-Christmas Day, 1915-

Julien hovered over me. His blue eyes, as bright as summer skies, danced impishly. Yet there was malice in his voice, a tone those of us who came to know him cringed at with the smallest utter. "You will come, Belén." His hand rose to touch my shoulder. As soon as I felt his fingers on my flesh I jerked away, rather unlady-like, and grabbed his wrist, wanting to break bone.

My eyes glared. I wanted to scream at him but my husband stood a few meters away, chatting with the dentist, Mr. Oliveira. "You put your hand on me, JJ and I will-"

Julien's face broke into a large smile. He chuckled. "You will what, Belén? Call for your husband to come and fight for your dignity and purity?" Long fingers pried my own off his wrist and he tutted me. "You have neither my dear, and we both know that." His eyes, once summer skies now stormed. I saw myself a feeble little fishing boat who had lingered in the sea too long, not heeding the warnings of grand disaster. Now I watched as clouds gathered in his eyes and grew darker and more dangerous. I had played with fire and JJ knew it.

I wanted to flee, to run as fast as I could, far away from this horrible man and the laughing, happy faces at the Christmas party JJ was hosting. A chill slithered into my bones. My white owl feather cape barely covered my shoulders, goosebumps covered my arms.

My eyes, terrified sparrows, fluttered from face to face crying out Come and save me from this beast! But nary a person managed to see my fear, not Ms. Grace, not Mr. Morris, not anyone, for they were all caught up in enjoying themselves.  

"Now, let us enjoy the rest of the party for there is fine wine to drink and fine food to savor. Do not make a scene, Belén. I desire nary a murmur or complaint." He took my hand and kissed the knuckles. "Tonight. At midnight. Do not fret, your husband would have already had too much wine by then. He will not come looking." I saw it right then and there, in those once lovely blue orbs of his, that I was about to drown. I looked over to where my husband and Mr. Oliveira continued their chat. No one could save me for I had heard the Piper, now I had to pay the price.

-June 17, 1920-

My hand shook as I reread the invitation. I must have read it ten times if I had read it once. Every time, it said the same thing. You are cordially invited to a dinner party. On the 23rd of June, 1920, at 7pm. Julian Jean Bouvier's mansion. I want nary a murmur or complaint if you want me to keep your secret.

How could it be?

I tried to calm my quickly-beating heart, to stop the tremble in my fingers, but it was all in vain. The half empty bottle of Rum watched me in silence. It understood my pain, knew of my sins. I set the invitation down on the marble table, by yesterday's newspaper, and reached for the bottle. I would pour myself glass after glass until I passed out and no longer belonged to the land of the sober and sane.
 

For now, the invitation would have to remain there, next to the newspaper opened to the page of Julian's unexpected death.

-June 23, 1920-

The sun was setting slowly. It would have been a glorious evening yet instead of the sweet fragrance of the flowers, poison filled my lungs.

The invitation rested in my grasp. Funny how such a small piece of paper could make one feel so many negative emotions at once. I should have crumpled it up! I should have set it ablaze! Yet I allowed it to burn scars on my soul and in my mind.

I felt the small, black eyes of a crow look at me as I stepped into the manor, a place I had learned to loathe. The bird's black wings ruffled in disgust before it took off to find its companions in the center of the garden. Though decorated with the finest pieces of furniture and exquisite works of art, to me, Julien's mansion was an ugly place.

I was quickly ushered to the dining room by the elderly butler. I saw guests but no host. Faces of people I knew bobbed uneasily before me, resembling marionettes. Many I had not seen in years. None of which I particularly liked ever since the Christmas of 1915 where I searched for a life-raft to stop me from going under but had found none. I had been offered nothing but shame. I remembered the horrible happy faces who could not pull me away from the clutches of a devious, evil man. Oh, how I had longed for my death...and theirs.

I greeted the other guests courteously, as one should do, and engaged in polite and proper conversation as the wine flowed into our glasses. The prohibition had not been able to reach its tentacles to all of San Juan for there were always some people too rich, too powerful or too sneaky to obey laws.

