Andrea found herself stood before a throne constructed from rotten wood and old bones, its ends made of giant elephant tusks that were all held down together by hemp and some nails that still stuck out and were hammered into from all sorts of weird angles. Sat upon the throne was the deformed man from the Court of Bordeaux, looking down at her with his many black eyes, all dotted across his ugly face above a smile that reeked even from where she stood. A troop of shark's teeth, each smelt of death, were aligned as skew as a queue formed up by the blind.
"Anansi." Andrea said, once she had gotten over the sight of the abomination of the creature
before her. His four long arms stretched out wide as he got up upon his four feet,
his smile growing increasingly as it further stunk up the air, "Ah! My darling Andrea,
welcome, welcome to my court!"
Andrea looked down at the old rug she stood on, it was dotted in dozens of white
fleurs-de-lis's upon what was once a black carpet, but was now covered in mud
and filth that could have been 250-years old for all she knew. She then looked all
around her and found the court empty of souls, "Where is everyone?"
Anansi rolled his many eyes at the question, "Agh! Those traitors can rot for all I care! They don't come here lest Anansi call 'em to. They all too busy livin' it up at Nothing's." He
took several steps down the dais needed to hover over her. And even with his
terrible posture; he still towered over her by a head and a half, maybe even two.
Andrea tried her best not to scrunch her nose at him, as the smell was the
equivalent to a punch in the stomach. "So, if I end up using the Court, I'll also end up…. As nothing?"
He growled and spat at their feet, "Ah! You'd go over there too, huh? Too used to your western
life of luxury to slum it with good ole Anansi, ay?"
Andrea put up a monumental effort not to show her disgust "No…. just…. if I'm going to one day we trapped here, I'd wanna get to know my family members is all."
"Well, you will do it here!" he snapped, spittle flying from his mouth as he
turned to ascend to his throne again, "Enough about Nothing! That is not why I
have come to haunt you in your dreams, Andrea Bordeaux." His Louisiana accent had
borderline been non-existent when they had begun the conversation, but was now a
distant memory as sat himself back onto his throne, "I come to you now,
because there are things we must discuss."
Andrea frowned at him, "Discuss? Between you and I?"
He nodded his head slowly, "Unfortunately, and you must forgive me for this, but I will not allow you use of the Court."
She stared up at him with a blank expression for a moment before she burst out
into laughter, but before she could even get through five seconds of it, she felt his
hand wrap around her neck, tight enough to get her to stop, but not so tight as to
be choking her completely.
"Anansi does not like being laughed at, Girl." He growled again, and those black
eyes morphed into red, his hideous form falling away and transforming into a
shadow of darkness that made Andrea want to throw up from looking at it.
He sighed and soon returned to his usual form, stroking her cheek once as he
tried to sweep what had happened underneath a disgusting rug with a smile and
affectionate gesture, "My apologies, Ms. Bordeaux. Anansi…. Well, it is so hard for
a trickster god to be taken seriously sometimes. I feel as if you all think every
word that leaves these lips is false and sweet. Forgive me."
Andrea leaned away from his ashy hands, rubbing at where they had grabbed her, "It's all good… And sorry, I guess, for not taking you seriously. But you've got my full attention now."
Anansi grinned at her, her skin crawled as his army of eyes looking her up and down, "Good, good. It is all I have ever wanted, and will continue
to want."
"I laughed because you made it seem like me not having the Court in the first
place is a bad thing." Andrea said, with an eyebrow raised, "Bruh, why would I want something that'll take my soul the first time I use it?" Anansi looked at her as if she were an idiot before he burst out into the kind of laughter that sounded like many voices were operating at once. Andrea ground her teeth at the hypocrisy on display, "Anansi forgets that you are new to this! Of course, a newbie girl such as yourself would say something so stupid."
She huffed and folded her arms, "Is it stupid not wanting to spend the rest of
my…. I guess it's my afterlife, in this shithole?"
Anansi hissed, but she balled her fists up and tried not to flinch this time, "Girl!
You are too ignorant to know that you are being ignorant! The Court is one of
maybe one hundred notre animus left in all the world. To wield such power is
to wield the power of a god!"
Andrea shrugged her shoulders, "I don't want the power of a god. I just want to
pass magic school and maybe become like…. A lawyer-magician? Do they even have those? Or maybe just team up
with my mom so we can be a super lawyer duo for like…. I dunno, the next fifty
years."
