I'm so so so sorry about the long wait! You see, with school and everything the only time I really have to type is on the weekends, and for the past two weekends I've literally been unable to leave my desk thanks to all the work I've had. Luckily, we had a snow day today so I could use it to work on this. I decided to stick with first person. It was a tough decision, but when I tried to write in third person I discovered that I had a really hard time getting out of Evangeline's head once I was already in it. I kept switching back and forth between the POVs as I wrote, so I figured it must have been a sign that I should just stick with Evangeline's POV.

Thanks to those who reviewed Chapter 5: lizziemagic, ForeverACharmedOne, maramouse, 5livelaughlove5, sssweetie, Katie Shmatie, haruko sohma, Carlint, and AmyNW. Love you guys!

"Why are guys such jerks?" I mused as I bundled deeper into my plush winter coat. "I mean really? Give me a scientific explanation. I want to know."

"Testosterone." Ruth answered blankly. We each considered it for a moment, walking in perfect synchronized steps down the avenue.

I kicked at a loose rock on the sidewalk, an unusually unladylike action for me. "Well I hate it."

"I can't believe Robby tried that on you." Mary huffed. Only she and Ruth were with me that day. Virginia's aunt had died, and the funeral was all the way in Georgia. "And I used to think he was cute!" Ruth and I stared at her, eyebrows raised and mouths open. Mary did a double take at us and mimicked our expressions. "What? I meant before the whole cheating thing.

Ruth rolled her eyes. "Guys are pigs."

"Here, here." I agreed. "I mean, he pledged his heart and soul to me."

"And then you caught him making out with that wh-,"

"Mary!"

Mary remembered she was in a public place and lowered her voice, "Um, girl."

It was New Year's day, eight days since the Christmas Eve Ball. The streets were strewn with confetti and broken beer bottles that had been tossed aside carelessly by their drunken owners. Many of the stores were having special New Year sales, and since rations had been renewed, everyone was out buying a new pair of shoes or rejoicing at the thought of getting butter. Ruth had been able to buy herself a few yards of fabric.

"You know, Ruthie," Mary changed the subject, "you could just wait to get back to school to sew. They just give us material."

"That cheap stuff? Not a chance. Old Lady Richardson doesn't have a clue what she's doing in that class."

"But still." She got distracted and waved flirtatiously had some boys in suits walking by, giggling like an idiot when one winked at her.

"Mary-y." I groaned.

"What?"

"Why do you have to fall for every guy who crosses your path." I at least had an excuse to be a little irritable. The possibilities of what could've happened that night had Daniel not shown up kept playing through my mind over and over.

"Well I have to start looking for a husband. It can't hurt to keep my options open."

"You're eighteen. You have time." I reminded her, but she brushed me off with a flick of her hand.

"Not really. My sister's hardly a day over 22 and she's just had her second son. I want that." Mary looked off in the distance. Her eyes glazed over and her mouth curved into a dreamy smile.

Ruth snapped her fingers in front of Mary's face. "Snap out of it. You don't have to do everything Anna does."

We bickered for a few minutes, each of us giving our two cents about the best time to get married. Mary voted for ASAP. Ruth said she would marry only after she started her own store so she wouldn't be tied down with whiny toddlers clinging to her ankles. I decided to be general and said later, after men's brains caught up with their bodies. Ruth pointed out that that may never happen.

We were so caught up in our debate, that we didn't even notice the man slinking up toward us. "Ladies!" We jumped, suddenly aware of the skinny, slightly creepy man that was tipping his tall black hat displaying a skull and crossbones toward us. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Facilier! Care to help a poor old sinner out by indulging in a bit of entertainment. Just a few parlor tricks, nothing to worry about."

He smiled at us in a strangely charismatic way. I wasn't sure if it was the dark circles under his eyes, or the way he dressed, or how he had come out of a questionable dark alley, but something about that man scared me. Unfortunately, nothing about him seemed to scare Mary.

