But as he stood there, panting for breath in the dark bathroom, he looked into the secret alcove at the journal, and the thing almost looked like it breathed on its own.
Exposed like an old festering wound, the journal’s hissing whispers became clear as they grew into raging winds and the drag of a blade across a whetting stone. The warning clicks of teeth became the rattles of chains and squeals of protest.
Sweat beaded on Corentin’s forehead. He couldn’t do this. He wanted to. Storyteller That Be, he wanted to. His resolve was as flimsy as Ringo’s coveted shammy.
He took the journal and settled on the edge of the tub. His right hand petted the journal with hard, determined strokes, as if petting a dog into submission. Did his psyche find comfort in the long knife gouges? What of the blood stains and embedded hair? What was that a mark of? Self-defense? Or a trophy?
This journal was angry and written from a place of rage and chaos.
“Storyteller, forgive me…,” he whimpered, unsure to whom he should apologize. Perhaps his own damning curiosity.
He unhooked the bungee cord, and the cover fell open.
Slamming his right hand to the words, Corentin’s mind ignited.
February 26, 2006
Krewe of Endymion Mardi Gras Parade, New Orleans, Louisiana
CORENTIN CRASHED
into a mud puddle on the alley pavement, landing hard on his shoulder. He spat out the dirty water in his mouth. The smell of piss, vomit, and Pine-Sol hit him first. As he wiped the muck from his eyes, he discovered he was a long way from the safety of the Enchanted Forest.
He shakily stood, getting his bearings. Droplets of humidity slicked the alleyway bricks, and trash bags rustled at his feet. A rat skittered between his legs, then disappeared behind a dumpster. The flies buzzed, flicking against his face.
Corentin furrowed his brows. Where was he and why was he fully dressed? He went to the Enchanted Forest naked, like a newborn learning his first thoughts. Perhaps he was a visitor here. He found his smartphone in his pocket, along with his pocket knife. But the smartphone’s screen was only an unintelligible blur of colors. He blinked, held out his phone at arm’s length, and then brought it to his face. Nothing focused. The knife was even more of a curiosity. The outer red plates were screwed together, but the assortment of tools was missing.
No method of contacting the outside world, and no method of self-defense. He didn’t think those things mattered in a place like this. It was merely a collection of memories, and his psyche had traveled here. His physical body was sitting on the edge of the tub, reading this book in silence. No physical harm would come to him, of that he was certain.
At the left end of the alley, garish lights flashed and swirled like a beacon leading him on. He followed it, and once he got closer, the thumping bass of music and the cheers of partygoers piqued his curiosity.
Corentin stepped out of the alley and found himself amid an ocean of drunken revelers in the middle of a Mardi Gras parade on a sticky, humid night in New Orleans. He ducked when a clunky string of plastic beads went sailing over his head and into the hand of a woman all too proud for showing her breasts.
Purple, green, and gold plastic cups clattered over the asphalt and bounced off spectators’ heads. The children scrambled like an ocean of rats, trapping him in place as they greedily snatched the cups from the ground.
A long line of Krewe of Endymion parade floats drifted down the street. A random collection of obnoxious sounds blared from a float decorated in a
Wizard of Oz
theme. At the mast, a giant animatronic Wicked Witch of the West cackled with a metallic shrill over the loudspeakers.
Corentin turned away and slapped his hands over his ears, trying to block the head-splitting noise. He stumbled back and tripped over one of the children. He fell against a drunken man with a neck full of beads. The man scowled before letting Corentin hit the pavement. His breath burst from his lungs as he landed flat on his back. Self-preservation took over. Corentin scrambled to his feet and scurried to the back of the crowd.
He assumed a safe vantage point by climbing a lamppost. Where was the man who collected these memories? His conscience had to be here somewhere among the crowd. The man with his face, the one to tell him the meaning of all of this, was here somewhere. That is, if this man had his face at all.
Another round of beads whizzed past his ear and fluttered through his hair. The screams, the chants, and the laughter were like trumpet fanfare deep inside his head, throbbing in his chest.
“What are you doing, buddy?”
Corentin continued to scan the crowd.
