by Marlowe Blue
Harper stood in the mirror running a curling iron through my blond hair. I wondered how early she had gotten up for that look. I wondered what my friends thought about it. “You know I have to leave for work in a little bit,” she said.
“What the hell is going on, Harper? You parents are acting hella weird and this morning they were talking about some ritual. Of course, they won’t explain things to me because it’s something I should already know about. Whatever it is, you should have told me that afternoon at Coffee and Blooms. I looked you dead in the eye and asked you if there were anything else.”
Harper set the curling iron on my dresser and turned to me. “If I told you, you wouldn’t have had believed me anyway. This was something you had to see for yourself.”
“What did I need to see for myself? What are you talking about?”
She sat beside me on the futon. “The people called Mr. and Mrs. Granger, they’re not my parents, they’re my guardians.”
“Okay. That’s not too big a deal. Did they adopt you or something?”
She shook her head. “I don’t mean legal guardians in that sense. I mean they have been guarding and watching over me since I moved here last year. It will be their job to do so until Saturday night when I make the change.”
I swallowed hard. “What change?”
Harper opened her mouth and then shut it. She looked away from me and of to her left. I knew she was thinking up a lie. “You know, changing from a girl to a woman when you turn eighteen.”
I shook my head. “No, when you turn eighteen. And that’s not what they’re talking about. It’s something more than that. Tell me, Harper.”
She took a deep breath. “Mr. Granger is an Incubus. Mrs. Granger is a Succubus. Once I turn eighteen, I will be a Succubus too.”
I’d heard those words before, but I wasn’t sure what they were. “You’re a Succubus?”
“Yes. Simply put, I’m not human, I just have a human form. Basically, I’m an enchantress, a demon and it will be my job to seduce men.”
“What?”
Harper glanced at the clock on my wall. “I have to go soon, but I will tell you this. Three sacrifices must be made at the party—one that represents love, and the other two have to be people you love and care about, otherwise it won’t be a sacrifice.”
“What do you mean sacrifices?”
She moved over to the dresser and pinned my nametag to my work apron. “Just that. You must choose three people to sacrifice that night for the transformation to be complete. Then you will officially become a Succubus. There’s a black book on my bookshelf. It has no words on the cover or the spine. It will tell you everything you need to know.”
I shot up from the futon. “What do you mean, I? Harper, you seem to think that this switch is permanent but it’s not. I’m going to find that fortune teller or witch or whatever she was and have her switch us back today. I don’t care how rich, or pretty, or popular you are, I’m over being Harper Granger.”
She froze, staring at her reflection in the mirror. “Well, what’s taking you so long? You’ve been in my body for six days already.”
“Because it was fun at first. Who wouldn’t want to be you, but all this . . . I can’t deal. I want my life back.”
“Abby, listen . . .”
She was speaking words, but I wasn’t listening. I pulled out the top drawer of my dresser where I kept a nice assortment of junk. After rummaging for a few seconds, I found the flyer for the carnival and headed for the door. By that time, Brooke was standing in the doorway of her room and I had the sneaky suspicion that she had been eavesdropping. How much had she heard?
Back at the Granger’s I took the flyer and looked at the tiny print at the bottom—The Carnighy Carnival Family. I got on Harper’s laptop and googled the name. I found their website and clicked on their upcoming schedule. Luckily, they had set up in a town that was only two hours away, My best bet was to find them, hunt down the fortune teller, and get her to reverse the curse. I didn’t want to go alone though.
I stayed locked in my room for the rest of the day. After what Harper had told me, I was terrified of the Grangers. Even though I was starving, I didn’t even dare to venture into the kitchen. Instead I found the book Harper had told me about. The book was almost seven hundred pages long. There was no way I could read it all, so I skimmed. What I did learn was that Harper was the product of a Succubus procreating with a human. It wasn’t supposed to happen but sometimes there were slip ups. The Granger’s took Harper from her real parents just before they moved to our town and have been training her in the ways of the Succubi ever sense. That was the reason for all the classes and grooming Harper had to partake in. That was the reason Ms. Primrose had mentioned seduction.
At seven, I slipped out of the house and headed for Quinn’s place. I knew by the time I got there, she would just be getting home from work. My timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I spotted her two blocks from her house, walking with her earbuds in, and a drugstore bag dangling from her side. She had no doubt made a stop to add to her great candy stash.
At first when I pulled up beside her, she didn’t notice. Come on, Quinn. What if I were a deranged kidnapper or something? I honked the horn and she jumped. She stopped and stared as I rolled down the window. “Harper?”
“Hey, Quinn. I know this is really weird but I need to speak with you about something. It’s an emergency. Can you get in?”
She looked around as if someone might be standing nearby recording the whole thing and I was playing a joke on her. I couldn’t blame her. In our world, things like getting randomly picked up by the most popular girl in school didn’t happen.
She hesitated for a few moments and then crossed over to the passenger side. Once she was in, I pulled over to the side of the street. “Quinn, I have to tell you something. I know it sounds crazy and if I were you I probably wouldn’t believe it, but I really need you to hear me out before you say anything.”
