Hey Leigh
I found a place
A little lower on the paper it said
See ya
I stood straight up. “What? You found a place? See ya?” It sunk in quick. My cat had just delivered a break up notice. I actually felt my heart pop like it was a water balloon getting poked with a pin. All the blood ran down to my feet and I just felt empty. I didn’t even sit back down before that blood boiled right back up in an uncontrollable volcanic eruption where my heart had once been. “Motherfucker!” I shouted. Luna jumped away as fast as her fluffy paws could carry her. She wasn’t used to seeing me lose my mind in a fit of rage. I’m not that experienced in all actuality. I must have sounded like a rabid dog as I growled several words without finishing them. I had no idea this was coming my way. I stomped and kicked at the furniture. I wanted to throw something.
I used to have these neighbors, John and Gina Galicki, they seemed like the perfect couple and took ceramics classes a couple of nights a week. Curiously, about one night per month, everyone on the street could hear those two fighting like a pair of wild animals. They screamed and shouted, and most of all they smashed all the pottery they had made throughout the month. Honestly, there were times when I worried the fight was going to spill out into the street and start a riot. The next day they were fine and went on to make more ceramic weapons for their next monthly PMS induced brawl.
The thing is, I don’t own that many nice things. You know, things that you could throw to make a theatrical smashing sound. I didn’t stock up for the occasion by taking a pottery class. Although, it would be a poetic way to say how my little heart had been shattered. As I continued to shout profanities, curses, and words I didn’t know that I knew, I looked around and saw a heavy glass vase. I had bought it to put some fake flowers in. You know the kind of vase I’m talking about. The kind that is about as big around as a soup can and a foot tall. It was cheap, it was heavy, and this situation was worth the bargain buster deal I had bought it for.
I also saw my desk. “Oh, yeah, you sorry son of a bitch. Let’s see you write your stupid notes once I lay some witchcraft on your happy ass! I’m going to make you think you’re a frog. You’ll paint yourself green and hop down Michigan Avenue in nothing but cheap body paint.” That didn’t seem good enough, but it was a start.
I took a quarterback’s stance and was ready to hurl the vase. “Damn, I can’t afford a hole in the wall or a new window.” Now I looked like a quarterback that shifted around trying to find an open receiver. The door was sturdy and provided a nice, sizeable target that even I couldn’t miss. I threw a perfect spiral. It was like a glass bullet. Just as my perfect glass bullet pass was about to make impact, Hunter opened the door and the bottom of the vase caught him right in the forehead.
The sound was a combination of a “thud” and a slightly hollow “clink.” I don’t know why, but my initial feeling was that of disappointment. The vase didn’t shatter into a million pieces like I expected. It just rolled away and out the door. Hunter never knew what hit him, and he had been knocked out cold before he even started to fall backward. The only part of him facing me now were the soles of his shoes. “Hell, yeah! Take that one!” I yelled.
Silence. I didn’t see any movement and my heart pounded, not from the adrenaline but that perhaps I had finally killed him this time. Okay, okay, it was just an accident. Yes, I was mad and if anyone in the neighborhood heard me yelling, they will say I was going to kill him. I didn’t mean it. Then I panicked. I ran over to him and looked at his face. His face still had the look of shock except for the perfectly round red circle on his forehead. It seemed like he was breathing. I grabbed his legs and pulled as hard as I could. I had to drag him inside.
“Oh my God, you are so heavy!” I huffed and puffed, and pulled. I finally got him in to the point where I could roll him off to the side, just enough to close the door. His arms were splayed out, in one hand was a small bouquet of flowers, and in the other hand was a small stack of official documents. They looked like legal documents and they had both of our names on them. I was so worked up I couldn’t look at them, but I was pretty sure they had to do with real estate.
“Hunter! Please, wake up! Please!” Hunter didn’t move. “I am so sorry. I don’t mean to keep giving you concussions.” I took a breath. I had to call for help, but the phone was on the desk. “I’ll call 911. Stay right there!” Hunter lay motionless.
