Voodoo Curse

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N:

Chapter 6 (Shell of a Home)

The couple arrived around the same time as Cat, finding her staring solemnly at the large home. Jade stepped beside her, tugging on her own jacket while gazing at her sister's house. It still looked the same, even as all these years passed, acting almost as though no time went by.

"There's no love here," she heard Cat utter in the softest tone. Jade was taken aback and did a double take as Beck silently stepped away from the redhead. "I can sense it, there's no love in this house. Only existence. A sad, pitiful existence. Do they really live here? Tori and her sister?"

Jade reached over and squinted as she tapped the girl on the shoulder. "Um, Cat, how do you 'feel' this?"

"Oh." Cat looked over and mustered up a bright smile. "It's just something I've learned to pick up on. My grandma teaches me a lot of stuff, like how to feel the aura of a place." Jade raised her eyebrows and glanced back at the house with a sigh. "Kind of like when we went to that abandoned house. It felt so…lonely, so sad. The energy, I mean, it was somber."

"I'm pretty sure most abandoned homes feel like that." Cat shook her head and dropped her shoulders with a heavy sigh. "By the way, did your grandmother say anything of interest about the sample and picture you showed her?"

"She did."

Curiosity piqued and she leaned closer to Cat. "Anything?" Surely if Cat's grandmother knew about all this stuff, she might have some idea what happened. Cat hummed contemplatively and squinted her eyes.

"It's confusing. She analyzed the carpet stain, said it was something definitely used in voodoo rituals, but she can't figure out why there's a blast ring in the center of the living room. The two shouldn't go hand in hand, because that's a sign of a different kind of spell being used, and not what the liquid would have been used for."

Her heart sank and she glanced with nervousness at Beck. "A different spell? So voodoo stuff was used there, but so was something else?"

"Something like that, I guess. Grandma said the type of marking found in the living room is indicative of a transformation type spell, while the stuff associated with the stain is intended to put someone to sleep. Combining the two spells would be chaotic, because they would almost surely have an unknown or random effect on the victim."

"So what's your take?" Beck asked in a gruff voice. "What do you think happened to the couple? Did they simply run off and abandon their children?" Cat blinked multiple times and shook her head.

"Grandma says she is almost undoubtingly certain that they were a victim of a hoodoo ritual." She snapped her fingers and cleared her throat. "Note, voodoo, not Satanism or wiccan magic. Although, she thinks the transformation spell might be closer to Satanism. She isn't sure what exactly happened, but she says she is definitely certain that what happened in that house was a tragedy that befell the couple and led to their disappearance."

"But even she's not entirely sure what took place?"

"She has little idea." Jade cringed inwardly and for a moment she felt like throwing herself into the sea. This girl's grandmother was apparently a priestess or some kind of practitioner of whatever type of magic, and yet even she couldn't say with certainty what happened.

"Furthering that…" Cat paced a bit and tapped her chin. "Grandma said there were scrape marks in the residue of the blast marking-as though someone went back to collect whatever remains were there." Her heart exploded in a flurry of beats and she threw her hand up as though to catch them.

"What?"

"I don't know, but the area was disturbed. Grandma can't tell how recent it is from just the photograph, but she's sure someone was messing around there. Like I said, she knows little about what could be going on."

"At least she thought about it." It was beginning to seem like nobody would know, but then maybe Holly could shed light on the matter if she wished to talk about it.

"Why are you guys so interested in that place?"

Her eyes flew open and she was quick to think of something to say-anything to shake the girl's suspicion. "Just felt a connection there as well, I guess. Not really sure. Morbid curiosity, probably." Cat frowned and leaned back while scanning the pair with her eyes.

"You don't believe in all that stuff though, do you? Everything my grandma talks about."

"What's important is that you believe your grandma."

"I do."

"Good." As of this moment, Jade knew she'd be the last person to say she didn't believe in it all. She was living proof that rituals and witchcraft must exist, even if she didn't want to think that it did. "Is that why you said that house felt lonely?"

