The Star Sisters
When two sisters find a terrible secret at the heart of the Paris Catacombs, they must fight to survive the deadly trials of a capricious king. Complete at 110,000 words, The Star Sisters is a YA contemporary fantasy that examines the beauty and wickedness of sisterhood. Inspired by and written with my own sister, this novel is a gothic feminist fairytale that brings queer stories, intercultural mythology and mental health struggles to the forefront of the genre. It is currently under consideration for publication.
Image: Alessia Cocconi
A little known fact; the real Paris is full of dead people.
There isn’t a soul alive nor dead who can doubt the undeniable beauty of La Ville Lumière. How could one even venture to try?
How many countless songs have been penned in the city’s honour, arguing as to whether her beauty is at its fullest during autumn, in the rain or at midnight?
How many writers have fallen madly for her soft sensuality, her blood-sodden history, her romantic magnetism?
How many innumerable visitors have felt a tremor in their soul upon entering her labyrinthine streets, caught up in a starry-eyed daydream and wholly assured that in another life, they lived in this city where life is art and red wine fills one’s veins instead of blood?
No, there is not a soul who can say Paris is not beautiful.
What few people know, though, is that the real Paris cannot be found in the gilded gold grandeur of Palais Garnier, nor the pale stoicism of Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, nor even the piercing splendour of Le Tour Eiffel as it perpetually rends the city’s vast iron sky in two.
The true heart of Paris slumbers deep beneath the cobblestones like seeds in dark soil, eyes shut to the chaos of the world above. She rests in a place where light cannot find her and where tourists cannot photograph her. She does not care for your songs or poems.
Safe from prying eyes is the dark Paris, the forbidden Paris, the dead Paris; a sprawling maze of crumbling underground catacombs lined with the bones of the 6 million souls who loved her before, spreading out beneath the city like veins of black ink in water. Below the stones that saw the revolution lie endless miles of sinuous tunnels, walls built from the remnants of those who once walked the streets above and whose duty it is to watch over her heart with empty eyes. Guarded by the whispered stories of generations gone by, beneath the watchful gaze of the dead, Paris softly sleeps.
However, something old has begun to move again in the dark recesses of the city’s netherworld — tendrils of shadow unfurling from the bone cathedral and snaking ever upwards to the world above. Though Paris has forgotten the darkness’s name, she feels the thing stirring, murmuring, turning over.
Waking up.
Now, the only question that remains is this… Are you brave enough to venture below?
Chapter 1
Giselle Isidore loved 3 AM with a sort of ferocity.
In that strange hour – just before the bakers start placing dough in hot ovens, ready for the morning rush, or before the garbage trucks begin their trundling journey around the streets – she was the heroine of her favourite novels. The sort of wild girl that people write poems about. A girl no one could ever forget. No matter how heavy or awkward she was in the daylight, at 3 AM, Paris was all hers.
As the blinking red numbers of her alarm clock clicked from 2:56 AM to 2:57 AM, Giselle wound a thick green scarf around her neck and huddled into its warmth. Tiptoeing over the attic’s creaking floorboards towards the door, she sent up a silent prayer that tonight, the aged wood wouldn’t betray her. She was down the stairs and almost to the front door when the sound of clinking china made her halt.
“Bit late to be sneaking out, isn’t it?”
The voice was soft, not unkind, but with a bite of metal beneath. As Giselle’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could see a small form perched atop a red velvet chaise in the dark parlour. In a weak pool of sputtering moonlight, the old woman sipped masala chai and regarded the escapee from across the room with a dry expression. Through the dark scent of cloves and cardamom, Giselle spotted a deck of tarot cards spread out upon the low coffee table.
“Mimi, what are you doing up?” whispered Giselle to the dark figure across the room, though the answer was always the same. Giselle padded across the Persian rug and sat beside her grandmother on the couch.
“You know how powerful a full moon reading is. Have to make use of my time with her while I can,” Mimi replied, lips quirking. Eyes bright and hair still thick beneath a loosely draped pashmina, Mimi had the regal beauty of an ancient empress. A beauty, she always told Giselle, that once had all the young men of Casablanca falling at her feet. Now, though, she was simply Giselle’s grandmother and Montmartre’s most esteemed shawafa; local witch and traditional medicine woman trusted by all for her herbal remedies, spiritual guidance and preternatural ability to brew visitors the best cup of coffee in all the 20 arrondissements.
