by Boris Bacic
Cheryl suddenly felt like they were walking into hostile territory. She’d been apprehensive from day one, but that was a different kind of apprehension. Now, she was scared of Mom’s comatose body, no matter how much she hated that thought.
Jill was the first one to step inside, and that gave Cheryl a much-needed boost of courage. They stood in front of Mom’s bed for a little while in silence. Cheryl noticed Jill glancing at the radio on the nightstand.
“You’re thinking of what we heard yesterday, right?” she asked.
Jill glanced at her briefly and gave her a terse nod.
“Yeah. And there was music playing last night, too. We should probably unplug the radio.”
Cheryl agreed, ignoring the hairs that stood straight up on the nape of her neck. She noticed that Jill didn’t actually do anything about the radio. She also noticed that she stood close to the door, almost as if ready to make a quick exit in case something—what?—happened.
“You’re right,” Cheryl said and walked over to the radio.
A part of her wanted to impress her big sister, but another part wanted to avoid hearing the radio turning on on its own again. With one swift motion, she yanked the plug out of the wall socket (right after making sure she wasn’t unplugging the machine instead) and lifted the radio by its handle.
As she turned around, she froze, her heart suddenly starting to race. She glanced down at her mother’s hand. It was hanging off the edge of the bed.
No, wait, it wasn’t. It was just the blanket shaped that way. Cheryl felt the scream that had been building up in her slowly abating, and she did her best not to show those emotions to Jill. She resisted the urge to break into a quick stride as she returned to the door, now standing even closer to it than Jill.
“There. Now we’re at least safe from the evil radio,” she said, once again trying her best to hide the quivering in her voice.
Her heart rate was starting to slow down finally, and Jill didn’t seem to notice Cheryl’s gaffe. They walked out of the room and closed the door, neither of them uttering a word or showing in any way that they wanted to spend more time inside. Cheryl placed the radio on the floor next to the door and straightened her back just as Jill locked the door.
***
Jill breathed a silent sigh of relief as soon as the door was locked. She steadied the trembling in her hands as much as she could before stuffing the key in the pocket of her jeans. Cheryl started towards her old bedroom without a word.
“Cheryl?” Jill called out to her softly.
For some reason, whenever they were upstairs—and especially when they were close to their mother’s room—Jill felt compelled to speak quietly. Moreover, the house was unnaturally quieter upstairs than downstairs, and up until today, Jill didn’t chalk any of that up to supernatural entities, but rather psyche.
“What’s up, sis?” Cheryl called out.
Jill got a warm feeling inside whenever Cheryl called her ‘sis’.
“You remember my doll, Lola?” she asked.
Cheryl nodded and smiled widely.
“Of course I do. You used to be really protective of her. It’s one of those things I remember clearly from when we were kids.”
Jill smiled at that, too. She suddenly remembered the moments Cheryl mentioned—eating dinner and pretending to feed Lola, speaking to her during the tea parties, not wanting to go to bed without her and other things like that.
“What about her?” Cheryl asked.
She crossed her arms and leaned on the door of her room with her back.
“Do you remember the boy who gave her to me? What was his name?”
Cheryl frowned and looked up at the ceiling pensively.
“What boy?” she finally looked down and shook her head in confusion.
“You know, the one who used to play with us all the time. I think he lived close by.”
Cheryl looked even more confused.
“Oh, come on, you must remember him!” Jill exclaimed, now a little frustrated. “He was always quiet, and he and I used to play. We called you over many times, but you always refused.”
Cheryl slowly shook her head from left to right.
“He made Lola for me, don’t you remember?!” Jill shouted.
Cheryl raised both hands in a stop sign.
“Jill, what are you talking about? You got Lola from Mom!”
Jill opened her mouth, but found herself speechless.
“What?” she asked, the word barely leaving her throat.
“There was no boy. No kids lived anywhere near for miles, don’t you remember?”
Jill raised an eyebrow and scratched the back of her head.
“You probably don’t remember since you were only four or five back then. I specifically remember the boy giving me the doll.”