Anansi said nothing as he allowed silence to flood into his disgusting hall, staring
at Andrea with a blank expression before he slowly cocked his head to the side, "Girl, it seems to me that you need to focus more on your education. Allow me to be your first teacher. The Court will allow you to kill anyone, irrespective of their own power in comparison to your own, on condition that they themselves do not have a notre animus. Your mother in her prime would have made short work of that Jeremiah Riggs, but desperate deals made it so that she could not overpower him with any certainty. And, with the snap of her fingers, Riggs is dead. Andrea, the Court of Bordeaux would make you one of the one hundred most powerful people on the planet…. Are you saying that that is not something you would want?"
She thought that this was an easy question, and made to answer immediately, but found the words did not pass her lips so quickly. Instead, Andrea pondered on that point for a moment longer than she would've liked to admit. A whole me as one of the strongest people on the planet? It didn't so much excite her as worry her that she had not immediately shook her head, since when has that been something I cared about?
"No." Andrea finally said, resolute in her goals and desires, and being
an all-powerful magician just was not one of them, "And besides, why are we
having this argument if you're not letting me use it anyways?"
Anansi grinned, "Because, I had expected begging and pleading, not nonchalance
and disregard. I've sat and laughed watching Bordeaux cousins and siblings and
even parents and their children fight each other to the death for it."
That made her spine stiffen and her skin tingle, all those silhouettes, killing each
other…. For this?!
Anansi's grin turned into that many-voiced laugh of his, "Girl! You take for
granted the freedom you have, false as it is." And within the blink of an eye,
he was next to her once more, "You grew up in a world that does not turn a blind eye to your
wrists being bound together by iron. In a world where you do not have to watch your own
father, the strength of your household, bend and break before the will of another
man. In a world where you do not have to watch your mother be taken and used and
returned, all for the whims and satisfaction of another." His black eyes turned
red again as his sharp teeth parted, and his grin turned into a snarl, "Of course
you would not understand the lengths those that came before you went to gain
something so powerful, for you've never known true powerlessness."
His presence changed again, and for a moment, only but a moment, the horrid figure
before her had morphed into a tall and powerful man with flawless ebony skin
and jawline of a god. He hovered over her, his Afro trimmed nicely around his
head, and sat within it was a crown made of gold, the same gold that was used to make the bands
around his neck, biceps and wrists. His shoulders were broad and his body
covered in a sleeveless cream wool tunic that had a leopard printed blanket folded and
draped over his left shoulder. His waist was tied together by cowhide and his feet
wrapped up in sandals, a cane in hand that had the shape of a lion carved at its
knob with diamonds used for eyes and teeth. Andrea continued to gaze up at the most
beautiful man she had ever seen, and he looked back with eyes as dark as the
night sky with the sort of gleam that seemed like a pair of stars had been captured and
forced to hover within them.
"You are the last of Bordeaux," his voice was silky smooth now, weaving words
that hit her like a truck and forced her to listen, "The only one with the blood connection needed to become a true magician, anyway. I can ill afford to lose you now. You must continue the line, Andrea Bordeaux, and give to my court more
children to serve. To serve me as your ancestors once did in the millions, back
when we were free, when our fates were forged with our own hands. Can you do
that for me, Andrea?"
"Andrea." She was pulled out of her dream by a strong hand and a deep voice, "I believe that you have slept long enough. Any longer, and you might not be able to reset your sleeping schedule in time."
She yawned and looked up at Julian, his expression, unsurprisingly, blank and his personality being carried hard by his good looks and moustache, "I just—" she was about to tell him of her dream, but she felt her stomach cramp up, enough to make her wince.
He raised an eyebrow at her, "Is something the matter?"
Andrea shook her head; something telling her that to say yes would result in
even worse cramps, and she knew who to blame for this, fucking Anansi….
"Just…. Period stuff."
Julian nodded his head before standing up, "Well, I'll leave to allow you to attend to that. Breakfast is ready…. You are welcome to join me, if you would like."
Andrea stood as soon as the cramps subsided, standing and stretching, "I kinda wanna take a bath so, would it be cool if I see you there…. Where's the dining room anyways?"
Julian turned and headed towards the door, "A servant will be outside your door to take you there when done."
