Chapter Text
Charlie didn’t cry when Apollyon bid her adieu, all politeness, addressing her as ‘my dear fiancé’.
She did not cry when her father threw a teacup at the closed door once Apollyon and his familiars were gone. Or when he apologized for it to a trembling Mary and hugged Charlie. Not when Hank lingered at the door, unsure about what to do for the first time in as far as she could remember, or when Anthony ran in and embraced her, a subtle tremor in his frame even as he recited a litany of all the things he’d do to Apollyon.
Her eyes remained dry all the way to her room, where she locked the door and collapsed, willing the hinges to hold her and all of her grief up. Only then did she let go, silent sobs that beckoned tears enough to drown her.
How was it that she’d been so happy mere days ago? So secure in the hope of the future? A silly woman – a mortal woman, a fragile paper doll in the midst of powers she’d never known to be concerned about.
It hadn’t been love at first sight, of course. She had joked that there might be a lady somewhere who might fall head over heels at the finesse with which a man could slit a malefactor’s throat, but she was not the type.
Alastor had raised her hand to his lips and kissed it when she’d told him so. “I would never have been so bewitched by a woman that silly.” He didn’t let her hand go after the kiss. “When did it happen then, dearest?”
“I don’t know.”
Another man might have been offended at such an answer – a younger man, or a less clever man. But Alastor only chuckled. “And you accuse me of lacking romanticism.”
“What? Whenever did I do that? If anything, I’m touched by all your thoughtful gestures.”
Something in his eyes softened when he smiled at her next. “And that, I confess, is when I fell in love with you.”
“When?”
Something gentle lit his eyes. “When I realized that, no matter what cipher I used, you could see right through it.”
She had leaned into him then. “I think that’s how it was for me too.”
Whether it had come over them in an instant, or grown with the persistence of a wildflower, it was there now: a convergence of like minds, hearts run over into love.
Charlie took care to stay close to her father that night, feeling frail and lost as a nine-year-old. She insisted on remaining by his side even as Lucius Morningstar strode down to the mansion’s main hall, right on time to deliver the “terms of surrender”, as he put it. He’d done so with a tight smile, a hand firm on her shoulder, and a little square of good, thick paper in hand that he’d let nobody see.
Anthony trailed after them like a ghost, the salt shaker clutched tight in one hand. Dad had allowed him to be there too, provided he swore on his nonna that he’d neither speak nor interfere.
(“And if a single grain of salt comes out of that, I will feed you to the devils myself, Anthony”
“OK sir. OK”)
Charlie stared at her father, back straight and countenance regal despite his disheveled clothes and hair. She knew him; he was, most sincerely, not afraid.
“Dad?”
He turned, smiling, an intent to comfort that did not dispel the concern in his eyes.
“Do…I mean, when you first called him…did he look…?”
“I’ve seen his true form, yes.”
Anthony made a sound of inarticulate shock behind them.
“Talking about them like this can only make them more powerful. Later, someday, when it’s safe.” He held a finger to his lips, like when he’d agreed to hide the fact that Charlie had ruined her new lace dress making mud pies from her mother. Charlie noticed his pointer finger was flecked in multicolored ink.
(Always when, never if, they made it out the other side of Charybdis).
She’d always known her father was a brave man, but this adventure heightened her respect of him ever closer to mythical status.
The three went down to the foyer, where Dad stood a step ahead of Charlie, Anthony a step behind. A flicker of massive shadows by the living room door revealed the subtle presence of Hank, there to lend support as well.
“Apollyon,” Dad called, voice neutral. “Show yourself.”
Apollyon appeared without fanfare. If he’d used a door or a window to come in, Charlie never heard it, watching him step out of the shadows, and into the circle of moonlight the windows cast at the foot of the grandfather clock. It was like he’d been there all along. (The thought made Charlie’s heart fall over with terror. What if he was? What if he was there all the time, listening?)
He held both hands behind his back and directed a smile at all of them – even turning around for Hank. “Ready to hold up your end of the bargain?”
Dad only exhaled through his nose.
“Let’s hear it then.”
Lucius Morningstar offered him a gritted-teeth smile. “Wouldn’t you rather have it in writing?” And he extended a piece of plain writing paper that Charlie hadn’t noticed.
Apollyon plucked it from his fingers, a long, black candle popping up in the air behind him. “Lucius Morningstar…the hand of his daughter Charlotte Morningstar…refrain from harming anyone in any way, shape or form, be they a Morningstar, an employee, an ally or a bystander.” He nodded. “I never intended to harm anyone. A waste of my time, laying waste to mortals.”
