~ New Orleans – 1990 ~

 Bella Donna Boudreaux raced up the grand staircase leading to the second floor of her family’s mansion, cheeks flushed and hair flying.  Bypassing the lush bedrooms and the well-stocked library, she tore down the hallway to the disused servants’ quarters and flung open one of the doors, shoving it closed behind her and leaning against it.

 Panting and trying to regain her breath, she let her eyes adjust to the dim light in the windowless room, only able to see the figure lying on the mattress on the floor because of the weak candlelight thrown by a sputtering red candle burning in the corner of the room, surrounded by an odd jumble of materials the panicked girl didn’t so much as glance at.  Falling to her knees at the side of the tattered mattress, she gently laid a hand on the figure’s bony shoulder and shook lightly but insistently, whispering urgently, “Remy, réveille-toi! Mon père vient!”

 Bella Donna jumped back with a gasp as the boy she had just wakened sat bolt upright with a start, eyes wide with fear, chest heaving.  “Hâte, il vient! Sort du lit!”

 Scrambling up from the makeshift bed, the boy swore under his breath, yanking a tattered sweater over his head, cheeks flushed with a mix of fever and fear.  “Va t‘en, Bel!” the boy whispered urgently, knowing that if her father caught her with him they would both be in danger.  “Je serai bien, va t‘en!” the boy whispered again, more urgently, pushing the hesitant girl toward the door.

 With a look of panicked indecision, the girl, with one final look of sympathetic fear, rushed into the hallway and down the servants’ stairs, not ten seconds before her father, Marius Boudreaux, rounded the corner into the hallway, moving with barely concealed rage.

 Throwing open the door his ten-year-old daughter has so recently closed, Marius stalked over to the boy huddling on the mattress, grabbing a handful of the boy’s tousled cinnamon hair and yanking him to his feet, eyes ablaze with anger.  “What in the hell is the matter with you, boy?  You know you’re supposed to be downstairs, not sitting up here on your good-for-nothing ass!  What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” he spat, yanking the boy’s head up and forcing him to meet his eyes, “Huh?”

 “Je suis désolé, Monsieur, ” the boy cried, trying to pull back from the harsh grip the glowering man had on him.

 Releasing his grip on the boy’s hair, Marius drew his hand back and smacked the cringing boy, knocking him off balance and forcing him to stagger back several steps.  “Don’t backtalk me, boy.  You try that again and you’re not gonna be able to talk at all.  Now get your ass downstairs!” he snapped, noting with pleasure that the boy was trembling in fear.  “Now!”

 Giving his tormentor a minute’s head start out the door, Remy drew in a shaky breath and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get the worst of the tangles out.  Unsteady on his feet and shivering with chills from his untreated fever, the boy steeled himself for the inevitable and set off down the hallway.

-------

~ Every finger in the room is pointing at me
I wanna spit in their faces
Then I get so afraid of what it could bring ~

 Entering the opulent parlor, Remy took up an unobtrusive position in the corner of the room, as close to the fireplace as he could get without being in the way.  He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than necessary, not that it did him any good.

 Within moments of entering the room, he could almost feel the change in the atmosphere as all eyes in the room moved to fix on him.  He knew why they were looking at him, he’d been through this before, and he hated them for it.  He knew better than to fight it, though.  The last time he had refused, he’d come away with a broken jaw, a dislocated shoulder and three cracked ribs.  He wasn’t about to go through that again, it was so much easier to just let them and hope that someday things would be different.

 Sighing, the boy settled in the corner and waited for the “games” to begin.  Soon enough one of these expensively-dressed men would make their move and yet another night of unbearable pain would have begun.  Looking at the half-dozen unfamiliar faces around the room, Remy resigned himself to a difficult night.  The only sympathetic face he could see in the entire room was Bella Donna’s and although it gave him some measure of comfort, it couldn’t overpower the fear he felt when he looked at the unconcealed lust on the other faces in the room.  His whole body ached already, whether from illness or the abuse it took on a daily basis, he didn’t know, but he was certain come morning it would be worse.  Folding his arms across his knees and resting his head on them, he closed his eyes.

-------

 Waking with a start, Remy jerked away from the hand stroking his cheek as if burned.  Noting the look of glaring disapproval on the face of the man sitting in front of him, the boy forced himself to remain calm, stilling himself, and allowed the man to brush the long bangs away from his eyes, fingers lingering on his cheek in a false show of tenderness.

 “You ‘wake now, boy?” the man asked quietly, in a voice that would have seemed caring if it weren’t for the bulge the boy could clearly see pressing against the front of the man’s pants.  He knew this man didn’t care about him.  None of them did.  Nodding almost imperceptibly, Remy waited impatiently.  He wanted to get this over with, he didn’t want to play games or pretend this man gave a damn about him.

 “Good boy.  You’re real pretty, boy.  Real pretty.  You want to play with me?” the man asked, ruffling Remy’s bangs.  “You wanna play some games with me, pretty boy?”

