VooDoo Follies

by Butler, Christine M.

  "I just thought."

  "Stop," I repeated, this time rather loudly. "I can't believe after what I told you... ugghh, I can't believe you did this. I certainly hope him being in the hospital isn't your fault!" I had gotten loud, and certainly someone in the class had just overheard me blame Tina for Trevor's condition. I got up, slung my book bag over my shoulder, and walked out of class with an angry Mr. Maybach trailing behind demanding to know where I was going.

  "Counselor." I answered.

  "Well, this wasn't the way to go about that, Seraphine!"

  "Sorry, I'm..." I couldn't think of the words to express what I was. Tears began flowing down my cheeks. I hadn't cried so much in all my life as I had over the past few weeks. This was beginning to be ridiculous.

  "Go," Mr. Maybach said upon seeing my tears. At least they were proving useful this time, instead of just being an embarrassment. Mr Maybach went back to class and I walked right out of the school, bypassing the counselors who were supposed to be there to help me through this trying time. I was rounding the corner to the parking lot when I saw Stephen. He took one look at me and said, "I guess you heard then?"

  "Yeah. What happened?"

  "I don't know how it happened, but he's in a coma right now." I watched as Stephen's eyes grew wider and his expression slackened into one of pure shock at what he was seeing over my shoulder, so I turned around and there was Trevor.

  "Holy crap! Did you get discharged from the hospital? They made it sound really bad in school." I was rambling, and I think Trevor had the same look of shock on his face that Stephen was wearing only moments ago. "Trevor?"

  "He's like me, Sera." Stephen said quietly.

  "He's what?" I turned and looked at Trevor again.

  "You can see me?" Trevor asked quietly.

  "Of course I can see you." It dawned on me, a little late as usual, "Oh! Oh! I have some things to explain to you." I looked around and noticed a few more people heading out to the parking lot. Apparently, I wasn't the only person who was going to be ditching school today. I was, however, the only person who could see the two guys I was talking to so I thought better about saying anything else out loud. I dropped my head and started toward my car again, whispering as I went. "Can we go somewhere else to talk before I get even freakier in the eyes of everyone at school?"

  I held my car door open, pretending to look for something in my purse while I did it. Trevor and Stephen both climbed in the back seat and sat there waiting while I got in, started the car, and drove home.

  "So, this guy is dead?" Trevor was pointing to Stephen who sat beside him.

  "Yes," I said simply.

  "Did you kill him?"

  "NO!" I looked back in the rear view mirror in time to see Stephen giving Trevor one of those, 'don't be stupid' looks.

  "I'm dead now too, then?"

  "I don't think so," I said, remembering the fact that Trevor's body was still sitting in the hospital in a coma. "What's the last thing you remember?"

  "I got in my car, headed to your house..."

  I cut him off, "my house? why?"

  "I don't know. I felt like I needed to tell you something. I mean, we kept running into each other everywhere. I thought maybe you had cast a spell on me or something." He grew quiet with the rest of us in the car then mumbled, "I couldn't stop thinking about you."

  I blushed despite myself. "That stupid spell."

  "You did cast a spell on me!"

  "No, I didn't. Tina cast one on me though."

  "What was it?" Trevor asked sarcastically, "a kill all the guys in your life spell?"

  "No, I am pretty sure no one was supposed to get hurt. So, you were headed to see me and what happened?"

  "I don't remember. I just know I woke up and saw that guy, and I followed him when he left. I knew he wasn't human. I figured he was dead and a ghost like me. I thought maybe he'd have some answers and then I saw you talking to him." He looked from my reflection in the rear view to Stephen, beside him. "How are you able to see him, us. How is it that you can talk to us when no one else can?"

  "Don't you remember, I'm a voodoo freak!" I smiled as Stephen started laughing out loud in the back seat.

  "What?" Trevor asked, innocently.

  "Oh, don't hand me that innocent crap. I was the one that pushed that desk in front of you when you were trying to ask Sera out. So, I was there to hear all the mean things you had to say to her afterward."

