"I find the idea of you raising a child somewhat difficult to comprehend, Sebastian," Ciel sniffed, leaning further back into his desk chair.
"Believe it or not, young Master. I watched that woman pull a child from her own body, and took that child into my care with her mother's last breath." Sebastian stood suddenly, marching to the tall window behind the desk and dutifully tugged the curtains closed. The sun was setting and the light spilling into the study was overbearing. "I found a wash-bucket with relatively clean water in it and some rags the woman had prepared for herself and cleaned the babe. I was startled when I realized that the contract symbol had appeared on her, not on her mother. But there it was—staring me in the face; my pentagram emblem emblazoned on the flesh of her stomach."
"How did the mother's soul taste?" Ciel prodded, and without a flinch Sebastian replied.
"Words of the human tongue cannot describe it," he offered, slipping his tailcoat from his shoulders and arranging it over the back of the wing-back chair before sinking back into its plush cocoon. "Would you like me to continue, or am I boring you with my reminisces?"
"By all means, go on. I'm quite the captive audience."
Sebastian cleared his throat politely and gathered his thoughts.
The child curled against his chest, wrapped in soft layers of linen, whimpered for a moment before her breathing evened out and she was asleep. He had thought that perhaps she would immediately need to feed, but apparently that was not the case. That was a good thing, considering it would take him a while to find a wet-nurse for her. Glancing around the single room for anything of value, he said partly to himself, "I suppose I shall have to name you... Your mother would insist on a French name, I'm sure..."
Finding nothing that would do him any good in his situation, he peered out the window of the hovel into the pitch black of night. He would have thought that the mother's screaming during her pangs of birth would have brought others running to her door. She was not exaggerating about her status of outcast, he decided, and seeing no soul in sight, he walked out the front door and toward the back entrance of the plantation proper some 200 yards away.
In his experience, kitchen doors were rarely locked and he was happy to see it was true here, as well. He easily slid inside and eased past the pantries to the back staircase that would take him directly to the house servants' rooms on the third floor. The mother had left him with one vital bit of information: one of the house slaves had just borne a child. She would be able to nurse the babe he clutched to his chest. As silent as the grave, he crept to each door, one by one, cracking them open and peering inside until the fourth one granted him the sight of a sleeping woman, her hand hanging listlessly over the side of the bassinet next to her bed. He ghosted into the room, stopping at the foot of her bed and willing her to wake.
She moaned, turning onto her back and her eyes fluttered open. Full recognition never took over for her, so powerful was the demon's aura. She remained in a semi-conscious state, reaching out for the babe and drawing the neckline of her gown below her breast. The demon watched for a moment, forcing his will into her that she might remain in this state while he searched the house proper for valuables.
"You robbed the owners of the plantation?" Ciel demanded, chin propped on hands, elbows propped on desk. "I've never imagined you doing something so...menial," he whispered in amazement. Sebastian merely smiled his secretive smile.
"This should have been the child's rightful caretakers, should it not? I only took what I deemed would be a respectful inheritance."
Ciel's face was cracking with a rare and seldom-seen grin. "Continue."
The demon made his way back to the second floor and methodically searched each room, pocketing every gem and coin and string of pearls he could find; the sleeping occupants blissfully unaware.
When the pillowcase he had pilfered became full, he stashed his stolen coffer in the shack of the dead mother. Sneaking back inside, he found the study of the man of the house and consequently, found the safe where said regent kept his bank notes. Spying a sort of leather satchel tucked beneath the oak desk, the demon opened it and carefully stacked the bank notes inside.
Slipping back upstairs he retrieved the babe from the charmed house slave and graciously rearranged her night dress to restore her modesty. The sun was coming up, filling the small room with an eerie red hue, and the child asleep in the bassinet was stirring, ready for his morning meal. "Merci beaucoup," the demon whispered to the now unconscious woman as she slumped forward.
By the time the sun had fully risen, he was walking down the Rue Dumaine in the Vieux Carre.
"What did you name the child?" Ciel asked, curiosity rising sufficiently enough for him to interrupt Sebastian's tale.
"I named her Cybille. It means 'soothsayer'. I had high hopes for the child, after all; her mother had possessed the gift of sight. I didn't intend to raise her as if she were my daughter, however. I chose DeMoreau for her surname and acted as her legal guardian and tutor."
"Go on. I have far too many questions."
"I found a cottage in the French Quarter where a childless old woman kept residence-"
"You charmed her right out of her home, didn't you?"
"Not precisely. I convinced her I was her only living nephew and she took us in directly."
Ciel's mouth curved upward in a full-tilt smile. Sebastian wasn't entirely certain he'd ever seen his young master smile. "You are enjoying this aren't you?"
"Unabashedly. Keep going."
