Page 19 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)
D elphine moved through the Obscura Archive with new purpose, pulling boxes from storage areas that hadn’t been disturbed in decades. Her hair was twisted into a practical knot, sleeves rolled up for serious work.
“I want to understand Delia Moreau,” she said without preamble as Bastien entered. “Not genealogical connections—her personal writings. What she thought, if anything, about spiritual bonds.”
His throat constricted. Delia’s papers would contain references to their relationship, feelings harbored for a man Delphine knew nothing about.
Her fingers sorted through documents—letters in copperplate script, faded photographs, theater programs from performances long forgotten. Then she stopped, holding up an envelope that made his heart cease beating.
“Found this tucked inside a 1905 theater program. Never mailed, addressed only with ‘My Guardian Angel.’”
He recognized that handwriting instantly. Delia’s distinctive script, the same graceful penmanship that had signed birthday cards and left messages on his pillow during their brief, perfect months together.
“Expensive paper,” Delphine continued, examining the watermark. “Ivory stock with deckled edges. Whatever she wanted to say felt sacred to her.”
She waited for professional consultation, but Bastien could only stare at the envelope containing words written in Delia’s hand, addressed to the very being who sat beside her now.
“Do you mind if I read this?”
She was asking him to read Delia’s words aloud, to voice thoughts meant for his ears alone through lips that belonged to her reincarnated soul.
“Not at all,” he somehow managed to say without sounding strangled.
Delphine opened the envelope with archival care. Three pages in Delia’s familiar script. As she unfolded them, lavender scent rose from paper kept close to her person for over a century—the same perfume that had clung to her hair during quiet evenings in her parlor.
“Dated October 15th, 1906. Three weeks before the fire.” She studied the salutation. “‘My dearest guardian angel.’”
Soul fracture memory exploded through him. She’d been writing to him without knowing it, addressing letters to the very being who walked beside her in human form.
“She begins,” Delphine continued, “‘I find myself compelled to write to you, though I know not if such correspondence can reach the divine realm. Since childhood, I have felt your presence—a warmth when darkness fell, guidance when I stumbled, the certainty that I am never truly alone.’”
The words struck him like physical blows. Delia had sensed his protection without understanding its source, felt his love as divine blessing rather than earthly devotion.
“She continues, ‘Others tell me I possess an overactive imagination, that my sense of being watched over springs from wishful thinking rather than reality. But I know what I feel. When danger approached, something always intervened. When sorrow threatened to overwhelm, comfort arrived from unknown sources.’”
Professional distance transformed Delia’s spiritual confession into historical curiosity for Delphine. For Bastien, every word carried the weight of recognition—she’d known, on some level deeper than consciousness, exactly what he was.
“The middle section grows more personal,” Delphine said, turning to the second page.
“‘I have been blessed with love that feels too perfect for this imperfect world. A man has entered my life who treats me as if I were precious beyond measure, who sees beauty in thoughts others would call foolish, who makes me believe the future holds wonders I’ve only dared imagine.’”
His chest tightened until breathing became struggle. She was describing their relationship through the lens of divine blessing, attributing their happiness to celestial intervention.
“Then she writes, ‘Sometimes I wonder if earthly love and heavenly protection spring from the same source. When he looks at me, I see depths that speak of experiences beyond ordinary mortal existence. Yet he guards these depths so carefully, as if revealing them would somehow diminish the gift we share.’”
Delphine paused in her reading. “She’s connecting romantic love with spiritual experience. Quite sophisticated for someone without formal theological training, and also completely beautiful in its sentiment.”
“What else does she say?” Bastian cleared his throat a bit.
“The most touching section is this one. ‘There is a melody that comes to me in quiet moments, a tune I have never learned but sing as naturally as breathing. When I hum it, I feel closest to you, as if the music itself carries prayers between earthly and divine realms.’”
As if summoned by her words, Delphine began humming absently while reading—the same melody that had haunted him for 119 years, rising from her throat. The sound combined with her description of spiritual connection created perfect resonance between past and present.
Bastien’s control shattered completely.
The melody struck profoundly and past-life resonance crashed through his consciousness like tide against seawalls. Memory overwhelmed the Archive around him, making the chair beneath him insubstantial compared to the roar of recognition flooding his senses.
The Garden District mansion where Delia attended a Mardi Gras masquerade in 1906, moving through crowds of revelers in emerald silk that made her eyes seem infinite.
Behind her half-mask, she was radiant with the kind of joy that made strangers stop to stare.
Bastien watched from across the ballroom as she danced with partners who didn't realize they were holding starlight in human form.
When the music shifted to a waltz, she appeared at his elbow as if summoned by wish alone.
“I've been waiting for you to ask me to dance,” she said, though he hadn't spoken.
“How did you know I wanted to?”
“Because you've been watching me like someone memorizing a dream they're afraid to wake from.” She placed her gloved hand in his, leading him toward the floor. “And because some invitations don't require words.”