Before I could get up and turn around, a puff of green smoke filled the room. A Creole voice that I recognized filled the room. “I’m no doctor, but I’d say you cracked that boy’s skull. Did you kill him?” It was Marie Laveau. She wore a long robe in vivid hues of gold, green, and red. A similar material wrapped tightly around her hair. She looked every bit the Voodoo Queen of Louisiana.
“Marie! Help! I don’t know if I killed him.”
“Oh, no problem, sweetie. I can change him into a bug and step on him. Is he a burglar? Escaped prisoner?”
“No! It’s Hunter, my boyfriend.”
Marie leaned down and checked out Hunter. She put her hands on his neck and head. “He’s still alive.” She put her hand on his chest. “He’s been hit with a pretty powerful jolt of magic. That’s for certain.” She touched his forehead. “And apparently his gourd has been thumped pretty good also. I’d say by a blunt instrument. Vase?”
“Yes, but it was an accident. Can you please help him?” I begged.
“An accident? Hell, I’d hate to see what he’d look like if you meant to bludgeon him to death. What did he do anyway? Was he chasing another girl? Is he a drinker? A gambler, maybe? Cause I’ve come across my fair share of those lowlifes. Let me tell you, I had one ole boy that stole my rings. The jackwad sold them and ran off with some nasty whore from Baton Rouge. Well, you can bet your witchy ass that I caught up with him all right. I turned him into a chicken and fed the bastard to my gators.” She held up her Voodoo necklace and among the various bony things that were suspended on it was a single chicken’s beak. “See this? It’s all that’s left of that one. That’s how you do it the witchy way. A woman has got to be creative, especially with a man that’s lower than a mudbug in winter.”
“No. No, I swear. He’s none of those. See?” I lifted Hunters limp arm. The bouquet was still in his grip. The white daisy heads and small blue flowers dangled down in such a sad way that I started to cry. “Flowers.” I tried to stop sobbing. “He brought me flowers, and I split his skull.” The reality of what I had done hit me so hard at that particular moment. I knew I’d burn at the stake for this incident, and deservedly so. That is, if the state of Illinois even did that sort of thing. No matter, they would probably bring back stake burnings just for me. “I was trying to throw a vase at the door and he just happened to walk in at the exact same moment.”
“Relax, sweetie.” Marie reached into her robe to retrieve her wand. It looked like nothing more than a rough stick you would find laying under a tree. She waved it over Hunter and chanted something mysterious and unintelligible. His body began to levitate. I put my hands over my mouth, trying to keep it together. With a single swing, Hunter floated away to the bedroom. We all followed, Luna included. With small movements of her wand, Marie lowered Hunter gently onto the bed.
“Now what?” I cried.
“The reason I came here is because anytime a witch releases a powerful burst of witchcraft in a fit of rage, an alarm goes off at the union office. We had to set that system up to keep a handle on these sorts of things. Let me tell you, over the years some of these women have been able to really set a new definition for an evil witch. And it’s always because of a man. Always. Always. Always. I remember this one witch, she—”
Now was not the time for an oral history of witchcraft gone awry. “Marie! I didn’t use magic, I just threw that vase.” I pointed to the vase that was lying on the floor.
“Yes, but you were so enraged. You were so furious and you were focusing all of that energy in one single part of your min
d. When you whipped that vase out, you not only released your anger, you shot your man right through the heart with magic. You knocked his ghost straight out of him.”
“What? What the hell do you mean? How did I knock his ghost out? Are you kidding?” This went against every bit of logic that remained in my brain. I simply couldn’t even begin to comprehend that thought.
“Yeah, you know—his spirit, his soul, whatever you like to call it. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. Your magic is keeping his body alive in a state of suspended animation. At least that’s the way I describe it. I got the idea to call it that after watching a movie about these people that were traveling through space—”
“Marie! Suspended animation. I get it. What about his...his ghost? Where is it?”
