Prologue / The pact
1988
Gabriel, on the balcony of his room, gazed sadly at the horizon. His blue eyes were fixed on the setting sun, and the autumn breeze tousled his brown hair. This morning, he had buried the man who had upended his life and broken his heart. He found it hard to believe that Jacques was no longer there.
For a moment, he closed his eyelids, silently mourning, a hand pressed against his mouth. His lips twisted in pain when a voice heavy with sorrow spoke to him. He shook his head, unable to open the imaginary door that had offered him wonderful moments to come. He had the ability to see slices of people’s lives that he interacted with. While he couldn’t control his visions, he could at least block them, denying them access to his memory.
Gabriel simply didn’t have the strength to believe in his gifts anymore. He simply couldn’t—not after losing him, and especially not after what Jacques had said before his death.
“Dad?” called one of his 23-year-old girl twins. “Hugo and his friends are here. ”
“Give me a couple more minutes, then let them into the living room,” he said, quickly wiping his cheeks.
Feeling her presence behind him, Gabriel took a moment to breathe deeply, hoping to release his grief and maintain some semblance of well-being.
“Can it wait until tomorrow if you prefer?” Julie whispered, her hand resting on his shoulder.
Gabriel turned to her, a faint smile on his lips. His daughter was pregnant, despite the loss they were going through. He was about to become a grandfather for the second time; his first girl twin had given birth to a little girl, Nina, and he was delighted to learn that Julie was expecting a boy.
His daughters, now beautiful young women, had inherited their late mother’s brown hair and warm smile. However, they had inherited the color of his eyes, an extremely vivid blue. This distinctive trait was a sign of their mediumship, an ability that could be both a source of support and sorrow.
“No, my dear, it’s fine.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for what he said,” she murmured, caressing his cheek.
Gabriel held her delicate hand in his and gazed at her for a few seconds before responding with a trembling voice, “Jacques didn’t deserve to die this way…”
He suddenly closed his eyes, let go of his daughter, and pinched the bridge of his nose. The image of Jacques’s battered body, covered in crimson fluid and lying on the green grass, haunted him. It had been shocking to discover that moment. Gabriel shook his head, annoyed, all because his friend hadn’t denied his attraction to men, which had disturbed some narrow minds.
Gabriel felt guilty too, because he hadn’t accepted his feelings. Out of fear, he had refused to develop the secret love he felt for him. Then, on the day everything changed, he had cried while holding the lifeless body close to him and whispered in his ear how much he loved him. But it hadn’t been enough to calm Jacques’s spirit, who, in a final breath, had uttered a threat. “Gabriel. It’s your little musketeer gang. I’ll curse them so thoroughly that…”
“Dad?”
Gabriel snapped out of his thoughts and attempted to smile.
“Go ahead, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
At forty-three, he had never thought that he would fall in love again, let alone with a man. As for Jacques, at thirty-nine, he left behind a teenager. What fascinated him about this man was that he possessed the same gifts as he did. It was in those moments that he wished he could have a vision, but it didn’t work when it concerned his personal life.
“Gabriel?”
He frowned as he saw Jacques’s son standing at the door of his room, a precious object in his hand.
“What are you doing with the grimoire?” he asked in frustration.
“I haven’t read it,” the fourteen-year-old mumbled.
Gabriel, his heart pounding with anxiety, locked eyes with the dark gray eyes filled with sadness, but the indescribable glimmer he saw reminded him of Jacques’s insolent gaze.
“What have you done?” he exclaimed, somewhat panicked, as if the young man had torn all the pages.
“There’s something you don’t know about him. About us,” his interlocutor stammered. “It’s true that we seem to have a gift of foresight, but it’s false.”
“I don’t understand,” he managed to ask, a lump in his throat.
“To put it in your terms, I no longer have anything; I’ve transferred everything to the spellbook,” the boy suddenly cried, handing him the object. “I had to do it, or else…”
Gabriel took the object in his hand, and as soon as he touched it, he fell to his knees. Images flashed in his mind, and voices echoed in his ears against his will. There were shouts of anger, broken friendships, and impending deaths. The musketeer gang, as these young men liked to call themselves, was falling apart in his vision. Their own children were destined to despise each other to the point that Hugo and his friends would hate each other.
Gabriel, his heart torn, shook his head. He didn’t understand. He hadn’t seen this. Nothing was supposed to happen the way he had just seen it.
“To counter my father’s curse,” the teenager continued, “I told the truth to the boys, and we sealed a pact.”
“A curse, a pact?” Gabriel repeated as he straightened up.
“Yes.”
He didn’t understand this story at all. Jacques was like him, seeing things that no one else could: so how could a teenager be able to transfer his gift into a simple grimoire?
“Gabriel? All you need to know is that we have to wait for the right intersections to come together, where everything should have continued, not split. I know this because my father taught me before he acted as he did! I just regret that he misinterpreted my friends’ presence that day.”
On this point, Gabriel agreed with him. Jacques, who must have been attacked by surprise, had believed that the three young men were his assailants, and today, his visions had darkened, leaving no ray of sunshine to brighten their lives.
“Anyway,” Jacques’s son continued with a clear voice, “it’s too late. Hugo and his friends have accepted it.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, struggling to understand what the young man was telling him. “ You’re much younger than they are, and, most importantly, you’re not part of their gang.”
“Yes, on the contrary,” he revealed, an enigmatic smile playing at the corners of his lips. “I am D’Artagnan.”
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This is my first story that I am translating into English, apart from my fanfictions which were a training. I know it’s not perfect, the goal is to share my stories, and I hope it’s not too wonky…
