Immediately after my meeting with Marie, I bought an old abandoned plantation. With a little work, forty-two different paint colors and some spell-casting, it has become a sanctuary. By the way, that colorful paintjob does more than brighten my day. It really cheers up the locals. Whenever I hear people talk about it, they are laughing and smiling. And that’s really my personal philosophy, to be happy and spread that happiness in any way I can.
The old place is more than my home. I started out by creating The Pussy Plantation, A Loving Home for Stray Cats. But as I soon learned, neglected pussies aren’t the only ones needing some love. I will take in any animal, but I’ve concentrated on searching for the homeless paranormal creatures. They have nowhere else to go.
This year started with a challenge that for the first time didn’t involve my animals. It involved my boyfriend, Brad. My goal was to end a long distance relationship. End it and make him move in with me. Some very strange things happened along the way, and they created quite a mystery to sort out.
It all began with an evening walk behind my plantation on the banks of Bayou Lafourche and an unexpected meeting with a peculiar stranger.
Chapter One
A New Guest
The old weathered dock on the shore of Bayou Lafourche was a feature I loved most when I bought the plantation. Some people say they like to be “one with nature”, but I doubt many people get the opportunity to truly feel that way. Being alone on the bayou gave me that feeling. On that particular afternoon, I hoped I was alone because that little stretch of the bayou holds a secret and her name is Rebecca. “Becky! Come here, Becky.” I swatted the dark, flat water with a branch. “Come on, girl.” Soon I saw the telltale sign I looked for. Her long tapered tail made a serpentine motion just under the water. The ridge along her back rippled through the surface and her long neck arched up like a great shepherd’s crook. Becky’s oblong head swayed side to side like a pendulum as she swam, well, more or less swam. You could say she dog paddled toward me with her four long flippers.
“My, you have been growing. You’re nearly as big as a hippo!” We were face to face when she reached the dock. Her dark, eel-like skin glimmered in the sun. I rubbed my hand between her eyes and under her neck. “Hungry?” Her tail slapped the water and she made a weird purring sound. The only way I can describe it is if you can imagine a cat trying to imitate a dolphin. She gulped down half of the basket of greens and carrots I had brought along. “I hope you don’t get much bigger. Because this bayou isn’t going to get any bigger for you.”
“Purr, cluck, purr.”
“Oh, I know you’re a Nessie. But you’re the Louisiana version. That Scottish witch will never be able to keep you in that icy loch. You’ll just have to make do here.” I remembered the day I found an alligator that had escaped a trapper’s snare. Badly wounded and missing her forearms, she never would have made it. It didn’t take me long before I worked up a spell to create my own version of the legendary and not so mythical Nessie. A witch in Scotland had expressed some interest in her, but as I pointed out to Rebecca, she’s a warm weather girl and with only flippers, she would have to stay in the water, always.
“How would you like to listen to a poem I’m working on?” I cleared my throat and took out a folded sheet of orange stationary from my pocket. “It’s called Chicken Dream.
Trying to discover some long lost magic
You work your spells to find the ancient way
I see you, built for flight
And I witness your terrible plight
You flap those things
They are barely wings
A spell you cast
Enchantment recalls a soaring past
And so comes the mysterious stranger that whispers sweet lies in the night…”
SPLASH, SMACK, Rebecca lunged forward and with a violent snap of her mouth, my poem was transformed into nothing more than a quick Nessie snack. “Okay, okay, I can see how you can relate to the chicken’s plight.” The struggle of a flightless bird must have struck a nerve. “But if you would’ve waited for me to finish reading it, you would know it had a happy ending.”
It was getting late. As soon as Rebecca washed down the poem with the remaining greens, I headed back to my plantation house.
The slow, steady rhythm of crackling twigs and crunching leaves disturbed the quiet evening air. Noises like those meant only one thing. Someone was following me. I judged the distance ahead to my house. I was still a few hundred long yards from safety. The bright splashes of color on the mansion had already yielded to cheerless greys in the waning light. It would be only minutes until my path was lost in the dark.
