Her Home (Haunted Places)

by Boris Bacic

  “Cherry, please don’t do this…” Jill said with a broken-up voice, tears streaming down her cheeks as she sniffled.

  This caused Cheryl to break down, as well. She shot forward at the same time as Jill, and they embraced each other tightly, sobbing uncontrollably. Cheryl felt Jill’s tear-stricken cheeks pressing against hers, and for a moment, she felt like they were kids again when Cheryl got bullied, and Jill came to her rescue.

  “If something happens to me, tell Charlie I love him,” Cheryl said.

  Jill pulled back and gently grabbed Cheryl by the cheeks.

  “No. You’ll tell him that yourself once you’re back. And then he can spend some quality time with his aunt and his grandma.”

  Cheryl cried a little harder as she leaned her forehead against Jill’s. Cheryl suddenly didn’t want to let her sister go, but she knew that she had to. Mom was in trouble, going through god-knows-what, and she had to rescue her.

  Once Cheryl pulled away and scooted back to her spot on the floor, she wiped her tears, sniffled, and nodded resolutely at Fabiola. Fabiola nodded back. Jill wiped her tears, as well, and now retained a calm, almost tired expression on her face, her eyes puffy and bloodshot from crying.

  Cheryl felt like it would be really easy to start crying once again if she allowed the flood of emotions to overwhelm her. But she wouldn’t allow that fear to overwhelm her. Mom’s life depended on her, and she was intent on bringing her back.

  “Do you need some more time, cheri?” Fabiola asked with a motherly concern in her timbre.

  “No. I’m ready, Fabiola,” Cheryl nodded.

  “Good,” Fabiola said and grabbed a chalk from the suitcase. “For this ritual, we will invoke Ezili Freda, the loa of love, femininity, and luxury. Make some room, tanpri.”

  Jill and Cheryl gave Fabiola a little more space so that she could begin drawing on the floor. The room had wooden flooring, so Fabiola was able to draw on it with relative ease.

  Each line she drew was elegant and artistic, which indicated that she must have done this a million times over. It soon became apparent that she was drawing a vèvè in the shape of a heart, with various meticulously drawn lines in the interior, and some lines that decorated the exterior of the vèvè.

  She drew quickly. Once she was done, she placed the chalk back in the suitcase and wiped her hands against one another to clean the white dust off her fingers.

  “Now, go ahead, enter the portal,” she gestured to the vèvè.

  Cheryl looked at her with a raised eyebrow and then at the vèvè. She glanced at Jill, just to make sure she wasn’t stupidly missing something obvious, but her sister looked just as confused.

  When Cheryl looked back at Fabiola, she had an expectant look on her face. With no idea what to do next, Cheryl reached forward for the vèvè. Suddenly, she didn’t want to touch it. Her finger hovered above the center of the heart, but she couldn’t bring herself to lower it any further. It was as if an invisible magnet was pushing her finger away.

  And then—

  Fabiola burst into a guffawing fit. She laughed so hard that she almost fell sideways as she slapped her knee hysterically in laughter. Both Jill and Cheryl stared at her in confusion.

  “I joke!” she finally said through laughing tears.

  This baited a smile out of Cheryl, but nothing more. Jill didn’t look amused at all.

  “Okay, I will be serious now. This is a serious matter,” Fabiola said and exhaled deeply, calming herself down.

  She was about to say something else, but she laughed a little more. When she realized she was the only one in the room laughing, she wiped her tears away and sighed deeply. Her face morphed from laughing to a more serious expression.

  “Okay. I joke a little to ease the difficult task ahead of us. But now, we must be serious when summoning the loa. Ezili Freda is easily offended, and we do not want to offend her, wi?”

  “Wait!” Jill raised a hand with a focused expression.

  Cheryl heard it, too.

  The sound of a car pulling into the driveway. And then a muffled, petulant, barely audible voice that she knew all too well.

  “Is Mom inside?” the child asked.