“Hey,” the man said again and swatted Corentin on the ankle.
Corentin startled and looked down. He pressed his lips together as he met the gaze of an annoyed National Guardsman brandishing a rather imposing rifle.
“Sorry,” Corentin mumbled as he hopped down, landing within breathing space of the more burly man. “Just wanted a better view, y’know?” He didn’t entirely lie.
“Safety first, man,” the man said, seeming to scan Corentin’s face. Did he recognize him? Was his double actually here?
Corentin didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Judging by way the guy raised his eyebrow, it wasn’t good. The oddity that he could interact with his past self’s memories was something of a curiosity. His double wasn’t present to explain everything to him. This journal wanted him to see it for himself. But why?
A cannon boomed over the crowd and the crowd squealed. Birds scattered from the rooftops in a cawing calamity. The National Guardsman turned on his heel, distracted by the sound. Corentin’s attention went elsewhere as a single bird didn’t stir from its perch from the So Good trinket shop across the street.
But it was too big to be a bird. Much too big. Corentin nodded to himself. The keeper of the journal looked down upon it all from the pastel pink jewelry shop, surveying his kingdom like a distant god.
Corentin started forward, weaving through the crowd. He regrettably pushed the wrong woman into a nearby barricade, who in turn tipped off the nearby New Orleans police. Corentin ducked and slowed his pace. Inching his way through the crowd, he hoped to throw off suspicion. He kept his attention on his double. Corentin had to get there, somehow. But his double leaped from the roof and sailed across the street to the next. Corentin turned back to the alley and chased after.
At the other end, a National Guard Humvee roared as it patrolled the streets. Next to him the Voodoo Mart’s windows remained boarded up and spray-painted with the words We’re Open!
Giant white FEMA semitrucks sat parked on the road and secured for the night. Just as Corentin felt bold enough to step out into view, two police cruisers zipped by, blaring their sirens. He danced back, waiting for all of the activity to pass. The darkness faded in and the streetlights flickered, barely casting enough light beyond a few feet radius. Corentin searched the skies for his twin.
Nothing.
“Come on…,” he whispered and gritted his teeth. He jogged a few feet to the left and then the right, like an anxious cat. His gaze darted from rooftop to rooftop. “Come on.”
No sooner did he turn his attentions to the ground than a woman crashed into him. He snatched her around the middle before she could tumble to the ground.
Their eyes met, and Corentin swallowed.
Her honey-yellow eyes rounded in horror, and her metallic gold mascara had been long ruined by her tears. Her shimmering gold lipstick had been smeared back to her ear across her milk-pale skin. Her paper-white hair was a mess of tangles around her face. Corentin noticed the skin around her neck and wrists had been rubbed raw and bore the purpling of deep bruising. And her gold-tipped fingernails were broken and bloody. She put up one hell of a fight to escape something she probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
“Let me go!” She flailed and yanked against Corentin’s grasp. “Please!”
Corentin kept hold. “What’s wrong?” he asked her in a soothing tone. “I can help you.”
The way she looked at him, Corentin recognized her knowledge that she was going to die. He knew the familiar prickling warmth on the back of his neck that he felt when someone reached full awareness that their time had come.
But she fought him. She would not be denied the chance to escape.
“Please…,” she whimpered, her tears returned. “Please, don’t kill me. Please. Please!” In his moment of confusion, she yanked out of Corentin’s grasp but misjudged the force and collapsed to the sidewalk. “Please,” she begged. “Please… I’ll tell any story you’d like. Please. Is that it? A story? I’ll tell the grandest epic!” Tears streamed through her mascara and drew sparkling trails down her cheeks.
Corentin raised a finger, and she wailed. This girl knew the extent of watching her world end one second at a time.
“You’re a Storyteller?” he asked, and she screamed.
“I’m sorry!” she shrieked. “I’ll do anything. Please. Anything.”
Fear flooded Corentin’s lungs and swallowed his heart. He took a hesitant step back. This journal was going in a direction he didn’t know if he was ready to deal with. His urge to step away and the urge to find out warred with his judgment.
He had to stop this madness, and he had to stop his own sick curiosity before Taylor found him in the bathroom under the journal’s trance.