"Sort of." Cat approached the front door, stepping up onto the porch and turning around to face them. "It's really just the energy of the environment. Like when you go somewhere, you can feel a certain sensation to the place. If you walk into a place like Chuckie-Cheese, you might feel happy, comfortable. It's a place of fun, of laughter and joy."

"That…makes sense, actually."

"Right." Cat looked into the distance and grew very somber very quickly. "When you go somewhere like a cemetery, you might feel a great sadness there." Jade nodded and Cat turned back to them. "When you go somewhere that a tragedy happened-where someone died, or maybe there was a fire, or even a place that say a tornado or earthquake happened…great tragedy, great loss of life, you can almost feel that it happened."

"Is that what you felt back there?"

"Sort of. Like I said, it felt lonely. It felt empty, like the soul-the life had just been sucked out of that home. It felt angry too, in a way that I can't really explain. Someone, or something, just lost control there. I knew we needed to get out of that place, that if there was a presence lingering there, we were intruding."

"Intruding?" Jade heard Beck whisper. She glanced at him and saw his smile break into a nervous smirk. "Why we gave permission for everyone to enter."

He didn't want to believe in any of this either, she could tell. He was trying his hardest to find comedy in such a situation where comedy was impossible. Nowhere in her heart could she find fault with him for it.

Jade hardly even asked him how he was doing with everything, and here she could see, he was breaking as well.

"Let's go inside." Jade hit the doorbell and held her breath until Tori answered it. The girl poked her head out the doorway and her eyes lit up jovially when she saw them.

"You guys made it. Andre and Robbie have been here a while, so I was getting worried you guys decided not to come."

"Why worried?"

"They said it seemed like you guys didn't like them too much, that they annoyed you the other day."

"Oh. Yeah." She'd almost forgotten how badly she lashed out at Andre; but it felt as though he were trying to steal from her home, and she didn't like that. Tori stepped to the side and opened the door further so they could enter.

Andre and Robbie were lounging in front of the couch. Tori walked to the recliner and motioned for Beck and Jade to take a seat on the sofa. Andre glanced up at them and waved as Jade took a seat. "Hey guys."

"Sorry if I frightened you the other day, Andre. I guess I just wasn't feeling my strongest."

"It's alright."

"I just-" A familiar, haunting tune filled her ears and she twisted around to the television behind her. An animated movie was playing, with a girl spinning around the room while singing Once Upon a December. "That song?"

"Oh!" Tori grabbed the remote from underneath her in the recliner and hit the pause button. "Trina was watching that earlier, I must have sat on the remote without thinking." Jade thought back to the mysterious girl at the restaurant and she quickly furrowed her brow. "It's Anastasia, she absolutely adores this movie, or well, she loves that song."

"Has she ever sung it?"

Tori bit her lip and started to reply when Andre cackled. "That girl? Sing? She can't sing for shit." Jade watched Beck's eyes sharpen into a glare and fall onto Andre as though ready to pierce him like a knife. She wanted to punch the guy for talking about her daughter like that, but held back any display that might come across as odd.

"No," Tori replied while raising an eyebrow. The girl's tone was laced with hesitation and her eyes flickered from the group to the television. "Trina doesn't sing, or she doesn't like singing. She might do Karaoke once in a while."

"Karaoke?" Andre clapped a hand over his mouth and started to laugh. "Oh that would be fun to see. How badly would she mess up?" In the space of the TV stand between the top and the doors was a sight that grabbed her attention.

It was a small mask, golden in color and with tiny purple feathers framing the border of it. The mask had a small nose piece to cover the bridge, and two tear shaped eye sockets.

"So where is Trina tonight?" Jade inquired. Tori looked at the stairs and shrugged.

"She's upstairs, studying for a test. Doesn't want to be bothered right now." Tori looked over her shoulder and started to push herself up. "Can I get anyone anything? I have drinks in the fridge and all."

"I'll have some water, please." Jade flashed a smile and folded her hands in her lap. As Tori got up and left, Jade turned to Andre, still baffled by his earlier remarks. "Andre? Do you really think those things about Trina?" He raised an eyebrow as the others looked at him.