“Oh, it’s here somewhere. That sucker will stay close to his physical body. I’ll snag it and put it back in. He’ll be fine after that.” Marie closed her eyes and held her hands up over her head and moved her fingers. She slowly turned around as if she was feeling the air for Hunter’s ghost. It goes without saying, I was barely able to control my tears. This was frightening in so many ways. I prayed that she would find him.
“Bad news, sweetie. His ghost isn’t here. I don’t understand it. Even if you blew it out the front door, it should bounce right back near his body. Something or someone else is involved. I sense that.”
“What? What else? Who else?” I started to shake as the stream of tears flowed harder down my face.
“I don’t know for sure, but if I had to give my best guess…” Marie put her hands out in front of her as she walked to the front door where I had accidentally pummeled Hunter into suspended animation. “I’d say it was another ghost that has been following him around for whatever reason. When you knocked his ghost out…it took his away.”
“Where? Oh my God! You’re saying that Hunter’s been ghost-napped? How do we find him?”
“No. There is no we unless you got a mouse in your pocket. You don’t, do you? Never mind, don’t answer that. You find him. I’m outta here. I can’t look all over Chicago for ghosts. You need a medium and a good ole fashioned Ouija board.” She waved her little wand and a white porcelain decanter appeared in her other hand. It had a silver clip that clamped the lid down tight, just like the set of decanters I had in the kitchen. “You need to clip some of his hair, take a few drops of his blood and put them in here. Once you find his ghost, you open this up and tell him to get inside quickly. You will need a medium that knows how to talk to these ghosts, she or he will have to distract his kidnappers, err, ghost-nappers long enough for him to make a getaway. Once you get his ghost inside, you get back here and call me.”
Before I could ask Marie where one would go to find a medium, she vanished in her cloud of green smoke. Luna and I lay on the bed next to Hunter and I held him. I cried. Luna cried. I didn’t know what to do next. I picked that battered bouquet from his hand and I retrieved the vase that I hit him with. Once I had the flowers in it, I set it on the nightstand in a fitting display of irony. To make it worse, a couple of the daisy petals slowly fluttered down to the floor as if Hunter’s ghost was playing ‘I love you, I love you not.’
Luna picked up the other papers he had been carrying and brought them to me. They were real estate legal papers all right. From what I could figure out, Hunter had snapped up a house on an auction. He had the deed paperwork filled out in both of our names. I realized Hunter had found a house for us, for our lives together, right here in Lincoln Park. He had been coming in the door to tell me that very thing and I knocked the ghost out of him.
Chapter Nine
A Call for Help
I sat on the edge of the bed and watched Hunter. He may as well have been peacefully asleep in my bed. What if Marie was completely wrong and Hunter was only knocked out cold? I shook him and there was no response. I knew that it was up to me to save Hunter. I would have to trust in Marie’s instructions and most importantly, trust in myself. I finally shook off the pity and jumped to action.
I needed my friends more than ever. In a flurry of phone calls, I summoned Kelly and Lindsey. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get ahold of Gertie or Randy. I also called in to the school district office that I had a family emergency. There was a handy system in place that contacted a substitute teacher. I would just have to make a follow up call with the office first thing in the morning. Then I waited with Hunter.
Kelly and Lindsey stormed through the front door. “Leigh! Leigh!” They shouted in harmony.
“In the bedroom.” I replied.
They froze in place when they arrived at the bedroom door. Lindsey instantly cried out, “Oh my God!” and then just covered her mouth with her hands.
Kelly was a little more succinct with her comment. “You said there was an accident, but I had no idea that you killed your boyfriend. I’ll call my Uncle Carmine. If anyone can help us out, it’s him. The best part is he won’t ask any questions. He may want something in return someday, though.”
“No! No, I didn’t kill him! He’s sort of knocked out. He’s in a state of suspended animation actually.” I knew that I’d have to explain what happened, but I had no desire to relive my act of violence.
My friends walked up to the bed to get a close look at Hunter. Kelly touched his forehead. “Wow! You sure nailed him in the head with something. It looks like he has the Japanese flag tattooed on his forehead. What did you use?” She glanced around the room and spotted the vase before I could answer her. “That? Is that heavy glass vase the thing you drove into his skull? Jesus, Leigh! What did he do to you?”
