VooDoo Follies

by Butler, Christine M.

  “You died, Adrianna.” Sobs racked my mom where she sat sprawled before me on the floor, now half in and half out of my room. “You are dead. You don’t even have a pulse. I don’t know what sort of demon-thing you are, but you are not my daughter!” She was panicking. I could see it in her eyes. The red rims grew ever wider as she started to scream hysterically at me. “You crashed coming home from the football game. You died! My Adrianna died! I don’t know what you are or how you are possible, but you are to leave this house and never come back.”

  “Mom,” I wanted the word to come out forceful, to snap her out of this craziness that she was spewing, but it came out more like a whimper. I knew what she was saying. I could almost taste the truth of it on the air. My things were packed, my car for sale, I woke up in the cemetery from whatever sleep I had been in, and here I was caked with grave dirt, dressed in my funeral best, apparently. My mother, the good lapsed Catholic that she was, took her crucifix out that she still wore around her neck, and started chanting something over and over again under her breath. “Mom, please!” This time it came out as no more than a whisper. What happened to me? That girl, from the cemetery. She had to see something. I knew then what I had to do. I had to go try to find her. I didn’t have the slightest clue how I was going to make that happen. I didn’t know her name. I couldn’t remember. I never really cared to know it to begin with. And now my life, or I guess my death depended on her and what she knew. My mom was standing now saying something about casting out a devil. “Oh, God, do you mean me?” I questioned, a sick feeling fluttered through my stomach. I picked up the box marked Adrianna’s clothes and I took it with me. I wouldn’t be able to get a shower here, obviously, but I would at least have something to change into.

  ***

  The Best Place to find a zombie

  I walked to school today. I could have driven the car that the step-loser-dejour got me as a bribe for my cooperation, but I needed the time to think about what I was going to do. I had stopped by Adrianna’s house last night and talked to her very freaked out mother. She wouldn’t say she had seen her dead daughter walking around, but she definitely looked a little more than freaked out when I mentioned that I had known Adrianna and thought I had seen her earlier that evening.

  Auntie Perrine charged me with finding Adrianna and putting her back in the ground, but I raised her in a cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. I tried to explain that she could be anywhere. I had no clue where to begin looking after her house was a bust so I just decided to come here after a good night’s sleep. Well, I didn’t even get the luxury of a good night’s sleep with Auntie Perrine calling every hour to ask if I had found the zombie yet.

  I turned my phone off this morning after I sent a text to my aunt explaining that i forgot to charge my phone. I had never looked forward to six hours in school so much as I did today. That was until I saw my zombie walking right up the front walk of the school. At least she had found some clothes, but she still looked like a filthy beggar that had been out in the elements too long. I was actually thankful that she hadn’t gotten a shower somewhere because the dirt and grime was helping to disguise her a little. Or so I thought, until I realized she was talking to a boy. I hung my head a little thinking of what Auntie Perrine would say if she saw this. What kind of a dead girl goes back to school, filthy and stinking of the grave, and flirts with a boy?

  I made a bee-line straight for Adrianna and her friend. I didn’t even stop when I got to them. I simply hooked my arm in hers and started dragging her away before she could realize what was happening.

  “Hey!” Her head snapped around to see who was dragging her before she went on. “You! I’ve been looking for you!”

  “What a coincidence, because I’ve been looking for you too. Now, let’s get out of here before you scare someone. You’re supposed to be dead, you know!”

  She poked her lips out in what was supposed to be a pout, I suppose. It didn’t really work for her. “I know. I talked to my mom last night.” She turned her facial expression into that of an over-exaggerated frown-y face and continued, “she tried to exercise me from the house with her crucifix and some prayers.”

  The boy laughed. It was the first time I realized he had followed us. “Excuse me, but she and I have some business to discuss and I think it would be best if you just go on to school now.”