 Forcing down the nausea that the idea gave him, Remy nodded, eyes downcast, ashamed.  It made him sick to play along like this, but in the end it hurt less and for it that he was grateful.

 “That’s my boy,” the man whispered throatily, eyes hungry.  “Lead the way, son.”

-------

 Watching from across the room, Bella Donna watched the man, one of her father’s “friends,” take Remy’s hand and pull him to his feet and follow the boy from the room.  Offering up a silent prayer, she turned away, sick with the knowledge that this would only be the first of a half-dozen such assaults the boy would have to endure tonight and that the future held nothing but more of the same.

 Furtively watching the flow of her father’s friends up and down the staircase, Bella Donna kept count, waiting until the last of the guests had returned to the parlor before stealing p the stairs herself, careful to remain quiet, not wanting to alert her father to her whereabouts.

 Tip-toeing to the end of the hall, she eased open the door to the boy’s room and slipped in.  Shutting the door quietly behind her, she moved to stand behind the boy as he knelt on the floor in front of his altar, a red-painted libation bottle in his hand.  Whispering something she couldn’t hear, a prayer, she was sure, he brought the bottle to his lips and drank before handing it to her.

 Bella took the bottle from the boy’s trembling hand and drank, wincing at the burn of the rum in her throat.  Examining the bottle, she nodded to herself…Erzulie Dantor; the veve of a heart being pierced by a knife telling her to whom the boy was praying.  Quietly replacing the bottle on the altar by a small shrine to Saint Jacques, Bella Donna patiently waited for the boy to finish his prayers.  Fixing his gaze on the wall above the altar where a crucifix hung, Remy held out his hand for the girl to take.

“Ave Maria gratia plena
Dominus tecum
Benedictus tu in mulierbus
Et benedictus fructus ventres tui lesus
Sancta Maria, Sancta Maria
Maria ora pro nobis, nobis peccatoribus
Nunc et hora mortis nostrae…”

“Amen,” they whispered in unison.

After several minutes of poignant silence, Remy turned to look at her with such pain in his eyes that it hurt to look at.  Pulling her friend into a fierce hug, she held the now sobbing boy against her chest, rocking softly, stroking his hair.

“Est-tu fatigué, mon coeur?” she asked softly, not wanting to let the boy go, but wanting to ease his pain.

Nodding, the boy buried his face in her neck and allowed himself to be hushed.  Dieu, he was tired; tired in body and soul, far more tired than any ten-year-old was ever meant to be.

“Au lit, Remy,” Bella Donna whispered, giving him a gentle push.  “Je chanterai pour toi.”

Sighing, the boy moved to his makeshift bed and lay down with a whimper of pain; his whole body ached and moving only made it worse.  Settling on his stomach in the middle of the mattress, he yawned, eyes heavy with sleep.  Closing his eyes wearily, he smiled softly as Bella Donna settled next to him, stroking his hair and began to softly sing a familiar lullaby.

 “Bonne nuit, cher enfant
 Quand tu dors dans mes bras.
 Le monde tourne en rond
 Et le jour reviendra.
 Jour de larmes, de sourires,
 Jour de peine ou de joie,
 Mais ce soir, tu t'endors
 Comme un ange dans mes bras…”

-------

 Smiling softly to herself, Bella Donna brushed a stray lock of chestnut hair from in front of the boy’s eyes.  He was sound asleep, thankfully, looking so painfully innocent with his face unguarded and his thumb in his mouth, a comfort the boy often turned to at times like this, that she felt a fierce surge of protectiveness for the sleeping boy.  One way or another, she would save him…he deserved better.

TBC

~ TRANSLATIONS ~

1) Réveille-toi! Mon père vient
Wake up!  My father’s coming!

2) Hâte, il vient! Sort du lit!
Hurry, he’s coming!  Get out of bed!

3) Va t‘en!
Go!

4) Je serai bien, va t‘en!
I’ll be fine, go!

5) Est-tu fatigué, mon coeur?
Are you tired, my heart?

6) Au lit!
Get in bed

7) Je chanterai pour toi
I’ll sing for you

8) Bonne nuit, cher enfant
Good night, dear child
Quand tu dors dans mes bras.
When you sleep in my arms
Le monde tourne en rond
The world turns in round
Et le jour reviendra.
And the day will return
Jour de larmes, de sourires,
Day of tears, of smiles
Jour de peine ou de joie,
Day of sorrow or of joy
Mais ce soir, tu t'endors
But this evening, you fall asleep
Comme un ange dans mes bras
Like an angel in my arms

~ NOTES ~

1) Erzulie Dantor is the Voodoo Lwa (god-like spirit) of hurricanes, vengeance, and broken hearts.

2) Saint Jacques is the Voodoo warrior Lwa who is prayed to when someone is facing a battle of any sort.

3) The Latin prayer is the “Ave Maria”, better known as the “Hail Mary”…you know, the one they make you say as penance after confession, and all that?