Love After First Night

Chapter 5: From Clue to Clue

A couple more months drag by, in which Trevor continues to get tossed around by the elusive doll-wielder. I force myself to keep my eyes on him whenever we're both at home, watching in case he does something suspicious. So far, over the course of today alone, he's fallen down the stairs at least twice, tripped on nothing dozens of times, and randomly collided with walls on more occasions than I can count. And each time he fumbles, it only agitates him further. I'd try to intervene, but the only way I can even start to do that is by finding out who has our voodoo doll. But there's simply no way to do that as far as I'm aware.

This evening, the last straw is drawn while I'm busying myself with the dishes after yet another Italian-inspired dinner I've made. As I face the sink and focus on the task at hand, Trevor passes behind me, only to suddenly trip. Seeing how there are a few small puddles on the ground from the dishwater, it gives him just enough friction to slide along the floor after his fall and slam his head into the baseboard below the cabinets with a highly audible thud. Groaning and holding his head, he immediately stands up and glares harshly at me.

"What the hell was that for?!" He asks incredulously.

"What the hell was what for?" I ask much more calmly.

"Don't play dumb with me! You tripped me again! What did I ever do to deserve this?!" Trevor continues, frustration marring his tone.

"No, I did not!" I reply defensively, "And I would greatly appreciate it if you stopped pinning all the blame for your mishaps on me!"

"Well I wouldn't be pinning the blame on you if it wasn't you who was responsible for them!" Trevor replies, "You know what?! I'm done being nice! Even if you've somehow been tripping me up for the past few months by complete accident, you have to find a way to stop doing that!"

I raise an eyebrow as I stare blankly into his hazel eyes, which are currently burning with fury.

"Because if you can't get your body sorted out... then I'm not sure I'd be willing to spend the rest of my life with you." Trevor finishes, prompting me to widen my eyes.

All I do is stare into his face, nothing but muted shock on my own. However, I quickly notice something within my field of vision that makes me lose focus. A slit suddenly appears on the palm of Trevor's right hand, and it immediately starts to bleed profusely.

"Trevor! Your hand!" I abruptly call out in alarm.

It only takes a second, but by the time he looks down at his hand, dark blood has already covered it entirely, and is dribbling onto the hardwood kitchen floor. He widens his eyes in alarm while I scramble around the kitchen until I find a roll of paper towels.

"Geez, what the fuck is going on?!" He asks in a panic, "This time I know it wasn't you! You wouldn't do this, would you?!"

"Of course I wouldn't." I reply calmly, dabbing his wound with a thick wad of paper towels as he winces in pain.

Eventually we manage to stop the bleeding and get his hand bandaged up, before planning a doctor's appointment for him first thing in the morning. Trevor calms down just enough that his incision stops hurting and he manages to go to sleep, once again on the living room couch, which just so happens to be the one we'd had sex on several times back when he used to own an apartment. I kiss him gently on the forehead before entering the bedroom and shutting the door behind me.

Going to sleep is a surprisingly easy task in spite of all that has happened tonight. At least until about 5:00am when I am suddenly awakened by a loud thud coming from outside the master suite. Quietly creeping out of bed, I slowly open the door and tiptoe through the hallway until I reach the living room. Trevor is lying on the ground, still snoring as he wears nothing but a pair of white and yellow striped pajama pants, his hair mussed up. It always astounds me how long it takes for him to wake up after enduring so much in his sleep. My hair stands on end as I watch him slowly rise to a stand without waking up, before sleepwalking towards the living door I'm peeking through. I quickly duck out of sight and press my back to the wall, nervously watching as he exits. But as soon as he passes through the doorway, he doesn't notice me, instead skulking over towards the front door.

I immediately feel a strong pang of panic. To my knowledge, Trevor has never done anything like this before. Could it just be the voodoo influencing him? I quietly follow him, silently putting on a tan trench-coat and a navy-blue beret over the midnight purple lingerie I'd been sleeping in tonight. After putting on some yellow galoshes, I hurry after him into the slightly rainy night. I've seen sleepwalkers before, but I've never seen any of them go as far as Trevor's going, nor be sleeping as deeply as he is. The sensations of the hard, slick ground, and the cold puddles do nothing to rouse him from his slumber. He ends up strolling all the way to the street corner where I used to operate as a hooker, before continuing up Bourbon Street. He stops directly in front of a random establishment. Stopping behind him, I instantly recognize it. The porch-lights on either side of the door have florescent lavender bulbs screwed into them. A massive sign reading "Dr. Lewis' Voodoo Emporium" is positioned above it, written in one of those gothic fonts you'll often see on gravestones in cartoon Halloween specials.

Why would he want to come all the way out here? I think to myself, confused.

From a good distance behind Trevor, I jolt a little as the door into the emporium slowly and dramatically creaks open, casting a bright patch of light onto the cobblestone street. A stocky, masculine silhouette appears, holding a small, unidentifiable object in both hands, which he wiggles around as though he's manipulating it. In response, Trevor slowly sleepwalks towards the mysterious figure, who begins to cackle sinisterly.

A boom of thunder occurs, accompanied by a flash of lightning, which briefly illuminates the man in the doorway and highlights the half-mischievous, half-sinister grin on his face. It only lasts for a brief second, but that's all it takes for me to recognize him. He's the same man who had sold off the voodoo doll to a customer on the same night after I'd been thrown out of my grandmother's house, before I had picked it up off the street. And now the doll is somehow back in his possession, and he's using it to his own advantage.

All of a sudden, I experience a flashback to the time when Trevor and I had been traveling home from Kicksburg. I remember a middle-aged black man staring at the side-pocket on my duffel bag with a slight grin on his face while on the plane, before digging in his pants pocket as he walked off. I remember getting a good look at his face that day, and it perfectly matches the face I've seen just now. Now it's clearer than ever: the man we'd run into on the plane is the same voodoo master who works here on Bourbon Street, and he's the one responsible for stealing our doll. But as soon as I come to this realization, it only raises more questions. Why did he take the doll back from us? And how did he manage to track us to Kicksburg?

At this point, I'm beyond panicked, taken aback by the shocking realization I've just come to. And intimidated by the voodoo master's laugh and the booms of thunder occurring all around us, which seem to be growing louder and more frequent as time passes. The fact that so much going on at once only adds to my panic, and I start to feel overwhelmed and lightheaded all at the same time. I do all that I feel I'm able to.

"TREVOR!" I call through the rain in a half-strangled yell.

The last thing I remember is passing out, falling backwards onto the cobblestone streets of the French Quarter. An audible splash is heard as I collapse, my head landing directly in a large puddle. I'm unconscious as soon as I hit the ground.