They moved together with harmony that made other dancers pause to admire their grace. In her arms, surrounded by music and laughter and the scent of jasmine from the gardens beyond, Bastien felt something approaching peace.
“I could dance with you forever,” Delia whispered against his ear.
“Forever might not be long enough.”
Her laughter, bright as silver bells, the way she moved as if dancing was prayer made visible—moments when love felt large enough to encompass eternity.
The memory shattered as Delphine’s hand touched his shoulder, her humming dying into concerned silence.
“Mr. Durand, you’re shaking. Are you unwell?”
He looked up at her face—the same soul looking at him through features shaped by different genetics and lifetime experiences. She carried no conscious memory of rooftop conversations or intuitive recognition, no awareness that she’d once sensed his divine nature through pure love.
“I need some air,” he managed, standing too quickly. “Excuse me.”
He fled the Archive before she could respond, leaving Delia’s letter in hands that had once written those words to him. The Quarter’s afternoon heat felt like blessing after the emotional suffocation of hearing private spiritual thoughts made public through historical research.
On the sidewalk outside, leaning against wrought iron, Bastien processed what he’d learned.
Delia hadn’t just sensed his protection—she’d recognized the connection between earthly love and divine guardianship, understood on some level that they were the same force expressing itself through different forms.
Her letter wasn’t romantic confession to an imaginary being. It was a memorial echo of every truth he’d been too protective to share, every moment when her intuition had come close enough to reality to make him wonder if love truly could transcend the boundaries between mortal and divine.
She’d died knowing she was loved by both man and guardian angel, never understanding they were the same soul wearing different aspects.
His phone rang, cutting through emotional chaos with Maman Brigitte’s familiar voice.
“Boy, you sound like someone whose world just got turned inside out. What happened?”
“She found a letter. Written by Delia in 1906, addressed to her guardian angel. Never sent.” His voice cracked on the last words. “She knew, Maman. Not consciously, but her soul knew. She felt my protection, recognized the connection between earthly love and divine guardianship.”
“Ah.” Maman’s voice carried understanding born of experience with love complicated by supernatural circumstances. “She was writing to you without knowing it. Addressing letters to the being who walked beside her every day.”
“She described feeling watched over, protected, guided by forces she couldn’t name.
She connected that protection to our romantic relationship, wondered if they might spring from the same source.
” The revelation threatened to drive him to his knees.
“Her intuition came so close to truth that she was practically seeing through my human facade.”
“And now? ”
“Now her reincarnation reads her own words aloud, hums the same melody, carries the same soul through a different lifetime. And I still don’t know whether revealing the truth would liberate her or destroy any chance we might have.”
Maman was quiet for long minutes, the kind of contemplative silence that preceded wisdom earned through decades of watching supernatural relationships navigate impossible circumstances.
“Let me ask you something, Bastien. What weighs heavier—her memory of intuitive recognition from that lifetime, or her ignorance of what you meant to each other?”
He’d been so focused on protecting Delphine from revelations about reincarnation and soul-binding magic that he’d never considered whether knowledge might be liberation rather than burden.
“I don’t know.”
“Then maybe it’s time to find out. Some secrets eat the keeper alive, leaving nothing but regret and missed opportunities.
Others preserve what needs preserving until the right moment for revelation arrives.
” Her voice carried absolute certainty. “But reading her own words, hearing her voice through different lips, watching her unconsciously repeat gestures that connected you across lifetimes—that’s the universe telling you the moment has come. ”
“What if the truth destroys everything?”
“What if hiding it destroys the everything you already have?”
The line went dead, Maman never stating why she’d called in the first place, leaving him on Ursulines Street with choices that would determine whether love could survive revelation or whether protection would prove to be just another form of separation .
Inside the Archive, Delphine was probably still studying Delia’s letter, trying to understand historical spiritual practices that represented her own soul’s deepest intuitions.
She deserved to know that the woman who’d written those words was herself, that the guardian angel she’d addressed was him, that the connection she’d sensed was real and had survived more than a century of separation.
Bastien straightened his shoulders and turned back toward the Archive entrance. Whatever the risk, whatever the consequences, Delphine would make her choices with full knowledge of what they meant.
He’d failed to trust Delia with revelations that could have validated her deepest intuitions. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
The Archive door opened to the scent of old paper and accumulated wisdom, to Delphine’s voice asking if he felt better, to the weight of secrets that had been kept too long.
“There’s something else you need to know about that letter,” he said, settling back into his chair with resolve that felt like armor against cosmic forces. “About who wrote it, and who it was meant for.”
Her gaze—Delia’s gaze, Charlotte’s gaze, the same soul looking at him across lifetimes—met his with curiosity that would soon become recognition.
“Tell me,” she said, and her voice carried the same determined courage that had once intuited divine protection without understanding its source.
Outside, afternoon light slanted through Spanish moss in patterns that reminded him of fog on a rooftop where truths had been spoken that still echoed across more than a century of loss and hope.
This time, perhaps, intuition would be validated rather than dismissed.