He closed the door behind him, and Andrea took the opportunity to go to the bathroom and rinse off the sleep, wiping her face and frowning at the sunken look in her eyes and the bags around them that made it worse, Jeez! Even Anansi looks better than I do right now…. She took a moment to wait and see if this thought would be accompanied by another bout of cramps, but it seemed that Anansi was a lot more tolerant of insults than her ratting him out to Julian.
Andrea decided to go to her luggage bag to pull out a pair of black jeans and a faded an old black t-shirt before running herself a bath. And inevitably, as she waited for the bathtub to fill up, her mind drifted back to her dream, and try as she might, she could not think of Anansi in either of his first forms, only the version of him that was godlike. She wondered how much of that was her actual subconscious, or him using his magic to manipulate her memories, but she decided that she would have to ask him when next she saw him. It dawned on her then just how much control Anansi could potentially have over her, and it worried her how ignorant she was to the extent of said control. Is this control because I am weak? Andrea wondered as she closed the tap and moved to remove her clothing, no, she surmised, the court was filled with Bordeaux family members, so it was bloodline connected. But she could never have imagined her own mother being controlled like this, so maybe it all came down to a mix of strength and blood. Although, who was she to say whether or not her mother had been controlled or not? Andrea's confidence in her mother, and all the things she ever told her, was as low as it had ever been, despite the love she had for her. For all Andrea knew, her mother had always lived her life at the mercy of cramps and a fucked-up God. Andrea finally got into the bath and allowed herself to relax, all the tension from the last 24 hours ebbed away from her body, and she already felt much better. Questions will be answered, she attempted to reassure herself, I just have to know what and who to ask... The what was easy enough, but the who was also what worried her. Andrea had thought of asking a teacher, one she trusted after building up enough of a relationship, but Julian had made it a point to change her last name, so he obviously wished to hide who she was and where she came from. That left Ms. Boniface and Julian himself. The former was a stranger to her, and the latter was only slightly less of a stranger. But Momma made him promise her to protect me, she thought, and the power of words and promises seemed just about the only thing her mother actually told her to be definitively true. There was no ways a cold man like Julian would've done what he has done for her otherwise. Andrea sighed as she moved her knees to tuck her chin into, I am being too hard on her....
For as bad as things may have seemed, her mother always had her best interests at heart. And that was something she best not forget. Andrea scrubbed herself clean and had to force herself out of the bath despite how tempting it was to just spend the rest of her life in there, but the last thing Andrea wanted was Julian annoying her by sighing and going on about punctuality and manners and whatever the hell he would most likely go on about if she gave him an excuse to. Andrea put on her body lotion as quick as she could before slipping into some underwear and her jeans and top, tying her sneakers. Leaving the room despite her hair still somewhat dripping, a magical spell for this hair will be the first thing I try to learn…. She opened her door to find a new invisible person waiting for her. How she knew that this invisible maid was different to the other two invisible maids, was beyond her, but Andrea did not mind, so long as she got to where she needed to go.
"So," Andrea began awkwardly as she returned to whence she came, "working for Julian, the benefits any good?"
Renee, Andrea had decided that she looked like a Renee for some reason, seemed confused by her question, but Andrea was getting through this bit no matter what, "Thought as much. Something about him just screams union-buster, y'know?"
Renee was too much of a sell-out to confirm this, but Andrea knew the truth. The car, the suits and the house say it all! They walked past the entrance hall, and past many doors, until she stood in front of a large pair of wooden doors that opened as soon as she came within a few feet of them. Andrea thanked Renee, despite her anti-union stance, and pushed open the doors to enter. Julian stood up when she entered the dining room, "You are late."
She rolled her eyes, may as well have just stayed in the bath, "I hear you." Was all she said before she took her seat across from him, a dining table that could've sat at the very least twenty people on either side set firmly between them. Andrea looked around her as more invisible servants came forth to place plates of food in front of them, covering the white tablecloth set upon the dining table with plates of venison and beef and pork and lamb, with bowls of various soups set out alongside trays of sliced bread and bowls of salad. There were other bowls of potato salad and trays of lasagna and casseroles set upon the table as well, alongside plates of fish and cheese. She watched each invisible servants then hurry to a pillar in the large dining room, standing upright in front of them to wait to be called, like the ball boys and girls at Wimbledon….
