VooDoo Follies (14 page)

"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?