Dad gritted his teeth. “Well, then a tiny little clause making that crystal clear won’t be too much of a bother. Right?”
“Of course.” Apollyon didn’t even look at her father as he replied. “This is unusually aboveboard for you, Lucius. I expected another attempt at entrapping me in your prose.”
“Oh, I did. Check the third line.”
Charlie’s heart didn’t have time to flutter with hope before Apollyon laughed. “I haven’t signed it, Lucius. But I noticed. You request that your daughter’s would-be fiancé be informed of her wedding directly?”
Dad nodded and extended the square of paper, hesitated, then handed it to Charlie. “What do you think, sweetie?”
It was a wedding invitation. Almost. In the center of the paper, ‘You are hereby informed that Charlotte Morningstar is to be wedded to Apollyon Dahlia’ was written in her father’s straight, formal penmanship; her name was in a purple-pink ink, while Apollyon’s was in black. No time, no request for the recipient’s presence. Black dahlias, drawn in remarkable detail for their size, appeared to grow out of Apollyon’s last name, while a white flower with a faint pink blush, beautiful but unknown to her, grew all over Charlie’s. Below the exquisitely illustrated text, her father had drawn a flowering orange rhododendron plant.
The awe of the exquisite floral details was somewhat diminished by Dad’s choice of border decoration. Had Charlie been the one designing the invitation, she would have put winding vines, foliage or leaves at the edges. Her father had instead created a simple pattern of three dashes, followed by three dots, all over the edge. It was in red.
Something tickled at her brain, something related to flower language. The rhododendron meant something bad, Charlie realized. She had no memory for the truly bad meanings, having never intended to use them, but the mere existence of that gap in her memories assured her that orange rhododendron had no pleasant association.
It was a coded message for Alastor.
Charlie put the pieces together, then caught herself only just in time to relax her brow. It was a warning not to interfere, a sign that he should back down. It wouldn’t be enough to make him, in fact, back down. But it would, at least, stop him from storming the mansion, warned of some danger far more serious than anything he’d faced before.
No, he’d never storm. He’d sneak in late at night, avoid poor Anthony as he always did, and be in her room before anyone even noticed there was someone else inside.
“Oh, my, let me see that.” Charlie didn’t notice she was smiling until the paper was tugged from her fingers. Apollyon scanned the paper. “How pretty, Lucius. Your art is outstanding, almost as much as your song.” He held it out with two fingers, and a person who hadn’t been there before plucked it from his fingers. “We’ll have it delivered. And, of course, all your staff is free to go come morning. Be it for their homes, due to return the day after…or never.”
Two hands settled on Charlie’s shoulders, the salt-shaker digging into her left one. “I’m staying.”
“Suit yourself, Anthony DiBella,” Apollyon replied, breezy. “Little Tony. Wear your crucifixes. Spread your salt. It amuses me that you think any of these little rituals will make any difference,” he sing-songed. “It didn’t do your nonna any good, you know.” His voice dropped lower, his face alight with malignant glee, and for a fraction of a second Charlie believed she’d caught a flash of his true face (horror so deep, too much for her mind to grapple with). “She screams, along with the rest of them, in my fief down below.”
The hands at Charlie’s shoulders went slack. A crash, a sensation of dust against her ankles: the salt shaker had fallen from nerveless fingers and shattered against the floor.
“If that’s all, I think we’ll retire for now.” For all that he was shorter than almost every man in New Orleans, Lucius Morningstar’s presence seemed gigantic right then. He took a step forward, even as Charlie realized she’d taken one back.
Apollyon composed himself, his face smoothed over into distant politeness again. “I’ll see you all soon, then.” He vanished, as inexplicably as he’d come.
Charlie turned, her own pain forgotten in the face of Anthony’s distress. His eyes were frozen mid-frown, his mouth half open.
She patted his cheek gently. “Lord of the Lies, Anthony, don’t forget. Even if he’s not the lord, he’ll still lie.”
“Demons will say anything to discomfit you.” Dad put a hand to Anthony’s shoulder and swayed him back and forth. “Take heart.” He radiated comfort, even thought he had to reach to grasp his unruliest hired man’s shoulder.
Anthony shook himself awake after a moment. “If he means my father’s mother, fuck her. I hope it’s the truth.” His elegant jawline clenched. “My nonna Carollo though – she’d never…”
“Of course not. Don’t waste another second thinking about that.”
“You’re right. I know.” Anthony sighed. “So…what now?”
“Now, we rest. In the morning, I’ll need you and Hank to round up all the maids and manservants who can read. I need to…to reorganize the bookshelves.” Dad’s smile was grim. “If anyone wants to stay at this God-forsaken place come morning, that is.”