  Chapter 30

  Jill couldn’t believe it. She was overcome by a feeling of surprise. And then a mixture of anger and happiness. She jumped to her feet and stormed out of the office, raced downstairs, and yanked the door open so violently that she thought she might tear the knob out of place. She strode outside and stopped, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Mommy!” Charlie yelled almost immediately, once he saw her.

  He ran towards her with his arms spread. Jill knelt down and embraced him just as he collided with her, causing her to fall backward. She didn’t even care about getting her shirt dirty from the grass.

  “Charlie! Oh, I missed you so much, baby,” she said as she rocked left and right, kissing Charlie’s head and caressing his face.

  “Hey, babe,” Lee said as he took a step forward towards them.

  Jill looked at him with wide eyes.

  “Lee! What are you doing here?!” she meant for the question to sound hostile and accusatory, but she couldn’t hide her exuberance.

  “You know. Came to see what you were doing. Charlie kinda missed you. I didn’t, but he did, so we decided to come.”

  Despite the danger of the house, she couldn’t help but feel happy to see her family. But then it dawned on her.

  The house is dangerous.

  She gently pulled Charlie off of her and clambered up to her feet, the initial joy of seeing her family slightly wearing down, and anger and newfound concern forming inside her.

  “Lee, I’m serious. What are you guys doing here? I told you not to come here!”

  Charlie was buzzing around her, tugging her hand, excitedly telling her a story.

  “Not now, baby,” Jill shushed him.

  Charlie looked towards the house and his eyes suddenly gleamed with even more excitement.

  “Aunt Cherry!” he shouted and ran towards the house.

  “Charlie, wait!” Jill reached out to stop him from approaching the house, but it was too late.

  She turned around and saw Cheryl and Fabiola standing on the porch. Cheryl embraced Charlie in a similar fashion, minus the falling on her back part. Fabiola darted her eyes at the newcomers with a flippant smile on her face. Jill couldn’t tell from the reticence of the mambo’s face if she was impatient or not.

  “Who’s that?” Lee asked, jutting his head subtly towards Fabiola.

  Jill refocused herself and remembered that Lee was there, and the worry of what might happen to her family increased. She noticed that Charlie and Cheryl were preoccupied getting to know each other—Charlie was telling Cheryl about something with excited gestures, while Cheryl responded to everything he was saying with exaggerated and patronizing phrases.

  Jill pulled Lee aside so that they had some privacy away from the others.

  “I told you not to come here, Lee. Do you realize how dangerous it is here? What were you thinking bringing our son here?!”

  “Hey, I couldn’t just leave Charlie alone for the whole day. And I couldn’t let you deal with whatever crap you have here on your own.”

  Jill sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

  “You have to leave the house, now,” she said.

  “Why?” Lee chuckled. “What’s so bad about this house?”

  “It’s not just the house. I don’t want Charlie seeing my mother in a coma. He could start thinking about death and other morbid things.”

  “We won’t let him see her, alright?” Lee raised his palms towards Jill defensively. “I already told him grandma is busy, so it’s not like he expects to see her.”

  Jill crossed her arms, and suddenly became aware that it was a gesture that Cheryl often made. She looked towards the house and saw Fabiola now speaking to Charlie while he listened with eyes as wide as saucers.

  She better not be talking to him
about Vodou rituals and other such things.

  “Hey. Babe? What exactly is wrong?” Lee asked solicitously.

  Jill sighed and looked down at her feet. Lee took a step closer and put his hands on Jill’s neck. She suddenly felt the relief leaving her at his touch.

  “Jill, come on. You know you can tell me everything. We’re a team, right?”

  “You wouldn’t understand this,” Jill shook her head.

  “Try me.”

  Jill pondered that for a moment. Should she tell him? Was Lee going to believe her? Or would he think that she was going crazy like Annette? She already told him a million times how her mom was paranoid, so what if Lee started to see Jill the same way? What if one day he left her and took Charlie, just like Dad did with her? But she had Cheryl on her side. Cheryl could confirm the story.

  So it’s going to be two crazy sisters.

  “Alright, I’ll tell you,” Jill said. “But I need you to be open-minded about this. I’m not going crazy, I swear. Cheryl can confirm what I tell you, too.”