“And I remember Mom doing so. She came back from the marketplace one day and bought both of us toys. She gave me a Barbie doll, and she gave you Lola.”
“Maybe you’re thinking of another doll. That boy gave me Lola.”
“No, it was from Mom, I could bet an arm on it. I remember because you looked so happy to get her, and Mom asked you what you would call her, and you gave her the name Lola right away.”
Jill’s head started spinning.
“Well, what about the boy?” she asked.
“It was your imaginary friend.”
That angered Jill. How in the hell would Cheryl be able to remember from such a young age if Jill had an imaginary friend? She opened her mouth to protest, but Cheryl interrupted her to speak again, and as if reading her thoughts, said, “Mom mentioned it many times later on, don’t you remember? She used to always talk about how you had an imaginary friend. Dad even talked to some specialists about it because he wasn’t sure if having an imaginary friend was healthy.”
Jill leaned on the wall with the palm of her hand. She felt like she was going to collapse. The harder she tried to remember the boy, the more he seemed to fade from her memory.
Was there ever even a boy at all? Now that Cheryl mentioned it, Jill felt like her entire reality was questionable. Did she play with the boy in her room, or did she play alone and pretend that there was someone there? Was she really with that boy in the woods when she got stuck in that log or was it all just a figment of her imagination?
You’re going crazy, Jill. Just like your mother. You’re losing your goddamn mind.
Before she could entertain that thought, she heard a car pulling up in front of the house.
Chapter 27
The pink creature that pulled up in front of the house couldn’t really be described as a car. Partly subcompact, partly SUV, and kind of convertible, the car looked like a kid’s drawing of what a car should look like, brought to life.
Jill looked at Cheryl to see if she noticed the same thing, but if she did, then she didn’t show it in any way. The roaring of the engine stopped, and the miniature car door swung open.
Out stepped a woman, but not the kind Jill expected. She was black, that much she assumed rightly, but she expected to see a round, elderly woman with lots of jewelry, a bandana over the head, maybe even an animal’s foot hanging around her neck.
The woman who stepped out was slim, enviously so, which could be seen even through the thick, white robes that she was wrapped in. She was young, around Jill’s age, maybe only a few years older than her—or maybe younger. It was hard to tell, really.
As soon as the woman slammed the door of her car shut, she looked at Jill and Cheryl and her mouth contorted into a welcoming rictus.
“Hello, mezanmi!” she spread her arms widely for what seemed to be an inevitable hug.
She hugged Cheryl first, and kissed her once on both cheeks with an exaggeratedly loud ‘mwah’. Then she moved on to Jill with the same gestures. Jill felt the strength of the woman’s rock-hard grip momentarily. The kisses were also pretty strong.
“You’re Fabiola?” Jill asked when the woman finished greeting her.
“
Non. Who is this Fabiola you speak of?”
Jill opened her mouth dumbly, just as silence ensued.
“I joke!” the woman said, and started cackling a moment later.
Jill and Cheryl exchanged a furtive glance with each other before they, too, started laughing hesitantly.
“Wi, I am Fabiola,” the woman said.
“My name’s Jill. And this is my sister, Cheryl.”
Fabiola nodded, and then her face turned slightly more serious.
“You have a problem, wi? Inside the house?” she asked.
“Yes, with our mother,” Cheryl interjected, pointing to the window upstairs.
She enunciated every word. Perhaps she thought that Fabiola’s English wasn’t so good and that she would need word-by-word explanations.
“I will help you. I will look at the house. But first, you make me tea, byen?”
Jill slowly nodded. She was starting to become a little skeptical about hiring her. What if she was a fraud who preyed on people who had this issue, pretending to have a solution, and then robbed them?
Don’t be ridiculous, Jill. There’s two of you, and just one of her. And she drove out all the way from Springfield.
Yes, but maybe she has a gun, another voice in her mind said.
She ignored that voice as she invited Fabiola inside the house. Jill hawkishly observed Fabiola as she stepped over the threshold to see what her reaction would be like. Her facial expression didn’t change one bit.