Anthony squared his shoulders. “Mary’ll stay. She loves Charlie more than she’s afraid of…that. Lotta them do. You’re good people, boss.” He looked at the mess on the carpet. “She’s gonna fucking hate me for that mess though.”
Dad rubbed at his temples. “As much as I understand comforting ritualism, don’t do this again. Salt won’t do anything against a creature like that.” He dragged that hand down his face, exasperated, but not unkind. “Let’s just deal with the rest tomorrow.”
Anthony waited until her father was up the stairs before lowering his mouth to Charlie’s ear. “What about you, doll face?”
“Dad has a plan, I think.”
“Yeah, I know. I…I meant about you. Your health. And your, ah…guy.”
Charlie suppressed a smile. Anthony had found them out, of course, through sheer persistence. He’d called Alastor ‘that guy’, ‘that error in judgement’ and all sorts of funny epithets ever since, unhappy but resigned. She appreciated his temporary truce more than she could say. “I don’t know.” Her vision blurred, her heart aching again.
“Hey, hey. It’s OK.” He rubbed the errant tears away with his thumbs. Alone, there was no Miss Morningstar and her manservant: it was Charlie and Anthony, best friends. “I can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, but don’t lose hope. I don’t think that creepy fucking fella’s gonna just take this calmly as you please. I…I’d almost bet he’s gonna fight for you. Somehow.”
What a mortal man, even one as determined as Alastor, could do against a demon, Charlie wasn’t sure. Or particularly optimistic about. Her heart trilled with fear and hope – and for the man himself. Alastor could be tender and comforting, his ruthless pragmatism a welcome perspective when Charlie got too lost in her anxious thoughts. She would have welcomed his presence right then.
But there was nothing she could do. Only wait, and hope, that somewhere in her father’s books, the answer, the secret to banishing this blight, lay sleeping.
Charlie managed a smile and lay her hands over Anthony’s. “Let’s go find a broom and a dustpan so Mary won’t kill you.”
“What? It’s past midnight!”
“Yes, it is. So unless you think you can wake up earlier than she does, this is our chance.”
Anthony shivered theatrically. “Earlier than Mary? Whoo. No way.”
“Come on then!”
They separated the glass from the salt grains as best they could, Anthony insisting on throwing a pinch of it over his shoulder, and both forgot about the looming shadows for an instant.
Apollyon appeared to Charlie in her favorite sitting room the following night.
The day before it had been busy, confusing. A maid and two of the men directly under Anthony quit outright. The morale of those remaining was more resigned grit than true cheer. But they had work to do, and those that had to keep the household running separated from those who could read and write.
Her father had had to be very creative in instructing those who remained as to what kind of books they were looking for, explaining that they should be on the lookout for anything pertaining demons, contracts and magic - without saying a word of demons, contracts or magic out loud. Charlie had thrown herself into the labors alongside them with gusto, trying not to imagine Alastor receiving her father’s odd wedding proclamation.
Would it be slipped under his front door? Would it find its way to him at the radio station? What would he think? What would he say? As sure as she was that he’d never do anything rash, a part of Charlie kept half an ear out for bangs or knocks until nightfall, when the death of all the silly hopes had made her dejected and antsy.
She’d managed, with great effort, to lose herself in a book, when a presence filled the room, unavoidable as wood smoke in a closed parlor. Her head snapped to the side; there was that unwelcome figure in the threshold.
“Good evening, Miss.” No bow, empty smile.
“Good evening.” She must be like ice, like stone, safe under a shell of politeness where this creature could not touch her.
“As we are engaged now, I feel we might spend time together. Learn to deal well in each other’s company.”
As if he were taking her away on an arrangement, as if she should hold on to hope that he’d let her become a housewife, keep hearth and home. As if she were not about to accept being dragged into unimaginable torment. She turned towards her book again.
Apollyon did not acknowledge her silence, wandering around the room instead. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him, tilting books out of the shelves, examining magazines (no special attention paid to any of them; their plan would live another day). He did not attempt more conversation, but seemed to sense each of Charlie’s involuntary glances, prepared as he was to parry them with a smile.
Smiles.
On superficial observation, they might have appeared similar, Alastor and Apollyon: two keen observers with a well-crafted mask, polite and gentlemanly.
But the similarities were only superficial to someone in the know. Alastor was an unbothered observer, a careful schemer, but there was substance to him. His gestures and acts were a coded message, connected to his nature. She’d teased that he was a floral arrangement himself, one she might decode through flower language.