  “Okay, I’m listening,” Lee said with a stern look on his face.

  Jill sighed, not even sure where to start, so she just started with whatever came to her mind first. As she spoke, Lee developed a frown on his face. Anyone who didn’t know him would think that he was silently judging her, but Jill knew after all these years that it was just his focused gaze. He didn’t change his facial expression once, even when Jill went into the supernatural details of what went down in the house.

  When she finally finished explaining that they were about to send Cheryl to the Vodou crossroads, she realized how outlandish her entire story must sound. She expected Lee to laugh, or worse, to patronize her.

  “Alright. What can I do to help?” Lee finally asked.

  This surprised Jill, but it also terrified her. The reason for that was because if Lee believed the story, that meant that this was all real, and that there really was something supernatural going on. A small part of Jill still wanted to believe that there was a logical explanation for all of this, but that part disappeared with each passing hour.

  “You and Charlie can go home, is what you can do,” Jill said.

  “We drove all the way out here. We’re not going home,” Lee shook his head firmly.

  “Lee, didn’t you hear a word of what I just said? The house is dangerous! Look, if you don’t wanna go home, then at least take Charlie and go to Medford. Just until this is all finished. Okay?”

  “Actually, Jill, all three of you can go to Medford together,” Cheryl stealthily appeared at Jill’s side, almost startling her.

  She had Charlie with her, holding a hand on his shoulder.

  “I bet Charlie would love to visit the Rogue Valley Zipline Adventure. Right, Charlie?”

  “Yeah!” Charlie exclaimed, the excitement palpable in his voice.

  It would be hard to calm him down now.

  “Can we go, Mom? Please?” he pleaded as he bounced up and down while holding Jill by her hands.

  “Cheryl, what are you doing?” Jill glowered at Cheryl.

  “Nothing,” Cheryl shrugged aloofly. “You guys need some family time together. Let me and Fabiola take care of the house while you’re gone.”

  As if on cue, Fabiola walked up to them and grinned. She must have heard what Cheryl said because she nodded fervently.

  “Everything will be okay while you’re gone, cheri. You have fun with your family,” she dismissively waved with her wrist.

  “It’s okay, Jill. We got this,” Cheryl smiled confidently.

  Jill thought for a moment. Everyone was looking at her. Charlie was still tugging her hands and begging her to go to the zipline park. Jill’s eyes met Cheryl’s. They smiled reassuringly at each other. She looked down at Charlie.

  “Okay, sure, why not?” Jill shrugged. “Let’s go to Rogue Valley Zipline Adventure!”

  “Yay!” Charlie triumphantly hopped around.

  “But under one condition,” Jill added.

  Charlie stopped cheering.

  “That you let Aunt Cheryl sleep over at our apartment once we get back,” she looked at Cheryl with a satisfactory smile.

  Charlie exploded in happiness and immediately started telling Cheryl about the cool video games he had to show her. Cheryl agreed to see everything he wanted her to see. Lee ushered Charlie—with great effort—back to the car and motioned with his head for Jill to also get in. Jill looked at Cheryl once more. There may have been a glimmer of fear in her eyes, or maybe not. Jill couldn’t quite tell.

  As she entered the car, she continued staring at her sister, hoping they would be able to start rebuilding their relationship, once this was all over.

  Chapter 31

  As Cheryl watched Jill, Lee, and Charlie leaving, she didn’t feel sad anymore. For so many years, she had wanted to fix her relationship with Jill, even though she wasn’t truly aware of it until their reunion. It was one of those things that had caused a void in her life—and no matter what she tried, she couldn’t fill it up. What happened to Mom was terrible, but it had brought her and Jill back together, so it was also a good thing.

  Cheryl wondered for a moment if Mom could see them right now and what she would think about it. She always talked about how sorry she was that Jill and Cheryl weren’t closer and often compared them to siblings who had really tight-knit relationships.

  Now, Cheryl had at least buried the hatchet with her sister. And with that came a strong will to live. She wanted to live for Mom, but even more potently, she wanted to live for Jill and for Charlie.