  Reality dawned on Trevor, it was evident in his face. "So, she wasn't talking about putting a voodoo hex on me? It was you!"

  "Duh!" Stephen said and turned to look out the window as I pulled into my driveway.

  "Why didn't you just say something?" Trevor was asking me.

  "Yeah, and seem like even more of a freak. That would have went over so well." Now, it was my turn to bring out the charming sarcasm. "Hey, Trevor - I'm a voodoo priestess in training, oh yeah, and I see ghosts too, in fact, my best friend is one of the unknown! How about that date on Saturday?"

  "Okay, okay, I get it." Trevor looked at the both of us again. "So, what is an unknown?"

  "It's what you are now. You're sort of straddling the worlds of the living and the dead. It's what Stephen is too."

  "So, I'm not dead?"

  "You're in a coma." I got out of the car, "let's take this conversation inside before someone calls the police on the lunatic teenager talking to herself in her car!"

  We all went into the house, I grabbed a coke out of the fridge and headed to my room. My fluffy pink chair in the corner was calling my name, so I went and plopped down in it as the boys trailed in behind me. I noticed that look on Trevor's face as he took everything in and I prepared myself for the onslaught of stupid remarks.

  "Wow, this is nothing like what I imagined."

  "So, you imagine my bedroom often then?" I was teasing him, because I knew perfectly well what he meant. I saw that Stephen was enjoying the show too. He plopped down on my bed, well it was a more graceful, floating down onto my bed than a plop, but I knew the intention was there.

  "So, if I am not dead and I'm only in a coma, what am I doing here?"

  "I don't know." I shook my head and looked to Stephen for answers.

  "I don't know either. I mean, you followed me because on some level you could recognize that we were the same. I don't know why we are pulled from our bodies when in a coma, if that is what you are asking. I don't even know if it happens to everyone, or just some people."

  "So, what happens now?"

  "You can try to get back into your body and wake up." I said nonchalantly.

  "I can go back?" Trevor looked down at his feet, then up at Stephen. "If I can go back, how come you haven't? I mean, if you were there that day with Seraphine and I, then you've been around like this a while."

  "You can go back. I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't have a body to get back to anymore. My mom and dad pulled the plug on me, then they cremated my body, so I can't even be brought back as a zombie."

  Trevor laughed, "yeah, like there's a way to bring people back from the dead as zombies."

  Stephen smiled at him and looked at me. I just shrugged my shoulders, "Well, that's how Stephen and I met. I raised his friend from the grave and she got away from me. He helped me put her back in the ground. Look, it's a long story and one we don't have time for right now."

  "You raised a zombie? From the grave?" I saw that look cross his face. He was freaking out again. This was going to be just like that day in school all over again. "That is freakin' cool!" I couldn't keep the shocked look off my face, nor could Stephen. "Sorry, it's just one day I'm a normal guy walking around clueless to all of this," Trevor made a wild gesture with arms moving all around him, "and now I find out there's so much more that I wasn't able to see before. Seraphine, you are awesome and so lucky!"

  I was speechless. It's a good thing Stephen wasn't. "Earth to Trevor, we need to focus and get you back to your body before your parents decide to
pull the plug too."

  "Huh?" Trevor was effectively pulled from his reverie. "No, I don't want to go back to my body. No way do I want to just lay there and wait to wake up."

  "But if you don't go back, your brain activity will show no signs of improvement and they will take you off the machines."

  "Who cares? I can do whatever I want now." I reached into my desk drawer, hoping to find the picture I had clipped out from the newspaper of Stephen's funeral. I wanted to show Trevor the reality of what he was choosing.

  "Trevor, look, you have to go back.” I stood and got ready to show the clipping to him, but he suddenly wasn't there anymore.

  "I think he got pulled back to his body somehow." Stephen said, looking in awe at the spot where Trevor had just been standing.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "It happened to me at first too, when the doctors were working on me. I didn't understand what was happening with me until just now though. We need to get to the hospital and see if he stuck in his body or if he popped back out."

  "Won't he just show up here if he popped back out?"

