Dante's Prayer - Chapter One

We had always been somehow prominent within society. I would never understand how, or why. To this day I still do not fully understand how our status came to be, even though we were poorer than dirt. I fear that in my life I saw rats that were able to afford more than our large family could. Though I suppose there could be many explanations, I have realized in my long years through this Immortal life that the simplest answer is most commonly the correct answer. As such, I believe that it was Honoré (for I now refuse to call him my father) had bought our way into the respected role of aristocracy. It would explain why unlike other children our age, we had to be schooled by our mother, and little Veroniqué in her time by my own guidance. If we had been true aristocracy, this would never have been allowed; there would have been servants and scholars and any matter of man that one could imagine that would be brought into our home to teach the future generation of noble men and women.

I did not care much for the trivialities of the eighteenth century world; and why should I have? Life was, as it will always be, dependant on the day to day survival, no matter where you lived, or live. For the Jeannot family, that was not always the easiest thing to do. There were days that I would refuse to eat the little offered to me, so that my sisters may have just a little more on their plates. This was a choice that I, and I alone had made. Honoré never did think much of it. He hated me for this existentialism to which I clung. I was his son, and should have been the strongest in our household, second only to him himself, Honoré Jeannot. Yet I starved myself for the women’s health. And while some families among the poor, as we were, had married for such a thing that was and is to this day called love, my parents were not of those people. My father had married my mother because she was a convenience, and because she would bear him his children. All he needed to do was beat her, and she would conform to his rules. His word in our household was law, for all of my childhood, and my early adult life. The part of it which I lived to see. My mother on the other hand, had married Honoré because she was destitute, and he had had a little money at the time. She married him because she was desperate, and wanted to have a better life for herself, and for the children that she would bear. And though we lived then as though we were rich, and she had what she had wanted, she didn’t have the one other thing she craved for. The love of her husband. I am sure my mother had at times been unfaithful to Honoré, but unlike a good son, I was not horrified, angered, or ashamed of her ways. Instead I silently, and secretly praised her for her infidelity. If she was happy, and being treated properly by a man that was not Honoré Jeannot, than I had no right to be offended by her happiness. As I have said, this was not a family created from love. Love only exists where it is shared, so for our family it lived only between my mother, my sisters, and myself. Honoré was an outsider to us, and yet he was our father, and her husband.

We lived in Paris, in those years. And though you may believe that the City of Lights at that time was ten fold more beautiful that it is today, you my friend would be entirely wrong. Paris was a stinking, festering metropolis, whose streets ran with raw sewage. Abandoned corpses lay in the streets, putrefying and disintegrating back into the earth from which they had been originally born. In the winter, the snow was deep and cold. So cold that in the faint light from the winter sun it showed a brilliant blue, a blue common to the people that live in the far north; the people of the land of the midnight sun. Where this cold and brutal shade is as common as silken brocade was among the upper-class of my time. But with the winter came the cold and frozen air, giving the inhabitants of the city a short and minor break from the stench in the streets. Winter was to us, a god sent. The summer was horrific. Humid temperatures alone would have been enough to make the summer terrible for all people. The time dictated a number of layers of garments for both sexes, and a proper person never removed one of the layers. But it wasn’t only the heat that made the summer months so unbearable. The heat  also quickened the putrefaction of dead flesh. Areas of the City of Lights, especially the alleyways, were filled with bodies of those that had dropped dead from either illness, or age, or criminal activity. There were areas in which people could not tread, for there were the bodies heaped from the very public hangings of those that had been charged with any number of crimes. Even those that had been entirely innocent. I have seen a man be hanged, simply because the judge wanted his boots, and would not buy for himself a pair. The City of Lights in my time was not beautiful, no matter how I wish that it had been. Even if it weren’t for the corpses strewn around the public areas of the city in the summer, the stench would have been just as horrible, just as nauseating, and still the forbearer of yet more death.

