Fri, May 18 2012
As Jules' hand brushed the side of Cora's face the deep lines softened subtly and the wisp of hair that touched his palm was transformed like alchemist's magic from silver to gold.
"I would know you anywhere, my darling. " he whispered.
"No. I could love you deeper than any mortal woman ever could, but you are meant for more than this…" Cora answered then vanished.
Phileas' eyes were turned outside and he watched Verne speaking to Cora. Her image seemed to shimmer and fade as though he was staring through heat-lines on a torrid summer afternoon. Rebecca saw nothing, but the old woman first there then gone before she could reach the door.
"Phileas, I suggest you keep a close eye on Jules." Rebecca announced. "I've suddenly gotten a craving for chocolate raspberry torte."
"Oh, What? Well quite right, then." Phileas muttered still confused about the image outside.
"Don't you worry one bit, Ma'am. I'll watch o'er yer lad." Mac answered coming from behind the counter. "First time I've been to the front office."
"But not the last, I hope." Emmeline replied. "Would you mind taking Jest's place as dock foreman?"
"Miss…Miss Emma, I'd be right proud." The huge man blushed.
"That's all lovely, but I suggest Mac and Phileas fetch Jules inside before he wanders off again." Rebecca reasoned. "Ta, then."
As the lovely redhead walked, she stopped to check on Jules. He stood very still, catatonic, with eyes glazed outward. She put her palm against his nose, then quickly snapped her fingers with no results.
"I'm sorry about this dear boy…." She backhanded him with a loud crack.
"Corinne?" He answered.
Phileas and Mac had come up behind him.
"You go on ahead, Ma'am. We'll see to him." Mac assured her, as he slung Jules over his broad back and made a quick about-face towards the building.
"So lovely…." Jules murmured, as he stared out towards the harbour.
Zane ambled his long shanks to a dry sink on the counter, and returned with a wet cloth.
"First here…." His gnarled fingers stroked the back of Verne's neck, then moved to cross his forehead. "This'll bring him `round. Ice'd work better, but we'll make due."
"Fogg?" Jules blinked. "Did I doze off?"
"You were speaking to Cora-Belle, she disappeared, then you started blathering about her niece again." Phileas answered. "I am sorry Verne, your condition is quite serious."
"Condition?" Jules head shook. "What on Earth? I am fine. A passing fever, perhaps…."
"Oh, she is boiling your blood alright. Master? " Jean's dark eyes pleaded with Fogg for an answer.
"Not to worry my friend, we'll sort this all out." Fogg reassured amid the anxious churning of his own stomach.
"Corinne, Cora….There is something I am almost to remember." The valet shook his head then slapped himself on the forehead, his eyes gazed upward "Aunt Louisa, you would know."
"Jules is safe for now." Emma replied, rubbing Jean's tense shoulders." Clear your mind. It will come to you."
"Then I must walk. You will take care of Master Jules?" Jean asked, she nodded in affirmation.
"Will you be gallivanting off, without requesting your leave then? "Fogg sarcastically scolded then let the corner of his mouth upturn spoiling the jest.
Rebecca sat and sipped the warm tea with no response, a nibble here and again as she waited. The bell sounded and she glimpsed Cora-Belle, their eyes met and the elderly woman turned but the resourceful redhead was already there.
"You know what is happening to Jules…" Rebecca demanded.
"He mustn't come near me. Not for long." She answered. The bell clanked, and in the wink of an eye she was gone.
As the valet walked he glanced up at the tall spire of the church, his head shook. He cleared his mind to focus, and he reached into his pocket and clasped something. He sighed heavily then turned toward the cemetery. A marble angel greeted him at the gates. He fell to one knee at the crucifix at its base. His face tilted towards the sky then went to a reverent bow.
There she was, huddled over the gravestone with Rebecca at her side. He hesitated, but knew this was the course he was intended to take. The two women were locked in conversation and did not hear his footsteps coming from behind.
"I don't understand. Why mustn't Jules see you again?" Rebecca asked. " It's Corrine that he is obsessed with, surely there is some way for you to help."
"No, no, no! He must stay away from me as well, but above all else he must never see Corrine again."
"Cora, Corrine…" Jean's voice startled them. "Cora, Corrine….Corrine again. Corrigan!"
"Mistress Rebecca, she is being a corrigan!" He rattled on pointing at Cora and trembling. "They are the same peoples!!!"
"Passepartout, calm down. You are making no sense." Rebecca issued. "Please, try to slow up a bit."
"Aunt Louisa told me, never to go to the Pont Dom Jean in Broceliande." The valet carefully annunciated each syllable. "The gypsies lost many men to the Faerie corrigan. A beautiful young girl who seduces the men, and in the morning she changes into the old woman. Some men who are being very pure of heart see her for her true self, all the rest are suck-ed like the whirlwind into the Faerie world."
"Your friend is very close to the truth, as true as child of Earth may know." Cora explained. "There is a special quality to see true beauty, but it goes beyond that to truer deeper love than mortals can possess."
"You are not mortal?" Rebecca raised an eyebrow.
"I exist in another reality and what you see is only a projection of who I am. As the light is not the candle, I am more than you perceive." Cora answered.
"Then these men, are in a different plane of existence? " Rebecca inquired.
"They have gone to their own afterlife. I removed only their life energy, their souls remain unharmed." Cora stated. "We see differently than you. I can see the tiny ripples of my actions. I have a higher power I must answer to. If Jules were to stay with me, the tiny ripples would eventually become an irreversible maelstrom effecting both our worlds. He is gifted with Faerie sight, and is kin of my offspring, when our tears became the first morning dew, I looked upon this fresh new world and its people."
"Our Jules? " She drew in a breath trying to comprehend everything that had unfolded.
"I knew he was being special, but this is somehow making sense." Passepartout reasoned.
"There." Cora kissed Jean's forehead. "You bear the mark of one protected. Only my kind can see it, and none of mine will do you ill."
"Why am I deserving such a gift? " He asked.
"You have protected my beloved, and if Emmeline were Fae, she would be my sister true." Answered the corrigan.
"You have killed all these men?" Rebecca still stunned by the revelation. "Cora, I'm afraid mortal or not, you are bound by our laws."
"Take care of Emma for me." Cora said sweetly, then vanished completely leaving only a pile of black robes.
"Jest and the others, are truly dead?" Emma wept. "Corrine and Cora-Belle, gone forever…"
"I will miss her. Verne was right, those eyes were the loveliest I've ever seen." Fogg consoled, handing her a handkerchief.
"Phileas?" Rebecca wondered. "It seems perhaps, you were a bit smitten, as well."
"Nonsense!" Fogg blustered. "Am I not allowed to admonish beauty in its simplest of forms? Really, woman."
"I still don't understand or remember all of this." Verne interjected. "But, if what you say about Cora being able to foresee things is true, then it follows that she may have taken these lives to save others."
"The heat of anger has caused many a man to snap." Rebecca answered.
"Aye, and they were all men of bad temper.." Mac replied." I sailed under Jest, he pushed a lad off ship for little a'nothing. We had to throw a line out."
Passepartout said nothing, as he quietly wrapped an arm around Emma's shoulder. He sighed deeply, then held her tightly to his chest. She looked up and scanned his eyes; his gaze spoke untold volumes without a single utterance. They both knew they must part again, but the bonds between them would never be severed.
End of Chapter Six
Chapter 5 | Chapter 6