“Do you uh… sense anything in this house?” Jill asked.
“Non, I am a mambo, not a medium, cheri. If you ask me, mediums are scammers!” there was a hint of anger in her voice, and Jill guessed that Fabiola probably had some run-ins in the past with fake mediums.
“Feel free to take a seat anywhere you like,” Jill gestured to the couch as they entered the living room.
“Non, mèsi,” Fabiola shook a hand. “I will sit in the kitchen, okay?”
“Oh, okay,” Jill said, slightly taken aback by Fabiola’s strange mannerisms.
Maybe she had special rituals as a mambo that she needed to follow before each house cleansing or whatever. They went into the kitchen, and Cheryl began boiling the water for the chamomile tea.
Jill and Fabiola sat from across each other at the kitchen table. Fabiola leaned her elbows on the table and stared at Jill with a half-smile. It made Jill feel uncomfortable, and she barely even registered that she had retreated into her seat and crossed her arms—a sign of a protective body language. When Fabiola’s gaze didn’t abate even after a whole minute, Jill decided to break the silence.
“Can you like, not stare at me like that? It’s kind of creepy,” she chuckled, trying to shrug it off as a joke and hopefully not offend Fabiola.
“Dezole, cheri. I am trying to see something,” Fabiola grinned.
“I thought you said that was for mediums.”
“Wi, I look for how upset you are. Last night, you were upset, yes?”
“Yes,” Jill nodded.
Cheryl had finished the tea and put it on the table in front of Fabiola.
“Mèsi anpil, mezanmi,” the lady said and smiled at Cheryl.
Cheryl nodded in confusion, but said nothing. She was as confused about Fabiola using half-English and half-Haitian Creole as Jill was. Fabiola cupped the mug with her hands and looked at Cheryl.
“Honey?”
Cheryl raised her eyebrows in apprehension.
“Yes?”
“Honey,” Fabiola pointed to the mug.
“Oh, you want honey in your tea,” Cheryl chuckled in embarrassment. “Sorry, no honey in the house.”
“Okay. Not a problem,” Fabiola smiled briskly.
She grabbed the mug by the handle and raised it to her mouth. Despite the steam billowing in the air from the heat, Fabiola loudly slurped. She proceeded to smack her lips, as if tasting the tea and exclaimed a loud ‘Ahhhhh’.
Jill saw Cheryl putting a hand over her mouth to suppress her laughter. This almost caused Jill to start laughing as well, but since she was right in front of Fabiola and not behind her like Cheryl, she had to show respect to the mambo. Luckily, Fabiola didn’t seem to notice this because she continued slurping and ‘ahhh’-ing,’ never lowering the mug from her mouth.
“So, about our mom—” Jill started, but Fabiola raised a finger while still drinking.
She proceeded to do this for a few minutes, not bothering even to lower the mug from her mouth, until it started to become annoying. The entire time, Cheryl and Jill were silent, impatiently waiting for Fabiola to finish her tea. Once she was finally done, she set the mug down firmly on the table and intertwined her fingers with a complacent smile.
“Now, I will listen. Tell me where the problem is, cheri,” she said.
Chapter 27
At first, Cheryl tried to jump in and say a million things at once, but it ended up with her and Jill talking over each other. Fabiola silenced them with a raise of the hand and a brisk ‘pst’. She then gestured to Jill, “You go first, cheri.”
Jill proceeded to explain everything that had transpired in the last few days. Her speech was quick and connected, with no pauses in-between. She spoke like an excited child who was telling a story to her parents, although instead of excitement, Jill spoke with fear.
The entire time, Fabiola listened and nodded fervently with a patronizing smile, muttering ‘wi’ from time to time. This made Cheryl think that the mambo didn’t understand a word of what Jill was saying due to the language barrier. Jill seemed to think this as well because she stopped and asked Fabiola if she understood everything.
Fabiola nodded and repeated the gist of what Jill said, like a child who was forced to repeat what the parent just said. Both Jill and Cheryl were surprised—and impressed.
