by Boris Bacic
She saw all sorts of scary things in the past few days, but for Mom to just wake up, run around the house in a gymnast-like position before returning to bed? She wanted to believe Jill, but she just didn’t see that happening. Or perhaps, her brain was just trying not to imagine it, to protect her from the fear that would drive her insane.
“So, she didn’t open the door for you, and you decided to just let yourself in?” the cop asked again, this time with a hint of animosity.
Cheryl started to think that she might become a suspect in Erika’s death.
“Are you suggesting I did something to Erika?” she outright asked.
“I’m not suggesting anything, but—”
“Is my sister a suspect, officer?” Jill asked, and crossed her arms.
She had a protective tone, and despite being hysterical earlier, she almost seemed to be back to her normal self now that she had to protect Cheryl. The police officer shook his head defensively.
“Ma’am, I’m just doing my job. I need to make sure nothing is amiss here.”
“I think you should focus on the bigger picture and do a better job, then,” Jill raised her tone.
Violet gently put a hand on Jill’s shoulder and stepped slightly in front of her.
“Officers, Cheryl and Jill are going through a lot. Their mother is in a coma and they need to decide what to do with her, as well as with the property. They are already under too much stress. And now to discover that their neighbor died in her home…”
“Alright, alright, I get it,” the officer raised one hand dismissively. “A proper investigation will be conducted anyway, so we’ll see if there’s any foul play involved in your neighbor’s death.”
He glowered at Cheryl.
“And what about our mother?” Jill insisted.
The cop scratched his head and looked at the comatose body in the bed. He looked at Jill and said. “So tell me again what happened.”
Jill looked at Mom, and then shook her head.
“You know what? I already told you everything. I’m not gonna repeat myself because you’re too lazy to pay attention.”
“Whoa, calm down, lady. I’m just trying to help.”
“But you don’t believe me!”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to, I can see how you’re looking at me, like I’m a crazy person!”
The police officer sighed in exasperation. The junior cop stepped forward.
“Ma’am, I’m really sorry for what you two have been through tonight. I know it must have been tough seeing something like that,” he glanced at Cheryl, but she looked away. “My partner and I are going to do what we can to help you with this, but right now, we need to focus on the case of your neighbor.”
Jill probably noticed the cop’s patronizing tone, but she didn’t say anything. The cop wrote something on a blank piece of paper in his notepad before saying, “Tell you what. Here’s my number. If you see anything suspicious in the next few days—anything at all—you just call me, and I’ll be here.”
He tore off the piece of paper and handed it to Jill. She reluctantly grabbed it and stuffed it inside her pocket. Cheryl didn’t even need to guess if Jill was going to keep the cop’s number or recycle it. The two sisters silently exchanged glares with each other, and it was obvious what they were thinking—the cops can’t help.
The policemen excused themselves, stating that they were needed at Erika’s house with the other police officers. Cheryl pulled the drapes at the windows aside long enough to see the two cops walking towards their cruiser and talking to each other. She heard the senior one chuckling about something and wagging his forefinger in small circles next to his temple. They entered the cruiser and drove off. Cheryl glanced toward Erika’s house and saw the flashing red and blue lights in the distance.
Poor Erika…
She felt like crying. All her life, she’s known that woman, and now, just like that, she was gone. She didn’t even care that much about the information she was supposed to get from her. Her last words resonated in her head over and over.
Come by later, and I’ll tell you everything.
Cheryl tried not to think how scared she was in those last moments before she died. What did she even see that scared her so much?
***
Jill hadn’t moved, even after the cops had left. Violet stood in the middle of the room with her hands clasped together in front of herself while Cheryl stared out the window. The room was eerily silent, save for the machine’s beeping.
“Violet, please tell me you have an explanation for this,” Jill said.
Violet grimaced and looked at Annette’s body briefly. Earlier, she performed a full check on her to make sure nothing was amiss.
“We should probably admit her to a hospital, first thing Monday,” Violet finally said.
“But what about what I saw? How the hell did she do that?”
“I’m afraid I have no explanation for what you saw,” she reticently shrugged.
“That’s it?” Jill took an almost aggressive step closer to Violet.
The nurse didn’t even change her facial expression, let alone flinch, as Jill violently gestured to her mother’s body in bed.
“I literally saw her standing in the foyer!” she shouted.
“Yes, I heard your story when you told the policemen the first time.”
Violet’s calmness pissed Jill off even more. She wanted to grab her by the shoulders and violently shake her until she got into her head what Jill was telling her.
“And you don’t believe me?!” she asked in an offended tone.
Violet didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. It was clear that she didn’t believe a word Jill said. Jill may as well have been trying to talk to a wall.
“We’ll have her taken to a hospital for a full checkup,” the nurse diverted Jill’s answer. “But Jill, you have to understand. Your mother has been in a coma for a whole week. That means she hasn’t moved in seven days. She would not be able to stand up on her own, let alone run in the manner you described.”
“Then, what the hell did I see?!” Jill started, nearly becoming hysterical again.