  “Well, I don’t really feel like I belong there anymore, besides, I want to know all about how Adrianna came back from the dead!” He was excited. I could see the glint in his eye and I knew that he understood that she was dead. Maybe, if nothing else I could make a friend out of this mess I had gotten myself into. A real friend that would understand the Voodoo and that dead people really do get up and walk around, when they’re called to.

  “Fine, suit yourself.” I nodded my head for him to follow. Adrianna turned and started walking of her own free will and I suddenly found myself wishing I had driven to school after all. I shuddered at the thought of being seen with a walking dead girl and her apparently unshakable, yet faithful companion.

  “You’re Seraphine, right?”

  “Um, yeah. How did you know?” I looked him up and down, trying to remember if I had seen him at school or not. I couldn’t place him, but then again I had transferred to the school mid-year last year and it was still early in the school year for now. Besides, not that I was a snob or anything, but I hadn’t bothered to make friends here. I was hoping against all hope that things wouldn’t work out with my mom and her new husband. I wanted to go back home to New Orleans.

  “We had French together at the beginning of the year.” He looked at me like I should remember.

  “Oh! Well, how come we don’t now? We’re only in the third month of school.”

  The boy looked sad all of a sudden. “I was in an accident. I just never came back afterwards.

  “Oh.” It was the most clever thing I could think of to say. How pathetic of me.

  “Stephen.” It was the first thing Adrianna had said in a few minutes.

  “Yea, A?” He answered her, so I had to assume Stephen was his name.

  Adrianna seemed to come out of some sort of trance or something, “hmmm? Oh, nothing. Sorry, I can’t seem to keep a single thought in my head too long.”

  I tossed a worried look over her shoulder at the sandy haired boy that joined us. He just smiled briefly in my direction and shrugged. We all walked in silence for a bit, heading for my house so I could pick up the car and some supplies. I also needed to consult with Auntie Perrine, because I was pretty sure that I had to wait until nightfall to put Adrianna back in her grave, but I was really hoping she would tell me it could be done during the day too.

  I couldn’t help but notice how Adrianna must have been pretty when she was actually clean, and not dead. She had cute little elven features. Adrianna had an almost pointy set of smallish ears and perky petite nose, finished off with her normally velvety brown bob that was currently a little matted and tucked behind her ears. I remember when I first saw her in Algebra class I was jealous of those elven features. I’ve had people tell me they wished they could have my mass of curly creole hair. It held it’s own beauty, I suppose, with the golden sun-bleached highlights that always ran through my light brown curls. I was tired of it though. Everyone who fell in love with my curls never had to actually take care of them. My head was a mess when I woke in the mornings. If it weren’t for fifty pounds of styling product it would be one giant kinky afro nestled on top of my all too white looking complexion. The only thing good that came out of being Creole was the magic. My gran was the last one of the family to speak French, aside from little endearments my Auntie and momma had picked up from her. In fact, I was failing French in school at the moment and was certain that my long line of magical, French speaking ancestors were rolling over in their collective graves at the disappointment that was me. First, I fail French, then I loose a Zombie. I let out an audible sigh that broke the silence for the rest of the walk.

 
; “Where are we going?” Adrianna looked a little fidgety, like those kids in class that haven’t taken their medicine and end up speaking a thousand miles a minute or are incapable of sitting still. She had that buzz of energy about her.

  “My house, to pick up my car. The cemetery’s not an easy walk from here.”

  “Why are we going to the cemetery?”

  I looked over at Stephen, wanting to kick him for even asking.

  “I’m going to try to put Adrianna back in the ground, where she belongs."

  A look of complete panic washed over Adrianna as I watched. I hoped she wasn’t planning on bolting again, because I really wasn’t up for a chase today. I thought I would try to reason with her. “You said your mom tried to exercise you from the house last night, like a demon.” I know it hurt her in some capacity because she winced and slunk down a little further into her own shoulders. “Imagine how everyone else would react. I mean, I can’t even believe you showed up at the school this morning like that. What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t, I mean, I don’t know. I can’t. I can’t even remember anything. I think I wanted to find you.”

