VooDoo Follies (7 page)

As if I hadn't cried enough already, Stephen's
words filled me up with so many things, the guilt I already held,
the acceptance for what had already been done, the hope that I had
a great friend in him, and the sadness that settled in with the
knowledge that my only friend here was dead and incapable of so
much as a hug. It made matters so much worse because my feelings
for Stephen were a little more than just friendly. Now that there
was zero chance that I could ever act on those feelings, I was
kicking myself internally for not noticing him while he was still
alive. We had been in the same French class and I hadn't even
noticed.

Stephen and I walked back to my house in
silence. I think he understood that there was a lot going on in my
head and he didn't bother trying to interrupt. As we got closer to
the house I remembered to call Auntie Perrine and let her know how
things turned out.

I hung up the phone as we got to the house. "I
guess we need to talk about everything huh?"

Stephen shrugged, as he always did. "Maybe we
do, but not today. You have got to be tired after all that and you
never stopped to eat, so I think you need to take care of you, get
some food and rest and then we'll talk."

I nodded in agreement and went inside. Before
doing anything else, I turned the power on my phone off and stuck
it in a drawer in the kitchen as my Auntie Perrine had suggested
earlier. Then I rummage around in the fridge looking for something
to eat. Nothing really appealed to me so I just picked an apple up
off the counter and began eating it without much thought to the
juices that now dripped down my chin. I thought of how I must look
a little like that zombie with the blood dripping down his own
chin. My appetite was gone from there. I tossed the rest of the
apple in the trash, wiped my face at the kitchen sink, and thought
about Stephen as I made my way to my bedroom and fell into my bed.
I imagined Stephen outside all alone and wondered where he went
when he wasn't with me. It was the last thing to cross my mind
before I fell into a deep, much needed sleep.

***

Things That Go Bump

I watched Seraphine as she slept, hoping that
her mom wouldn't come in and find me here. I didn't want to get her
into any more trouble than she already was, but I was drawn to her
like a moth to a flame. She looked so sad today when we said
goodbye that I just needed to watch over her and make sure she was
okay. If I could stand by and catch her bad dreams for her, then
that was what I would do.

It killed me today, not being able to hug her.
She needed someone to lean on. She needed another warm body to be
able to press against and take strength from. I didn't think her
mom could be that person under the circumstances. Seraphine had
mentioned that her mom would have just given her an "I told you so"
lecture if she had explained what was going on with the
zombies.

I watched as Seraphine turned away from me,
falling deeper into her sleep as she got comfortable.

I wandered around her room taking in all the
different things that made this place uniquely hers. The walls were
a cream color that she accented with splashes of color from art
work and posters. She had posters up of some of the same bands I
listened to when I was alive. All Time Low and Motionless in White
were the largest of the posters. The Motionless in White poster had
been signed by the band members. I wondered if we had been at the
same concert. I also began to think about what things may have been
like if I hadn't died and gotten trapped in this in-between
existence. What if she had finally noticed me in French class?
Maybe we would have been going to those concerts
together.

I moved away from the posters and walked
towards Seraphine's dresser. 'It's so girly,' I thought to myself.
'Here's a girl that just put seven zombies in the ground and her
dresser is white with little pink rose blossoms all around
it.'

I looked at all the pictures she had adorning
her mirror and wondered who the people were. It seems that in
Seraphine's other life she had been popular. No wonder she was
always so sad and distant in school. She came to a town where the
kids all grew up together and knew one another. She was the
outsider. Now, I was beginning to see why she had never noticed me.
I thought back to all those classes where she kept her head down
and in her book. I remember the girls in class giving her the eye,
and not really speaking to her. I think they were probably
threatened by Seraphine's natural creole beauty. She had that
exotic look to her that you only get when you mix races together.
Her hair was a wild mess of curls, but it suited her. I found a
picture of her with a woman that very closely resembled her mother.
This woman had the same unruly curls that Seraphine sported, unlike
the straightened hair her mother wore. 'It must be her Auntie
Perrine,' I thought. And then I looked over and saw a picture of
Seraphine with a boy. They were posed together in front of a set of
lockers. She was laughing and looking up at him, her hand resting
on his chest. He was laughing into the camera with an award winning
smile. Jealousy roared up inside of me at the thought of her and
this guy together. I had no right to be jealous of anything or
anyone and yet, I couldn't help myself. I wanted to be that guy in
the picture. I wanted to make her laugh like that. I had my fill of
the sad expressions and tears.

I stole another look at Seraphine, sleeping
with her mouth slightly open. I thought about what it would be like
to kiss that mouth and then I hated myself for it. I would never
know because I was a ghost, not even a ghost. I had run into a
couple of ghosts since I died and I was something entirely
different from them. I was about to go sit back down when my hand
happened to hover above a notebook on Seraphine's dresser. It
wasn't much to look at, just a spiral bound one subject notebook.
It wouldn't have even caught my attention except, something strange
happened. As my hand hovered over the book I could see the images
of each page in rapid succession. I realized, too late, that I was
reading Seraphine's diary. She would kill me if she ever found out.
Well, I was already dead, so technically she would only want to
kill me.

I wish I could have seen my own face when I
got to the part where she wrote that I was cute. I must have had a
wicked grin on my face. So, she had noticed. I wanted to read more,
but I felt bad at the same time for invading her privacy like this.
Instead, I took my hand away so that the images stopped coming. At
least I knew she thought I was cute. That was something.