By this point, Cheryl had returned from the window and was watching Jill. Out of the two sisters, Cheryl was supposed to be the impulsive one, and yet, the roles were now reversed. Jill assumed that her little sister was simply too traumatized to be as volatile as Jill.
“I’m sorry,” Violet shrugged once more.
The urge Jill had to shake her by the shoulders morphed into an uncontrollable desire to slap her. Before she could entertain that thought, Cheryl spoke up.
“Come on, Jill. Are you really going to ignore what you saw? Even when it’s right in your face?” Cheryl’s voice had an impatient timbre.
“What are you talking about?” Jill swiveled her head towards her sister and frowned.
“You know well enough what you saw. And you know damn well that no doctor can explain it. You saw Mom standing in the foyer. Even though she’s in a fucking coma.”
Jill exhaled through her nose and slightly tilted her head. The thought of that horrible moment of standing in the living room and seeing her mom standing there in front of her, twitching and staring, sent shivers down her spine.
“Whatever I saw down there,” Jill finally said soft-spokenly, “It wasn’t our mother.”
Silence fell on the room for a moment. Eventually, Violet was the one who broke it.
“I’ll be leaving you two for now. I will be here Monday to make sure everything is okay. I will try to be here earlier, in case you need anything from me,” she said.
She elegantly turned on her heel and wished Cheryl and Jill a good night before exiting, leaving the sisters alone and in silence. They stood there for a while before Jill ended the silence.
“I’m sleeping in the car tonight. No way am I staying in the house,” she said.
Cheryl looked at her brusquely.
“I can underst
and that.”
More silence.
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” Jill said.
“Me too,” Cheryl reciprocated.
She awkwardly looked at Mom and then Jill.
“Is it cool if I sleep with you in the car tonight?”
Jill smiled. For a moment, she saw that kid on her sister’s face who was afraid of the monsters hiding under her bed back when they lived together. Reflecting back on those times, Jill felt immense regret for not being more supportive to her sister. Maybe if she did, their relationship would have been better right now.
She remembered once hearing someone say that a bond between siblings is built and strengthened in youth, and once you reach a certain age, all you can do is have an aloof relationship with your siblings. That pained her, but she wanted to believe that it wasn’t too late for her and Cheryl.
“You don’t even need to ask me that,” Jill said. “But, we gotta take care of one thing first.
“And what’s that?”
“Lock Mom’s door.”
Chapter 24
Five minutes later, Cheryl and Jill were in Jill’s car. Jill was in the driver’s seat, while Cheryl sat behind. As soon as they entered the car, Jill called Lee to tell him what happened. Even though Cheryl told her to be careful with her wording, Jill had to tell her husband what had happened.
The thought of getting killed and leaving Lee and Charlie alone to fend for themselves scared the living crap out of her, and she just had to talk to both of them to calm herself down.
They had a video call, and Cheryl joined in, too, even though she wasn’t very talkative. Eventually, Lee noticed that Charlie was getting sleepy, so he told him to go to bed. As soon as Charlie was away, Lee suggested coming to the house.
Jill adamantly objected to that suggestion, but Lee was pushy. In the end, when Lee insisted on coming, Jill downplayed the danger that she told him about and managed to convince him not to come because she’d be home in just two days. Lee was reluctant, but finally agreed.
By the time Jill ended the phone call, a metallic pitter-patter of the rain had started echoing off of the car’s rooftop. Jill and Cheryl must have sat in silence for at least ten minutes—Jill reclined in her seat, and Cheryl lying on the backseat, covered up with the blanket she brought from the house.
From this position, Jill could see the lights in the window of her old room. It was pale, and she couldn’t help but imagine opening her eyes and seeing a figure—her mother?—standing there. Or even worse, waking up to see her right outside the car window.
With that thought, Jill pressed the button to lock all the car doors.
She covered herself with the blanket up to her neck and tried to find a more relaxed position. She closed her eyes, but she found that keeping them open was much easier, with the fear still racing through her veins.
With nothing better to do, Jill started to replay the night’s events in her mind, reel by reel. She couldn’t get the disgusting cracking sounds that her mother’s body had made out of her head. She couldn’t get the sounds of glass crunching under her bare feet out of her head. But what disturbed Jill the most was her mother’s face.
When she stood in the foyer, staring at her, it was Annette’s face, and yet, it wasn’t. The face was too pallid, corpse-like in color, and the facial expression… Jill couldn’t quite put her finger on it until now, but now that she was calm enough, she could process the whole event more clearly.
The corner of Annette’s mouth was stretched into a grimace of some sorts, and her eye was twitching, if Jill remembered correctly. Her eyebrows were rising and dropping, and the muscles in her neck bulged and relaxed intermittently. It was like a person just learning how to use their face for the first time in life. Jill felt the hairs on the nape of her neck stand straight.
“You were right all along, Cheryl,” she said, her voice cracking slightly.
The drumming of the rain had increased slightly, giving Jill a sort of tranquil feeling.