"You mean like magic tricks?" She squealed. The man flinched, but only for a second.

"That's right, little lady. Just step into my office, and I'll show you things beyond your wildest dreams. I can read you future, read your palm, or even read your soul." He chuckled eerily, holding out his hand down the alley.

"I don't know-," Ruth started to protest, but Mary was already prancing down the shadowy walkway. He looked at us expectantly and I sighed.

"I guess we have time." I looked at Ruth, who just shrugged her shoulders and started following Mary. Dr. Facilier led us down the alley to a decorated door that had symbols and marking etched into the peeling paint. It creaked when it opened and the echo made my ears twitch.

There was a circular table in one section of the large, candle-lit room we entered. It was through a beaded curtain and raised above the rest of the room. The walls were covered in alien-like masks and there were shelves piled high with jars and odd collectables. The whole place smelled strongly of incense. "Please," Dr. Facilier said as he drew back the bead curtain, "take a seat, and take a card." Faster than I would have thought possible, he was pulling out a chair for himself. I looked at Ruth uneasily as he pulled a deck of card from thin air and spread it out in his hands. "Just take three." The voodoo man instructed.

Against my better judgment, we obeyed, though it took much longer than necessary. Mary couldn't decide which cards she should take. She finally settled on three, but only after our host urged her to finish up. I looked at my cards expectantly, but they were nothing but ordinary suits; a jack of spades, an eight of diamonds, and a three of spades. Dr. Facilier took Mary's cards first, and revealed to us that hers had small illustrations on them, depicting her life. According to the cards, Mary was always in the shadow of her sister and brother from birth, a fact that was indeed true. He must have heard us talking about it when we walked up.

But we never mentioned her brother.

He went on to the present, telling Mary what she already knew, that she wanted to be through with school so she could get married and start a family. He moved on the to last card, which showed a woman holding a book and surrounded by children clutching at her skirt. "You will have many children indeed, each one special in their own way." Dr. Facilier explained. I could almost see Mary salivating as she stared wide eyed at the cards.

Next was Ruth. Her first card, Dr. Facilier explained, told us that Ruth had a well-developed talent from a young age, one that gave her good marks in school and helped her excel. The next said that school was constricting her, and with the war going on she couldn't reach her full potential. Ruth showed no emotion at the first cards. She knew that stuff already, and she didn't need some crazed magic man to remind her of her troubles. But, when the last card came up depicting a woman surrounded by photographers and magazines, she couldn't hold back the small hopeful smile that graced her lips. "You'll get all the credit you deserve, and your talent will not be wasted. The world will know your name, and everything you do will be seen and heard."

He finished, and turned to me. I grazed my fingers over my cards again, worried. My cards showed no pictures, told no stories. They were just ordinary. What did that mean. Before I could have my question answered, Ruth asked one of her own. "How do you know all this?"

Dr. Facilier said nothing for a moment and looked up at his overly-decorated walls. The masks stared back at him with their grim wooden faces. "I got friends on the other side." He smiled at us. "And they give me the power to see everything, to know all." He said nothing more, and gracefully swiped up my cards. They rested in his hands for no more than a few seconds as he studied them, then he spread them out on the table for us all to see. My eyebrows shot up when I saw that they were no longer simple numbers, but, like the others, they too were illustrated. Impressive.

The first card showed two people, a man and a woman, in regal dress looking down on a blanketed baby. Glancing over at Ruth and Mary, I found they were as confused as I. I didn't recognized those people at all.

Dr. Facilier didn't look very normal either. "You were born into a good family," He began slowly, "but hard times forced them to give you up. You were brought to a different country and put in the care of their good friend." Okay, that was sort of plausible. I knew I was adopted, but Aunt Charlotte had never told me much about my parents, and I had never pressed the issue much.

He put his long finger on the next card, his mouth turned into a firm frown. This one showed a girl who looked annoyingly like me set in front of a night sky, sadly discarding a rose. A single bright star shone just above her head. "Now you're livin' the high life, safely distant from the war and oblivious to your origins. You once believed in the fairytales your guardian loves so much, but a bad relationship changed your mind and made you bitter."