  “Are you okay, cheri?” Fabiola gently stroked Cheryl’s back.

  “Yeah,” Cheryl said, still staring at the car that was now a tiny dot in the distance. “Yeah, I’m good. Let’s get this over with, huh?”

  “Wi,” Fabiola nodded with a reassuring smile.

  ***

  Cheryl’s anxiety eased out of her when they sat back down in the office, in front of the vèvè drawn on the floor. Fabiola and Cheryl had scavenged any fancy items they could find in the house. Cheryl didn’t know what ‘fancy’ meant until Fabiola explained to her that the loa they were summoning, Ezili Freda, loved gifts like lipstick, perfumes, candy, and jewelry.

  Cheryl found some good candy, and Mom had lots of jewelry in her bedroom—rings, necklaces, and bracelets of both sentimental and monetary value. When she retrieved a perfume from the bathroom, Fabiola took it from her and scrutinized it before making a disgusted grimace and shoving it back to Cheryl.

  “What?” Cheryl shrugged.

  “This will not do. Ezili Freda prefers only the finest perfume. If we give her this, she will be insulted.”

  “My mom’s been using this perfume all her life. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “Yes, and in Haiti, some people save money for weeks to be able to afford a fancy perfume just to summon Ezili Freda.”

  Once all the items were placed on the vèvè drawn on the floor, Fabiola calmly looked at Cheryl and said, “We are ready to begin. Are you prepared?”

  Cheryl nodded.

  “Remember, if you get in trouble, or when you find your mother, chant these words aloud. Papa Legba, get me out. Or Papa Legba, get us out. Okay?”

  “Papa Legba, get us out. Okay,” Cheryl acknowledged while repeating the phrase back to her.

  “Just keep repeating it until you are out of there, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Fabiola nodded.

  “Then first, close your eyes.”

  Cheryl did so.

  “Clear your mind of everything. You need to relax.”

  Cheryl inhaled and exhaled calmly, trying to blank out her mind. She quickly realized that is was impossible. Her mind repeatedly raced from thought to thought—from Jill, to Charlie, to Mom, to Erika, then to Erika’s dead body splayed on the stairs—

  “I can’t clear my mind,” Cheryl said dismally.

  “Then try to imagine something peaceful, cheri. A time when you we
re relaxed or happy.”

  Cheryl thought about that. When was the last time she was happy—truly happy?

  She wasn’t a pessimistic person in general, and it didn’t take a lot to make her happy. Her life in college was pretty relaxing. She had lots of friends (not counting the backstabbers), college wasn’t overly hard or stressful, and she generally liked living in California. But she didn’t have a feeling of immense happiness there. She was content, yes, but not happy. Even when she was with Tom, madly in love, that feeling wasn’t present.

  Her thoughts returned to when she was a kid, back when life was much simpler. She remembered a vacation the entire family had once taken to the Bahamas. She was only four back then, and this was before Mom had started losing her mind.

  The family was on the beach; Mom and Dad were sunbathing, and Jill and Cheryl were building a sandcastle nearby. Cheryl didn’t do anything to actually contribute to building the castle, but she tried futilely. She even accidentally caused a cave-in on one of the towers and shouted ‘Oh, no!’ in dismay. She thought Jill would be upset about it.

  To her relief, Jill simply told her that it was okay and fixed it. She then told Cheryl to take the seashells they found in the water and embed them around the castle as decorations. By the time they finished, the castle was large, with multiple battlements and towers, and even a bridge with a dug-in moat around it.

  Cheryl was proud of the work she accomplished by settling the seashells around various spots of the castle. She was even prouder when Jill told her what a good team they made.

  Cheryl opened her eyes.

  “Okay, now what?” she asked.

  “Now, we summon Ezili Freda. Please, try to stay calm. Do not fear, no matter what you see or hear. Ezili Freda is not an evil loa.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Just relax and allow Ezili Freda to enter your physical body.”

  With that, Fabiola started chanting words of invocation intermittently in English and Haitian Creole. The words were simple, mostly focusing on calling Ezili Freda by her name and stating what gifts were being given to her.