“About what?” Cheryl asked.
“About everything. The house. Mom. Everything.”
She heard Cheryl shifting in the backseat.
“You think there’s something ghostly going on in the house?” she asked.
Jill frowned. She didn’t like thinking in that direction because she found it to be outlandish. She mostly wanted to avoid going down that path because she was afraid that it might lead her to become like her mother. In the end, however, her mother was not crazy after all, was she? She was right all this time.
“Jill?” Cheryl called out.
“I do,” Jill brusquely said. “I didn’t want to think that way, but we can’t ignore it anymore. Something weird is going on in this house. And I think if we get to the bottom of it, we might be able to save Mom.”
Cheryl adjusted into an upright sitting position.
***
Cheryl’s heart started to race a little faster. Maybe there was a chance to save Mom after all. That thought filled her with painful hope. She leaned forward so that her head was next to Jill’s.
“Earlier, when Erika visited us, she said she had something to tell me about Mom,” she said.
Jill turned her head to the side to face her sister. Her face was gaunt and battered, a testament to the difficult night she’d had.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked sleepily.
“Yeah. Here’s what she told me.”
Cheryl proceeded to tell Jill everything that Erika communicated to her. She told her about the cave in Haiti, the trance Mom fell into, the paranoia that took her over, the books she read about relating to Vodou, the entity she believed was after her.
The entire time, Jill listened attentively. She went from looking sleepy to sitting ramrod straight in her seat and staring at Cheryl with a penetrating gaze. When Cheryl was done speaking, the only sound that remained was the rain. It had increased in intensity somewhat, and the metallic pitter-patter had grown louder as a result.
When Jill didn’t say anything for a whole minute, Cheryl broke the silence.
“Well? What do you think?” she asked.
Jill inhaled deeply through her nose and continued to maintain the silence.
“I think we need to hire a houngan or a mambo,” she finally said with alacrity.
“A wha— oh, you mean the Vodou expert?”
“Vodou priest or priestess, yeah,” Jill confirmed.
She had already reached forward to grab her phone from the compartment in the door. Cheryl saw the screen of Jill’s phone lighting up against the contrast of the night so brightly that she had to turn away for a second.
Jill was apparently bothered by it, too, since she reduced the brightness of her phone a moment later. Cheryl saw hasty typing as Jill’s fingers flew across the phone’s touchscreen keyboard. The first search result that came up for her was Voodoo Doughnut from Portland.
The two of them exchanged a look with each other before bursting into laughter. Jill tried a different search term. She browsed something that Cheryl didn’t have enough time to read over Jill’s fast scrolling, but she saw what the website she entered was about as soon as she glanced at the huge ‘Mambo for Hire!’ title on the top.
“Here’s one. And she lives in Springfield,” Jill said with excitement in her voice.
Cheryl leaned closer to see what the fuss was all about. Jill was scrolling through a page filled with particularly interesting images, including African people participating in what Cheryl assumed were Vodou activities. The people in the pictures wore traditional attire, most of them white, and some of the members had white face paint. There were historical drawings of the loa, too, along with the vèvès.
Jill clicked on the button that took her to the about info. There were no pictures, but there was a paragraph called About the Mambo.
My name is Fabiola, and I have been practicing Haitian Vodou since early childhood. Born and raised under Haitian Vodou influence, I have extensive knowledge when it comes
to the loa, including how to summon them, serve them, and ensure you live a long, prosperous, and healthy life.
I also teach those who are interested in how to serve the loa, as well as which loa suits them best for their needs. I help over one thousand people every year, and all of those who have committed to practicing Vodou using proper techniques have reported good results.
See my clients’ testimonies below.
Under the biography were various quoted sentences from satisfied customers who Fabiola had helped. At the bottom there was an email address and a phone number. Jill clicked the phone number. It took her to her dial screen.
“You’re gonna call her now?” Cheryl asked.
“Yeah,” Jill nodded, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.
***
After the fourth ring, Jill realized that she was calling too late. It was almost 10 pm, after all. But then, in the middle of the fifth ring, the line connected, and a strong, female voice spoke up in an accent that Jill couldn’t quite place.
“Bonswa. This is Fabiola. What can I do for you?”
Each word sounded connected and atonal, and Jill wondered who wrote the biography for the woman.
Sounds like French, Jill thought.
“Good evening. I’m really sorry for calling you this late.”
“No problem, cheri. I can hear that you are scared. What is wrong?”
Jill was taken aback by that. Was the woman really able to tell that something was wrong just from one sentence, or was she just playing polite?
“Well, um, I don’t even know where to start,” Jill said.
“You need help cleaning evil from your home, wi?” Fabiola asked.
Her voice pierced like a spear through the speaker, but her authoritative and motherly tone was exactly what Jill needed right now.
“Yes,” she simply responded.
“No problem, cheri. Where do you live?”
“We’re in Sams Valley, Medford.”
“Medford?”
The way she asked that sounded like she never heard of the town before.