“Okay?” Fabiola asked once she was done summarizing Jill’s story.
“Okay,” Jill nodded confusedly.
Fabiola rotated in her seat towards Cheryl.
“Okay, now you,” she grinned.
Cheryl cleared her throat. She suddenly didn’t know where to start. Fabiola’s penetrating stare didn’t help her feel less pressure, either.
“I, um…” she started and glanced at Jill for support.
“We have a lot of work, cheri, prese!” Fabiola clapped her hands together to urge her to hurry.
This kickstarted Cheryl, and her tongue began rolling, pretty much as quickly as Jill’s was a few moments ago. She spoke about the bad dreams she’d been having, the things she’d been seeing in the house and Erika’s death. She then retold the story of the radio turning on and Mom being on the floor next to her bed…
The entire time, she had to fight the urge to break down and start crying. Much like with Jill, Fabiola nodded and muttered in her language, and once Cheryl was done speaking, the mambo continued staring at her, as if expecting more.
“That’s all,” Cheryl said.
“Okay. You started to see bad things here when you were little?” Fabiola asked.
“No,” Cheryl said, before reconsidering if that was the truth. “At least I think not.”
“Okay,” Fabiola said as she stood up. “Your mama is in the house?”
“Yes, she’s upstairs,” Jill mirrored Fabiola’s gesture and stood up. “Do you want to see her?”
“Wi,” Fabiola nodded.
“Alright, let’s go see her,” Cheryl impatiently took the initiative.
***
Of the three, Fabiola was the bravest, and Cheryl wasn’t sure if that should be attributed to her lifelong experience handling this sort of thing or the lack of knowing what lurked in the house.
Either way, as soon as Jill unlocked the door, she stepped aside, and Fabiola walked in with a confident gait. She approached Annette and observed her with a squint. Cheryl walked in next, and then Jill. The sisters waited in silence as the mambo scrutinized their mother’s comatose body.
Fabiola sat on the edge of the bed and touched Annette’s hand.
A few seconds later, she said.
“She is cold.”
She mumbled the sentence under her breath and took Cheryl a moment to register that she was just voicing her thoughts aloud.
“Yeah, she’s in a coma,” Jill said.
Fabiola shook her head.
“No, this is not a coma. She is unnaturally cold. She has been taken by an evil spirit.”
She said it so calmly that Cheryl didn’t even consider the implications of her words.
“What does that mean?” Jill frowned.
“It means there is something in the house. Something evil.” When Fabiola turned to look at the sisters, she had a grievous expression on her face.
She darted her eyes back and forth between Jill and Cheryl. When she didn’t say anything else, Cheryl spoke up.
“Okay, but what should we do?”
“I need to look around the house, okay? I need to see where more evil is hiding, oke?”
“Oke,” Jill nodded, much to Cheryl’s glower.
“I need to check the whole house, okay?” Fabiola said.
“Yes, but you should probably see one room, first,” Jill said.
“Okay, cheri. Show me, tanpri.”
Jill stalked out of the room, with Cheryl and Fabiola closely behind her. Cheryl didn’t even need to guess which room Jill wanted to show her.
Once they were in front of Mom’s office, Jill put one hand on the doorknob and looked at Fabiola.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Cheri, I have seen many things in my life. Nothing can surprise me,” the mambo waved a hand in front of Jill’s face vigorously.
“Alright,” Jill said, and pushed the door open.
The first thing Fabiola did when she gazed upon the room’s interior was gasp. Her mouth hung open for at least a few seconds before she closed it and swallowed loudly. She walked inside and mumbled something in her language. Cheryl couldn’t tell what she was uttering, but she could tell that it was the same phrase over and over.
“Your mother, she did this?” Fabiola asked with wide eyes, pointing to the vèvè and the WE HAD A DEAL message on the wall.
“Yes. I think so,” Jill shrugged. “The vèvè was here when Cheryl and I arrived. But the message appeared only last night.”