Voodoo
1487 Words
*Ariella*
I woke with a deep breath, the word “Princess.” Fading in and out of my memory as I looked around the room in a haze. It was hot, sweat rolled down my back and I stripped off Gabriel’s sweater. Running my fingers over my face and through my hair to rid myself of the sweaty, clammy feeling I had awoken to.
“Princess…” I repeated softly in a ragged voice, swallowing the thick feeling of saliva down. The word has plagued my dreams recently. A tall, dark haired man whom I recognized but also seemed unfamiliar. Boys who looked a lot like the father of my unborn baby and his best friend but in tiny, child sized forms.
“Why…”
My phone began to ring as the word escaped my mouth. Carters alias popped up on the screen and I rushed to answer it.
“Hey Ar.” He said cheerfully. Music fell from the radio of his car.
“Hey…” I grumbled in a tired voice.
“Oh, sorry, did I wake you?”
“N-no… I… I woke up a few minutes ago, I just…”
“Ari what’s up…?” He urged. I heard the radio turn down in his car by a few notches.
“I… just… had a weird dream…” I responded.
“Wanna… talk about it?” He asked, I shook my head even though he couldn’t see.
“Uh… how about we talk when you get here?” I asked.
“Yeah! I was just calling to tell you the roads opened up, I should be there before dinner time. Maybe 5 or 6.”
“Already?” I asked.
“What are you talking about, it’s been like a day…”
I pulled the phone from my ear in confusion. Last I remembered I was watching cartoons, sketching renditions of my forbidden lover in my sketchbook which was now pushed to the end of the bed. It was now 10 o’clock the next day and I’d slept from basically the time I got off the phone with Mason to the time Carter called me the next morning.
I scrubbed my hand over my face as I slumped over. “Guess… I’ve been more tired than I realized…”
“That’s why ya didn’t text me back, huh?” He asked.
“Yeah… I slept through yesterday and into this morning…”
“You probably needed it after all this emotional turmoil stuff…”
I nodded and sighed, “I do… but…” I paused with a sad breath.
“But?” Carter urged.
“I feel like… like pieces of my mind or day are just like, gone. Or missing, or something… it’s weird to be sleeping this much…”
I heard Carter make a humming vocalization. “Let’s talk about it over dinner tonight, okay?”
“Yeah… that’s… probably the best idea…”
“So… What’s on your mind Ar…?” Carter asked with a forkful of food in his mouth.
He had gotten in about 6:30, dropped his things in the room and showered before we went and picked up Miss Anna and found a little roadside diner on the edge of town that served giant caramel rolls.
I picked my fork into the pastry and sighed, still wondering myself what was going on with my dreams.
“Na, Chère, what’s on ya lil’ mind?” Miss Anna tilted her head at me. She had on a large necklace with jade stones and a matching set of earrings as well as a colorful wrap around her beautiful hair. It accented the dark colour of her skin and even seemed to brighten the brown of her eyes as she stared at me.
“I’ve… been having these weird dreams…” I responded as I looked between them. “Like… they are dreams but they don’t feel like dreams… they feel… real…?”
“Do you remember ever experiencing what you’re experiencing in your dreams?” Carter asked, a piece of potato sticking to his lip. I pointed at my own lip as a mirror and he wiped it with a napkin before taking another bite.
“No… I don’t…”
“Is there anything that stands out?”
“I remember… seeing my dad after he was beheaded… I remember someone saying something about maybe Water something… Water… Hemlock?”
“Water hemlock?” Miss Anna’s voice seemed surprised and confused at the same time. “Na, how old were ya?”
“Maybe… 8? 9?”
“Why would an 8 or 9 year old know about water hemlock…?” Carter seemed to ask Miss Anna more so than me. She shrugged and turned back to me.
“What about common themes?” Miss Anna asked.
“Themes?”
“Like something that keeps coming up or something that repeats like a pattern?” Carter added.
I thought for a moment and shrugged, “Not… that I recall…” but I paused as I continued to think. “Wait, no…” I looked back to Carter and Miss Anna, “Princess…” I responded.
“Princess?” Miss Anna’s face twisted with confusion.
“Like from a movie?” Carter asked.
I shook my head “No… no, someone kept calling me Princess…”
“Who?” Carter and Miss Anna asked in unison.
“A man… what did I call him…” I scratched my chin as I pondered. “Uncle… Uncle… V!” I slapped my hand on the table and pointed toward them as they jumped, excited for my own memory. “His name was Uncle V! He was my dad's friend! And his son too!”
“Who was Uncle V?” Carter asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know… I don’t remember anything else… I just remember him always calling me Princess…”
Miss Anna made an intuitive humming sound as she leaned back in her seat, tapping her finger against her chin as she thought. “Well, Na Chère it sounds to me ya may be relivin’ some mem’ries”
“Memories?” I asked, c*****g my head to the side. “How…” but I paused.
“Yer mind can’t make up new folk Chère.” Miss Anna began as she leaned over the table toward me. “E’ry person, and face ya ever see in ya dreams is someone you’ve come in contact with in ya life.”
“So this ‘Uncle V’ person was someone from Ari’s past?” Carter asked.
“Likely…” Miss Anna responded. Then she turned her dark eyes toward me with a question. “Does anyone else call ya Princess?”
I didn’t have to think hard, the only other person who has ever called me Princess was Gabriel. Carter had referred to me teasingly as Mason's Princess when I found out I was pregnant and the idea almost sickened me. “Gabriel…” I responded, “He’s the only person that calls me that…”
“And, ya ever ask why?” Miss Anna asked.
I shook my head. “He’s called me that since the moment we met…”
“But that doesn’t account for the water hemlock…” Carter interjected as he gulped down a swig of his dark soda.
“It doesn’t… you’re right.” Miss Anna responded.
“What does water hemlock do?” I asked.
“Well…” Miss Anna sighed and lowered her voice. Her Cajun drawl was low and serious. “Water hemlock is incredibly toxic ta humans. But ta yer kind…” she paused to look between Carter and I so as to not say it outloud. “When put in a caster with the right ingredients it can help erase mem’ries. It’s got an amnestic effect and works by fusin’ the plant with hair or other biological matter of the target of the mem’ries. Then it’s turned into a liquid gas and sealed in’a silver ball surrounded by wood.”
“Where do… where do people get these sorts of things…?” Carter asked, his blond brow pinching with confusion.
“Doctors used to do ‘em… long time ‘go.” she started, “But they was always frowned upon… only Mando and Oungan do ‘em na’.”
“Mando…?” I asked.
She winked at me “Voodoo priests and priestesses. Medicine men… however you wanna call ‘em.”
“So if… doctors don’t do them. It means whoever told you about them had to go through some serious hoops to get them.” Carter theorized as he scratched his chin.
Miss Anna nodded. “Whoever gave it to ya was tryin’a keep somethin’ very important from ya’.”
I gulped a nervous feeling down in my chest as I nodded, bringing a bite of caramel roll to my mouth.
- Writer
