Julian Files, Chapter 2

Julian Files is a book set in the past of In the Company of Shadows. DO NOT READ JULIAN FILES IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THROUGH FADE!

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ICOS!

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Julian Files by Ais

Two

Friday May 13, 2005
Carlisle Windsor School, All Saints neighborhood
Lexington, PA

“That child is there again.”

The man said it flatly, and Boyd got nervous. He ducked back into the hallway, wondering if he was in trouble now.

He hadn’t meant to see the man again, but the man and his friend always went to one of the back classrooms in the unused building on the corner of campus. Since Austin put Boyd’s backpacks in weird places like that, Boyd always had to go there before he left. He’d done his best to stay quiet and unseen like always but he must have done something wrong.

Boyd was just debating if it was worse to go home without his backpack and have his mother angry with him or to interrupt the man and his friend, when he realized a third, very tall man had come up behind him.

Boyd’s heart clenched. He looked up and up and up, into angry eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Boyd said, not knowing yet what he’d done wrong but thinking it was probably good to let them know right away he knew it was his fault.

“Bring her in,” said the man inside.

The tall man grabbed Boyd’s shoulder—it hurt—and pushed him ahead of him into the room. Once inside, Boyd saw the man’s friend was looking surprised.

And now that he was closer, Boyd realized he knew who the man was. It was Mr. Cole, Austin’s father. Boyd had seen him pick Austin up from school sometimes but it was always far away. Mr. Cole wore a hat and different kind of clothing here in the back room than he ever did in public, so Boyd hadn’t recognized him until he was close.

“Are you sure about this?” asked the friend, but Mr. Cole was peering at Boyd.

“Who is she?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.” The very tall man shook Boyd. “Who are you?”

Boyd twisted the hem of his shirt between his fingers, and shyly, guiltily, looked up at Mr. Cole through his eyebrows. “I’m Boyd Beaulieu, sir. I’m sorry to bother you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Mr. Cole’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Beaulieu? I know that name. As in that woman Vivienne?”

“That’s my mother, sir.”

Mr. Cole’s friend swore, which made Mr. Cole frown at him.

“It’s fine,” Mr. Cole said.

“No, it isn’t!” hissed the friend, and moved closer to Mr. Cole. He and Mr. Cole got into a quiet conversation but even though they may have thought Boyd couldn’t hear, he could.
“That bitch doesn’t know when to hold her tongue,” the friend growled under his breath. “And she’s too astute. For a damn spy, she reports everything. You know how much trouble she’s caused some of the parents already? If she finds out—”

“What will she do?” Mr. Cole watched his friend closely. “Whine about her inferiority?”

“But what if she—”

“You think I fear that harpy? You think she’s more powerful than I am?” Mr. Cole’s voice dropped dangerously. He leaned closer to the friend.

The friend leaned back. “Of course not.”

Mr. Cole relaxed a little. “That’s the right answer. She is nothing. She is no one.”

“But between her and the father—”

“I know of him. I research all the players and find their weak points. He’s a hack reporter no one listens to at a pathetic local rag in in Crandall Park. Crandall Park. They couldn’t afford an office in Financial, or at least Lincoln Square, and you’re worried about them? I have ways of suppressing the media. Their voice will be silenced, like the rest.”

“But his specialty—”

“If either of the Beaulieus try anything, they will learn their place.”

Julian Files, excerpt 8: stories

Another random excerpt. I don’t think I’ve shared this one before, but I’m not sure. Sharing now because I like the lines in the last paragraph.

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Cedrick always found himself wondering what the story was of people he saw. He built fables in his mind; sometimes dramatic, sometimes heartbreakingly not.

To these strangers, he built a story:

The young man was named Max. He had always tried to find love in the girlfriends he had in high school, but it never worked out. Something was missing. In his first year of college, he met Trevor. They became best friends and Max had never been happier. They spent all their free time out of class together, and sometimes even skipped class to go on suddenly devised adventures. Max’s favorite thing to do was to go urban exploring, and Trevor had decided to go with him last night. They were looking for ghosts, which was particularly alarming for Trevor who refused to acknowledge just how afraid he was of the supernatural. They visited the old, abandoned hospital in Carson City; rumored to have housed the worst psychiatric patients the state had seen in decades.

Cedrick had visited the hospital once, and even as someone who was fascinated by mysteries and the supernatural, he had found it to be unbearable. The air had felt suffocating; metallic, as the taste of blood. The shadows had seemed so much darker, an umber hue on the edges but fading so quickly to pitch black it was akin to sharp drops in the sea floor.