“Who’s that moving about in the grass there?” I called out. Nearly to the point of panic, I reverted to the age-old trick of childhood. I’d pretend I wasn’t alone by creating a conversation in another voice. “Hello? Who’s there? You better tell us!” My voice had just squeaked out an unbelievable attempt at a man’s baritone voice. “Sweet mother, that won’t fool anyone. I sound like an old man that’s been punched in the clackers.” I mumbled aloud. Larger branches cracked and my pursuer’s noisy footsteps were more frantic. It was getting closer. “I’m not going to run. Not going to run.” The last thing I wanted to do was trip and fall in my dark overgrown yard. I’d be laid out like a side of beef waiting on the butcher. If only I had my broom, I could have instantly removed myself from the predicament. “Some witch I am.” I lamented.
My imagination took control. As my friends sometimes say about me, I spaced out. Now I could practically see the silvery knife blade of a faceless slasher. Perhaps he’d be swinging one of those giant meat cleavers like you see in the movies. That’s another thing. Hollywood seems to think every family keeps their kitchen equipped with enough cutlery to operate a gruesome slaughterhouse. I started thinking about a ridiculously unbelievable cleaver wielding scene I saw in some scary movie. The woman would dart from room to room, falling over every piece of furniture she owned. Not once did she just run out the door for help. Absurd.
It suddenly dawned on me what was going on, and I snapped out of my contemplative state. “Surely I’m being pranked. People don’t just go around stabbing and chopping each other. That only happens on television.” I steeled my nerves and turned around to confront my stalker. I shouted into the shadowy brush behind me, “This isn’t funny! I know you’re back there! Show yourself, ya gobshite!” I listened for a response. “Unless you’re some sort of giant spider. In that case, kindly go back to where you came from.” Everything was quiet. I was hopeful that I had frightened the stranger away.
I pictured a giant spider, comically stumbling off in the other direction, confused by my polite rejection. With my mind a little more at ease, I continued my walk home. It was finally dark and I had reached the back porch without a problem. Far away back on the bayou, Becky’s peculiar yet lonely song floated through the moss laden trees. “I know how you feel, girl. I miss my guy, too.” The full moon had started the long nighttime journey, and I marveled at the way it illuminated a ragged horizon. A bright point of light seemed to trail the moon. “Look, Darcy. A star. Starlight, starbright, how I wish I could share this night…”
“Meow. Meow.”
“Well, it goes something like that.”
“Meow, meeeoow.”
“You’re absolutely right. That’s not a star. It’s Jupiter. You can’t wish upon a planet.”
I never expected anything like what happened next. A furious commotion of footsteps rushed at me from behind and I was knocked to the ground, quite violently. Something hard and pointed was pressing against my thigh. I may have been as terrified as that actress in the slasher movie, but there was no way in hell I was going to lay there and scream like a helpless fool. I shoved the thing off of me and just like one of those guys in the kung-fu movies, another entertainment Randy coerces me into, I sprang up and practically took my head off as my entire body hit the light switch by the back door. I spun around, karate h
ands at the ready. “Hah!” I yelled. I can barely spell karate, much less use it to defend myself. My attacker didn’t need to know that.
In the fluorescent glow, I saw my assailant. It was a small grey and black speckled goat. “Huh?” I couldn’t have been more surprised if it was a little green alien wearing a tuxedo. “A flippin’ goat? I don’t have any goats here.” I knelt down and petted his neck. “How did you get out here? Listen, you shouldn’t roam around back there by the bayou. I’ll tell you the same thing I was told. Those gators would’ve gobbled you up like you were a Twinkie tossed into a weightwatchers meeting.”
“Baaa, baaa.”
A worn leather collar hung around the goat’s neck. I swung it around until I found a small brass tag suspended from a ring. The badly scratched surface had some lettering stamped into it. “Well, you’ve come to the right place, smart little goat. I wonder…did you know that I run an animal shelter here on my plantation? What should I call you?” I looked over the name tag one more time. I made out a few of the letters and did my best to make sense of them.