The host's chair stood vacant. I could see that the others were curious about this, as well. They must know of Julien's death, the news had been printed in black and white for all of San Juan to read. Whispers from the other side of the table told me that they did not know why they had been invited, but tones confessed that they were as frightened as I.

Plates of crispy duck and roast pheasant graced the table. Each dish more succulent than the other. Fruit from the region and other of tropical sorts were offered next to mounds of fresh cream and little eclairs. The bread buns were each dotted with poppy seeds, creating dainty zig zags. Serving of greens, steamed and not, and everything one's starving stomach could desire lay on porcelain plates. We were told to eat, to enjoy everything our absent host had to offer. I merely pushed my food to the side, taking no interest in sampling any of it.

The garden was full of crows, they had been silent before, now they were creating a cacophony of sound just outside the window. I could hear their caws sounding like broken hymns and pleas for salvation.

Time passed wearily. The wine swam in my belly and warmed my blood to near boiling point. The room swayed like rough seas, but I had learned how to adjust my sails now. I had learned how to live life inebriated, leaping from bottle to needle to pipe.

"It appears that our host chooses to stay rather dead!" I said a little too loudly as I pushed my chair back and rose. I looked at all the faces, lingering on every one with a look of disapproval momentarily ghosting my featured. "And I say good riddance!" I quickly beckoned for the help to come over. "Alondra. I know your master kept a few bottles of Absinthe in the cellar, saved them for a very special occasion." I shooed her with a wave of my hand and addressed the table. "And what better occasion the death of a devil?"

I waited for a reply, a comment to my outburst. "Let me tell you a tale of demons and hells," my voice crawled on the top of the table as the servants carried about fetching the absinthe, glasses and the absinthe fountain which they filled with ice water.

"I shall tell you all of devils and the secrets they keep..." I whispered as I reached into my pocket producing a handful of sugar cubes in a neatly tied cloth. Each cube of sugar had been lovingly laced with arsenic, the poison of kings, the poison of paupers, a poison that secretly labeled itself as judge, jury and executioner.

"Sugar from Europe is the only sugar one must use if one knows how to properly drink absinthe." It was widely know, anyone who was anyone used sugar from abroad and never anything local, that just made them look uncouth. Cubes brought from Europe were rarely perfectly proportioned, and often enough shared between companions in polite company and not.

The wait staff hurried to set the fountain and glasses on the table. The glasses were positioned under a spigot of the fountain, an absinthe spoon topped with a sugar cube rested across the rim of each reservoir pontarlier glass. Soon water began to slowly drip over the sugar cubes until the sugar dissolved making the absinthe turn completely opaque.

I took my own reservoir pontarlier glass and sat back down on my chair. I was not one to share secrets so easily. Tonight, being here at this horrible house something inside me stirred. Perhaps it was the drink, perhaps it was seeing faces I did not desire to ever see again, something inside me raged. I could no longer hold back the hatred I had held for Julian and the others for so long.

"What would you do were you given the chance to abolish a devil? If someone had handed you vengeance on a silver platter, would you greedily scoop it up and dirty your fingertips with the stickiness of revenge?"

I new that drinking the absinthe would give me much more than just a headache in the morning, but I longed for no more day-breaks. There was enough arsenic in each of the sugar cubes to kill an elephant. I wanted them to know my secret but I did not want them to hold judgment upon me. I wanted them to know but I also wanted to kill them for knowing...and not knowing. Some secrets should remain dead and buried, if I had to bury bodies to keep my secret silent so be it.

I looked to Mr. Oliveira then to Ms Grace, who were seated on either side of me, and whispered, "Let me tell you a secret about a wretched soul,"I swirled the absinthe absentmindedly, "about a man and a fine lady. With all due respect, fancy attire and beautiful homes do not a gentleman make." My eyes darted to Mr. Morris, the supposed artist. To me he simply looked like a needy bed-hopper with those waif-like, bedroom eyes. "So I simply cannot bring myself to call him that." I cast a look at JJ's empty chair then continued my tale. "Some of us may have made mistakes in our lifetimes, been labeled as sinners but we are not the ones that destroyed lives." I felt my voice rising, my heart beating quicker.