(“Am I now? And what blooms went into the making of me, hmm?” He’d wrapped both of his hands around hers, gentle.
Charlie had pretended to think for a moment. “Aconite, of course!”
“Aconite, also known as wolfsbane, my dear? The wolf-man killer?” He’d laughed with sincerity and raised her hand to his lips. “Another man might be offended to hear his intended-to-be thinks he is like a poisonous flower.”
“It is poisonous, and it has an unfortunate history,” Charlie had replied, leaning on his shoulder. “But it stands for rebirth and hope.”
“Rebirth? Hope? Me?”
Charlie turned to him, earnest. “Yes. You,” she’d whispered, and Alastor had gone from joking to quiet, adoring, in a second.)
This man, though… his entire self, from his body to his actions, were all part of the mask. To see him was to look at a hollow tree, standing, but rotted on the inside.
“I realize you do not love me at present,” he said, breaking the silence. His eyes were still on some magazine. “But perhaps you might warm up to me.” He did smile then, over his shoulder.
Her throat closed in terror.
It had been easy, despite what she’d seen so far, to see Apollyon as no more than a man. An evil man, a man devoid of organs and full of black ichor instead – but still a man. Until then, when the perfect rose showed a hint of the snake beneath. The rotted tree housed horrors instead of wood.
“What’s wrong, Charlotte? Can I call you Charlotte?” He tilted his head in what would have been a charming gesture of concern.
“Nothing.” Too quick, too abrupt, her fear as clear as the pallor beginning to cool her face.
There was a hint of satisfaction in his contrite face. “I had hoped you’d be less wary of me, with the servants all free to go home to their families.”
Charlie seized her composure by its ragged ends and forced it back on. “I’m sure you know better than I do that what I feel isn’t important. Sir.” She must be emotionless and calm.
The silence stretched on for a moment as Apollyon picked a book out of the shelf at last. “Sir seems rather distant, don’t you think?” He hmmed. “I have no last name, but I suppose I can go by the one your father gave me. Dahlia. You can call me ‘Mister Dahlia’, I suppose, though it sounds so awkward.” He chuckled, self-deprecating and inviting.
The act glanced off of her like a harmless blow. “What is your real name then, so that I might address you?” Charlie meant to look back at her book as she said so, to further her courageous act. For a split, second, she didn’t.
For a split second, something like anger, true, discomfited anger, threatened to force its way through Apollyon’s façade.
“Apollyon is my real name, Charlotte, dear,” he said, recovering, a shining smile and a pleasant tilt of the head.
“Oh. Well then,” Charlie began, her tongue clumsy. “Well then.”
“Well indeed.”
No, Apollyon isn’t your real name, Charlie thought, and the fact that I asked doesn’t make you very happy. She focused on her book. “Alright.” She strove to imitate her despairing expression from before, desperate to hide the spark of joy deep within her soul.
Of course, she ran to her father with the news as soon as she could. Lucius Morningstar was already a head shorter than his daughter, but he still seized her beneath the arms and held her aloft, spinning her like Charlie was 5 instead of 25. “Of course!”
“Dad, shush! It’s late!” And he can hear us, she thought.
“Oh right, right.” They didn’t know how deeply Apollyon had infiltrated the house, but he could hear them with discomforting ease, that much they knew. Dad put her down and hurried to his desk, where he unearthed a soon-to-be-discarded page of accounts, turning it over to scribble on. He handed the note to Charlie.
Jesus banished the Legion back to Hell after he had their name. That is it, honey. That is it.
Charlie smiled. She took the note and the pen, scribbling back. ‘A’ took a book from the shelves. Brown, leather binding, with metallic guards at the tip.
Her father raised an eyebrow. That’s the Bible.
Does it mean anything?
I don’t know. But that means we’ll have to check that Bible and all of the others. Now go to bed, I need to burn this paper where nobody will find the ashes.
The Morningstar spent three feverish days perusing every book they could the library could provide, from many editions of the Bible to the Dictionnaire Infernal, through the Lesser Key of Solomon, and on to Charlie’s old storybooks. They undertook the duty themselves, the rest of the staff now released to do their chores.
Her father also went to the window more often than not. Subtly, as if he were taking a break from the relentless studying, but Charlie began to find it intriguing after a while.
“Are we expecting anyone?”
He didn’t answer, but looked back at her, then out the window again.
“Dad?”
He went very still, then turned from the window with an air of determination. “Honey, wouldn’t you like to be in charge of anything about your wedding?”
The non-sequitur took Charlie entirely off guard. “Huh?”