"I'll say." Mary chirped, and I shot her a glare.

"But," He was on the last card. It showed the same girl in a mess of confusion, stuck between one world and another. A broken heart and a healed one conflicted behind her. "Soon you'll learn things you never thought you'd know. You'll question your past and have a hopeful new future awaiting you, but you have to know how to accept it. And perhaps," He watched me carefully. I could feel his dark eyes on me, "things won't turn out quite the way you or anyone else expects them to."

Okay, I was officially creeped out. Ruth and Mary were giving me weird looks and Dr. Facilier wouldn't stop staring, like he was trying to see something in me. We stayed like that for a long while, though whether it was seconds or minutes or hours I couldn't tell. Finally, Ruth gathered her bags and pushed herself free from the table. "Well, it's getting late. Our parents will be waiting…," She turned to Mary on her left and then to me on her right, sternly twitching her eyes to tell us to get out of there.

I hopped up quickly, glad to be rid of the voodoo nonsense. "Yes, you're right."

"Here," Mary dropped a couple bills on the table so they covered up my cards, "Thank you for the magic tricks. They were really neat."

"No," Dr. Facilier murmured softly, "Thank you." I was out of there faster than a cat in a dog park. Oh shoot…I'm turning into Aunt Lotte.

The bright sunlight on the street was all too welcoming when we plunged ourselves out of the filthy alley. As I savored the crisp, cold air, I realized how hard I was panting. Ruth put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around to face her. "Are you okay?" She asked, her expression full of worry.

"I'm fine," I said, though I didn't sound very convincing. "It's just…you and Mary's cards were so spot on and…your futures were so happy. Mine…I don't know what to make of it. And what about my parents? My real parents. I always figured they were dead or something."

Ruth tightened her grip on my shoulders to bring me back to reality. "You don't actually believe all that mumbo jumbo do you?"

"No," I snapped, "but how did he know so much about you two?"

"I don't know." Ruth admitted. "I probably heard us talking about Mary's sister, and maybe we mentioned John too. I can't remember. Plus, he could have seen my bags from the fabric store. That would have tipped him off. All of it was just a series of lucky guesses, that's all."

But he still knew I was adopted. "Yeah, I guess."

"But he did have a point about you turning bitter. You used to love thinking you could have a fairytale romance, and all that cheery stuff." Ruth put her finger to her cheek as she remembered a previous me, a happier me.

"I'm not that girl anymore." I waved my hand irately, as if pushing away the memories. "That girl left with Robby George."

"Now that that's settled," Mary interjected, eager to get away before we started fighting, I'm sure. "Mom's expecting me home for dinner. We're having some friends over and they're bringing their son!" So we set off for home. We were all exhausted from our long day of walking, and our feet were sore by the time we reached our street. Ruth and Mary lived next door to each other, and their houses were the first we came to. Mine was a couple blocks down.

As I've mentioned before, it was a quiet street, but a few straggling pedestrians were still trickling into their respective homes. The sun wasn't yet gone, but its fiery edge was skimming the western rooftops and sending long shadows over the city. I looked up at the green, blue and purple tinged sky. It was like a rainbow, red at the horizon and shifting to violet at the highest point. The Evening Star was already up, and its left hand companion was starting to shine along with it. The Second Star to the Right, she'd once heard the Evening Star called. Like the star in Peter Pan.

"Hey!" I didn't see the man I walked into until both of us were stumbling backwards.

"I'm sorry!" I gasped, rubbing my arm where I'd run into a fence.

"Watch where you're going will ya- Evangeline?"

My head snapped up. "Daniel Benoit?" It was him all right, one arm rubbing the back of his neck as he righted himself on the sidewalk. There was a silent moment between us, more awkward than anything else, as we each checked ouselves for injuries.