I looked up to the ornate ceiling, swirls of vines, trees and wild beasts weaved around a zoological fanfare. A lion and horse were tangled in battle with a stormy sea. Elephants, rabbits and rats with fire in their eyes stared at large fruit that hung from the trees. A wolf howled at a fox, its watery mouth as wide as a crescent moon. My eyes stopped on a crow (the crow, the crow), small and still enough to remain hidden were your eyes fresh to this site. But I had memorized this ceiling (wishes everything was black). Each and every animal created had told me a million stories of Julian Jean and his devious ways.

"Some secrets should be respected,''I said in a hushed breath. "Some men do not know of respect." Again I looked at Julien's seat, the rim of the glass nearly touching my ruby lips. The scent of wormwood scorched my nostrils. "I shall tell you my deep dark secret, of how I came to kill Julien Jean Bouvier."

A pregnant silence washed over me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Mr De Portu watching me with disapproval and antipathy. I felt as though I made him ill. Good! Men like him and Julien should drown in their own bile and sour spit.

"While traveling to India, my husband had the privilege of meeting with the great Maharaja and Maharani. I was heavy with child at the time and could not accompany him on this grand trip. While he dined with the great ruler I lay on blood soaked sheets, birthing a baby that would never survive." I paused, trying to see if anyone here knew of my secret (they know, they know!) the same way JJ had (they look at you so!).

"Julien had learned that my child had not been born still, yet healthy and radiant." A sane person would have stopped themselves from going on, stopped before damage was done. The secret had bore down on me for so long, I could no longer hold it up. "My son had locks of ebony hair and slanted eyes resembling his real father's, Jing-Sheng, who owned and ran one of the Opium dens I would often visit. JJ used this secret for his own gain, blackmailing me into becoming his whore." I took a sip of absinthe then another till my insides howled.

"My husband wept at my bedside upon his return from India. He brought as a gift a small dagger given by the royal couple to welcome the birth of our first born." I slid the dagger out from my purse and cradled it in my hands. Embellished with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds it glistened in whatever rays of light it caught. "My husband feared the pain of losing a child would be unbearable and I would use it to end my life so he kept it locked in a glass box upon the mantle of our fireplace. But glass easily breaks if one desires it to do so and when news of my beloved husband's death on a hunting trip found me a few years later, I found the strength to crack the box open and take the dagger out. I planned on using it on myself, to end the misery of having to keep this secret for so long. I gave up my child so that I would not be labeled a harlot, so that no one would know that morning often found me in the Opium dens, so that I would not lose my place among the elite of San Juan. What did I gain? Nothing." I shook my head bitterly.

"But what is death if you are not to have eternal peace? For my soul to find salvation I would have to use the dagger first on Julien."

The secret I had carried in my heart for so long had finally consumed me. Like a boat lost on the Sea of Galilee with no savior at the stern I was drowning. Summer blues had long since turned painfully gray.

More and more absinthe found its way to my insides, burning them raw. My eyes swam as I moved to Julien's chair. "I stabbed him!" The dagger rose and fell upon the empty chair. "Right though his icy heart till he slumped onto the floor." I looked to the dinner guests, I could barely see them now. My vision swam. My breath hitched.

"Some secrets need to remain hidden," I uttered, breathless. "Julien threatened to tell the world. I killed him..." In the abyss I had pulled him, cawed and scratched and pecked him to death. "I had to kill him." Black feathers fluttered in my view. I tried to swipe them away. I heard the sound of wings. "He knew-" the strength in my voice was fleeing, "You knew-" It was replaced by broken sounds of a broken soul (the crow, the crow).

The very next morning I would be found slumped on Julien's bed. My skin would taste of wormwood. The poison had spirited my life away. Darkness asked for salvation but I longed to set my secret free, and the crow, the crow wished everything black.