"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes." The brunette grinned patting Bonnie on her back. "Did you get my coffee?"
"Of course." She handed the large brown paper cup to Marie-Claire. "Is everything ready?"
"Always in such a hurry! It's Le Carnaval, we should be celebrating." She started to push Bonnie towards the large crowd gathered around a big ice sculpture.
"We don't have time for this, Marie-Claire. Where's Joseph?"
"Probably off sulking somewhere, you know the undead are always drowning in self pity."
"Is he with her?"
"Bonnie, you insult me!" She put her hand over her heart in mock anguish. "We haven't let her out our sight."
Bonnie motioned for her to get in the car and Marie-Claire gave one last longing look towards the crowds before hopping in. The car ride was long and silent, traffic was busy and many of the roads were closed off. They drove out of the city onto dirt roads, Bonnie momentarily thought that such a nice sports car wasn't supposed to be driven into frozen forests but grinned when she remembered it wasn't her car. Eventually they rolled up to an old decrypted house way past it's prime but well hidden from the city.
"Home sweet home."
"I made cookies!" Elena smiled holding up a plate of soft warm cookies. Bonnie had just walked in the door and nearly screamed when her old friend jumped out and surprised her. Griffin chuckled and dropped his keys in a dish by the door before heading out of the room to give the girls some time alone. Bonnie looked at the plate of cookies, her favorite, double chocolate and her mouth watered a bit in the memory of their taste but her stomach was craving something else. "Oh…I guess you can't really have these…"
"It was really nice of you to make them!" She quickly replied seeing the sad look on Elena's face.
"I guess I just forgot…"
"It's okay, you know there's a little girl down the hall who would love these." She smiled really big hoping Elena would like the idea. She thought about it looking from Bonnie to the plate and back again before giving a small smile herself and nodding. They walked out the door and into the hallway, Elena turned left but Bonnie quickly turned her around to the right. They knocked on the door and waited but nobody answered, Bonnie explained Suzie liked to play by the pool sometimes and that they should look there.
As they walked down the stairs Elena started explaining the plot of the movie she had watched earlier that day. They reached the first floor and headed outside, the lights just being turned on to help push away the night's darkness. They were passing Mrs. Duffield's door when her dog started barking at the two friends. An old brown mutt with one bum leg, Jerry, usually a nice dog but got very grumpy if Mrs. Duffield was late feeding him. Jerry jumped towards the pair his chain straining to keep him in place, Bonnie ignored him having gotten used to the dog over the years. She would have kept walking if it weren't for the load bang she heard behind her.
The plate had slipped out of Elena's hand shattering on the ground, the cookies exploding out in crumbs. The blonde looked at the small canine her eyes wide and unblinking, when the dog barked again her hands shot up to cover her ears and she let out a pained hiss.
"Elena?"
"Too loud."
"Are you okay?" Bonnie put her hand over Elena's and felt that she was digging her nails into her scalp. "Elena, what's going on?"
"Nothing." She blinked, suddenly calm again, looking down at the shattered plate with mild disappointment. "I'm fine."
Damon and Stefan ditched their car a few miles from the border, which upset Stefan a bit since it was Damon who insisted they take the most expensive rental and charge it on Stefan's credit card. Damon was right that crossing the border would be better on foot, the last thing they needed were custom officers and the police causing a fuss, even with compulsion it would've have taken more time then they had.
They still had a lot of ground to cover.
"We're do we start…" Stefan looked at the map they had picked up at a corner store. The snow was starting to soak through his boots and even though he couldn't feel the cold it was uncomfortable.
"Well, we can exclude the northern part of the state-"
"Province." Stefan corrected, scribbling over the top half of the map. Demon gave him an annoyed look, telling him it wasn't the time for technicalities. "What?"
"Never mind." He looked down at the map, they had eliminated half of the province and still had an area twice the size of Texas to search. No other leads. "Well…it's near that coffee shop, I don't suppose that narrows it down at all?"
Stefan typed something into his cell phone before turning it towards Demon, showing a map littered in dots. "Over 400 just in this area alone."
"Okay, Okay." He waved him off and continued looking at the thin paper of the map running his finger over the tiny roads printed on it. "She'd avoid the big cities, it be too easy to find her."
"But she couldn't go into a small town either, strangers stick out."
