Il Trono Verde e le ombre di Whitney
(The Green Throne and the Shadows of Whitney)
Part I: Il Trono Verde
The stench of greed was waiting.
And she was ready to sink her fangs into it.
As Aimee began to explore her room, the dreadful silence made Ethel Bourbon anxious to venture into the other rooms of the Olivier Hotel. He was naturally curious, as most kittens are. The Olivier House Hotel was a majestic masterpiece that reigned in shadows and historical richness, boasting an aristocratic past.
It was a palace built for debauchery, drenched in opulence, a shrine to hedonism where men indulged their most animalistic desires. A place built for men who took no for an answer, where women were beautiful objects, muses of inspiration—or demonized for their sexuality.
Aimee followed Ethel Bourbon through the corridors barefoot while the cat meowed as if to say, “Come, follow me.”
The corridors were magnificent: heavy glass chandeliers adorned the ceilings, marble floors reminiscent of Versailles, portraits of ghastly-looking women in brocade corsets and lace gloves.
You can tell these women never lifted a finger in their lives.
I’ve always wondered what it would feel like not to work.
The foul odor of stolen glory and unearned wealth made Aimee’s veins pulse dark green. Every corner reeked of the kind of wealth taken by force, not earned through arduous work.
She reached the library first and pushed the wooden doors open. It was pitch black, but Ethel Bourbon walked in first, guiding Aimee with soft meows.
She stumbled against a small side table. The wood was so old that Aimee got a splinter in her leg. Ethel meowed, then pounced on the table, showing Aimee a small oil lamp. She lit it with the matches lying next to it.
Ethel jumped down, rubbing himself against Aimee’s leg as if to soothe her, then continued to roam around the library, hunting for mice.
Once the oil lamp illuminated the massive bookshelves, Aimee noticed the gilded edges of the books—exquisitely expensive.
Curiosity got the best of her. She began touching random items in the library. The first was a painting of a woman wearing a feathered hat, white satin gloves, and a ruffled dress that made her look as if she were floating in the air.
The room began to spin as if time itself were moving—
Visions of her sisters in chains. Cotton fields. Leather whips and bloody backs.
It was brief—a flash—
Yet it made Aimee scream in terror. A wound so deep it felt ancestral.
She blinked hard and was back in the Olivier House library.
She moved to another part of the library and found a stack of ledgers. Placing her right hand on the cover of the first ledger, she felt another vision coming.
Before it could start, she flung the ledger open, forcing herself to breathe slowly as she attempted to read the first page. Then another vision hit.
This time it was the overseer chasing slaves through the fields, cracking his whip and screaming:
“Scram! You ain’t here to lay in the meadows! Nothin’ here belongs to y’all!”
Aimee blinked again and was back near the ledgers. She continued reading the names etched in gorgeous calligraphy. Madame Marianne Benvenue’s husband hadn’t just owned this hotel. He had owned people. Her people.
Aimee felt sick. This man had owned several plantations across Louisiana.
Another vision took her by surprise—this one sharper, louder.
Cotton fields. Chains. Her mother screaming in pain next to a dead man covered in blood. A plantation owner looking down on her.
The face of the man was the same as one of the paintings she had seen in the corridor on her way to the library.
Aimee lost her balance and clutched the desk for support. Feeling as if someone or something were strangling her, she let out a shriek.
“Mamma! Why?”
As she cried out, Ethel Bourbon walked between her legs as if trying to comfort her.
We were poor. We didn’t have enough to eat. We were humans, and yet this man treated us like dogs.
She caught her breath and returned to the desk to continue reading the ledger. Her rage was transforming.
It wasn’t just pain and a feeling of impotence anymore.
Oh no—this was now personal.
She had seen the cane rows bending under the weight of heat and cruelty. She had seen her mother and father suffering. She felt their fear and fury all at once, hotter than any thirst she had ever known.
Anger. Sadness. Impotence.
Ethel Bourbon meowed softly, sensing Aimee’s internal inferno.
She turned the page, reading the list of plantations Joseph Godfroi Olivier de Vezin had owned:
- Nottoway Plantation – 7,116 acres, cotton and sugarcane produced
- Bello Grove – 7,000 acres, sugar produced
- Oak Alley Plantation – 1,200 acres, sugarcane produced
- Whitney Plantation – 2,000 acres, sugarcane produced
This is where it ends.
Another flashback—short this time: the Whitney Plantation in the background, the sugarcane fields, the screams of her mother.
It ends right now.
They will not rot others in their cruelty anymore.
The soil that had seen her parents perish would now serve karmic retribution.
A sanctuary to reclaim the soul and the identity stripped away.
Part II: Storyville and the Blue Books
Aimee knew the Whitney could only be secured with a fortune, and the only hombre willing to fork over that kind of investment without demanding a cut of the cabbage was Frankie.
But first—she needed to speak to Mylène.
Ethel, sensing Aimee’s turmoil, leapt onto her lap, padding at her as if settling in to comfort her.
“Ethel… I’m sure my big sister will understand.”