  “Me?” I questioned it for a second before I realized, I was the first person she saw when she came out of the ground. She must have remembered on some level. I watched as she shrugged in a somewhat jerky fashion. I couldn’t tell if that was because she was a zombie, or if she was just that unsure of everything.

  “What do you mean by putting her back in the ground?” Stephen suddenly looked worried. “Is she going to die again?”

  “She is still dead, Stephen. She’s just reanimated.”

  “But she can talk.”

  Adrianna nodded along with Stephen and looked to me for answers I didn’t really have. “I don’t know how it all works. I just know that when I reverse the spell she will be laid back down to rest as if I had never disturbed her.”

  “But how do you know? I mean, what if you re-bury her and she’s still in there thinking?” Stephen was about to make my job that much harder with his incessant questions.

  “I’m sure if that’s the case then she will just dig her way out like she did last time.” I was exasperated. These were all good questions, but ones better posed for my Aunt than me. I thought I knew it all. I thought I had been ready to take the Voodoo world by storm and lead others on their path. I knew now that I wasn’t even close to ready to take on a leadership role. I wasn’t even able to lead myself through this stuff. I had skipped a lot of the research I was supposed to do that probably would have answered these questions for me. This is what I get for staying up late at night talking to my old friends on Facebook and texting. I get a zombie and boy who asks too many questions. My momma would tell me it’s my karma. My Auntie would tell me it’s the Loas and Orishas trying to get me to pay attention.

  No matter what it was, I knew I had to figure things out before Stephen, with his lovely doe brown eyes, could talk Adrianna out of being put to rest peacefully again. I remembered I had my cell with me and turned it back on so I could call my aunt now, before anything else could happen. “I’m calling my Aunt Perrine, she will know what to do.” I saw the worried glance that Stephen tossed my way and the indifferent confusion that I had begun to associate with Adrianna. “My house is just up this way.” We turned down the road and cut across to the other side of the street.

  My conversation with Auntie Perrine did not go as well as I had hoped. I didn’t actually have any more of the special powder I had to use to raise Adrianna, and apparently I would need those same ingredients to put her back. If I had done everything correctly last night I would have had enough juice in the fresh ingredients to send her back to the ground, dumping the ashed remains of my ceremonial bowel over her grave to seal everything back up. The problem was, I didn’t do everything right and the magic had already grown cold. I basically had to perform the ceremony again over Adrianna’s empty grave and then perform the sealing ritual to put her back at rest. This was getting more and more complicated. I had to make a trip into the city to get the supplies I would need and I couldn’t risk taking a zombie and a freaked out teenage boy into a magic shop. They might panic, or worse, someone might recognize them.

  “Hey, my Auntie Perrine told me what I need to do, but I have to run into the city for some supplies. I don’t want too many people to see Adrianna and get freaked out, so is there somewhere quiet you trust to go for a little while?”

  They both looked over at me, Stephen with his worried eyes trying to penetrate deep into mine, as if he were looking for my secrets and Adrianna with an almost vacant look. She seemed to be loosing her ability to reason and think even faster than Auntie Perrine told me she would. Soon she would be mindless and the only person she should accept commands from was me.

  “The graveyard.”

  It tumbled in a dry, cracked mumble from Adrianna’s lips, but I heard it. I think Stephen heard it too, because I saw him stiffen beside her. “The graveyard?” I questioned her quietly, but she never answered me. The vacant look was back again.

  “Stephen, I’m going to drop you guys off on the corner down by the Bohemian Cemetery. Do you think you can keep an eye on her long enough for me to go to Grandma’s Candle Shop and get the supplies I need?” At his wide-eyed glance I added, “it should only take about thirty minutes.”