I wandered back over to the chair beside
Seraphine's bed and watched as she slept. I was still smiling to
myself because I now knew she thought of me as more than just
Adrianna's friend. Then I remembered I was dead and she knew that
now. I wasn't sure if I had any right to tell her how I felt about
her, but that was the one thought that kept rolling through my
head. I was too much of a coward to tell her when I was alive. Too
much of an imbecile to take advantage of the life that was right
there for me to have. Now, I’m sitting here looking at her, so
close, but unable to touch her cheek, unable to kiss those lips. I
laughed to myself because when I looked at her lips I realized she
was drooling. 'Okay, maybe when she's not drooling on herself,' I
thought.

I leaned down to kiss her forehead, or get as
close to doing that as I could. She shivered so I backed away and
whispered to her, "tomorrow, I am going to tell you all about how I
used to drool over you in French class. Maybe not actual drool like
you have going on there, but I want you to know what I was too
afraid to say when I was alive. I can't bear to be a coward in
death too."

***

The VooDoo Follies

Part Three: The
Unknown

Original Publication Date:

Aug. 23, 2011

I am Seraphine LaLande, voodoo priestess in
training, and last week I avoided the zombie apocalypse with my
friend's help. Now I just have to figure out what to do about
Stephen, his condition, and my growing feelings for him.

Things appeared to be getting back to normal
until I ran into my principal at school, literally, and met the new
guy. A couple weeks ago I was invisible to everyone, now both the
dead and the living were suddenly interested in me...

***

The Quiet Truth

I awoke to chills running along the nape of my
neck and that feeling deep down inside that tells you someone's
been watching you. Normally, that sort of impression scares me to
no end, but I assumed this time that it may have been Stephen
looking over me last night. I got up and ready for school quickly
so that I could talk things over with Auntie Perrine.

"Auntie, where have you been? I've been trying
to call all morning."

"Some of us sleep in, child. Please, tell me
you haven't found another zombie running around." Perrine sounded
exhausted, and now that I thought about it she probably was. She
kept late nights as a voodoo priestess in New Orleans. Even when
she had no voodoo clients, she still ran a shop that catered to
tourists who thought it best to head to her store in the middle of
the night. I had been there many times listening to their drivel
about how much more atmosphere a place like my Auntie's shop had
after dark.

"Sorry, Auntie." I apologized, meaning it. "I
have to talk to you about Stephen. I need to know if there is
anything that can be done to help him."

"Help him how? What kind of trouble has your
friend gotten himself into?"

"Stephen was in the same car accident as the
girl I raised from the dead, only he was stuck in a coma. At least,
he was until his parent's pulled the plug on the machines a few
days ago. He's stuck here as a spirit, Auntie. He deserves better
than that. I just don't know what to do for him."

"Hmmm, you say he was in a coma first?" Auntie
Perrine sounded thoughtful, which made me hopeful. "Do you know if
he was spirit bound before the plug was pulled or only
after?"

"He says he was wondering long before his
parents pulled the plug. He was there watching when they did
it."

"Your friend sounds like one of the Unknown,
my love." Auntie Perrine's voice was even more drained, if that was
possible. "I'm not sure I can help you, or your friend. I will have
to consult someone else. The Unknown roam this Earth before they
die, a very few are pulled over, for reasons unknown to the rest of
us, just before death. It's not a true death. The body may continue
on, and even if it doesn't, the spirit gets stuck. Seraphine, I
will see what I can do, but maybe you want to keep this to yourself
for now. Stephen might not be able to hear that he is stuck this
way forever."

"Okay, I won’t tell him, yet."

"Seraphine, The Unknown, once they loose their
bodies, are bound for eternity, as far as I know. I will check for
a remedy of sorts, but I don't want you to get your hopes up. The
magic community don't speak of them because they are considered
taboo and even feared. Nothing can harm them and they have been
known to affect the physical world around them. That is what people
fear the most. They may have more power and influence over our
world from their realm than many give them credit for."

"Auntie Perrine, I’ve never seen Stephen touch
anything, let alone move it. I’m not sure how reliable your sources
have been. Can you give me a call when you hear
anything?"

"You know I will little one. You better be
scooting off to school, before your momma has my hide for keeping
you."

"Yeah, Don't worry, my bag's already packed
for the daily trip into hell."

"Seraphine!"

"Sorry, love you."

"You too, baby girl."

The worst part of my day is always the part
where I have to go to school and drown in the knowledge teachers
try to stuff into our wee little brains while all the other kids
completely ignore me. For the longest time, I didn't mind being
left alone, because I was so bitter about having to move here.
Stephen was teaching me something about myself, whether he realized
it or not. It was beginning to dawn on me. I missed having a friend
I could talk to about things. There's something to be said for a
person being there to hear about your zombie raising screw ups, or
how your mom and step-dad are conspiring against you. That part of
my life had been missing for a long time, since I came to Rosedale.
Now that I had it back, I wasn't sure I wanted to loose it. There
was a part of me that hoped Auntie Perrine couldn't find a way to
put Stephen to rest. He was the only person in the world making me
smile these days, and he wasn't even of this world. "What does that
say about me?" I asked my own reflection and just stared stupidly
back at myself for a minute before my mom yelled to me.

"Seraphine, you are going to be late if you
don't get going."

"Because that would be a tragedy!" I yelled
back, but then thought better of it and hustled my butt out the
door before my momma could have a swat at me.

Stephen was waiting there for me, on the
porch, as usual. I couldn't help myself when I stood a little
straighter, and smiled instead of frowning. He had to flip his head
back to get the hair out of his eyes again, but that smile was
melting my insides.