GEIS SPOTH
I assumed this had to be the goat’s name. I clumsily sounded out the letters in a few ways and settled on a version that didn’t make me sound like a goat with a lisp. “Jay Spot.” The name rolled off my Irish tongue easily enough. “Come along, Jay Spot. You can stay out in the cow shed. You’ll be comfortable in there for the night.” I led him out to the shed where I kept a pair of cows that I rescued, more or less, from their fate as ground beef.
Chapter Two
Phone Hex
With Jay Spot safe for the night, I sprinted into the house and up to my room. It was almost time for my phone call. I’m in what most people call a long distance relationship, the dreadful LDR. And all I can say about those arrangements is that they suck. Maybe the suck factor can be reduced, but never eliminated, if you can honestly tell yourself that it will all work out, eventually. That one little word makes all the difference. In order to qualify for the right to use the word eventually, there has to be some absolute, sure-fire event out there on the horizon. I’ve heard other people use it. “It’ll work out when we finish college.” Or, “when he gets back from the Army.” You know, a Something—a bright, shiny Eventually that you might keep in your dresser drawer, take it out now and again and get lost in the starry eyed daydreams of Eventually.
But I didn’t have a pretty little eventually. My dresser drawer held a sad, rubber reminder that I’d be spending another night alone. And I was out of batteries. Maybe that’s why I picked the weird, ice-blue, strangely shaped toy. It’s highly unlikely I’d ever form an emotional attachment to something that looks like it was made to be a prosthetic penis for an alien. God forbid. I’d be a castaway on LDR Island with my vibrating Wilson.
My boyfriend, Brad, is a Chicago fireman. We met last summer in a wild fury of instant passion—hot, fiery passion. Literally. My friend Leigh used her witchcraft so I would meet a hot fireman. It should go without saying that getting rescued by a fireman required an actual fire, a fire that I accidentally provided when I burned down a good portion of my friend Lindsey’s house. Brad and I have been in love ever since. In any case, it seems like our love for each other has grown faster than our ability to look to the future. I needed a future.
We’ve worked it out as best we can. I sometimes used my broom to be in Chicago with him, but only if he was free for the night or weekend and I had someone to take care of my animals.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t always worked out. Except for last month. We spent nearly the entire month together, the hottest, steamiest December I’ve ever experienced. And now I’m missing him worse than at any time before. This was a new and powerful feeling for me. I’m not even sure that by saying “I missed him” could adequately convey the depth of the emotion, or should I say pain. At times it was nearly unbearable because I felt this longing for him. I swear it felt like part of my heart was missing. I wanted him to be with me, to the point that it physically hurt. I don’t know if that’s a sign of true love. If it isn’t, then I don’t know what is.
Now I survived on phone calls and phone sex. Phone sex. Those words shouldn’t even be put next to each other. I imagine two phones awkwardly humping away across a desk, keypad beeps accompanying each erotic touch, a dial tone or two when one of them hits just the right spot, and finally the ringer blissfully announcing an orgasm. Hopefully both phones get to ring.
I checked my calendar. “Yes!” I shouted. I was right. Brad was free until his shift started in a couple of hours and he was planning to call at eight o’clock. The phone rang within minutes.
“Hi Brad!”
“Hey, Sunshine. I missed you earlier. I tried calling but you must have been out.”
“I walked down by the bayou to check on...the wildlife. You’ll never guess what I found on my way back.”
“What’s that?”
“A goat. It was following me up the trail all the way to the house. I put it in with the cows for the night. A little strange to find a goat wandering around out here.”
“A goat? At least it found itself a home. I’m sure you’ll have it spoiled rotten in no time.”
“So, Brad, what made you so anxious to call me?” I teased. I knew damn well what he’d been missing.
“You, of course. I’ve missed you. Everything about you.”
“Uh, you should be more specific.”
Brad’s voice became deep and soft. “I was imagining myself walking into your room, seeing you sitting on your bed, like you’re probably doing right now.”
“I like where this is going.”
