Something like Voodoo

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Dad, however, was still in pain in the backseat, and my phone still didn’t work. All I could do was sit in the dark, sobbing as I tried desperately to get my car to start.

  Sarah was still around somewhere, and I needed to get Dad away from her before it was too late.

  22

  LIFE AND DEATH

  Idon’t how he knew we needed help, but suddenly Noah was there. The wheels of his Chevy tore up our grass as he skidded to a stop in the front yard. He hopped out of his Chevy, ran over to my car, and tapped on my window.

  “Thank God!” I shouted, jumping out and leaving the door ajar as I opened the back door to pull Dad out. I called out to Noah, “We need to go! Hurry!”

  He jogged to my side, his eyebrows knit together. “What’s going on?” He motioned to my dad. “You didn’t say anything when you called.”

  “Not now,” I said, jerking my head toward my dad. “Help me get him in your truck.”

  Noah nodded and took over my dad’s shoulders so I could lift his feet. Together, we carried him to the truck and stuffed him into the cab.

  By the time I climbed in beside him, Noah was already buckled into the driver’s seat.

  “Hospital.” I smacked my hand on the dashboard. “GO, Noah! Hurry!”

  He peeled back onto the street, and the It Girls appeared in his rearview. In front of us, Sarah stood in the middle of the road, blocking our path. She personified hell itself – clothes tattered, hair like Medusa, eyes of black voids. Noah didn’t flinch. He slammed his foot on the gas and plowed forward, forcing her to dive out of the way.

  His shirt smoked where it rested against his mark, but somehow he still managed to floor it all the way to the interstate.

  I peeked over at him a few times during the drive. Dad sat sandwiched between us, his head in the way. I wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or curse. Every time Dad’s body jostled, allowing me a break to glance over at Noah, all I saw was the pain and terror etched in his expression.

  “I can drive,” I offered, my voice panicky.

  Noah made a noise. He was trying to talk. Sarah must be controlling him. “Can’t – stop,” he got out, leaning forward against the wheel, sweat beading along his hairline and trickling past his temple to his jaw.

  He was right. If we stopped, it would give Sarah too much opportunity to catch up. We needed to put real distance between us. Fast.

  Noah shifted lanes, causing my dad’s head to loll to one side. I checked his pulse. It was faint. “He needs a doctor, Noah.”

  “Can’t,” Noah said, voice strained.

  I shook my head. “We have to! Please, Noah! He’s going to die!”

  Noah didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure he could. He just drove, far too fast and entirely too sloppy. I couldn’t lose another parent. Not like this. I grasped Dad’s hand; he was slipping away already. Tears burned my eyes. Every time I turned my pleading gaze toward Noah, he clenched his jaw and pressed down on the accelerator.

  About the time I realized we were heading to Hazel’s, his body relaxed, and he finally spoke more than two words.

  “Doctors can’t help your dad,” he said hoarsely. “But Hazel can.”

  I sucked in my bottom lip. “I hope you’re right.”

  We drove on in silence, the radio untouched, the interstate a smudge on either side of Noah’s truck, trees whipping past as the pavement blurred beneath us. The inside of the truck’s cab filled with the bluish ambience of late evening and the dull dashboard light.

  After another ten minutes, Noah’s pain eased enough for him to speak again. “What happened?”

  It took a moment for me to form a response. I swallowed and told him everything that had happened at the house.

  He gave a low whistle.

  “You came, though,” I said, remembering how I’d been unable to reach him. “How?”

  “I kept getting calls, but no one was there.”

  “She must’ve cast some kind of illusion.” My voice was barely audible over the whining hum of the motor. “I thought I had no signal.”

  He clicked on his blinker, switching lanes again. Hazel’s exit wasn’t far off. “I was on my way when you called. From Hazel’s, actually, which is what took so long. By the time you called, I was only minutes away.”

  “Guess we’re lucky,” I said quietly.

  He flashed a glance my way. “Luck had nothing to do with it. Your father called earlier and told me everything.”

  “What’s everything? Because I still don’t even know.”

  “That before, he thought I killed your mom and now he thinks it was Sarah. That he knew about the voodoo. That he’d made a mistake, and now you were in trouble.” His gaze tipped sadly toward my dad. “I should have stayed closer. If I had, then –”

  “Then what, Noah?” My heart ached thinking that he somehow blamed himself for any of this. “It’s for the best she didn’t already have control of you before you came to get us. How did you resist her?”

  He pushed his damp curls out of his face. “Her hold wasn’t as strong as usual. I guess most of her energy was focused on you.”

  “It can’t all be voodoo, can it?”

  Noah shook his head, his shoulders dipping lower. “I know as much as you. I’m more concerned she has some kind of hold on you. That goes against everything we know.”

  “Not really,” I mumbled.

  Noah’s eyes met mine, confused.

  I tilted my head toward Dad. “I think he did something.”

  After a pause, Noah nodded. “We’ll figure it out, brat,” he said, trying for a smile. It didn’t work. “Hazel will help us, or at least keep us safe in the meantime.”

  “You aren’t worried about Sarah? Because of my dad, she might know too much about some of your safe spots.”