In those years, the “great” cemetery of Les Innocents still existed. I have heard tell rumours that in those years there was a large Vampire Coven living in the filth beneath the crypts. Although I know it is very possible, I cannot imagine how they could bear it. The smell, even several miles away was enough to make one ill for a week. You see, in the days that Les Innocents existed, it could not very well be called a cemetery, not by today’s standards. When I was a child growing up and running through the streets of Paris (the few and far between times when Honoré would allow me to be a child) Les Innocents was already a thousand years old. It was created in the time of Roman Empire’s rule in Gaul, what is now France. Les Innocents  was nothing more than a series of pits which acted as graves. Even in my time, the cemetery would dig large pits, which acted as open graves. These pits would remain open, the corpses exposed, till it was full; and that meant at least fifteen hundred bodies. Once the pit was full it would be covered, and another would be dug. The first pit would remain closed till the second was full, and it would be reopened. The decaying corpses with their rancid flesh uncovered once again. Those bodies that were already nothing but bone, were moved to the ossuary, and buried in the walls. Those that had yet to decompose that far, would be boiled down, till the flesh separated from the bone, and the bones thrown into the ossuary walls. I hate to think what became of the rotting flesh. I feel the blood now in my body start to rise, froth, and want to boil over; even the mere thought of those cadavers is enough to make me heave up the blood that I have in me this evening, fresh from the drink. I will not kill. Back to what I was speaking of a moment ago. Les Innocents, the smell was so horrible that local pubs and inns, reported that their stores of wine turned to vinegar from the stench. I don’t doubt this one bit, for I have seen what the foul odour was capable of, with my own eyes. Roughly a kilometre from Les Innocents was a market place, were my family, like many others, bought their daily essentials. Food, drink, trinkets, spices, and the like. But even here the pong of the cemetery was as strong as though you were standing in one of the grave pits. Food rotted in sight with the aid of the reeking, foul, air. If one stood watching the meat at the venders for even a fairly short period of time, you could watch the finest cuts, rot before your very eyes. Its no wonder that spices such as pepper, ginger, and turmeric were so very common in many households, both of the poor and of the rich. We all needed to keep our meat as long as possible, and we prayed that the spices would kill whatever bacteria was inside of the meat.

Finally in 1789 Les Innocents  was destroyed. The bodies, even those in the ossuary were moved. And even though it took many years, every bone, or at least the skulls, were eventually moved an abandoned mine beneath the city. Here they were elaborately laid out, creating patterns in the walls of bones. This became the Parisian Catacombs, which has since become a tourist attraction in the City of Lights. But the earth that was Les Innocents  will never recover; at least not in the next many lifetimes. And while I may live to see it restored to the way it had been before the time of the Romans in Gaul. They say that with so many cadavers having been in the soil of Les Innocents that the earth was greasy with the human fat. I do not want to linger my mind on these things. I know you, dear reader, will most likely never see that day. Not unless by the miracle of modern technology is either your life lengthened, or the environment saved. The only other way you may ever see it, is if what was my end, and my beginning, befalls you as well. And I pray that that never happens to you. I pray you never have to feel the weight of this cursed existence.

Shall I just choose a random day in which to begin? Or should I carry on in this way? Perhaps my companion here may help me with the choice. Needless to say, you, my reader, will find out shortly.

I shall start with what was the last few years of my mortal life than. And let you not think that I was taken as a random victim of some Vampire’s  crazed lust for blood, nor was I the faithful student, apprentice, or lover of a Vampire. I have heard that there are those of my kind out in the world, as old as I am, and older, that fall into these categories. But that is not me. If there is anyone that can truly have the blame laid upon them, it is my mother, Aurélie Jeannot. She was a child of the old ways, even if she acted the good Roman Catholic.

In the year 1776 I turned twenty years of age. That Valentines Day. Two passed Saturdays has marked the 233^rd anniversary of my twentieth birthday. That year was also the year of the Declaration of Independence for the nation that would become the United States of America. And though none of us living in Paris, or any of the communities large or small in France knew it at the time, it was also the beginning of the end of our own monarchy. The beginning of our own independence. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Or as you would know it,  Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. But if you know any of our history, this you already know, and therefore I can move onto the continuation of my tale. If you know not of these words of which I speak, than please go on and research both the American and French Revolutions. Though, if you must do this, I will inform you; the information regarding the French Revolution will be of much greater use to you, than that of the American Revolution. For my tale at least.