“I come up to you and place my hand on your cheek. Feeling your soft skin and gently lifting your chin up. Watching your green eyes sparkle like they do. The only thing I want to do is to lean down and kiss your lips. Softly at first and until they begin to part and our tongues are lightly dancing. I have one hand running through your hair against the back of your neck and my other hand slides around and works the zipper of your dress down your back.”
I took Brad’s cue and unzipped the back of my dress. “Keep going.” I urged him on.
“Then I slip the straps of your dress down from your shoulders and my mouth moves to the supple skin of your neck. I can feel myself harden with passion as you begin to breathe harder.”
I slipped the thin straps of my sleeveless sundress off. I could feel the imagined warmth of Brad’s mouth kissing me as my fingers brushed my neck. I breathed hard into the phone. “Yes, don’t…don’t stop.” I panted like a thirsty pup.
“I can’t hold back. I have to have you. My mouth finds yours once again and I pull your dress down and off of you and kiss your breasts.”
“Yes, I can hardly hold back either.” I tried to make sense of Brad’s direction. First, he was kissing me…that I got. What was next? Pull the dress down off of me. Wait! “Hold on, Brad. You can’t pull my dress down off of me because I’m still sitting on the bed.”
“Right. Okay, so I lift you up and take the dress off then I place my hands over your breasts and run my tongue over your nipples.”
I tried my best to hide my laughter and simultaneously keep up the heavy breathing sounds. “Umm. Okay.” Nipples. Did he say nipples? I stood up and dropped my dress down around my feet in a completely unsexy manner. “You forgot about my bra. Just a second.” I took off my bra and flung it over my shoulders. “All right. Where were we? Take off the dress, put your hands over my nipples? No, wait. Hands on breasts, lick the nipples? It’s physically impossible.” I laughed out loud. “Okay, I’m sorry. Keep going.” Nipples, nipples, nipples. The word cracks me up.
“Yeah, baby. I tear off your bra and my hands cup your breasts. I love the feel of your hard, firm tits in my hands…your nipples are like…um…like little pink pencil erasers.”
It was just too much. Every giggle, every snort, and every chuckle that I had choked back finally broke free. I was like a hyena on laughing gas. I would like to
point out that when your clothes are dropped down around your ankles, they become some pretty effective leg shackles. I fell with a thump and a single loud “Ooof!” I was sprawled out on the floor, still laughing. “Oh…Brad. Pencil erasers? My hard, firm tits?” I gasped out between chuckles. “You, haha, you make it sound like I’m a, haha, a mannequin some schoolboys put together. And this heavy breathing…God, I sound like I’m having an asthma attack.”
Brad was laughing with me. “We haven’t even gotten to the good part where I very awkwardly describe what I do with my fingers. Jesus! Imagine if someone listened in on us. But what if I talked like this…” Brad followed up by giving me his best impression of an old sexologist with a German accent. “Now, I insert zee index finger und den I make the motion like da Volkswagen piston. You see how zat verks? Ja, den I curl dat finger up, just like when I call my little schnauzer. Like dis, herkommen, herkommen puppy! See how I do that to tickle up in there? Ooh she likes when I tickle dat schpot like dat.” Brad and I laughed without saying a word for what seemed to be several minutes. “Doesn’t sound too sexy does it?”
“Brad, I’m afraid this just isn’t working out.” I bit my lip. That didn’t sound right. It almost sounded like I wanted to give up on our relationship! “The sexy stuff, I mean. Oh God, Brad. I sure miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Gertie. I just want to be with you, but my shift is about to start and—”
A thunderous crash from downstairs broke up our conversation. There were more sounds, unmistakable ones. “Brad. Someone or something just crashed through a window. I just heard glass shattering.” My voice was serious and hushed. “It’s downstairs.” The noises from the kitchen seemed to be confined to one area. I listened and tried to get an idea of what it could be. When I heard a rapid thunk, thunk, thunk rising up, it was frighteningly clear to me. The intruder was running up the stairs. I curled into a ball on the floor next to the bed. “It’s coming up here!” I barely said the words and a goat vaulted through the door, over my head, and onto my bed.
Romancing the Paranormal Page 72