“So where are you off to then?” asked Mimi with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m meeting Mikael tonight. We’re going to a bar to hang out with some friends.”
“Ah, I was young and pretty too once,” reminisced her grandmother with a wistful sigh. “I know what it’s like to sneak out of the house to meet young men at all hours of the night,” she said with a wink. “Listen, I won’t tell your mother you’re running around after dark comme une vagabonde if you don't tell her that I let you sneak off. I was never here and could not have done a thing to stop you. I just want one thing before you sneak off.”
Giselle glanced at her watch, the seconds ticking away. 3:11 AM. She was going to be late. “What is it?” asked Giselle, hoping she wouldn’t have to do extra housework or go in search of some obscure herb.
“Let me read your cards while the moon’s up.”
“Mimi, I would but …”
“No excuses, humour me.”
“Ok, fine,” she sighed, swivelling to the table. “Tell me what’s coming.”
Satisfied, Mimi shuffled the tarot cards with the flair of a travelling magician. She proceeded to cut the deck into three even stacks and lay them out for Giselle to see.
“Just a simple three-card spread tonight,” she said, fixing dark eyes upon her granddaughter. “I know you’ve got boys to charm. Go on, choose one.”
Giselle laughed, reaching out for a card. She knew this reading inside out. The left card indicated the past, the centre the present and the right the future. She flipped the thick card face up as Mimi glanced at it.
“Ah,” her grandmother murmured knowingly. “Our old friend The Hermit. No surprise there, huh?”
Giselle always got this card in every single one of Mimi’s readings. The wizened old man stood atop a snowy mountain, staff and lamp in his outstretched hands as if to ward against the oncoming night. The Hermit had followed her throughout her adolescence, his downward cast eyes a sign of introspection, loneliness and isolation.
Giselle reached for the top card from the centre pile. Her grandmother always said that the cards had a funny way of bringing their predictions to fruition, as if the future didn’t like being proven wrong. As she looked down at The Tower card now, she could only hope it wasn’t true. It seemed her grandmother held the same hope, for she made a small humming noise of concern upon reading the card’s title. The Tower was a card of chaos and upheaval. Upon the card, a tall spire sat atop a rocky mountain besieged by lightning and fire. Two figures leapt from the crumbling structure, desperate to flee from the carnage and unthinking as to the consequences of their leap, caught in a moment of flight before their bodies inevitably broke upon the rocks below. As far as Giselle knew, nothing so tragic had happened in her recent past or present. That could mean only one thing; something world-shifting was coming, and soon. Moving onto the last stack, she flipped the gold paper to reveal a card that made her stop.
Death.
Giselle drew her eyebrows together as she contemplated the card before her. The card depicted an armoured skeleton holding a flag high as he perched atop a great white horse. The card meant many things but was usually representative of transformation, great change and endings. Though it very rarely foreshadowed literal death, it was a far from comforting card to draw. Especially after The Tower.
“Well, that’s not very reassuring, is it?” mused her grandmother from beside her. The old woman searched her eyes, looking for something Giselle could not name.
“But what does it mean?” Gigi asked.
“The cards are just a mirror through which we might see ourselves. But sometimes our reflection is not always kind. Just… take care, will you?” She put a soft hand on Giselle’s, concern in her voice. “Are you sure you want to go out tonight? You might not like what you find.”
Giselle paused for a moment. She could take her grandmother’s words to heart and stay in, but where would that leave her? Alone, as before. No, opportunities like tonight didn't come around often. She owed it to herself to see where this went.
“Don’t tempt me, I’m already a recluse. I’ll be safe, don’t worry.”
“Very well,” she said, stooping down to gather her cards. “I think it's time for me to go to bed. They say too much time in the moonlight makes a woman mad.” She kissed Giselle on her cheek and moved to leave, leaving a trail of rose perfume in her wake. Before she could reach the stairs, she turned to look back at her granddaughter once more through the growing gloom.
“Take care,” she whispered, before trudging off to bed. Giselle lingered a moment longer in the darkness of the parlour as she gathered her discordant thoughts. The silence of the room was clamouring and oppressive without her grandmother beside her.
What did her grandmother’s reading mean? Her phone beeped once more, another text from Mikael no doubt. She would have time to pore over the meaning of the cards and her grandmother’s warning later.
She was late for a date. A date with the dead.
She stood, grasping for her bag, before quietly padding across the lounge, tugging her boots on and silently slipping out the front door into the frozen night.