That was how it had felt to Trevor, when he’d gone: the cold flutter of air on his skin like skeletal fingers dancing across his back; the creaks of the old building settling like the cracking groan of bones grinding against one another; the piercing silence as the pause right before Death drew in a rattling, endless breath. Trevor’s heart had been a drumline in his chest; tripping over beats and melodies but staying enough of a tune to keep him alive.

Julian Files, excerpt 7: Vivienne POV

This Julian Files excerpt has Vivienne POV. Again, it’s unedited and some things may change, but I can’t remember if I ever released anything with Viv that showed a bit of what her childhood was like. I know she mentioned it in Fade but I don’t think she gave many details because, to her, the details are unimportant.

What’s interesting to me is as I’ve been writing Julian Files, especially Cedrick POV, I’ve realized the parallels between Vivienne/Cedrick and Hsin/Boyd, particularly the slight parallels between Viv and Hsin, and the way Cedrick and Boyd viewed their respective partner. Those parallels had existed before but I’d never thought about it to any extent to realize they were there.

Anyway, there will be more on Vivienne’s life in Domino, but here’s a glimpse.

Julian Files, excerpt 6

Here’s another Julian Files excerpt, just because. Unedited, and I might change parts of it later. I just felt like sharing this piece.

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“Who raised this mannerless heathen?”

“Mrs. Beaulieu! I must ask you to be more understanding.” Ms. Callaway dropped her voice and leaned in, her eyes catching and holding Vivienne’s. “His mother passed away from the lung sickness just over a month ago.”

Vivienne stared.

Ms. Callaway grimaced and nodded. “So, as I’m sure you understand, this is a transitional time for young Austin.”

“I do not.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I do not understand. I am waiting for a reasonable explanation as to why you have deemed it appropriate to encourage his behavior.”

“Mrs. Beaulieu, his mother–“

“When I was not much older than he is, I lost both my parents in an unexpected act of violence. I did not use it as an excuse to abuse others, nor did I willfully put their safety in danger for my own amusement. If his sole excuse for harassing my son is a death he saw coming for months, then it is an exceedingly poor one.”

Ms. Callaway gaped at Vivienne, which only served to further irritate her. Everyone in this city was wholly incompetent. Rather than waste further brain cells attempting to explain to an imbecile why it was shortsighted and idiotic to let a kid who’d lost a parent get away with near murder, she stood. She grabbed Boyd on the shoulder and turned him toward the door.

“Enough. We will leave now. I expect you to look into further complaints or I will be forced to take this to the school board. The fact that you are incapable of doing your job correctly should not be reflective on my son’s ability to learn.”

Ms. Callaway’s entire face tightened. Good.

 

NaNo 2014: Julian Files, Excerpt(s) 5: a study in Beaulieus

I hit 50,000 words early this month! First time that’s ever happened! I still have a long way to go before Julian Files as a book is finished but I mentioned earlier maybe I’d do an excerpt from Julian Files in celebration.

Well, I decided–why just one? Why not three? Because overkill! 😀

So here are a few excerpts below, from different parts. NO EDITING HAS BEEN DONE so it’s probably all levels of bad with lots of repetition but you can still get an idea from it. I tried to pull from a range of moods so it wasn’t all the same thing. This is sort of like a glimpse at the different ways the Beaulieus interacted with each other. I’m starting with the sad one first but then it’s better I swear!

ALSO, not in these excerpts but in the book there are a number of cameos– and one is someone you know very well from ICoS. Just sayin’.

WIP Files: 10/26/14, ART: “Loss” – Vivienne

I’ve been useless again this weekend as far as getting anything done in writing. I was watching a video (Girl by the Ocean by ThePortraitArt on youtube) and stopped at 0:38 when I had inspiration. I wanted to draw Vivienne looking at a candle lit in Cedrick’s memory, with the darkness pooling in around her. I didn’t want to lose the idea so I did a lot of things wrong–used the wrong kind of paper, didn’t realize at first that the pencils I had were watercolor, had very limited color options so I accidentally made her skin too close to the color of her hair, made her lips bleed out, couldn’t decide on an angle for the table so I let it just disappear, plus her proportions are all wonky– but that’s what WIP Files are for, right? Not care about all the things wrong and just DO something.

So, here’s Vivienne, mourning her loss. The songs that were in my head while drawing it were Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift, and Castle Walls by Christina Aguilera.

WIP Files 10/18/14: RESEARCH, Vivienne, Cedrick and Julian Jones

 

It’s funny how many tabs and various pieces of media I collect when researching. And how starting with one question pushes me back one step, and then another.