  "No, he will pop back out beside his body, like he did before."

  ***

  Fight or Flight

  "What did you do to me, Seraphine?" Trevor was demanding answers by the time we got to the hospital.

  "I didn't do anything."

  "I saw you stick your hands in the drawer and do some voodoo spell or something and next thing you know I was back in my body." He looked over at his own body lying there, asleep. "I don't want to go back. Please, don't do that again."

  "It wasn't me, Trevor." I looked over at his body, hooked up to the machines, and looking so fragile. "I didn't do any of this to you, I swear."

  "I won't go back in. You can't make me go back in." He looked back at me with wild, panic-filled eyes. "I'm sorry for what I did to you, but I won't let you put me back in there." Then he was gone. He was running down the hall of the hospital as if his life depended on it.

  "I can't believe he just ran off like that." Stephen said, as he got closer to Trevor's body.

  "He obviously doesn't want to go back to the life he was living."

  "I would give anything to have a body to get back into and he's running from the one he has." My heart was breaking for Stephen. It was breaking for both of them, actually. I thought Trevor might change his mind once he was around for a little while and saw the down side to being the walking, invisible, dead forever. "Let's get out of here before his family shows up. I don't want to have to explain why I am visiting Trevor."

  Stephen nodded and walked with me back down to my car. "I wonder where he went."

  "I don't know. Don't you guys have like ghost radar or something? Remember what you did with the zombies? Does that work on other ghosts or unknown souls too?"

  "I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure, but it's worth a try."

  My phone was ringing as I started my car and got ready to head home. I tossed it back in park and answered, putting speaker phone on so Stephen could hear too.

  "Hey Auntie Perrine!"

  "Seraphine!" Her breathy voice never ceased to amaze me. Men always found it attractive. I always thought it suited a voodoo priestess, but it was not one of the traits I inherited from our family line. "I have wonderful news - that is, if you ever find your friend."

  "He's right here, Auntie."

  "Oh, good! Well, in that case, he can hear the terrific news too. We've found a way to bring him back to the world of the living. Don't get your hopes up too high just yet, though." She paused a moment and I watched as Stephen waited with bated breath for her to continue. "It's a bit tricky, but if we can find another soul like Stephen, who has a body, but doesn't want to go back to it..."

  "Stephen can take Trevor's body." I said it out loud, without thinking things through. Stephen looked up at me and it was the first time I saw hope in his eyes.

  "What?" Auntie Perrine asked.

  "Nothing, never mind, go on Auntie."

  "Well, if the other soul agrees to the swap, Stephen can take his body over and, well, he will be himself still, in another person's body. You have to understand, he will have to live out that person's life span as them."

  "I understand, Auntie." I smiled at Stephen, "we know someone who is in a coma right now and doesn't want their body back."

  "Well, then all you have to do is ask them. I would give the spirit plenty of time to answer, because that is a huge decision and one that can not be undone." I heard Auntie Perrine sigh on the other end of the line, "Seraphine, be careful dear. We still don't know how powerful the Unknown can be. I know you trust Stephen, but what of this other spirit? I'm starting to worry for you."

  "It's okay Auntie. Don't worry, we will work everything out and I will tell mom about it when we get home." Now, it was my turn to sigh, "besides we have a hurdle to overcome. Our spirit ran away a few minutes ago. The doctors did something to him that pulled him back into his body momentarily, and he thought it was me and my voodoo. So, he got scared and ran, because he doesn't want to go back to his life."

  "Well, keep me informed. If you can find him, bring both boys with you for your ceremony in a few weeks and we will make sure that the swap is done."

  "Thank you, Auntie Perrine." I hung up the phone and looked over at Stephen again. He hadn't said a word yet. "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah, just trying not to get my hopes up, yet. We need to find Trevor."

  "Stephen, if you're back... if you can come back to the world of the living..."