“Nothing! I mean, at the time I thought he had dumped me and left. I came home after a rough day and he wasn’t here. Luna brought me a note from him that said he found a place and ‘See ya’ written on it. You know I’ve worried that he would want to go back to the original plan and find his own place, but we…I mean, I put that all behind me. He said he wanted to stay here with me, not find someplace else. Then I come home and Luna found this note. I was so mad that I threw the vase at the door. Just as I threw it, he walked in and it nailed him right on the head.”
“Where’s the note? And where did Luna find it?” Lindsey asked.
“It’s on the floor in the living room. I’m not sure where Luna found it. I think she found it in the kitchen, but I’m not certain.”
“Come on, Luna. I want to see this note.” Lindsey picked up Luna and they headed out of the room.
Kelly was still examining Hunter’s head. “I don’t know, Leigh. I never knew you were so athletic. That must have been one hell of a pass you threw.”
Lindsey and Luna returned with the note and a couple of pieces of paper. They were identical to the piece of paper used for writing the notorious note. Lindsey held up the note as if she were presenting crime scene evidence to a jury. “Leigh, is this the note?”
I recognized it instantly as the note I read. “Yeah, that’s it. What are those other papers?”
“I found these on the table in the kitchen. It looks like Hunter was trying to write a note, but his pen wasn’t working. I guess he had just crumpled them up. Luna just brought you that one.” She handed me the other pieces. The scribbles and marks were telltale signs of an uncooperative pen. It was painfully obvious that Lindsey was right. She also handed me Hunter’s cell phone.
I looked at the phone and tried to turn it on but to no avail. “You’re right, Lindsey. I saw only part of what he tried to write. The whole point of his note was to tell me he found a place, but what I didn’t know was that he had found an old house.” I handed her the real estate documents. “From what I can tell, Hunter got in at some auction or something. He picked up a good deal on some house. Most importantly, he had these papers drawn up with both of our names on them. He was planning for our future. You know, serious lifelong commitment sort of thing.” I was afraid to mention the M word. It was already bad enough that I had ruined this. “By the way, where was his phone?”
“Next
to the sink. It was wrapped up in paper towels. I think he dropped it in some water and was trying to dry it out or something.” Lindsey flipped through the real estate papers. “I don’t really know how he got the property for sure. It looks like it was being sold off for unpaid taxes. Maybe he took a chance by turning in a sealed bid and got lucky. Of course he is the type to have wanted to tell you the good news himself. I bet he started to write a note and realized he’d go get flowers and make the best of a really romantic opportunity.” Lindsey said and then sat down on the edge of the bed with me.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” I was ready to cry, but I clenched my eyes and held back the tears.
“Damn. I guess he was having a worse Monday than I was.” Kelly remarked, continuing to look over at Hunter. “That was a pretty good hit. Although I seriously doubt it would have knocked him out like this, not unless you’ve suddenly gained a superhuman throwing arm.”
“Exactly. Immediately after he was knocked out, I tried to wake him up. I dragged him inside and kept trying. All of a sudden, Marie appeared out of nowhere.”
“Marie Laveau?” Lindsey whispered in a concerned voice. “Did she have something to do with this?”
“No. She said that my anger had boiled up some sort of witch power. When I threw the vase, all of that built up magic apparently shot out like a bolt of lightning and knocked Hunter’s ghost out of him.”
Kelly tried not to laugh, she honestly did. “I’ve never heard it put that way. I’d say you knocked the shit out of him or something like that.”
“No, she was being serious. His actual spirit, or ghost got literally blown out of him by my magic. She said his ghost should have stuck around, but she couldn’t find it. She was going to just put it back in him, but his ghost was gone. She sensed that some other supernatural force took his ghost. I don’t even know where to begin looking for it. Ugh! As if I even know what a real ghost would look like, even if I did know where to look. He’s been ghost-napped.”
Haunting Leigh: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Literal Leigh Romance Diaries Book 4) Page 5