CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

Day-O 2: my Haiti novel-in-progress

As Promised, Gentle Readers, the next installment of my planning mind re my novel of Historic pre-Louisiana Purchase and St. Dominque. Here it is:





I.


Name: Venecey





Storyline Summary:


Venecey is a native of St. Domingue near the turn of the 19th century, raised in a family of Conjure and Vodoun, whose child born with her fated mate Etienne is marked by a Spirit of the Night who is also her own unrecognized father.





Concrete Goal:


Venecey is wholly focused on preserving and improving the life of her son and decides life in the New World would save him from the Conjure magic and Black Magic which destroyed so many of her own people in the past.





Abstract Goal:


Subconsciously she wants well away from her heritage, from the magical entities and magical practices which cost the lives of her uncle and others and which led to her own conception-although that she doesn’t yet know.





Conflict:


Venecey will never reach either goal; as strong as she is in personality and magically, the Spirit of the Night who fathered her is stronger and is determined to take her child. Also, she can’t escape her heritage: she is a child of magical practitioners through her mother’s line and the child of a Spirit of the Night as her father. She is doomed to live a life-and death-of magic.





Epiphany:


Venecey learns first that her love for Etienne is strong enough to be fated and can’t be overcome; secondly that her love for her child overwhelms even her own sense of survival. Lastly, she discovers the secret magical name of Le Docteur and will use it to curse him for eternity, at the end.





Storyline Summary:


Born in the late 18th century on the island of St. Domingue, Venecey is a native child in a family which has for many generations practiced Conjure Magic and Vodoun. She experiences the loss of her mother to illness and the loss of her Uncle Victoire to Black Magic, and she’s never known her father, who in actuality was a disguised Spirit of the Night who fathered her intentionally to sow the seed for the child Venecey will eventually bear, the Star Child. Fated to meet and love the not intellectual Etienne, the mating of the two produces Marc Christophe, the son for whom Venecey is willing to sacrifice her own life (as she will).





Description:


Physical:


Venecey is short, slim, wiry, but strong (picking cane, heavy housework), Afro of course, lighter-complected than her family (she has to have something which makes her stand out as not of the family line).


Emotional:


Strong-willed; determined; totally in love with Etienne (fated) but would sacrifice both him and herself to save Marc Christophe (see Ending). Hard-working, devoted to her child.





    Venecey is very single-minded: when she meets Etienne, she will brook no opposition to marrying and mating with him. Then when her child is born, her devotion transfers completely to him, even though she still loves Etienne. But Marc Christophe immediately becomes the major goal and priority of her life. This is actually true from the moment of conception, as she knows instinctively, as a mother and a Conjure Witch, when she conceives. From that point, nothing and no one matters to Venecey as much as her son.





(This will be true of Le Docteur also.)





    Since she is totally devoted to the child, she will brook no interference, but also her single-mindedness will blind her to any other possibilities. For example, when he is abducted by Le Docteur, she fights against him to get the infant back. She doesn’t consider the possibility of negotiations or shared custody or outside aid; all she can see is a blaze of red rage as she battles for her son’s life. Actually, Le Docteur has no intention of sacrificing the child, yet Venecey cannot see that; she “must” keep the child for herself, and no other possibility exists for her.





            Venecey’s goals change from first desiring to learn all her Arriere-GranMere can teach her (when she is a young child), to life with Etienne, to total devotion to her son, to saving her son. I think that at every stage she is motivated by forces beyond her control:





her childhood is marked by being a fatherless child, by the loss of her mother to illness, by the loss of her Uncle to Black Magic, and then by the training taught to her by Arriere-GranMere.





    When she meets Etienne she is powerless not to love him; when she conceives her son she is powerless to prevent that from becoming her entire life Purpose.





        Her motivation then changes from Family to Mate to Child, so it focuses more intently and shrinks in quantity but intensifies in quality.