"What are you doing walking around with your head turned up like that? You'll get yourself killed." He lectured me suddenly, sounding like some overprotective brother.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Well if you were paying attention you would have simply dodged me, so I suppose we're both at fault here."

"Touché. Are you alone?" He looked around then back at me, though the answer to his question was obvious.

"No, I'm with you, of course."

It was his turn to roll his eyes. "It's almost night, and you're walking the streets alone. Not even this neighborhood is totally safe this time of day." He put his hand on the small of my back, his touch sending shivers up my spine. "I'll escort you home."

I jerked away from him. "Oh, so because I'm a girl means I can't fend for myself? I don't need your chivalry." Daniel grabbed my wrist before I could start to walk away.

"No," His voice was soothing. It bugged me. I didn't want to be soothed. "I'm just stating a fact. Do I need to remind you what almost happened on Christmas Eve?" No, he didn't.

I sighed deeply, giving him as much of the evil eye as I could muster. Darn his stupid handsome face. "You're not going to budge are you?"

"No, Miss La Bouff, I am not." He said smugly.

"Fine. You have the privilege of escorting me home. It's not far anyway." He offered his arm, but I ignored it and started walking on my own. I heard him jogging up beside me, but didn't turn my head when he started making conversation. "So what was going on between you and Robby?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, it seemed like you must have had some sort of past."

"Maybe we did, maybe we didn't, but I don't think it's any of your business." I looked at him from the corners of my eyes, but I didn't see arrogance or boredom like I would have seen in Robby. I saw genuine concern.

"I'm just trying to help," He said tenderly. We slowed our walk to a gentle stroll. A streetlight flickered on above us, sending golden streaks of light through our hair and across our cheeks. Daniel's face seemed to almost glow. "I remember my little sister gossiping about you two a while back. Didn't you go together?"

I let my hand slide along the iron fence that separated a private residence from the public. "Yes," My eyes looked down and studied the cracks in the cement. "For a while. But it ended months ago."

"Why?"

I didn't want to open my big mouth, but some force inside me willed it to happen. "I was heading over to his house. He said he was sick and couldn't make our date, so I thought I'd bring him some gumbo from Tiana's Palace. My Nana manages it, and with a little Tabasco that stuff can really clear up the sinuses. Anyway, I was walking to his place, and I passed this couple…kissing on a corner. It was Robby and some model he'd met, and I dumped him on the spot."

Daniel didn't say anything, and thankfully kept a nice gap in between us. "Wow, I'm sorry."

"It's fine." I said in a hushed voice. Then I whipped my head over at him, inexplicably angry. "Aren't you supposed to be heading back up to Yale or wherever it is you're going to school?"

"Columbia," He corrected, startled at the sudden change in subject. "And no…I'm not really going back this semester."

"You're not?" I raised my eyebrows.

"School's not for me." He said simply. "All those professors just droning on and on about theories and history when we could be out living it. I just can't stay cooped up like that."

"Then what are you going to do now?" Why do you care?, I asked myself. "Being in school, especially a school like Columbia, can keep you out of-,"

"Out of the war and away from the draft." Daniel finished my sentence for me. "Actually, I think I may join the military, go to Germany or Japan or wherever else they need me and see what happens."

"Are you crazy?" I grabbed his arm and we stopped under a streetlight, just looking at each other.

He shrugged, his eyes disappearing in a shadow for a second as he tilted his head. "Maybe. My parents certainly aren't keen on the idea, but why stay here? Nothing's keeping me here, and I like the idea of just winging it, going where life takes me."

"You'll get killed!" I raised my voice, wondering what in the world was appealing about running around with a gun while bombs explode all over the place.

He watched me calmly, our breaths puffing out foggy air in flawless unison. "Why do you care?" He asked me the same question I'd been trying to answer myself. "You're the girl who didn't want me to walk you home, or even dance with you."

I stammered, unable to combat his accusation. He was right. Why did I care? I didn't need another guy in my life. Let him go off to war, it wouldn't affect me.