“Yeah. I mean, we can’t really go out,” and he gestured at the books and papers strewn over the study, as if clearly indicating that they had no time, rather than no as ‘Apollyon’s prohibition won’t allow us to leave unhindered’. “But maybe ask to have the dressmaker come here? The baker? The florist?”
It was a strange demand. So strange, Charlie figured it was for some unseen audience, and her father might want to her to say yes. “I – I think so.”
“Perfect. We’ll ask your fiancé then,” he said, lip curling at the word ‘fiancé’.
Apollyon was summoned that night. He agreed to the request with relish, seeing it as yet another capitulation on their part, no doubt. “How will we accomplish this, though? I’m afraid touring these shops with myself or my men will reflect poorly on dear Charlotte.”
Charlie tried not to grind her teeth. “I’m not in very good health these days. I’m sorry to say I wouldn’t be up to that touring.” Her pale face had gone paler by way of sleepless nights.
“I’ll do it for you. With your company, of course,” Dad said, gesturing to Apollyon, all politeness. “Or rather, we’ll invite them in. We’ll have them all come here instead.”
Apollyon’s smile grew another few inches. Charlie wondered if his mouth (thin-lipped and pink, straight out of a magazine) might stretch on and on to beneath his ears if he got merry enough. “Ah, perfect. The arrangements suits me as well. I’ll foot the bill for everything, naturally.”
Dad nodded, as if it weren’t customary for the bride’s parents to foot said bill. “As expected.”
The following day, a cavalcade of bewildered shop owners, shop keepers and their assistants began to parade into the mansion. Most of them hadn’t known Charlie personally at all, and were easily taken in by her protestations of weakness, her need to sit after the smallest exertions and her feigned excitement for the wedding. Apollyon’s benign fiancé façade sealed the deal: he never laid a hand on her, but he hovered, solicitous, asking helpful questions and cracking tasteful jokes, winning all of their merchantly good will before he even produced the first bank note. One after the other fell for his charms.
All of them, except the florist.
Mrs. King was a discreet woman that Charlie was inclined to like. Her shop, like all of the shops in New Orleans, kept different doors for whites and coloreds, and she’d attend to a white client before even deigning to acknowledge a colored one, but Charlie had noticed that, barring that ritual, she was polite and professional to all of her clients - dare she say it - equally. A woman business owner, Charlie knew, could not be as vocal about any unusual political inclinations as a spoiled little rich girl, but she’d long suspected that she might be more sympathetic to the causes the Morningstars had championed than she could let on.
She’d also had front row seats to the subtle exchange of flowers between Charlie and Alastor, careful though it’d been.
Mrs. King did not seem any less cheerful, nor any less charmed at Apollyon, than any of the other shopkeepers. But her brown eyes did linger on Charlie every so often, a subtle question unspoken in the way her eyebrows scrunched together.
On the florist’s third visit, after the baker’s second one, two attendants arrived at the mansion, trailing after Mrs. King with a basket of flowers each.
Her father, still dedicated in his window-watching, reported on the arrival, froze, then walked towards his desk in more of a hurry than he’d been before. “I’ll, ah, head down first honey.” Dad didn’t give a whit for what color flowers they might plan to use, or for the flavor of the cake, but he made sure to be around the parlor, unwilling to leave Charlie’s presence when Apollyon was around. He jotted something pell mell onto a paper, so fast that Charlie could see the ink spatters form around the letters, even onto the desk. “Just a moment.”
“Oh, sure –“
Lucius Morningstar slammed out of the study.
“…Dad.”
Charlie tidied the books, stuck bookmarks in the ones they’d need, and ambled over to the desk. I’ll pop into the kitchen for a cloth to clean up all this mess.
Her plans to keep her father’s workspace clean vanished once she’d made it halfway down the steps. That thought and every other, really. Charlie would never know just how she got down the stairs that day, or how she’d remembered how to breathe.
His face was hidden behind a towering, if still unorganized, basket of greenery and white calla lilies, but it was him. At the sound of her shoes, Alastor peeked from behind the arrangement, meeting her eye for an electric second before situating the flowers firmly in front of his face once more. His simple shirt and brown pants suited him.
“Riiight over here, Charlie,” Dad put an arm across her shoulders, shepherding her over to Mrs. King. He must have seen Alastor. If not him, then Hank, who would have reported his presence the moment he crossed their threshold. But Dad wasn’t yelling or fuming. With a single finger, he directed Charlie’s face towards his for an instant. Act natural, he mouthed, then vanished into the kitchen. Charlie managed a few stilted words to Mrs. King for about five minutes before her father reappeared. With the most shocking natural timing, he strode up to them with a frown. “White lilies?”
