Chapter 10 #2
"The Fontaines—or Fountains now—are in the Garden District," I read aloud, tracing the elegant script with my finger.
"Yes, it says the Fontaines went to the Garden District," Adèle continued.
"The old mansions there sit on powerful ley lines.
And the other families spread further out.
At least one went to Algiers across the river where the water acts as a natural barrier.
Others chose Metairie for its elevation.
Some chose Kenner for its crossroads energy.
And one family went all the way to St. Bernard Parish. "
"We have no idea where the missing families might be. That's a lot of ground to cover," Kota observed.
"It’ll be even worse if some of these families don't even know their heritage," Dani added.
"You can assume they don't," Adèle confirmed sadly.
"The knowledge was deliberately suppressed when they went into hiding.
They might have passed some details down as family traditions or old wives' tales.
The Guardians hoped their descendants would be safer in ignorance.
" Yeah, well, ignorance was about to get them all killed.
"Look at this," Dre called from another section. She'd discovered a collection of crystal cases. Each contained what looked like gris-gris bags. They weren't like the corrupted ones we'd been finding. They radiated protective energy so strong I could feel it from across the room.
"There are seven bags," I counted as I approached. "One for each family."
"They contain essence samples from the original Guardians," Adèle explained.
"Blood, hair, and personal items. Everything needed to maintain a magical connection across generations.
They could substitute for living descendants in the binding ritual, but using them might destroy the samples entirely, leaving no magical connection to those bloodlines thus weakening the binding spell. "
"We'd better find the actual families first," I decided as I moved to another section. I was drawn by a collection of mundane-looking objects. There were letters, newspaper clippings, and cassette tapes. "What's this?"
"The correspondence network," Kota said, making me remember what Marguerite had told us during Dea's spirit communication. "It seems as if the families maintained contact through coded messages well into the 1990s." She gestured to the cassette tape.
Phi pulled out a UV light, and suddenly the blank letters revealed flowing script. "‘The harvest was particularly bountiful this year. Aunt Marguerite's recipe for preserving the family roses continues to work beautifully’," she read aloud.
"It's code," Dea realized. "They're talking about maintaining magical protections but disguising it as family gossip."
Kota held up a newspaper clipping from 1987. "This is an article about someone named Claude talking about how the old songs still sing true and that practice continues every Sunday."
"Okay, that’s got to be the Moreau family," I breathed. "We know they’re using the music scene as cover. We can use this information to do a deeper dive."
Dani had found cassette tapes labeled with jazz and blues recordings. "What if they were hiding messages in popular songs?"
"We need to take these back to the plantation," Dre decided with a nod. "This vault isn't safe anymore. Marguerite said the protections have weakened. That means it's no longer the sanctuary it once was."
We spent the next ten minutes packing what we could carry.
That included the preserved gris-gris bags, genealogical rubbings, maps, and correspondence.
The crystal orbs were too dangerous to move.
The binding chains were impossibly heavy and anchored to another dimension. The daggers went with us, though.
I found a wax-sealed letter that looked different from the rest. "This must be the final communication Marguerite mentioned," I said. “Should we read it?”
Kota nodded and took it from me. She broke the seal before anyone could stop her.
"'To all remaining families’," she read aloud.
"'The watchers have found our safe houses. The network is compromised. All correspondence must cease immediately. Families are instructed to go completely dark until the next alignment. Trust no one who claims to know your heritage. The children of betrayal walk among us, wearing friendly faces while serving ancient evil’. "
"That was so long ago,” Phi noted. “Generations have grown up without knowing who they are."
"And the Collector's been picking them off one by one," Dre added grimly.
The thought turned my stomach. How did we find the families so we could stop the Collector and whoever was helping it? We had genealogical records, maps, and magical tools, but we were still hunting for people who'd spent their lives learning to be invisible.
"Where do we start?" Kota asked as we left the vault.
I looked at my sisters and felt that familiar surge of determination. "We start with what we know. We find the families using the information we found here and convince them to help."
"And if they don't want to be found?" Dea asked.
"Then we make them understand that hiding isn't an option anymore," I replied grimly. "The Collector's coming whether they're ready or not. The only question is whether we face it together or watch it pick us off one by one."