  “Possibly,” he said, his tired eyes returning to the road. “But good luck getting any info from him while he’s unconscious.”

  “Is that how it works?”

  Noah winced. “Honestly? I don’t know. But she’s probably on the way to the asylum. What she did – that would have taken all of her energy she had stored up. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to drive you away against her will. She’ll need to recharge before she comes after us again. That buys us some time.”

  We were operating on a whole lot of maybes, and I didn’t like it. I leaned my chin on my hand and stared out the window at the dark night flying by. “I hope you’re right.”

  When we arrived at Hazel’s, she was waiting outside, one arm crossed over her chest, the other arm lifting a joint to her mouth. She tossed it to the concrete walkway and crushed it with her foot. “Come on,” she said, turning and starting inside. “He doesn’t have much time.”

  Noah and I scrambled to carry my dad into the apartment, up the elevator, and down the hall. Hazel was standing at the door of her apartment, holding it open for us.

  I couldn’t help but glance in every direction for anyone watching us. Hazel touched my shoulder as I moved past her. “If you haven’t already noticed, no one else lives on this floor.”

  Inside, she shut the door and secured a column of locks, then moved the coffee table out of the way and instructed we lay Dad in the middle of floor.

  “Are we safe here?” I asked as she bustled about the kitchen. Her calm was unnerving. “That weird glow was still outside. That means we’re okay, right?”

  Nobody answered, which sent my unease from a simmer to a full boil. Hazel strode into the room with a small vial of amber liquid. “Hold him up.”

  Noah and I did as we were told. She pressed on Dad’s chin, opening his mouth to pour the liquid down his throat, then shutting it again. He coughed a wet cough, but didn’t wake. She set the empty vial aside with a frown.

  “We’re a little safe,” she said finally. “But the protection on my
apartment is limited. Without prior notice, I wasn’t able to do a protection spell during a full moon, and right now the spell in place is only strong enough to protect Noah.” Hazel heaved a sigh. “She’s tied to all three of you now?”

  I nodded, my heart constricting. “I think so. I mean, she must be.”

  Hazel’s brilliant blue eyes swung toward me, her gaze dark, her lips set firm. “How did that happen?”

  I peered down at my dad. “Ask him.”

  Hazel placed her hand on my knee and gave a little jiggle. “I will when he wakes up,” she said, her expression softening. Did she feel as confident as she sounded? Or was that for my benefit? “For now, you two should rest. Shit is about to hit the fan, and you’ll need all the strength you can get.”

  I nodded but didn’t budge from my spot on the floor next to Dad. I tucked my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my shins. “How long until it works?”

  Hazel’s gaze shifted to the empty vial.

  “If it works,” she mumbled.

  My head snapped up, my gaze pinned on her sad expression. She shook her head apologetically before leaving the room.

  All that night, Noah sat next to me, his arm around my shoulders. I didn’t move. The television flickered light through the room, though we kept the sound off. Hazel lit some candles when she realized I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

  I nodded off a few times, only to jolt awake with a gasp. Each time, Noah kissed my temple, then stroked the side of my arm until I relaxed into him once more.

  At least a dozen times, I tried calling Heather. With each hour that passed without response, my unease sank deeper and deeper into the abyss that was my stomach. It’d been twenty-four hours, and my dad’s condition wasn’t improving. Not even a little.

  Hazel rejoined us, sitting across from me on the other side of his body. Beside her, she set down a few small journals then took a slow sip of the tea in her hand.

  “I think it’s time we discuss other options,” she said, resting the mug in her lap.

  “Why are you helping us?” I asked when I finally lifted my gaze. “Why have you helped Noah all these years?”

  Hazel leaned away. “Because he came to me.”

  “So? So he found you, asked for help, and you decided you didn’t mind being involved in all of this?”

  Her eyebrows arched. “You’re worried about your dad. Don’t take that out on me.”

  “Don’t evade my question.”

  She tilted her head to the side, lips pressed together, staring me in the eyes. “The three of us have more in common than you think. The reason I know so much about this isn’t because of some obscure fascination with magic. I learned these things because I had to. Because my family was under the same kind of attack.”

  “Oh,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. Whatever brazen confidence I’d mustered in the past few minutes was gone.

  “But I didn’t learn fast enough.” The edge of her voice dug the blade of guilt deeper into my side. “So they’re dead now. Is that good enough reason for you?”

  Beside me, Noah pulled me closer. “She didn’t know, Hazel.”

  Hazel shook her head, the sharp lines in her face softening as her jaw relaxed. “Sorry. I know you’re scared and don’t want to hear this, but we need to try something else to wake your dad.”

  “If there was something else, why haven’t you done it already?”

  Hazel took another sip of her tea, frowned, and then set it aside. “It’s dangerous. But –”

  “Nothing else dangerous,” I said. “What else can you do?”

  “This would be our last hope. If you don’t do it, he’ll die.”

  I shook my head. “There has to be something else.”

  “There’s not,” she said, her irritation sharper. “And it’s not only his life on the line. He knows things that we don’t.”

