have if his presence didn’t drag her into forces she’d never chosen to face. Delia was this joyful all the time.
It came to him in fragments—sunlight, wildflowers, her laugh echoing across a stretch of wind-stirred meadow. Bastien hadn’t meant to remember it now, but the moment slipped in like a tide through cracked stone.
Spring, 1906. Somewhere just outside Natchez. The world had slowed for a day.
Delia was barefoot in the grass, hat crooked on her head, curls slipping loose in the breeze as she spun in slow circles beside a picnic basket they’d long forgotten to open. She laughed—really laughed—and he’d never heard anything so perfect. A sound without tension, without grief. It cracked something open in him every time.