Quinn looked around the car. “Oh . . . okay.”
I sank into the driver’s seat and told her everything. “That night at the carnival, I lied to you about that little silver box. It wasn’t a gift for my grandmother. I bought it from the fortune teller to use for a spell.”
I pulled the tiny silver box from Harper’s Fendi purse. “She told me that I could switch lives with anyone I wanted. All I had to do was put their picture in this box and sleep with it underneath my pillow. So of course, I did that and that Monday morning after the carnival, I woke up in Harper’s body.”
Quinn stared at me with her mouth open.
I reiterated the important part. “All this week Harper has been in my body and I’ve been in hers. I’m really Abby.”
Quinn was quiet for a long time then she threw her head back and laughed. “Good one. I don’t know how or why you and Abby got together and cooked this up but it’s a good one.”
I grabbed her arm. I didn’t have time for this. I needed her to believe me so we could go find this woman. “Your middle name is Octavia, you hate it and tell everyone that your middle name is Selena. When we were in the fourth grade we found a dead turtle by the river that had a hole in its shell. The next weekend we found another the same way. We launched an investigation to find the turtle serial killer. You named him the Shell Smasher. For a brief while when we were in the sixth grade you went through this clepto stage. You stole grape bubblegum from Harrington’s and it got stuck in your braces and you mom grounded you. Your favorite food is peanut butter sandwiches with hot Cheetos in the middle. You have a birthmark on your . . .”
Quinn threw her hands up. “Okay, okay, okay.” She leaned closer to me. “Abby? I can’t believe. I knew something was off this week but I thought you were just having mood swings or something. What the hell?”
“Quinn, that’s not even the worst part, okay? It turns out that the Grangers are really weird and they have all these weird rules and stuff and they started talking about some transformation cerem
ony and all this stuff that made no sense to me but they wouldn’t explain it, so I went to my place to see Harper, you know in my body, and she told me that she’s a Succubus and that the night of her eighteenth birthday I have to make three human sacrifices.”
Quinn leaned against the seat and closed her eyes. “What is happening? Am I in a movie? Is this real life?”
“Quinn, I know this is almost impossible to believe but for right now I need you to go with it.”
Quinn pulled the ear buds from her ear. “So, what are we going to do about this? Clearly, you have to get your body back.”
“You believe me?”
“Of course, you’re my best friend and as far as I know you’ve never lied to me except for the silver box at the carnival thing.”
I leaned over and hugged her. I missed everything about Quinn. Her voice. Her smell. Her nonchalant way that she had of not letting me worry about anything.
“The carnival has moved over to Carson Oaks. They’ll be there until tomorrow night. I have to go and see if I can hunt the fortune teller down and get her to reverse the curse. I want you to come with me. It might be an all-nighter.”
Quinn nodded. “Let’s do it. I’ll text my mom and tell her that I’m spending the night at your place.”
“Thanks, Quinn.” Harper may have had a lot of advantages over me, but better friends wasn’t one of them.
I put the carnival’s location into my GPS and headed for the highway. Quinn looked around the car. “This is a sweet ride. Being Harper couldn’t have been all bad.”
I told her about the good things, the money, the clothes, the car, and Tucker. “I have her card on me. We can stop and get something to eat. I haven’t eaten all day. How’s Gunner?”
Quinn groaned. “A hot mess as usual but he and Felix are more in love than they’ve ever been. I can’t take it. So tell me more about these human sacrifices.”
“I wish I could tell you more, but I don’t know anymore and it really doesn’t matter since we’re getting switched back.”
We talked a little more about what it was like to be Harper and how she had been fitting in with my friends. We stopped for a quick bite and before I knew it, it was a little after 10 PM and we were pulling onto the carnival grounds.
11
It was a carnival for some church. Armed with a wallet full of cash, I paid the admission for Quinn and I to get in and then we scoured the grounds for the fortune teller’s tent. We saw rides, games, tons of food stands, but no fortune teller. I found a guy wearing a bright orange shirt with the word STAFF written on the back. He was flipping through some page on his clipboard.
“Excuse me, sir, but where are the fortune tellers?”
He scribbled something on the clipboard. “They’re off. This is a church function and they’re not really into that kind of stuff.”
Of course.
Quinn managed her biggest smile. “Uh, my friend is related to one of them and she really needs to talk to her. Where can we find the fortune tellers?”
The guy shrugged. “Unless, they’re out, they’d be in one of the trailers.”
Quinn and I exited the carnival. In a field not too far from the fence were two rows of trailers. Most of them were dark because the workers were all at the carnival, but a few of them had lights on. We started at the first trailer and knocked. When there was no answer, we went to the next one. There was no answer at any of them.
“This is the last one,” Quinn announced unnecessarily as I knocked. This was my final hope. If the woman wasn’t here, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
Before I was done knocking, the door swung open. A woman glared at me from the other side, but she wasn’t the person I was looking for. This one was much younger with straight blond hair pulled back into a bun. She wore a short pink romper and fuzzy white slippers. “Can I help you?”