1776 was for me, as it was for the emerging America, a year of great change. It brought me into adulthood in Honoré’s eyes, even if he did not like what he saw within me. I was still, and will forever remain, his son. His only living son, even now 218 years after his death. For he died nine years after my mortal death, at the age of sixty five. But along with Honoré’s realization that I had finally reached manhood, which unfortunately his first son, Donatien-Mazhé Jeannot, had never been given the chance to reach, 1776 also brought the year of my marriage. Yes dear reader, I was a husband and a beloved one at that before my Birth into Darkness.

It was March 21^st. I know that much is true. It was a gorgeous day, the sun shining brightly down through my open window when I awoke in the morning. It was the first day of Spring, and for that reason the whole of Paris was rejoicing, for now we could be certain that Winter’s grip upon us was loosening. The cold would soon be banished by the warmth for another six, or seven months. The cyan snow, for that was how the harsh cold always  made it appear, as I have afore stated, would be gone within a few weeks with the mounting temperatures.  This day itself was surprisingly balmy for being only the very first day of the Spring. It was a blessing really.

By the time I awoke the snow outside had already begun to melt; and the air smelled of the bereavement of winter, and the dawn of fair weather. And yet I thanked all the heavens for one small fact. That though the sun was warm enough to melt the snow, that the air was cold enough to allow the pong of Les Innocents to remain at bay. For another few weeks at least.

I knew Veroniqué would love the sight outside of our window, and would be more excited than I. I knew she was tired, for she was up late into the night before, as I read to her, but I knew as well that if she woke up on her own and found that I was not there, but already enjoying this weather, she would be forever angry with me. However long ‘forever’ is to a child. Either way, I did not want my darling little sister to be upset with me.

Veroniqué slept, for the most of her childhood, in my bed. I was her brother, and her protector, and she in turn was my darling little sister, whom I called my daughter. For her, sleeping curled up with me was as common as the butterflies dancing in the summer air. She suffered from night terrors, which the family physician believed to be an unbalance of her humours. I did not believe this. She suffered every night that she slept in her own bed, and still when she slept in mine; even if it was lessened when she was in my arms. I know these terrors haunted her, because I would sit awake with her for hours till she would finally calm down. She would take solace in watching the little hands of my pocket watch tic, and turn round the dial of the face. She liked to remember that while her world might have been stopped for the time being, that the world around her, and around myself, was still ticking away, each second lost to antiquity, and each new second born after the death of the one just passed. Over and over, an endless cycle that would forever continue, along through eternity, till the end of her life, till the end of mine, and till the world’s ending. She always told me of her nightmares, and her dreams, both the good and the bad. The dreams were filled with monsters, who terrorized her, wolf-like creatures, as near as I can tell from the descriptions she gave me. The reminded me of the Beast in the fairy tale La Belle et la Bête, or as you may know it, Beauty and the Beast, written by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, and published for the first time in 1740.

Though the book was from my mother’s adolescence, by the time Veroniqué was born, the book of parchment was nearing the end of its life. It was old and tattered even when Marion was having the use of it. I read that fairy tale to little Veroniqué before bedtime for many nights. She loved the story; I even took her to see the operatic version by Monsieur Jean-François Marmontel, and composed by Monsieur Grétry, when it opened on the evening of November 9^th, 1771, at the Fontainebleu theatre. Veroniqué  was but a little over two years of age. I doubt the fact she would remember the premier cast. Jean-Baptiste Guignard as Azor, the Beast, and Zémire, Beauty, played by the lovely Marie-Thérèse Laruette. I took her to see the Opera, Zémire et Azor once more when she was older. I believe she was about nine when my wife and I took her to see it at the Comédie-Itallienne in Paris. I believe once again it was winter. But this has very little to do with my story, and I’m sure that telling you of our time at the theatre’s has you quite bored by now.

