Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Carys raised an impish eyebrow and ran a hand through Teacup’s mane.
“Until their marriages, they were cloistered here by the Ursuline nuns. One by one, the girls were married off, leaving their belongings behind. Gossip circulated that these were not happy marriages, and some of the girls ended up on the streets, or worse. The mortality rate in New Orleans began to rise noticeably after their arrival. Rumors arose that the girls had transported not clothes in those caskets all the way from France but vampires. The nuns went to the attic where the caskets had been stored and found them all empty.”
She paused for effect, and Greta gazed up at the attic windows of the convent.
“Terrified that the vampires would come back to sleep in their caskets, the nuns bolted the door to the attic and nailed the windows shut with nails blessed by the pope. But one of those windows had an uncanny habit of swinging open in the middle of the night.”
Greta was hanging on her every word.
“In 1978, some paranormal investigators decided they were going to crack the case of the filles à la cassette. They were denied entry to the convent itself by the archbishop, so they climbed the convent wall and settled in to spend the night there, hoping to see the attic window open…and solve the mystery of who—or what—was responsible.”
“Did they?”
“The next morning, their decapitated bodies were found splayed across the steps of the convent. They had been completely drained of blood. Their murders have never been solved, but locals speculate the filles à la cassette couldn’t have their secrets getting out.”
Greta shivered even in the warm sun. She had always loved a spooky tale, but hearing one while looking at the place where it happened was even better.
“So what really happened?”
Carys raised an eyebrow, sphinxlike, and they walked in silence for a moment.
“Chances are that the women were pale and gaunt and ill from being on a ship for five months. Tuberculosis causes the sufferer to cough up blood, which likely explains the blood on some of their mouths. The mortality rate in the city at the time was high to begin with. Lack of hygiene and the weather and swampy environment spawned disease regularly. Perhaps some new disease was brought over on the ships with the girls. But as for the attic window opening and the journalists drained of blood…”
She shrugged elegantly and let the mystery lie.
When Greta and Adelaide were nine and ten, they’d spend stormy nights, of which there were many on Owl Island, trying to scare each other with stories they made up. They’d whisper bits of the tales back and forth between their twin beds until one of them (and it was always Adelaide) got too scared. Then she would pull the blanket up over her head so she couldn’t see anything that might threaten her and make a blind leap onto Greta’s bed, usually landing half on her and half on the bed, where they would finish the story in squeals, under the blanket, clutching each other for comfort.
A pang of longing for her sister surprised her.
“This is Jackson Square,” Carys said a few blocks later.
Greta banished Adelaide from her mind.
“Oh, I walked past here earlier.”
“It’s the hub of tourism. Everyone visiting New Orleans for the first time ends up here. And so this”—Carys gestured expansively to the square and spun around—“is where we come to take their money.”
Greta’s stomach gave a lurch. Had she inadvertently gotten taken in by a pickpocket? Was Carys the Oliver Twist of New Orleans? Was Greta about to be used as a diversion because of her obvious infatuation with the gorgeous woman? It would be just her luck.
“Um. Like, take their money?” Greta said awkwardly.
Carys raised an eyebrow and said, “Come see.” She walked through the square, Teacup at her side, and waved to several people stationed on the steps outside the tall, white church as she passed. She was heading toward the wrought-iron fence that ran around an area of green park in the center of the square. She hugged a tall woman who had a table set up with a sign promising to read your tarot for five dollars and tell your future for twenty, and called hello to a couple whose paintings of the city were lashed to the fence.
From her large bag, Carys pulled a wooden sign and a bowl woven in purple and black and placed both on the ground in front of her. The sign said WILL MATH FOR CA$H.
A family of five walked past and came over to look at Teacup. Carys smiled and said in a voice reminiscent of a carnival barker, “Step right up, folks, and ask me any math problem. Stump me! How about you, buddy?”
This was addressed to the boy, who looked about twelve.