“I thought they’d be fitting, given the bride’s coloring,” replied Mrs. King. “She’ll be a vision in gold and white, Mr. Morningstar.”
“They’re a little funerary-looking though,” Dad mused, with an air of nonchalance. “I’m not sure they’re appropriate.”
“I like them,” interjected Apollyon, his appearance so sudden Charlie felt her heart stumble. “But if that’s your perception, father, we can do without them.
One of Dad’s golden eyebrows leaped convulsively at the word ‘father’, but he otherwise remained impassive. “Maybe if I saw them in another light. Humor me, Mrs. King.”
“Of course. Please do accommodate Mr. Morningstar, boys.”
The unknown attendant took a mechanical step back. Alastor, with perfect hired-boy silence, took a few careful steps towards the window, and then one more, somewhat more enthusiastic: the movement made a handful of lilies and greenery slap onto the carpet, earth still clinging to their roots.
“Oh my,” Alastor exclaimed, “so clumsy of me. My apologies all, but most especially to the lady of the house for sullying her clean floors.”
“That’s – that’s alright,” Charlie managed. She felt like it’d been years since she’d heard his voice. “I’ll get it.”
“Nonsense, spare your pretty gloves.” Alastor knelt, leaning forward as if he’d forgotten the basket in his arms in the midst of his solicitude. More flowers spilled into the carpet, black dirt spreading in a shower. “Ah.” Alastor’s fellow attendant made noises of distaste.
“What a mess,” tutted Dad, “I’m afraid you’ll need better muscle control if you intend to stay in the business, young man.”
Anthony chose that moment to materialize from somewhere. “D’ya want me to call Mary, boss?”
“I think we should get out of the mess, is what,” Dad stepped out of the dirt-splattered area, “and move to the living room. Charlie, honey, you get Mary.”
“Alright Dad.”
“Good. Right through here, Mrs. King. Mary is quite talented at stain removal, I hear.” He offered her his arm, and Mrs. King took it. With a commanding wave, he gestured everyone to follows him
“She is the best, boss,” Anthony exclaimed, as if he’d cared for stain removal a day in his life. “She’ll fix it all right up.”
With two so enthusiastic conductors, the mass in the room all moved, even the other attendant.
Even Apollyon.
She was alone with Alastor.
When the party was all safely past the threshold to the next room, Alastor, still on the floor, set the flowers aside and opened his arms. Charlie all but launched herself at the floor and half stumbled, half crawled into them, heedless as a child.
“My dear…”
Charlie held a finger to her lips.
“What, but - ?”
“I’m never alone these days.” Charlie licked her lips and repeated the word with more gravitas. “Never.”
Alastor blinked. Frowned. “Never? Not even now?”
Charlie’s heart sped up. “Never. There’s always The Lord. But not just him.”
With a desperate twist of the gut, Charlie realized they’d never spoken about anything related to their beliefs of the metaphysical kind. The topic would have come up organically once the matter of the wedding came up, but before, Charlie had never even thought to inquire where Alastor spent his Sunday mornings. Did he even worship any gods? She would have loved him either way, but communicating the presence of something as seemingly incongruous in this day and age as a demon to an atheist…!
She’d have to trust that this was New Orleans, where magic seemed prepared to leap out at the next corner.
Alastor pressed his lips together, then let one of his hands drift across Charlie’s face. “Not just the Lord. Then…?”
Charlie pointed at the ground and stared into his eyes. Something flashed in Alastor’s eyes –
- and the tapping of shoes on the floor alerted them. By the time Apollyon rounded the corner, the runaway plants had been picked up, and Alastor was helping Charlie up, back in his contrite attendant act. He even dusted at her hands, obsequious and ashamed.
Apollyon produced a handkerchief, a fine silk thing that would never endure the scrubbing across her hands. “Charlie, princess, why not call Mary like father suggested?”
“That’s alright.” She forced a smile. It came that more easily in the presence of a true reason for joy.
“A thousand apologies, Mr. Dahlia.” Alastor kept his head down. “I’m afraid I’m not quite prepared to deal with the public, as Mrs. King implied.” He managed, somehow, to sound contrite and annoyed at himself. Her proud, unapologetic Alastor.
It took a monumental effort on her part to turn away from the scene and head to the kitchen, where Mary could in fact be found. When she returned, Mrs. King and her attendants were in the process of leaving, apologies all given, her father and Apollyon smiling. There was no time and no opportunity for another look. Mary left in a hurry. Charlie didn’t blame her.