“Y-yes,” I stammered. “We’re looking for a fortune teller. She’s an older woman with long, gray, wavy hair. Is she here?”
“No. No one is here but me.”
Quinn tried to poke her head in but the woman blocked her view. “Do you know when she’ll be back? Can we wait for her? This is kind of a life and death situation.”
The woman pouted. “Life and death? What do you want with her?”
“We’re not bill collectors or anything,” I told her. “I mean, look at us. I just want to ask her a very important question.”
“Well, as I said, she’s not here. Good night.” The woman went to close the door but I caught it. “Can I at least leave a message?”
“I said, good night.” With that the woman slammed the door shut. I could hear the lock clink on the other side.
“Damn,” I said under my breath.
“What do you want?” said a croaky voice from behind me. Quinn and I both spun on our heels. The fortune teller leaned against the fence smoking a cigarette. Roving lights from the carnival grounds washed over her. Where had she come from? If she had been there before we would have seen her.
“Do you remember me?” I asked. I was sure she had read plenty of fake fortunes that night, but I was probably the only person stupid enough to take her up on her spell offer.
“Of course I do Abigail. I see the curse has worked and you’ve gotten exactly what you’ve wanted. You should be very happy, so I ask again, why are you here?”
I stepped closer to her. “I don’t want to be Harper anymore. I wanted to before more than anything, but her life isn’t what I thought it was and I want my old life back.”
The woman took another puff of her cigarette and let out a hearty chuckle. “In all my years of doing this I have never come across a person who didn’t want the curse reversed.”
“Then why do you do it?” Quinn asked. “If people end up not liking it, why do it at all/”
“Because sometimes it needs to happen to get people to appreciate what they really have.”
“Well, lesson learned. How can I reverse it?” I demanded.
The woman smirked. “Casting a spell comes with a price and reversing a spell comes at a greater price, my dear.” Of course. Thankfully I had Harper’s money. “How much?”
“How much to you have?” Groaning, I reached into Harper’s purse and handed her all the cash that was in Harper’s wallet. I had no idea how much money it was, but it had to be enough for her. It was much more than the sixty-one bucks I had given her initially.
She slid the money into the deep pockets of her robes. “The solution is simple. The person must be willing to take their life back. Once they are, put a hair of theirs in the silver box. Sleep with it under your pillow and the next morning when you wake up you will be back in your right body.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Thank you,” I said backing away. That was easy. All I had to do was get back to my apartment and tell Harper the good news.
Relieved, on the way back, Quinn and I listened to music and talked about silly things just like old times. I couldn’t wait to get back to my carefree self.
“Abby, I have to ask you something about this switching bodies business. You could have put anyone’s picture in the box. Harper is cool and everything but why not Beyonce or the princess of Wales.”
“That’s one of the rules,” I told her. “No famous people or celebrities.”
When we got back to Everson Woods, it was after 1 AM. My mom would be home so I couldn’t very well go to the apartment asking to speak to Harper, but I would be there first thing in the morning.
I spent the night at Quinn’s since I had no desire to spend another creepy night at the Granger’s even though I might have had to just once more.
Quinn asked me if I needed her to come along but I told her it wasn’t necessary. This was the easy part. I knocked on the door of my apartment at 10 AM, figuring Harper would probably be up by then. Mom would still be home, but that didn’t matter, we would go somewhere else to talk.
Harper answered
the door wearing my favorite pajamas. “Hey, Harper. Nice to see you again.”
“Hey. Can we talk? Downstairs?”
Harper thought for a moment and then nodded. “Sure. Let me go put on some shoes.”
I waited and a moment later she emerged wearing my white Converse sneakers. I lead the way downstairs to a quiet spot in the parking lot. “Last night I went to see the fortune teller who cast this curse. Good news. Reversing the curse is easy. We just need you to willingly want to switch back and then I need one of your hairs. Tomorrow we will wake up in our real bodies.”
Harper paled and took a step back which was not the reaction I had been expecting. “What’s wrong?”
She looked down and ran the toe of her sneaker over some broken glass on the ground. “Well, who says I want to switch back?”
“What do you mean want to? This is your life, you need to take it back. This was all a huge mistake.”
Harper pulled her fair from around her neck, if I could have, I would have jumped back into my body right then. “What if I don’t want that life anymore? You gave me a way out, why should I take it back?”
“Harper, your life is great. You’re gorgeous. Everyone loves you. You have tons of friends. You’re rich. You’ve got that great house and you’re dating Tucker.”
Harper gave me a sad smile. “It looks that way from the outside doesn’t it, but you know first-hand that my life isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. By next Saturday my life will be totally different and there’s no escaping that. I don’t want to spend my life seducing men and making them go crazy and offering human sacrifices to The Society. Then when I turn a certain age, I’ll be doing exactly what the Grangers do. Guarding another young Succubus until her eighteenth birthday and helping her make her first sacrifice. The cycle continues. I don’t want to do that. I want to be able to make my own choices. Have a career, a family . . . freedom.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. If Harper didn’t want to switch back, what did that mean for me? The possibility of her not wanting to give me my life back had never entered my mind.