The kitten meowed in agreement.
Mylène appeared in the library, majestic as always, dressed in dark lace and purple brocade.
Mia sorellina—you called me?
“I have something to ask… it’s very important.”
“I already know—non c’è bisogno di spiegazioni.” (There’s no explanation needed.)
“Done. Francesco will get the place.
But first… there are rotten souls waiting to be devoured. Storyville is waiting for us.”
Basin Street’s midnight pulse was a dream on acid: colorful, whimsical, crawling with strange figures who only came out at night. Jazz groaned through the cracks of smoky cabarets, where sirens dressed to kill extracted confessions from inebriated men.
Girls leaned on doorframes in rouge and lace bustiers, their painted lips parting in provocative whispers.
“Come and get it, big boy—”
The men scattered like roaches into different houses, dripping whiskey and arrogance in equal measure. Aimee’s veins pulsed molten green as the black iris pin in her hair caught the wind with each stride. Ethel Bourbon was tucked beneath her arm like a child she was protecting.
She didn’t belong to this filthy quarter, and the women knew it.
“Maybe you ought to clean yourself up,” said one of the madams, taking a drag from her cigarette. “My house could use an exotic dish.”
“No, thank you. I’m not for sale.”
The woman barked a laugh. “Stupid girl—you aren’t worth more than a few berries.”
Aimee kept walking. She had asked Mylène to let her roam the Quarter alone tonight. Above her, Mylène’s raven soared, shadowing her path.
I’ve never had someone care what happens to me, Aimee thought. I promise from now on, I’ll take care of you too.
She stopped near the docks when she heard a man shouting:
“Extra! Extra! New Orleans’ best Blue Book for sale! Only ten cents! Take a look at the most beautiful babes in the Quarter! Wanna know who’s got the top gals?”
The infamous guide to prostitution in New Orleans.
Aimee snatched a copy from the man’s hands without a word.
The paper reeked of cheap cologne and sweat. Its pages were filled with advertisements for houses, photographs of women barely dressed, described like horses: pure breed, high yellow, pure Creole stock. Each entry came with prices, reservation numbers, quotas, even waitlists.
Order of the Garter: Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Shame on him who thinks evil of it.
She almost laughed. Shame?
This was exploitation.
Aimee’s blood boiled, her eyes glowing a dangerous jade. Her aura blazed green, its hue shifting darker with every page she turned.
These books weren’t guides.
They were filth.
Maps to sexual exploitation.
Maps that depicted a city rotting from the inside out.
The music shifted—turning into a mournful blues, as if Louis Armstrong himself were singing into the Quarter’s heart.
Jazz was everywhere here, just like Calypso’s sirens calling Homer’s fleet to crash. Saints and sinners, even demons, were seduced by its syncopated rhythm, its rebellion against order.
Aimee felt its call stirring something deeper, drawing her to 235 Basin Street—Mahogany Hall.
The brothel stood like a jeweled fortress. Cigarette smoke and loud music spilled from its doors as women in pastels and feathers swirled around men playing cards, cursing like sailors, leaving with women who weren’t their wives.
Mahogany Hall was Storyville’s crown jewel, run by the legendary Lulu White. Stained glass windows glowed purple and gold against the French Quarter’s darkness. The floor was littered with tables, the grand piano’s sound carrying all the way to Canal Street—the music of the docks.
Lulu White was a force of her own. She employed women like Sadie Levy and Victoria Hall not out of charity, but because their beauty could be weaponized. They were beautiful prisoners—admired, desired, but never free.
Aimee settled into the shadows near the windows, Ethel curled at her feet. She watched men enter and leave, their pockets emptied but their sins heavier.
She could smell their guilt.
And she saw the women too—some complicit, some clawing for survival.
She understood their choices. That didn’t mean she forgave them.
Ethel pounced suddenly onto Aimee’s chest. They both felt it: his presence.
The man appeared from the darkness, tall and broad-shouldered, his aura thick and rotting.
He strutted down the alley, dragging a girl no older than fifteen. Her shoulders hunched, braced for a blow.
Aimee stepped out of the shadows.
Ethel darted forward to shield the girl as Aimee’s jade-green eyes burned. She laughed softly.
“What am I supposed to fear—you?”, the man sneered.
“You’d fear me if you believed in God”.
“You ain’t no God. Just a scrawny Black girl.”
“There is no good in your soul,” Aimee said. “You feed on the innocent for your own sake.”
The man laughed. “You ain’t gonna do nothin’.”
Aimee raised her right hand, lifting him off the ground with invisible force before slamming him against the alley wall.
“What are you?” he gasped.
“Your biggest fear.”
She dragged him close, forcing his gaze into her glowing eyes. Then, with her right hand, she pulled his soul—his rotting aura—straight out of him.
“One less rotten apple in the orchard,” she whispered.
🕯️ Felt the pull? Let her haunt someone new.
If this chapter moved you, pass it on.
One soul. One shadow. One whisper.
Mylene remembers the ones who speak her name.
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