Sharon's Muse.... Let's chat over coffee while I ponder some things
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Sharon's Muse.... Let's chat over coffee while I ponder some things |
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Name::Sharon Cullars
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Tuesday, July 04, 2006 Work in progress Here's a WIP I started on before my deal with Kensington/Brava. The yet unnamed novel is set in 19th century Chicago and focuses on Livia Delacourt, a former black schoolteacher who is now a private investigator, sometimes working undercover with the famous Pinkerton Detectives. In this case, she has to prove that the infamous Delphine LaLaurie was not murdered by an ex-slave, now a man of wealth just passing through Chicago who happened upon his sadistic former owner. The murder sets the city ablaze as racial tensions rise and Livia can only solve the case with the help of two disreputable owners of a high-end brothel, Damian Abers, a schemer whose immediate fortunes are threatened by the racial unrest and his partner, Long Yi, a man with a hidden past entangled in the palaces of dynastic China. Now that I have some time on my hands, I'm going to be working on the novel some more. I hope to be finished by the end of the year. Here's part of the first chapter: Chapter 1 Chicago, 1863 The chill in the air was more than a matter of the descending mercury. On this gray January morning, tensions froze expressions into masks of caution and distrust, as frigid as the iced-over waters of Lake Michigan. Even from the Avenue, the grain elevators along the Illinois River were visible, their behemoth structures rimed with frost. Slight flurries were beginning to fall. Shivering newsboys stood along major street corners hawking the Chicago Times, their high-pitched squeals only adding to the collective anxiety: "Bridgeport Paddies Trounce Nigger Trespasser!" Andre Lawrence barely heard the words as he stood in the doorway of the clothier he had just exited. He watched the woman standing before the W. M. Ross window as she admired some feminine creation of taffeta and lace. Still, given the circumstances, he might have had reason to be concerned. The previous night, a gang of Irish marauders with bats and sticks swarmed on a hapless Negro who mistakenly crossed into Bridgeport territory, and had beaten him to show him "what's what." Such attacks had increased since Lincoln's proclamation extending freedom to slaves in the Confederacy. Many blacks were wary as they walked the streets, cautious of the codified Black Laws which allowed arrest on unsubstantiated accusation alone. Pro-war Republicans were no less worried about these violent attacks. Many held strong views on abolition and saw Storey's continuous trouncing of Lincoln in the Times as outright sedition. Every story of attacks on blacks seemed a victory for the hate-mongering Storey, whose editorials were aimed to rile up the Democrats against the administration. It was not a good time to be a Negro, even in the North. And it was never a good time anywhere to be staring at a white woman. Her profile, complacent in study, might have belonged to another. Time had changed her: the once raven hair was now brilliant snow, the translucent skin that had been her pride was deeply grooved and sagged near the neckline. But he would never forget the winged arch of her brows, the slight flare of her nostrils nor the way she pursed her lips as though in a constant state of discontent. He often saw these same features, although considerably younger, in his nightmares, eternally frozen in a tableau of a child's horror. He remembered that face well from those nights when as a nine-year-old he had crept up the stairs leading to the forbidden room, careful to avoid the creaky third step lest Madame should hear him and come down to investigate. Because if she had ever found him spying, his fate surely would have been that of the poor souls imprisoned in her attic. On those nights, he would stand outside the door and listen to sounds that only the damned in hell should know. The Louisiana papers had claimed she fled the States nearly thirty years before when the fire destroyed her home on Royal Street - and after firemen discovered the vestiges that remained (some barely alive, others quite dead) in her attic. But the papers had been wrong. Very wrong. Because here she stood on a busy, wintry Chicago street, far away from the lush New Orleans heat that grew pungent when the bougainvilleas were in bloom. She was a few paces in front of him, a space he could easily close in seconds. If he had had his knife on him, he would have plunged it into her heart and watched with pleasure as those dark eyes became vacant and her hellish soul pitched toward Purgatory. But he did not have his knife this day. It lay on the bed stand in his room back at the boarding house. Still, he might place both his hands around that lean neck and squeeze just so.... His right hand clenched into a half-fist at the thought. He was almost tempted, but his ardor cooled as he looked around. Too many people were out strolling this Saturday morning. Also, plowing in his direction at that moment was an officer with a billy club in hand. The policeman, his eyes set on Andre, brushed past the woman, then stopped in front of his quarry, his scowl showing what he felt about a Negro staring too long at a white woman. "You see somethin' interestin', boy?" "No, sir, nothin' at all...sir," Andre said, his deference a survival reflex well-established. The woman whom he knew as Madame Delphine had now turned her attention from the window to the two men. Upon seeing Andre, she blinked first in puzzlement, then with a dawning recognition, at the same time slowly shaking her head as though she were seeing a specter. Andre held his gaze at the officer's nose, knowing better than to look straight into the man's eyes, knowing what consequences the billy club could bestow. Even with his limited focus, the ambit of his view allowed him to see the abrupt turn and hasty retreat of his former owner. The woman who had set out to destroy his soul those many years ago now hastened down the street like someone being chased. "You know better than to stare at a white woman! You better keep your ape eyes where they belong, you hear me?" The billy club tapped a steady three-quarter beat. Andre nodded, his eyes downcast, his every senses aware of people passing, aware of the curious who stopped to watch his humiliation. He heard the murmurs, a few guffaws. The hatred that rekindled upon seeing the woman who had nearly destroyed him flared inside, burning hot enough to consume those who stood near him, especially this officer taking obvious pleasure in bullying whom he presumed to be just another cowering nigger. But they were all wrong. They did not know whom they were disparaging, did not know the fortitude that had allowed him to survive tragedy and loss, that had let him rise above soul-crushing circumstances. They could not know the many places he had traveled, the wealth he had accrued, the blood he had shed - and would shed again. Yes, Madame thought she had escaped him. She would find she was wrong. #
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