But something in my head kept telling me that ignoring him was a very bad idea.

And then I remembered Robby. He broke my heart, and got my hopes up only to bury me alive in regrets and depression. That's just how guys were. They pretended to care about you, and then move on when they get tired of you. I wasn't about to waist my time on another sob story in the making.

"You need to lighten up, Evangeline." Daniel teased, winking his perfect - perfect? - green eye at me. "I think this is your house."

"I do not need to lighten up." I ignored the last thing he said, but glanced over my shoulder, confirming that we were, in fact, at my house.

"Sure you don't." He chuckled. "I guess we'll have to see. Tell you what, have lunch with me, next week. I'll show you the real way to live." It wasn't a request, or a command. It was just a sort of statement, and I found myself nodding yes.

"Wait," I said, suddenly remembering my schedule. "School starts next week. I can't." Was I really frantically trying to find a good time to meet him? Was I picturing my calendar, trying to figure out when I was free? I couldn't be. Did next weekend work? Why did I care?

"How about next Saturday, then?" He suggested. Saturday. Yes, Saturday worked.

"Okay." I agreed, fiddling with my hair nervously. My cheeks blushed pink as he took my hand and kissed it, like he had back at the dance. This time, though, it meant something more.

"See you then." And we parted, he walking in the direction we came from, and I walking up the driveway to my home. Nervous yet happy energy bubbled up inside me, and I couldn't help thinking about what I was going to wear. I occasionally caught myself and remembered not to get my hopes up again. There was no way I was going to make the same mistakes I had before. Besides, Daniel Benoit knew how to get on my nerves, and that meant I didn't like him. I couldn't. Could I?

"Have fun?" Aunt Lotte startled me by calling out from in front of the fire place in the living room. She was signing pay checks for the sugar mill employees when I came in.

"Tons." I said, giving her a real smile.

"Did you buy anything?" She peered at me then behind me, as if she expected me to be hiding shopping bags.

"No, Aunt Lotte, I didn't"

"Well why not?" She inquired. Apparently it was impossible for her to comprehend how one could walk into a store on not leave with something new.

"I didn't see anything I wanted is all." I assured her.

"Oh." I turned to head up to my room, but froze when she said, "Who was that you were talking to outside?"

I faced her again, and she was grinning triumphantly at me and bouncing excitedly as she waited for my answer. "Just Daniel Benoit." I'd always been horrible at trying to cover things up, so I gave up on even trying.

"Daniel Benoit?" She giggled and waggled a finger at me. "Reeeeally?"

"Oh stop it, Aunt Lotte. He's just a guy."

"Yeah. A cute guy. I approve."

"Aunt Lotte!" I suppressed a smile. "We're friends, that's all."

"Uh-huh. When's he taking you out?" How was she suddenly so smart?

"We're going to lunch next Saturday. As friends." I tried to emphasize the 'friends,' but Aunt Lotte seemed deaf to anything of the sort.

"Okayyyy." She said in a song-song voice.

I gave up and decided it was time for me to finally go up to my room, where I could think in private. "Good night, Aunt Lotte."

"Sweet dreams, sugar." I climbed the stairs leading to my tower room slowly, reflecting on the day's events. Aunt Lotte always said tower rooms were for princesses. I'd loved to pretend I was Rapunzel or Cinderella when I was little, trapped and waiting for my knight in shining armor to come rescue me.

Turning on the light, I removed my coat to hang it in my closet, but something fell out of the pocket as I placed it on the hanger. I bent down, carefully picking up the three square objects now lying on my carpet.

The cards?

Yes, the cards from the voodoo man's little show. I looked from the cards to my coat, wondering how they had gotten in my pocket. I certainly hadn't put them there. I turned one over and saw that it was the one representing my past, the one with the man and woman holding a baby. I squinted at it, drawing it toward my face so I could get a good look.

Upon close inspection, I noticed that the man and woman were both bearing golden crowns upon their heads.

They were royalty.

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