Veroniqué was having these dreams as long as I could remember. I very much doubted they were caused by Madame de Villeneuve’s written word, or the opera Zémire et Azor. I wonder sometimes if these creatures were no so much a work of fiction, that a work of her child mind, coping. I wonder now, and even then did I wonder, if the nightmares were manifestations of Honoré; our father. He loved Veroniqué, of that I am fairly certain, but because she could have been my twin, had there not been thirteen years between us, Honoré sometimes took his anger at me, out on her. There were times when for whatever reason he decided I needed a punishment, I could never understand why; I was an obedient child, a polite young man, and tried never to step on any one’s toes. It was not, as is not to this day, in my nature to fight back and hurt people. Perhaps I am like this, because I see how it can hurt the ones you proclaim to love, even when you vowed never to hurt them. Honoré may not have been a model father, even for those times, but he was certainly my model for how I should never be. There are a few simple rules in life, and now in death, by which I try to live my life. They are as follows:

1) Love your family, if you do not, allow another love them as they deserve.

2) Never strike a woman, child or adult

3) Never beat your children

4) Try to be a good person, no how difficult it may be.

5) Protect those that need it, even those that do not ask for it.</I>

For some men I suppose this might be asking a lot, but I do not see why. But perhaps I should thank Honoré for his ways; without him I would never have had those values myself. Or would I have? it’s a very hard question to answer. Perhaps one day I will forgive him for the way he treated all of us; not for just the way he treated me. But it is not this day. Even now, thinking how he could ever lay a harming hand upon his daughters, especially little Veroniqué, my blood starts to boil in my veins, and I wish I could raise him, just to kill him for harming her and my sisters and my mother. I feel the anger in me building, mounting; wanting to strike out at whatever should come near me next; and I feel cool hands lay themselves upon my shoulders, silently asking me to calm myself. I breathe a sigh of relief and raise my own moon-white and cold hand, covering that of my companion, Laurentine’s. Assuring her I am alright. But she knows already the cause of my anger. She and I may be the same, but I am not her maker; so she can still hear my thoughts. I know my anger is sometimes hard to miss, projecting itself to all within a small area yet there are other times when I may sit seemingly calm. Brooding and plotting away, forever the anger simmering beneath the surface of my outwardly serene visage.

I awoke Veroniqué that morning, while the sunlight was still slowly filtering in passed the old lace curtains of my room. The light was still falling in golden streaks over her tiny body. Her hair, moderate brown, showed in the light of the sun the bright red as mine did. It lay in a tangled mess around her head. Veroniqué made a slight sound, the sound one makes when they wish not to be woken yet, and curled up tighter and closer to herself. She hugged my now vacant pillow all the more tightly. A sign I could not mistake. She didn’t want to wake up.

Smirking, I was struck with an idea. I simply walked way, letting my footfalls echo; the heels of my high heeled shoes clicking on the cold wooden floor of my second storey bedroom. I knew very well that she could hear me, and was most likely choosing to ignore me. I shrugged my shoulders lightly, standing now in the doorway, glancing back at her. “Suit yourself Veevee, I suppose I’ll get the last slice of maman’s honey cake--”

She reacted faster than I could have expected. At seven years old, I did not think it possible for her to move so quickly. She sprung up from the bed and hopped down (my mattress was fairly well stuffed, and it was tall). She tore about the room, pulling on her over robe to cover up her chemise as I stood with my arms crossed, smiling smugly. My sister stumbled about a little, and pulled her tiny heeled slippers on, hopping to the right with her back towards me as she pulled the left slipper on. She lost balance and knocked into my side. I grabbed her shoulder gently and steadied her. Beneath her long and wild hair she was blushing, I could see the pink tone at the tops of her ears. She looked up to me,

“Sorry brother…”

I shrugged, shaking my head, telling her without words that there was no need to apologize to me. She was still rather embarrassed, so to show her that I was entirely meaning what I had said, I wrapped my arms around her and hauled her up into the air, and onto my shoulders. She shrieked with laughter, and held tightly onto my shoulders, before leaning in close and wrapping her tiny white arms around my neck gently, holding me close. I would never have let her fall.

“You’re not getting the last of maman’s honey cake. And if you are, please share with me.”