He pushed his hands behind his head and breathed in slowly. "Honestly Jade? You weren't here when those girls were practicing for the showcase. She sounded like a dying cat."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Positive. Fairly sure she can't sing, act, or dance. I don't even know how in the hell she got into Hollywood Arts."

She dropped her head to Beck's shoulder and shut her eyes. She felt her husband's body shift and heard his whisper to her. "Erwin told me he let Trina in the school because we were her parents. Evidently you have to audition to get enrolled there."

"Really?" She opened her eyes and raised her head sharply. "We didn't audition and he enrolled us." She hated being given a free pass to things, and Erwin knew that. Perhaps it had more to do with his missing them than anything else, but it still bugged her that he would do such a thing, whether for her or for her daughter. "I don't think Andre really heard Trina sing, by the way."

"Why?"

"Look." She pointed to the mask and saw Beck's eyebrows rise. "The girl at the restaurant was taller than Tori and had a different hairstyle, not to mention shorter hair."

"Strange. When we spoke, she seemed to be more interested in talking about fitness, working out, and athletic type of stuff. Maybe singing's just a hobby she doesn't want people knowing about? Necessary evil for getting into the school, possibly?"

"There's a thought."

Andre pulled his hands away and twisted around, looking up at them with a furrowed brow. "What're you guys talking about over there?"

Tori walked over with a glass of water in her hands and shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure," she said, "Trina might be a bit of an attention seeker if you want to think about it like that." Jade was horrified to hear the words coming out of her daughter's mouth, but slightly relieved when she detected a hint of deception in her tone.

"She is still your sister," Beck stated. Tori nodded and Jade took the glass of water carefully from Tori. "I mean, you shouldn't speak ill of her. Right, Jade?" She sipped her drink and closed her eyes.

"My sister and I had our disagreements." She wanted to instill some sense of value and wisdom if at all possible; and hopefully her daughter might pick up on that. "Serious ones. Still, she's my sister and I could never bring myself to hate her or belittle her, no matter what she may do or say." The statement was as true as it could be. Despite what Holly had done to her and to Beck, she still loved her.

Someone nudged her ribs and caused her to nearly drop the water. When she looked over, she saw Beck motioning behind her. When she turned to look, all of time appeared to cease, and her vision focused on that of her sister standing just outside of what appeared to be a study.

Holly didn't look much different than she had fifteen years prior, though she had slightly more wrinkles and crow's feet around her wide hazel eyes. Her jaw was open in an expression of horror and her entire body shook as if touched by electricity.

"It can't be," Jade heard Holly say with a soft voice. David walked up beside her and furrowed his brow at them, but he didn't appear to recognize Jade or her husband.

Jade felt the air in her lungs deplete as the storm inside her stomach rose to burn her throat. She fought back the tears beneath her eyes while biting on her tongue hard enough to draw blood.

Her hands clenched as the pain in her chest became excruciating. "What do I do here? What do I say?" She could shout, she could make a scene, but she didn't want to frighten or concern the others.

Holly's eyes glazed over and she planted her hand to David's chest for a moment before striking him to guide him back into the study.

Looking back, she noted nobody else catching this display. Part of her wanted to confront Holly now, but another part of her wanted to observe the couple and see how they were. The only way to do that was to act like they were not who the couple thought they were-though Holly would undoubtingly recognize her own sister. It was worth a shot.

"I want to see what she does," she whispered. Jade tried to focus on how she felt upon seeing Holly, but in that moment, all she felt was pity and grief. "I want to be angry with her, but for some reason, I just can't…"

"What do you want to do about this, then?"

"Let's just see how our daughters turned out." It was all she could think of, to figure out how Trina and Tori were doing. She wanted to feel close to them and to know they weren't so terribly off.

Unable to hold her tears back much longer, Jade excused herself and let Tori direct her to the restroom where she locked the door and collapsed against the wall. Her knees pulled up to her chest and her trembling hands rose to cover her face.

So what are your thoughts here? What do you think about what Cat said? Perhaps they should seek help in her grandmother. Looks like Holly's seen her sister for the first time, I expect a conversation may soon be happening between the two of them. What are your thoughts for the future?