He needed to see it through. All he had seen was this woman and the throng of revelers who seemed not to notice or care about her. Where was his double? The one who kept these memories? Corentin had come so far; he needed to meet him and get answers.
This journal was a story of tragedy. Corentin had known that going in.
But whose tragedy was it?
In the distance behind him, sick laughter shot through the darkness. He turned and froze.
The man who had his face lumbered slowly down the sidewalk. He held his side with one hand, and blood seeped through his fingers and stained his flannel shirt. More blood stained his face, a concentrated splatter at his temple, and then finer droplets over his nose, eyes, and opposite cheek. Corentin’s double grinned, his eyes dilated like a shark closing in on his prey.
The double licked his lips as the unmistakable black tendrils of Corentin’s Cronespawn magic bled from his hand and down the shaft of his axe. The axehead ground on the sidewalk. Orange sparks bounced over the concrete, illuminating his double’s limping steps.
She had wounded him. But not enough to stop him.
Corentin put himself between the Storyteller and his own terrifying double.
The woman shrieked as the revelers cheered on the other side of the alley. Her pleas for help went unnoticed. She tried to get to her feet, but one of her knees gave out, and she fell again.
His double’s pace quickened, and Corentin held up his fists, ready to protect her. He would get his answers.
In the space between seconds, his twin was nose to nose with him. Corentin launched a punch to his double’s middle, but the double ducked out of the way. He shoved Corentin away and brought his axe around with a one-handed swing.
The blade sank into Corentin’s side.
His hands clasped over the wound, and he staggered back, heaving for air. His lungs betrayed him with harsh involuntary reactions. Pain shot through him, as bright as sunlight. He hesitantly removed his hands to inspect the wound. Nothing. No blood. No injury. Only the crippling pain that his double had been there.
Corentin acted fast and dived for his double, but he was too late.
There was a scream.
And then a sick wet crunch of shattered bone and cleaved flesh.
Finally, stillness.
Corentin’s double then dropped to his knees over her, as if in reverence. He slid his fingers over her open eyes and shut her lids. He sobbed. Trembling from the sharp drop in adrenaline, his double wailed broken tears.
“N-No…,” his double croaked, ignoring Corentin. Was he even here? “Goslynn. I-I’m sorry,” he told the cooling body. “Storyteller, f-f-forgive m-m-me….” He lay across her body and whimpered like a child who had lost his mother.
“Who was she?” Corentin asked, his voice soft.
His double ignored him as he got to his feet, then yanked the axe from her ribs. He tossed the murder weapon away without a second thought, as if he were casting away insignificant tree debris. Horror came over his face at what he’d done and he bolted into the alley. In his haste, he left the axe behind.
Corentin gave chase and found his double desperate and deranged as he toppled garbage cans and ripped open trash bags.
“Where are you?” his double screeched. His voice went unnoticed in the celebration of Krewe of Endymion. He turned an about-face and then shoved Corentin out of his way once again without a second thought.
Corentin caught himself on his heel. Anger heated his face, and he stubbornly set his jaw. “Who the fuck was she?” he demanded.
“A job,” his double said, clearly distraught. “A horrible job.” He kicked a trash can with such fury, it dented against the brick wall. He paced back and forth in a vicious path. “Think, Henri, think.” He seemed to address himself. “Where did you hide it? Think. Think!”
“What are you talking about?” Corentin tried asking.
His double lashed out and seized Corentin by the jacket lapels. He slammed him into a nearby wall. And before Corentin could catch his breath, the cold sting of a knife pressed into his Adam’s apple. “I will kill you where you stand if you don’t shut the fuck up!” his double screamed, nose to nose with Corentin.
Could he really? Corentin still felt the pain of the axe, but there wasn’t a wound.
His double let Corentin go and steadied himself. “There!” he barked and dived between Corentin’s legs. He yanked back his prize from the trash bags at Corentin’s feet. His journal.
Corentin didn’t understand. “But I thought you were that thing?”
His double ignored him and sat upon a pile of trash bags, sinking among the refuse. He held the monstrous book in his lap but wouldn’t open it.