“That was a fine performance on all your parts,” Apollyon began, turning around to address the room. “A jolly good show, as the English would day.”
Anthony covered his mouth with one hand, Hank’s eyebrows twitched. Charlie did her best to stop any damning expression from flitting across her rapidly cooling cheeks.
Only her father remained calm. In fact, he raised an eyebrow at Apollyon with great temerity.
“Oh you don’t have to pretend, Lucius, not at this point at least.” Apollyon mimed raucous applause. “You were all wonderful. But you forgot I delivered the wedding announcement to young mister De la Croix myself. He might not have recognized me, but I recognized him.”
Oh no.
Apollyon had delivered the wedding announcement to Alastor! He'd known who he was all along!
“Alright, you’ve got us,” Dad replied with odd flippancy. “I figured this was the best way to let them say goodbye.” He crossed his hands over his chest. “But he’s gone now, Charlie’s not left the house, and we’ve broken none of the clauses in your contract.”
“That you haven’t, Lucius,” Apollyon conceded, “but you’ve acted in bad faith. I’m afraid there will be consequences.” The serene way he said it all, as if he were talking about the weather, made Charlie’s heart beat harder with terror.
Dad finally lost his odd composure at that. “Just remember to punish the people you should punish over that. If you really can hear everything, you’ll know that Charlie had nothing to do with this. Not the florist either. I saw De la Croix from the window, offering his help, and decided not to do anything.”
“M – me too,” Anthony exclaimed, taking an unsure step forward. “I recognized ‘im. Didn’t say a word.”
“Truly, the loyalty in this house is amazing. If your segregationist neighbors knew how much they’d gain from treating their inferiors like people, hmm?” Apollyon chuckled. Then he blinked. “On the day of the wedding, I’d appreciate it if my fiancé prepared in the house alone. You will all go to church and wait for us there. All of you. She will be allowed one servant. Not you,” he added, looking at Anthony, “and that shall be all.”
Charlie felt as if a noxious waft of hot air, puffed by some evil beast, broke across her body. “No.” How would she get through that awful day without her father’s solid presence, without Anthony’s quips, without Mary? A vice seemed to be constricting her lungs.
Her father frowned. “This was all our doing, not Charlie’s.”
“The punishment, Lucius, is meant to preclude future crime, not only to reprimand.”
“I can’t get an entire dress and face-full of makeup on my own.” How the words made it out of her mouth with the little air she had left, Charlie didn’t know.
“Yeah,” Anthony breathed, his bravado significantly diminished, “be reasonable. Doesn’t have to be one of us if it makes ya iffy.”
Apollyon dismissed them. “We’re all a little emotional at the moment, let’s take this up later. For now, the harm is done, and we should go on.” He looked all across the room, meeting each pair of eyes for a moment. “But if that man sets foot in this house again, with or without my knowledge, I will consider it a casus belli, and react…accordingly.” When he met her eyes, they seemed to flash. “Well then, see you tomorrow. Or not. I understand it’s the seamstress’s day, yes? One must not see the bride’s dress before the wedding.” His smile was beatific. “Alright then, I’ll see you the day after.” He turned and ambled to the door.
Charlie hurried to her father once he was gone. “Dad.” Worry, annoyance, fear and gratitude fought for first place in her heart.
“It’s OK, honey.” A small, tentative smile appeared on his face. “It’s all going to be OK.”
“You think so?”
Conviction lined every part of his face. “Yeah, actually I do.” He turned his face, eyes somewhere over Charlie’s shoulder. “That was unexpected, Anthony.”
Anthony, still a little pale, drew himself up like a soldier. “We’re all in the Titanic together, sir.”
“Heh. Alright then. Let’s try to make it into the lifeboats together as well.” He smiled for real this time. “OK. Back to the study we go. We have things to do.”
Charlie only saw Alastor one more time before the wedding.
The days and nights had gone from anxious, to frantic, to slowly more subdued. As the date approached, Charlie felt her hopes wane, even as her father became more feverish in his readings.
It wasn’t that she’d given up altogether. She was still determined to escape this sham of a marriage. It was just that she was beginning to consider that she might not escape with her life.
Over the course of their studies, they’d found a few references here and there to broken contracts, vampires and fairies and all sorts of creatures losing their hold on humans.
But the one haunting thing Charlie had found, the one that outlined the macabre solution, was in a fairy tale.
Her father, adamant though he was that even stories with so obvious an origins were the answers, had passed this one by, and yet it had stuck with Charlie. A young orphan girl, the prettiest of her village, had fallen in love with a handsome stranger – who she then caught sight of, lying in an open grave in the cemetery, fresh blood on his face. He was at the next dance, alive and well, which revealed the boy as a vampire.