"This is a little extra, don't you think?" Andrea gestured around them, "I get it Julian, you're the bestest magician to ever magic. You can stop trying to impress me now."
He barely reacted to that, "This is little different to any other night."
Andrea frowned and pointed to the table filled with enough food to feed a
football team, "This cannot be your everyday meal, Julian."
"It is not." He readily admitted, "But I eat what I know I like. And I have no idea
what you like, so choose, and the rest of it will be discarded."
Her frown deepened as she looked at the many choices set out in front of her,
"Damn Julian, you know you could've just asked me, right?"
He pondered her words before waving them away, "Perhaps." Was all he said,
before he signaled for the invisible servants to come and serve up their food for
them.
"They serve at your pleasure," Julian said, "tell them what you wish for and it will
be done."
Andrea frowned and looked up at Betsy, who stood with a plate in hand and
awaited her orders. It felt too weird to say anything, and so she stood up instead,
"Thank you, Betsy, but I will take it from here." She said, offering her hand out to
her to receive the plate. The servant hesitated and looked towards Mr.
Pennyworth, who too seemed unsure of how to proceed. Julian raised an eyebrow at her; "You've taken to naming all of my invisible servants then?"
Andrea almost slammed her palm into her forehead, already having forgotten her deal with Mr. Pennyworth, "…. Yeah," she said sheepishly, "Sorry…. It felt weird not to call someone helping you by their name…."
He sat back and stared at her for a moment more before sighing, "You heard her, Betsy, Ms. Bordeaux will dish up her own plate."
Betsy curtseyed before handing Andrea the plate and moving to return to her station by the pillars, and she mouthed an apology to Mr. Pennyworth and Betsy before filling her plate with some casserole and salad before sitting back down. Julian's plate had long been served, and yet was still somehow steaming hot and untouched, waiting for her to join him first. Andrea watched him a moment before clearing her throat, "Uh…. Julian?"
He raised an eyebrow once more, and she continued, "Do you say grace or just dig in?"
Julian threatened another smile, "No, but be my guest." She felt awkward but persisted anyways, her momma had come out okay, all things considered, and so did she. Thanks, were indeed in order, she believed.
"Lord, thank you for the food you have set before us, and bless the hands that
had labored to make it. Amen."
Julian only took a small bite out of his fish once Andrea had tasted the casserole, and the two began to consume in awkward silence. Well, awkward for me, at least… she thought, as silence was probably something Julian was used to, living in such a huge house all alone.
"So…." Andrea began, for awkward silences at meals were foreign to her, "This exam that I have to take,"
"Yes?"
She felt nervous just even thinking about it, "What will happen, Julian? Will it be
too difficult? And if it is, will I die or be sacrificed to the Source or something for failing?"
He shook his head, "No." Was all he said, and Andrea grew angry at that, "Bruh, I asked
three questions, one of which is not a yes or no kinda question. Have a heart, for
once, and at least try help me out here."
He sighed and set down his fork and knife, "The assessment will ascertain if you
are strong enough to form a Grimoire, and going off what I sense of you, you
indeed are, if only barely.
"As for the other two questions, the answer is no. It is not difficult, and you will
not be sacrificed to the Source. This assessment usually takes place after the
entrance exam, a fate that you have avoided due to being recommended by me."
That, for some reason, made her feel bad. She was not used to being the one in a position of privilege, having strings pulled at to bail her out, but Andrea was thankful for it all the same.
"Thank you, truly, but.... Is there a maximum number of students allowed to attend each year?"
She asked, and Julian sighed, "Andrea, no one is dying because of you. You've taken no one's spot. All who pass the examination are guaranteed a place here." That put her heart at ease some, although the fact that she could not even get in on her own merit ate at her. Andrea was not rich or privileged like many of her schoolmates, and so prided herself in being different, in being special because she had earned her place there instead of relying on wealth to get in. But now, I am no different than them…. Her ego was in tatters at the thought. They continued to eat until Andrea, whose appetite had not been the largest, had had her fill, placing her fork and knife down. At this sign of surrender, Lizzy immediately moved to take her plate from her, and Andrea smiled, "Thanks, Lizzy."
Julian took a final bite before doing the same, "Dessert?" he offered, but Andrea just wished to be done with this, "No thank you." She heard Julian whisper a word, and the servants began to clear the table as he stood up, "Come then," he said as he moved for the exit, "Allow us to settle you in properly."