Octavia Grigore/Background/1690-1695
The moon had climbed higher now, its pale light pooling like silver wine across the veranda’s stone floor as Octavia picked up her glass once more. She spoke with the same quiet assurance as before—yet beneath each word lay the sharp tang of ambition and the faint echo of old wounds.
“In 1690, I slipped away from the collapsing courts of Europe aboard a battered merchant brigantine in the Black Sea, bound for the New World,” she began, her voice drifting through the humid air. “A storm drove us off course and onto the shallow shoals of what would become known as the Gulf Coast, and I found myself marooned in a land still young and uncharted.”
She paused, eyes distant, recalling every scent and sound. “Back then, there was no city—only waterlogged bayous, cypress swamps draped in Spanish moss, and Native villages of thatched huts. The land belonged to the Bayougoula people, and the French who’d begun to trickle in as fur traders and explorers were few and wary.”
“For months I preyed upon the Bayougoula—listening to their songs in the darkness, watching fireflies stitch patterns across the water, breathing in the musky sweetness of alligator and frog. I could not speak their tongue, nor did I try. Instead, I learned to move through the wilderness—slipping through thickets, guided by the cries of night birds and the steady, watchful eyes of wolves. The Bayougoula grew wary, and hunger drove me to seek out new prey.”
She paused, eyes reflecting the lantern’s dance. “There were no French villages—only Spanish fishing skiffs making clandestine runs north from Veracruz. I approached them under the cover of twilight, claiming I was ‘Madame Grigori, widow of a successful trader.’ They welcomed me aboard with food and cups of their ship’s wine, curious about this pale stranger. But I did not taste their bread or wine. When night fell and the deckhand slept in his hammock, I woke him and drew him gently into a private corner—slacking my thirst like he was a rare vintage. By dawn, they believed a fever had taken him; none suspected my true hunger.”
Her expression grew colder. “In time, I learned of French trappers pushing upriver toward Bayou St. John—no settlement yet, but camps of rough exiles from Mobile and Biloxi. I ventured further inland and spoke Latin to a Jesuit chaplain, earning his sympathy and a place to stay. By night, I haunted his quarters, letting him believe a sudden illness claimed him, so that his blood might sustain me without suspicion.”
Octavia’s lips curved faintly. “When I received word of Sabbat gathering amid the sugarcane fields, I made contact—offering discreet sanctuary in exchange for whispered secrets. We tasted stolen barrels of French wine, but the feast was always elsewhere: a drawn vein beneath candlelight, a pulse fading into silence. The pack found blood where it could.”
She leaned forward, her voice a conspiratorial hush. “In 1695, when a French commandant from Mobile sought to assert control over the drifting camps of exiles, I orchestrated a raid—arrows loosed from the swamp’s edge, then blame laid at the feet of the exiles. In the chaos, I played both sides against each other; they quarreled and scattered like frightened birds, and I slipped away.”
She sat back, eyes glinting in the silver night. “And so I survived: on the very essence of those who sought to harbor me.”