  "The first thing I am going to do is hug you!" I had to smile at that. I wasn't sure what to think about my Stephen in Trevor's body, but it was something I would have to get used to. I drove us back to my house, hoping that Trevor would be there, ready to apologize for jumping to conclusions. He wasn't so Stephen offered to go look for him while I got some dinner and some rest. We had a few weeks still until I was supposed to head to New Orleans and now we had every reason to find Trevor before then.

  I was just laying down for the night, wondering if Stephen had been able to find Trevor when my cell phone rang. "Seraphine," Tina was on the other end crying and sounding slightly hysterical, "I need your help."

  "Tina?" The tiredness in my body drained away as I registered the panic in her voice.

  "I need your help, Seraphine, please!"

  "Okay," I said into the phone as I grabbed my sweater to throw over my pajamas, "I'll be right over." The phone went dead as I pushed my feet into my shoes. I didn't owe Tina anything after she meddled in my love life, but I couldn't ignore her call for help either. I left a note for my mom, telling her where I had gone and then I was out the door, heading into the midst of another adventure.

  ***

  The VooDoo Follies

  Part Four: The Love

  Original Publication Date:

  Sept. 20, 2011

  I am Seraphine LaLande, voodoo priestess in training, and every day I wonder what good my voodoo does for me when I'm afraid to use it.

  Between the zombies and the Unknown Spirits, Voodoo has definitely given me an adventurous life, a little too adventurous. As usual though, just when every thing seems to be coming together for me, I get tossed right back in the middle of something even scarier than before.

  Now, I have to help my friend, Tina. That witch cast a spell that's put us all in danger. And did I mention the vampire? No? Well, guess who has to get us out of this mess?

  Yep, yours truly - and this time it definitely wasn't my fault!

  ***

  Bless the Cookies

  I pulled up to Tina's house with a sick feeling in my stomach. I was tired of bad news, tired of friends, even frenemies dying and hanging around as a ghost - unknown soul - whatever. I was tired of the supernatural. I had to laugh at myself, a voodoo priestess in training - tired of the paranormal - it was like the intro to some silly joke, only it wasn't. It was my life, is my life. I looked up at Tina's house, and it was dark. I mean dark
like no one's home at all, dark. I walked up to the door anyway and then I heard the screaming. I don't know what I was thinking, I just ran - into the house where the screaming was coming from. "TINA?" I was shouting at the top of my lungs. "Tina! Where are you?" As I ran up the stairs something bumped into and blurred past me at a ridiculous speed that was impossible to follow with my eyes. My heart was pounding in my chest, and it hammered harder as I started running up the steps, taking them two and three at a time. "TINA?"

  "I'm here Seraphine," Tina sounded like she was choking the words out and when I rounded the corner I could see why. She was holding her neck, gasping for breath, and something was dripping between her fingers.

  "Blood," I said in an other-worldly voice that wasn't entirely my own. "Oh my Gods, you're bleeding!" Things finally began registering in my little mind. My over-worked heart quit thumping so hard as my mind took over and I rushed to the bathroom to grab some towels and some peroxide or something. "Do you have any bandages?" I called from the bathroom.

  "Underneath the sink, first aid kit." Tina was speaking in fragments, and I was beyond worried. I grabbed the first aid kit and ran back out to her.

  "What in the hell happened?" Tina looked shell-shocked, for lack of a better term. Her eyes were bulging out of her head, not literally, but they were definitely open wide in terror. "Tina?" I asked a little more gently. "You have to tell me what just happened, and what the hell blew past me on the stairs. I can't help you, unless I know." I busied myself while I waited for her to respond. I removed her hand from her neck and found a pool of congealing blood there. I used the gauze and some cleaning solution that was in the first aid kit to clean it all away so I could bandage her up. When I got the majority of it washed off the oddity of the wound struck me. She had two puncture wounds in her neck. I read a lot. I like fantasy as much as the next teenage girl, and I've definitely read Twilight. So, here I am looking at two holes in my friend's neck, thinking back to the thing that flew past me on the stairs, unbelievably fast, and I think vampire. Then I literally smacked myself for being so stupid. "Tina, you really need to tell me what's going on, because my imagination is running away with me."