"So what else is left?" Needle in a hay stack, Damon sighed to himself.
"If you just had GPS in your car like a normal person we'd know were she is."
"If you don't-" Damon began but stopped when he felt something vibrate in his back pocket. He pulled out Bonnie's phone and saw a new text from the same number as before, meaning that she had yet to tell anyone she no longer had it, hopefully meaning she had yet to reach her destination.
It's Joseph, Marie-Claire will meet you instead. Take the back roads so avoid Le Carnaval. Bonne chance.
"Carnival? Who has a carnival in the middle of winter?"
"How many days until Easter?" Stefan asked.
"Hell if I know." He shrugged. "I haven't had a chance to celebrate much in the last few centuries."
"Lent will be starting soon."
"You think it's like the carnival back home, the one in Venice?"
"Lot of cathedrals in this city, probably a lot of Catholics too." Damon thought it was probably a long shot but they didn't have anything else to go with. They walked over to a tourist center; Damon talked up the young lady at the desk, full of his usual charm while Stefan began to look through the pamphlets hanging of the wall. It didn't take him long to find one with a Big snowman on it and big red letters across it saying 'Le Carnaval'. He turned around just in time to see the girl hand Damon her car keys and giggle when he whispered something to her.
"We need to go to Quebec City…you know we could have just rented another car Damon, you didn't have to take hers."
"What's the fun in that?"
"I don't even know how to answer that." Bonnie accepted the hot cup of coffee the girl offered her. "I've never even heard of a situation like this."
"I was told you could help, Marie."
"Marie-Claire." She gave Bonnie a look of annoyance before looking over the papers she had given her. "Talking to spirits, possession, even making them visible to the human eye that's all up my alley. But you're talking about bringing back flesh and blood. That's the kind of things they write fairy tales about."
"I'm not lying."
"Let's just pretend I do believe you." She held up a picture of Elena from high school and examined it like it held all the answers. "This is very dark magic."
"I don't know how it happened. I thought the other spirits had given her back."
"How long have you been like…like this?" She motioned up and down Bonnie's body and tried to not let her slight disgust show through.
"I haven't been a vampire long. I was only practicing magic a few years when Elena was brought back."
"Bonnie." She grimaced picking up a new picture of Elena that was taken not long after Bonnie was turned. "Magic is all about give and take. Sure little magic, things like tracking spells and beginners summoning spells, those you can do easy but this is big. You can't take something like this from the other side and not give something back. That's why people don't do this, besides the fact it takes so much power it's dangerous."
"What do you mean?"
"You ever heard of Ishtar? She convinced someone in the underworld to let her come back but she had to put someone back in her place. It not the only story, there's one in every society since the dawn of time. Hell even Harry Potter has stories about the consequences of bringing back the dead."
"What can I do?"
"Kill her. Put her back where she'd supposed to be."
"No."
"Something bad will happen Bonnie. I can guarantee it."
"I can't kill her she's been my friend since forever."
"No she was you're friend now she's a sack of skin walking around like a ticking time bomb ready to go off."
"No, that's not even an option."
"It will be. You'll see, it seems hard now but you'll realize that it's what has to be done."
"And if I don't?"
"I will."
Things are starting to heat up now!
Two notes for this chapter. One I know in chapter 11 I said that when they found Bonnie she was near New Jersey, but I went back and changed it to Vermont. I figured it's close enough to the border that it be easier to guess where she was going, while if it were NJ she really could have been going anywhere.
Second note this Carnival that was mentioned is the winter carnival held in Quebec city every year. Everyone celebrates it now, but originally it was to celebrate the time leading up to Lent (the 40 days before Easter) were people usually fast. The carnival Damon mentions is held in Venice, Italy every Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) which some of you might call Pancake Tuesday, the day that people gorge themselves with whatever they're about to give up for lent.
A not for future chapters, there might be a sentence or two in French. I'm trying to keep it authentic while still understandable for everyone. I'll post translation at the end of the chapter but it'll such a small part you'll probably be able to figure out what was said without knowing French. If you do understand French but don't understand something that is said, it's probably because the character is speaking Canadian (specifically Quebecois) French, so there might be some differences. Like in this chapter I used 'Bonne chance' but I know in France a different expression is used to wish someone 'good luck'
Thanks for all you're wonderful support :), I'll try to update soon! Please Review ^-^