  “Yeah, okay.” He looked down at his feet as I opened the door to the little blue Ford Fiesta we were standing beside. Here, you guys get in.” I waited for the two of them to get in the car and then I shut the door and went around to get in my side. My thoughts were racing. I was scared to death to leave the zombie, Adrianna, alone. I also had no choice. I drove them over to the Carrol F. Cool Rec. Center and dropped them off. I didn’t want to just drop them off at the graveyard and have them standing around too long with people who may ask questions. They were going to slowly meander their way over there. Meanwhile, I had an occult shop to go visit.

  ***

  Falling to Pieces

  “I can’t. The words are all gone.” My mind was blazing at the speed of light, every time I tried to say something to Stephen the words were gone before they could come out, replaced by five more thoughts, all just as fleeting. I wanted to cry somewhere deep inside for this horrible thing that was happening to me, but I couldn’t. My body wouldn’t work right. Stephen made things better. I looked at his face, he tried to smile, but worried eyes looked back at me. Those eyes used to glint and sparkle with laughter for me.

  We were walking slowly, awkwardly, I think. I notice the lines in the road kept moving this way and that. It wasn’t the lines, it was me. I was beginning to stumble a little as I shuffled my feet. They were like heavy bricks strapped to the rest of me. I didn’t want to move them any longer. So, I sat, right there on the side of the road.

  “...you’ll get hit by a car.”

  I heard the last bit of what Stephen said and managed one semi-coherent thought back to him. “Already dead.”

  Yes, I was. Crazy math girl new best. I shouldn’t be here.

  “Seraphine.” I said it out loud, the name rolling off my thickened tongue like a dew drop. She sounded like an angel to me.

  I smelled funny. The sun was too hot for October. I needed a bath. “Dead. No bath for me.”

  “A - what’s going on?” Stephen looked at me with worried eyes again.

  “Dead.” I managed to say again. More thoughts traveled at light speed through my mind, only now they were just a jumble of pretty images going by. For a moment, I had a clear thought. Maybe, this is what it was like when I died. I saw all these images from my life flash before my eyes.

  “Come on,” Stephen was saying to me. “Let’s get you hidden in the trees by the cemetery, while I go find some help.” I stood awkwardly, tripped over my own brick-heavy foot and realized I had scraped the side of my toe as I did it. I felt no pain, but bent awkwardly to pick my little toe up off the ground. It had come off when I scraped the concrete.


  Stephen’s eyes were filled with horror as I held up the little digit and examined it. Then, I stuffed it in my pocket with a shrug and followed him into the tree line. He was gone before I knew it. I was left alone, sitting on the grass that had already begun it’s change into a wintery death. Dead, like me. Everything. Shiny white headstones peered at me from beyond the trees. Then the leaves began to talk. “Crunch, crunch,” I almost giggled at their voices. Singing. I heard... no. Not singing. Mumbling. Leaves mumbling to me about their beer. Something wasn’t right with the leaves.

  “...lost my beer, found a pretty girl.”

  Crunch, crunch, went the leaves.

  “Mmmm, hello pretty girl.” Silence filled the air for a minute and then, “Hello?”

  “Hello, leaves,” I was touching the dead things beneath my fingertips as a hand touched my shoulder. “Stephen?” I turned in time to see a dirty bearded face dropping quickly to mine. The man smelled worse than I did. Garbage and the sent of fresh, hot urine found my nose, then a hungry, bearded mouth found mine. He was trying to bite me, I thought. So, I bit back. I bit his lip, pennies dropped in my mouth. Heavenly droplets of velvety pennies were exploding on my thickened tongue. Screaming. The bearded man was screaming and holding his face in his hand.

  I pounced on him, wanting more heaven. I tore into his throat and ripped and chewed and sucked the beautiful pennies. No more screaming. They were magic to me. They filled me with... thoughts. I could remember now. Everything was coming in clear where before there was only static. The accident, the car skidding, swerving. Screaming. I remembered the screaming, looking over into Stephen’s panicked eyes. “Oh, Stephen, you were there too!” The words were out of my mouth before I knew I spoke them. Then I remembered him telling Seraphine that he had been in an accident.