For example, I know certain aspects of Vivienne and Cedrick’s lives, but I have been sitting down and finalizing dates and details in order to continue writing Julian Files (Cedrick and his friend Julian from 2005-2006), and to write Domino (Vivienne’s backstory from childhood to 1/27 anthology).

I know Vivienne worked for the CIA prior to the Agency. I’ve been determining the exact title she held, how long she worked there, and more.

• This means I’m looking at the requirements of working for the CIA, two important points of which are that you must be a US citizen and at least 18 years old.
• The question then is when did Vivienne gain US citizenship (and trying to make it realistic).
• This question gets into types of citizenship in the US: birthright or dual citizenship. No one in her family had American citizenship, so she has to do naturalization.
• Looking at the timeline for that is dependent in part on whether she is married to a US citizen.
• That leads to the question of whether that includes dual citizenship, and whether Cedrick was able to have that.
• This gets back to Cedrick’s situation: while he was born in Canada (as I have it now), his mother was American and so was all of her family.
• In researching whether he could have dual citizenship, it will fall in part on whether or not his mother could have dual citizenship in the US and Canada or, barring that, if she was able to remain an American citizen while living in Canada.
• Which then gets to the question of when she would have become a dual citizen, if ever, whether she was able to do so, and thus at what time in her life did she meet Braeden, and at what age did she move to Canada.
• Knowing that (as I have it now) Cedrick and his siblings were all born in Canada, that means that most likely the timeline has to be before 1976 or between around 1976 (when Amy and Braeden were married) and 1977 (when Riley was born).
  • Cedrick (and Vivienne) weren’t born until 1980, and then Aiden was born 1983.
• Meanwhile, I know that Vivienne had Boyd in 1999 (at age 19)

Incidentally, Jesus. The Beaulieu family is cursed. Whenever I look at the genealogy I wrote, I remember how much both sides of Boyd’s family were fucked as far as not having long lifespans. A lot of his family died young, in accidents, or they lived to an old age but it was before Boyd was born. By the time Boyd is born, his living family members are very, very few– and the ones who know of him even fewer, and of those the ones who want anything to do with him are down to one: Cedrick. Just Cedrick.

I also realized how awful the end of  the 1990s were for Cedrick:

• 1994: paternal grandparents Olivia and Bevan die in their home from carbon monoxide poisoning
• 1996:
  • maternal grandfather William Daniels dies of a heart attack
  • paternal great-uncle Damon Beaulieu dies of natural causes
• 1998: younger brother Aiden Jacob Beaulieu killed by a drunk driver in an accident. Age: 15. Driver gets off on almost nothing in court.
• 1999:
  • maternal grandmother Evelyn dies of a stroke
  • Cedrick’s only remaining family killed in the Lexington bombs (mother Amy, father Braeden, brother Riley)

And then Vivienne… her life will be fun to write, but I need more proper research materials. Once I answer all these questions about dual citizenship and CIA and the like, it’s going to be frustrating because I’ll need to focus more on the French aspect of her life, and I really wanted to have better source materials for that.

As it is, I’ll have some wikipedia articles but… I wish there was an equivalent of Born Rich or The One Percent for the wealthy French.

Because Vivienne was really fucking rich in France.

I don’t know if it’s ever been properly explained in the series–probably not, since she rarely talks about herself or her life. If someone wanted to call her princess, while they would be incorrect as far as her not being royalty, they would not be far off as far as considering the amount of wealth, privilege, but also responsibilities, pressure, and expectations she had as a child/young woman. At least, after her parents were killed. Her parents had protected her from that life but their deaths took that more simplistic, loving atmosphere away from her for good.

If anyone knows of good documentaries, or films, (in French with English subtitles is ideal, but I could get away with Spanish subtitles too) or books in English that talk about the wealthy or privileged in France I would LOVE it.

ICOS Character Inspirations

Over the years I kept watch for any characters who might make good representations for aspects of ICoS characters. Of course, I often would identify someone and then later forget who it was. Luckily, eventually I got smart and kept a list.

I already did a post on Baby Boyd. This is a collection of videos and pics of the other characters who caught my eye as good representation. Keep in mind: the characters don’t necessarily look like the people I have marked as representative of them. More often, it’s the way they act or other aspects that put them on this list.

Scene Snip: A Beaulieu Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving at the Beaulieus. A snippet from Cedrick and Vivienne’s past. This was going to be part of a larger story but I never wrote much in it. Someday I will likely edit and rework this scene, and add it back into a backstory series. This is heavy on the explanatory narration but at the time it was written I was trying to note how I imagined they interacted.