The diminutive little maid looked back and forth between the well-dressed gentleman holding the child and her mistress. She was undoubtedly confused about the sudden appearance of this so-called nephew but it certainly wasn't her place to question her mistress. She was little more than a wash-woman, at any rate. The man spoke flawless French, he knew things about Madame Faustine and her family; surely he was who he claimed. The old woman inquired about the babe. He spun dramatic tales of finding her near the Cathedral, crying against her mother's still breast. The Madame gobbled up his stories, welcoming him home and sending the maid out immediately to fetch her lawyer that she might sign her house over to her nephew in her will.
The demon studied the maid cautiously from his peripheral. She would be harder to charm, he knew. She was young, aware, and quite frankly entirely to intelligent for her position. But apparently the old woman had a soft-spot for hopeless causes—luckily for him—because her maid was pregnant by the old woman's coachman and Madame Faustine had taken her into service as well because of her infirmity. Aimee was her name and she was due any day. The demon wondered if he should question his string of luck. All crises had been averted, splendidly and without fail, one after another. A nursing slave, a safe full of bank notes, a lonely old woman with a house much too large for only herself, a pregnant maid; and he knew in the way that he knew things; the old woman's heart would give out in less than a month.
Aimee's rounded belly threw off her center of balance and she toddled more than anything as she carefully made her way down the three steep steps to the sidewalk and toward Rue Royal to fetch her mistress' lawyer. The demon made himself comfortable in the Madame's parlor and allowed her to take the child from him. She cooed and coddled the girl, commenting on her cafe aulait complexion and her startling blue eyes. "But isn't it that all newly borne children have those blue, blue eyes?" he asked her innocently, and she nodded without taking her eyes from the babe's face.
"She will be a beautiful girl, a magnificent young woman one day—if only I would be here to witness it. You intend to raise her as your own?"
"I haven't given it that much thought, actually," the demon lied. He intended no such thing. She was a contract. At best, he would be her teacher in everything she wished to learn. But he was centuries beyond forming emotional bonds. He had to admit, the consequences of her story—her patronage and the farces of her mother's peers did have somewhat of a tug on heartstrings he wasn't aware he still possessed. But even demons knew right from wrong and he refused to fault himself for feeling pity for a newborn child.
When the maid returned, a white-bearded man in tow, the babe was deftly pawned off on her while Madame Faustine had her lawyer write Rene Corbeau into her will. Aimee disappeared into the back of the house and the demon heard a door close in the distance. He knew she was going to the kitchens across the rear courtyard, presumably to feed the child, so he gave it no more thought.
"Days spilled one over into another and the madame was soon confined to her bed, her weak heart preventing her from leaving the house. She would take breakfast in the courtyard every morning with myself and the babe; Aimee would hover at her side until she was finished picking at her eggs and beignets, then hustle her back into her bed until one morning, the faithful maid went into labor and it was I who was forced to take the madame to her room while the coachman was sent for a doctor."
Ciel leaned bodily over the desk, arms folded in front of him, chin resting at the cross of limbs. His unabashed interest in Sebastian's story was unnerving the demon butler. In one aspect, it was quite beguiling; in light of that fact, however, Sebastian had never seen the boy take any form of entertainment—especially lengthy ones—this close to heart. He continued.
The old woman tugged at the demon's sleeve as he settled her against her down pillows in her richly garbed bed. "Tell me I am doing the right thing for that babe," she pleaded, her milky eyes tearing up suddenly.
"What ever do you mean, Aunt?"
"You and I both know that I have no nephew. But something outside myself told me to take the two of you in. I hold no ill will against you—you have a foreign flavor. And I know that even if you tell yourself you haven't taken that child because you felt the need to, you will do right by her and care for her and love her. You are not of this world, be it New Orleans or Earth. But you have a heart demon."
He pulled away slightly, taken aback by her words, and she leaned up, leveling her bony finger to his aristocratic nose. "You'll do right by her, and Aimee. And damn that sorry coachman of mine for I've not had the heart to toss him out on his ear. He is bad news. A human, but he is not very good at it. Get rid of him when you take over my house."
"Yes, Madame. Is there anything else you would like to share with me? I fear you've made my heart weak with your revelations."
The old woman smiled and settled back against her pillows. "A few years ago, I bumped into a beautiful Mulatto woman shopping for her master. She gasped when she brushed against me. When I asked if she was all right, she asked forgiveness for what she was about to tell me. I told her it was not necessary. She proceeded to describe with utter detail every single occurrence that has transpired in this house in the last three weeks. I would have assumed she was conflicted...insane. Except for the conviction in her eyes and the tremble of her hand..." the madame closed her eyes and lay her head back against the satin. "...the fear in her voice when she said the word 'demon'; that is what convinced me she spoke the truth."
"Cybille is her daughter."
"I thought so."