I laughed, it wasn’t funny, but it was sweet. I shouldn’t have laughed, but it escaped my lips before I was able to stop myself. As if I would horde the last slice of our mother‘s, Aurélie, honey cake to myself. That was if I was to get the last slice. Our father liked to take more than his fair share of the treat. Maman only made her honey cake during special occasions, this surprisingly wasn’t one of them. In the last few weeks maman had been happier than I had ever seen her, at least when I had seen her with Honoré still lurking about. In fact, to see her this happy was such a rare occasion, that I and my sisters noticed it immediately. And while Honoré more than likely noticed it at well, he probably thought nothing of it. I suspect that it was maman’s lover that accounted for her happiness. Either way, I wasn’t going to take the last piece of honey cake for myself, if I could get it at all. “Of course I’ll share Veevee. I’m your brother, and that’s what I’m for. In fact, if I can get the honey cake, than I will give you the entire piece.”

Above me, seated on my shoulders, I knew her face lit up excitedly. She hugged me around my neck just a little tighter. “Merci Danté. And you are not my brother; you’re my father. Or at least you may as well be--”

I hushed her, I had to. If Honoré happened to hear her utter those words, he would take his anger out on her. I didn’t want to see her black and blue again. I knew if that became of her again, I would be arrested, tried, and sent to the gallows for the murder of Honoré Jeannot. Our pig of a father. Though sometimes I wonder if perhaps the reason he hated me, and in turn my baby sister that looked just like me, is because there was a possibly we were not his. And if it were so, perhaps subconsciously he was aware of the truth, and therefore sought to take it out on myself, and Veroniqué. Now, I was not so unskilled as you may think, dear reader; I am not without fighting skills. I know, and knew, how to take care of myself. I could fight Honoré if I pushed myself. But Veevee was just a child. An innocent little girl undeserving of her father’s abuse.

We came down the sunlight stairs; the carved wooden reliefs of the ornate Baroque decoration, glittered in the light. I fought to keep myself balance, and not fall down the stairs, with the extra weight of my seven year old sister balanced on my shoulders. Its not that I could not carry her, but lets be honest, trying to balance a squirming sack of potatoes on one’s shoulders while walking down stairs, or what I should call controlled falling, down stairs, is rather difficult even for the best of us.

Maman was waiting for us at the foot of the stair. Her vibrant hair shone scarlet in the morning light as it was loosely braided down her back. At forty five years of age, she didn’t look a day over twenty. Such was the blessing of our maman I suppose. She laughed, musically, when she saw me sway to keep Veroniqué balanced upon my shoulders. “Oh Danté, don’t let your father see you do that. You know he hates how close you and Veroniqué are. I believe he may be jealous.”

I shrugged my shoulders, lifting up my sister up and back down for a second. She giggled and hugged me all the tighter. “Let him think what he likes. Perhaps if he would play with her like this, and be a father, I wouldn’t have to.”

Veroniqué’s little hands gripped my shoulders all the tighter for a moment. I glanced up to her. Her little white face was drawn, and her amber eyes were wide with sadness. I sighed softly and reached up, lifting her up and off of my shoulders, while I bowed my head low to make it easier. Once she was off of my shoulders I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close and hugging her against my chest. Her weight supported in my arms. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still be your older brother. You know that Veroniqué.”

She nodded and gripped me all the tighter, her face nearly in my chest. Only her one eye peeked out at our maman from behind my long hair, which I had yet to bind back for the day. Maman smiled back, and waved a little, but Veevee turned her head and cuddled fully against me. Hiding her face in my shirt.

I was surprised, and I’m sure maman was hurt by this, but she brushed it off lightly, as though it were nothing. And I know that was not how she felt. Maman was always able to pretend that nothing was wrong, but we all knew, save for her very husband, that she put up an act.