The girl, quite reasonably, fled the dance and locked herself in her home.
Not to be deterred, the vampire followed. For three nights, he came to the girl’s door, asking her what she’d seen on her way to the cemetery. For three nights, she answered ‘nothing’, refusing to acknowledge the evil haunting her. The vampire killed her – or so it seemed. The girl was rescued from death by a handsome boy, whom she married and had children with, and she herself vanquished the vampire. Happily ever after.
But it wasn’t the ending itself that now stuck to Charlie’s mind. It was the process: the girl had had to die to escape.
Charlie was old enough to know that, whatever the wisdom coded in fairy tales, people did not come back to life in a literal sense. That a demon existed was proof that there was a world beyond the material one she knew. The story, therefore, told her that there was no salvation for her but in the hereafter.
It was with these dark, yet inevitable thoughts that she sat by the window one afternoon. Thought the view was familiar, every part of it seemed to hold unusual charm, more than even her own fond nature ascribed to it: the tree, the short front garden that surrounded the house, the neighboring mansions. Even the way her lung filled and emptied was a welcome, familiar, precious thing.
And then a figure in red appeared from the side of the house. Charlie was almost pressing her nose to the glass before she was aware.
He was in his dark burgundy coat, as unique as her father’s white ensembles, fedora pulled low over his face. He walked midway around to the view directly in front of the window, and Charlie knew he’d seen her before she’d seen him.
There he stood and raised his hat at her, slow and deliberate. Her heart stumbled with tenderness. Alastor was always scrupulous in his politeness, but she had however belatedly realized there was a special cadence to that politeness that always revealed just what he thought of you. Her special place in his heart was given away by his attentiveness, greater than the one he bestowed on some others.
Her hand was on the latch, half of her torso over the ledge, in an instant. Without the reflection, there he was, near and yet far.
They did not speak a word to each other, but Charlie felt like a hundred conversations transpired between them before, with a sigh she could not hear, Alastor bowed with unusual formality, tucked his hands into his coat pockets, pulled the fedora over his face was off to the other end of the street.
Charlie fought with the urge to run to the next window over and follow his progress, and won. Apollyon might see.
Just as that thought had crossed her mind, heave steps were heard in the hall outside the office. Charlie’s heart seized before she recognized her father’s light tread, and the man himself appeared at the door, paper in hand. “Hello there,” he said with an absent smile, then paused and looked back. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“Oh, nothing daddy.” To her surprise, her own voice sounded heavy with tears.
Her father’s face shifted into from concern to grim realization and on to sad tenderness. He walked into the office with determination, dropped the paper (which, oddly enough, was full of ink stains, dots and dashes) and gather her into his arms. “This isn’t over yet. There’s still time. There’s always time.”
“I know Dad, I know.”
“Hope is the thing with feathers.”
“I know.” She sniffled. He still meant to find a magical solution that left them all happy. The fairy tale ending, one might say. People, even very smart people, often forgot that not all fairy tales had happy endings.
The night of the day before her wedding, Charlie crept down to the kitchen in the small hours.
The staff that still clung stubbornly on to the Morningstars had earlier nights now than ever, but not for merry reasons. The wedding preparations were not of their concern, and with no reception to prepare afterwards, their days as the day approached were idler than a household about to marry off its young mistress might. But those who were left were the closest and dearest, and they despaired right alongside the Morningstars.
But the small hours before the earliest of the early birds were safe. At that time, even loyal Anthony, who for lack of a solution, had begun to stay up late in the hope that he might come up with a plot, had slumped over in his bed from exhaustion.
Charlie edged the knife drawer open with hesitant, yet firm fingers.
She was not strong, that she had to admit. She was unused to physical labor, less so perhaps than other ladies of her station, but still nothing like Mary or Mrs. Rose, mincing and chopping as if cutting through whipped cream rather than blocks of meat. The knife would have to be sharp, but not heavy.
How much resistance could a block of meat offer? Charlie wondered if she might ask, understood the unusual nature of the request. Even if she somehow managed to persuade her serving staff that she wasn’t thinking dangerous thoughts, Apollyon would not waste a second, would know at once something was amiss.
It should be small enough to hide somewhere in her dress too, she thought idly. The dress had been delivered to her, and hung in her wardrobe like a sad ghost. It really was beautiful – beautiful and wasted on a sad bride. Would the fabric be too thick for the blade?
She tested the weight in her hands, admired its blade in the moonlight. She ghosted a fingertip over it – pain bloomed on her skin a second later.
Perfect.