  I sat up straighter. “Like?”

  “Like how he ended up this way” – she gestured to him – “and why you’re in danger, too.”

  For a long moment, I didn’t say anything.

  “He’s dying, Emily,” she repeated.

  Noah’s intense blue eyes had dulled, no answers to be found in them. His skin had lost its healthy glow. There was a black spot on his shirt from when his mark had started burning through. He gave me a solemn nod.

  I returned my attention to Hazel. “Tell me what we have to do.”

  23

  VOODOO ISN’T POLITICALLY CORRECT

  When Hazel told me we had to kill my father if we wanted to bring him back to life, it set us back to square one. No. No way. He was alive. That was better than dead.

  Hazel explained he wouldn’t stay dead. Killing him would break the curse. Then we could revive him.

  When I asked why that had never been done with Noah to break his curse, Hazel replied that it had. They had tried, and failed. His curse ran too deep. He had come back to life, sure, but the curse had come back with him.

  The only moral I got from that story was we were about to risk my dad’s life. And it might not even work.

  “Why can’t we wait to see if he dies first, then bring him back? Maybe he won’t die, and everything will be fine.” It took me a minute to get those thoughts out. There were a lot of tears involved.

  “I know you’re scared,” Hazel said. I wanted to strangle her. Of course I was scared. I didn’t need her throwing that in my face every five minutes. “The thing is, if he dies on his own, then we can’t bring him back. Sarah’s attack is not only on his body. Her curse is eating away at him. We can only recover his soul if we act before he’s gone. Completely gone. Understand?”

  Yes. But not why my life had come to this. I didn’t have the luxury of time to think things over. “How do you know it won’t kill him for good – what you’re about to do?”

  Hazel reached for my hand, but I snatched it away. “I don’t know, Emily. But it’s our only chance. Either he dies and maybe we can’t bring him back, or he dies and we definitely can’t bring him back.”

  “Not much of a choice,” I mumbled. “If we can’t bring him back, then it will be my fault.” I shook my head. “I can’t be the one who kills him.”

  Hazel nodded. “Listen,” she said, her tone a little harsher now. “I like you. I don’t want anything to happen to you or your dad. But you can’t stay here with him under attack.”

  I leaned back. “What are you saying?”

  “Yeah,” Noah cut in, his eyebrows forming a deep V over his gaze. “What are you saying?”

  Hazel spread her hands. “I’m not risking your life or mine, Noah. Why would I throw away all we have accomplished? Her dad is going to die. We don’t all need to go with him!”

  Before I could speak, Noah put his arm across my chest, as though protecting me from flying out a window in a car crash. “Maybe if you hadn’t gone all doomsday on Emily, she would reconsider! You’ve offered her no hope!”

  Hazel stood. “Don’t even…I offered her every hope. Her only hope! With my magic, his death can be controlled. Nothing would be left to chance. We would know the moment he passed, and that gives us our best odds at being able to revive him.”

  Noah was about to shout again, but I put my hand on his, lowering his seatbelt arm.

  “Fine,” I said, holding onto one thing: That even though she hadn’t been able to break Noah’s curse, when she’d tried this in the past, she’d at least succeeded in not making his death a permanent state. I guess that was all the hope I was allowed to have. “If you can control it, then fine. Only if you swear – really swear – this is the only way.”

  Hazel’s eyes cut from Noah to me. “It is,” she insisted, the conviction in her tone making me almost believe. “But if we’re going to do this, we can’t waste any more time. You need to do what I say, and we need to act fast.”<
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  I swallowed the bowling ball in my throat. “Okay,” I choked out.

  My next torment was whether to stay by Dad’s side or press against the wall on the other side of the room, as far from his impending death as possible. Noah took my hand without speaking a word.

  I could love Noah – actually love him – if we got the chance. What we had together wasn’t just me wanting his hands all over my body or his lips on my mouth. I felt closer to him than in all the moments we’d shared leading to this one. We were taking a chance on Dad – one I hoped would give us back a chance for “us.”

  I nodded for Hazel to proceed. I didn’t understand most of what happened next. She chanted some things, did something with a dish of salt and another of water. She carved a symbol in a candle and set a feather on fire.

  Hazel’s other hand – the one not holding the slow-burning feather – hovered over my dad. First over his chest, his shirt unbuttoned to expose his skin, and then over his mouth. The wind rushed from his lungs like a deflating balloon, and his body still. I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop a small scream from escaping. Hazel never looked up. Now was not the time to distract her.

  Quickly, she smeared a red substance across Dad’s bare chest. I tried forgetting what Hazel had told me it was, but there was no forgetting. Cat’s blood. I shuddered.

  Trying to distract my thoughts from where she found a cat to sacrifice, I focused on the ritual happening before me. Hazel was drawing symbols on Dad with the blood, chanting something different now, in some other language that spilled past her lips.

  Dad’s body jolted. His back arched, and his legs and arms straightened violently. He let out a long, low groan and started convulsing. I buried my face in Noah’s chest, his strong arm holding me tight, shielding me from my worst nightmare. When I looked again, Dad’s body had stilled.