She turned, and lead us into the dining room, where the family always gathered in the morning, noon, and evening for our meals. The gossamer curtains had been opened, and the wooden shutters. The strong and warm spring light trickled in and illuminated the old table. Marion, and Elise were already seated at the table, eating away at their shares of honey cake. They looked up at me and smiled brightly-- Marion had waited to swallow her cake, Elise had not. Crumbs fell from her mouth, and she quickly swallowed, blushing. Maman was giving her a slightly stern look, tapping her foot. She swallowed once more, “Sorry maman, sorry Danté, Veevee…”

I laughed and brushed it off. It was not my business if she wasn’t all that lady-like. Surely out there somewhere, was a man that would love her regardless, and feel the same way towards it as I did. Completely and utterly indifferent. I walked to the table and set Veroniqué down with her sisters gently. Marion laid a napkin over her lap and brushed her hair back out of her face, while Elise handed her a plate and poured her a glass of cool milk. I myself turned to where maman was standing at the counter, through the doorway into the kitchen.

She turned slightly towards me, glancing at me over her shoulder. “You father was drinking all last night again. He will be late for breakfast, if he makes it down here at all. So, you and Veevee can share these.” She turned towards me, and suddenly handed me too large slices of her honey cake. “These are the last. Do not let your father know.”

“But maman, one of these alone would be more than enough for us--”

Maman gave me a dark look, “Do you think I want him to have any more of my cake? I made it for my children, not for him. Do you understand me?”

Startled, I nodded my head and turned, to move back to the table. She caught my arm and pulled me back suddenly. She laid a kiss over my cheek and on my brow. She sighed softly against my forehead, her free hand laying on the back of my head, holding me close. “Danté, I love you and your sisters, you know that. But I do not love your father, though, you of all must know that. I don’t mean to take it out on you darling.”

I pulled back away from her slightly and nodded, my smile returning. She brushed her hand over my cheek, and once again kissed my brow, before shooing me away back towards the table.

I returned to the dining room, and sat back down across from my sisters. I laid one of the large pieces of honey cake on Veronique’s plate. She gazed up at me quite shocked, and I had to laugh-- until I noticed my two other sisters mirroring her expression. Completely bewildered by the amount of cake on the plate. I raised my brow wondering why they were giving me such a look. I looked to the other piece in my hand. I was never going to eat that much. I had learned long before to survive on very little food. Not because we had a choice either. Our family had hit hard times when I was younger, and still did from time to time; as you have already heard. I broke off a small piece of the large slice, which was enough for me, before breaking the rest in two, and giving half to Marion, and half to Elise.

“Danté no, take it, its your--” Marion started,

“If he wants to give it to us, than don’t question it,” Elise said around yet another mouthful of cake, which sent Veroniqué into a giggle fit. Marion simply nodded and picked at the piece of cake while I swallowed what I had in about three mouthfuls. If that even.

Once breakfast was completed, and I had cleaned up for my mother and sisters, maman pulled me aside. She had for me a list of a number of things she needed me to find in the market place, and while I was wary to go there in the warm temperatures, for fear of the stench of Les Innocents, I knew it was a way to get away from the house with Veroniqué before Honoré were to wake up. If the bastard ever did.

So when all was cleaned up, and Veroniqué was still sitting with our sisters, I picked her up from the chair, and carried her quickly up the stairs. And while I ran, several steps at a time in places, I tried to tread as lightly as humanly possible. I did not want to weak the sleeping beast in the master bedroom. I dressed my youngest sister in her favourite spring dress, of  soft  carnation pink and creamy gold brocade; decorating her sleeves and the sides of her skirts were pale pink roses. I helped her lace the boned bodice which would give the appearance of a corset on the child’s dress. I brushed her hair, which was so much like my own, and gathered it back in my hands, before taking a ribbon that I usually wore, and wrapping it several times about her soft hair, before tying the bow.

When all was said and done, Veroniqué was dressed in her beautiful little gown, which fell to her calves. The  brocade skirt was cut back and looped à la polonaise over an underskirt of cream tulle; the bottom of which bore lavish embroidery of flowers, in bright colours that parts of the world had never seen. And to think some woman, probably just as poor as we were (though as I stated, this family of ours hid it well), had sat by the light of a candle and crafted this dress by hand. The thought at the time amazed me, and truly it still does today. While automated machines might be able to reproduce such a gown in a few hours or days, depending on the skill of the seamstress, there are very few people that could ever sew this gown by hand in the modern world. But I drift yet again, and we are still in the late stages of the Enlightenment, on the very verge of the French Revolution. Her dark sepia hair was tied back from her face as it fell in the ringlets that the rags in her hair the night before, had given her. On her feet she wore tiny little heeled slippers like all the women of our time were wearing. In her arm in place of a toy poodle as the women would carry, she carried her favourite doll. I couldn’t help but smile.

And while I will never understand why the fashions during the time of King Louis XVI, for a period of 25, years became so elaborate, and down right ridiculous at times, who was I to argue? So to join her I found one of my best frock coats; the brocade a bright asparagus green and soft gold to match her dress. The gold trim running down the long collar, and around the hem, and once more up the back split of the coat’s skirts. Where the trim ended in a gold embroidered Fleur de Lis. The gold trim continued to run around the dog ear cuffs of my sleeves. This I wore over a bright gold brocade waistcoat, which was trimmed in black lace, and whose buttons were made of cut pearls. My breeches were a dull green, perhaps a shade or two less brilliant than the coat I wore. My stockings were perfectly white, and my heeled shoes were freshly polished black leather.

We looked like such a pair together, Veroniqué and I.

And together my sister and I walked from the stoop of our house, and into the bright sunlit street.

I held her small white hand in my own as we headed into the busier center of Paris. She kept close to me, and still clutching her doll as I glanced at the small piece of parchment that maman had given to me. Her list of things that she would need for tonight’s dinner, and for the coming few days; however long the food would keep. We could no longer, due to these increasing temperatures, bury meats or fish in the snow to keep them from spoiling.

It was in the market that I saw her. The most beautiful woman (to me) in all the world. She was Helen of Troy to me. I realize now that while she was most beautiful and perfect to me at the time; that styles change, and so does the ideal of beauty. For though she remains beautiful, the title of most beautiful woman in the world she no longer holds for me. That title now belongs to my dear companion of the last one hundred and twenty seven years. Laurentine Desmarais.

But I veer off from the story yet again, and for my inability to stay focused I must apologize. Realize that I was never like this in my life, but I fear over the years of my immortal life I have come to take so many things for granted, even the simple art of keeping a single thought conversation going for more than a few seconds.

Either way, I shall continue.

This woman was beautiful to me. Aphrodite even. For she was of a fair height, and a slender stature. Her flesh of a soft and apricot tone; her hair one or two shades more red than my own, laying in a dark auburn hue. She wore a three strand pearl chocker around her throat, which was accented by another, slightly looser, choker whose center was one large diamond. She was obviously more well to do that the Jeannot family could ever hope to be, even if we did make ourselves appear to be equals. Her hair was long, and tightly curled; upon it rested a broad straw bonnet that was tied beneath her hair to keep it balanced upon her extravagant coiffure. Her dress was a silvery dark Carolina blue, with underskirts of dark gold; embroidered with flowers of carnation pink, cerise, tea rose, old lace, and cream. These underskirts could be seen with the silvery Carolina blue skirts being held back and up, looped à la polonaise. Around her collar were four little Venetian red fabric roses.

She was beautiful. And I already knew her by name, for I had seen her a few times before. Her name was Vonetta D’Aubigne.

Veroniqué looked up to me, watching my reaction to seeing Mamoiselle D’Aubigne. An evil little thought must have flickered through my darling sister’s head, for she certainly acted the little devil at the moment.  She moved about behind me, and I barely noticed, thinking only that she was looking at something at one of the venders. Until that is, she pushed me.

With her little hands upon the small of my back, she pushed me forward with such force that I did not think such a little body could possess, that I stumbled forward much less than gracefully.

Vonetta was no too far away, actually, I had almost fallen upon her. She saw what Veroniqué had done, and she hid a giggle behind her lace gloved hand. I do believe that I was flushed completely red for my face felt as though it was burning from embarrassment. Barely able to find words to speak with.

Veronique in her place behind me, smirked and spoke easily. “There, now you have to talk to her.”