Voodoo Curse

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N:

Chapter 8 (Fading Memories)

Jade carefully placed the jar of ash and residue on the mantelpiece above their fireplace as Beck watched from the center of the living room. "Well the interior is done," he said with a sigh. Jade stepped backwards and smiled as she felt him place a strong hand onto her shoulder. "I don't know what shocks me more, you managing to sweep up all of the residue from the blast, or that you want to save it."

"It's a reminder." She glanced down at the carpet that was lit up by the sun piercing through the freshly cleaned windows. The liquid spill remained in the center of the carpet, but they moved the couch over it. "We can hide the spot on the carpet, but the ash just exists to keep us remembering our goal."

Beck's chest expanded and his mouth shut tight as his gaze searched the jar for what seemed to be an eternity. "I suppose. I can feel my mind slipping, and I am beginning to forget things." She twisted around to him, pursing her lips as his gaze fell from the jar. "So you're right…looking at that, it's easy to remember what happened."

"What do you mean you're forgetting things?"

"Just stuff that happened in my twenties. Things I try to recall, but can't." His arm slipped down to her waist. A somber look flickered in his eyes and his forehead wrinkled. "For instance, I can barely remember when our oldest was born."

Her heart stopped and she pulled away with a startled gasp. "How could you ever forget that day?" It was one of the happiest days of his life; the day he became a father. She searched the frown on his face and the misty glaze in his eyes and her heart began to sink. "You're seriously beginning to forget things?"

"Yeah…" Jade squinted her eyes and tried to think back to the moment she first held her newborn baby in her arms. It was the day she first discovered the joy of being a new parent, the moment that would forever change her life. "I didn't want to worry you, but-"

"Hold on." She raised her hand and shut her eyes. Her breath grew heavy and her brow started to furrow as nothing but blank space filled her mind. She could see the image of her daughter in her arms, but she couldn't recall the feelings that she felt. She couldn't remember the emotions in her heart or in Beck's eyes.

It was as if she were staring at an entirely different mother and child, a pair that she felt little emotion or care for.

"Oh god." Her eyes began to fill with water and she grabbed Beck's hand, whimpering as fear trembled from her lips. "I'm forgetting too. What's happening to us?"

"I don't know." He walked to the couch and sat down. As he hunched forward, he raised a hand up over his mouth, sliding it along his face and pushing it through his hair. "I don't want to lose my memories. We're not even old enough to go senile yet. Even if we looked the age we should be-forty five is too early for senility."

"Not necessarily, but I don't think that's what's happening here." She fell beside him with a loud huff and leaned sideways into him. "How do we even figure this out, Beck? I don't know anything about magic, witchcraft, or anything remotely like it."

"That girl's grandmother does." He dropped his hands and looked towards her. "Do you think she'd believe us if we went to her? I mean, I can hardly believe any of this. If I wasn't living it, I'd say it was all nonsense."

"So would I."

Somehow, being in the house helped to salvage her memories-as though connected to it. The last thing she wanted was to be confined to the home, but if it came to that, then staying there was what she would do.

Talking to either Holly or Cat's grandmother might lead nowhere, but they needed to try something. "Holly did this to us, Beck." She raised her head and curled her eyebrows together. "I don't know if she'd help us or not. As for Cat's grandma? I don't know if she'd even believe us…regardless of whether or not she practices this magic stuff."

"We can't just sit here and diminish, Jade." His voice rumbled with frustration and he stood sharply from the couch. "I'm not just going to give up." She clasped her hands together between her knees and dropped her head.

Her body started to tremble as anxiety poured from the heavy beats of her heart. "Neither am I." She raised her hands to her forehead, and a sob shook from her lips. "But I'm scared."

She felt her weight shift on the couch as her husband sat beside her and draped an arm around her shoulders. "I know you are. So am I." He pulled her close and gently rubbed her back, but it didn't soothe the fear biting at her. Tears poured from her eyes and fell like rain from her face. She could feel the vibrations like beats from a drum coming from Beck, and when she opened her eyes, she noticed how wet his cheeks were as well. "So am I…but we're in this together, and we'll make it out together. Somehow."

Just then the front door swung open, and the couple threw their heads up with a start. Jade's heart stopped on a dime when she saw Holly standing in the doorway. "You two can't be here," she said with her words concealed by a rush of air. "It's not possible. You're dead. You died fifteen years ago, I saw it."

"Clearly not." Beck's muscles tightened and his nostrils flared. Sensing trouble, Jade pat his chest and rose from the couch.

"Holly," She said with a quiet voice, "What did you do to us?" Holly crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. The woman's glare was like poison, burning Jade more with each second that passed.

Anger stirred in her heart and she stepped forward, raising her voice to echo off the walls of her home. "Look at us Holly." She spread her arms out and Holly bowed her head. The woman's fists clenched at her sides and the corner of her mouth opened to show her grinding teeth. "Why are we fifteen again? Why are we fifteen years into the future? What were you trying to accomplish!"

"Not this." Holly raised her head and spoke with a calm, but wavering voice. "I had no idea you would appear to us all these years later." The woman's sharp eyes grew weak and misty. "David used a transforming spell, one that began to turn back the time on your age. Right at the same time, all I wanted to do was put you into a deep sleep…"

"Turn back our age?" Jade's eyebrow rose and she turned sideways, glancing nervously at Beck. "Is that why we're forgetting things?"

"It's possible. Your mind, your personality, it should have turned back with you. If it hasn't, it's because of the two spells being combined, or something, I don't know. So if it's happening now, it must be a slow process…"

"But you did this." She extended her arm and began growling as the rage within her heart tempted her to attack her sister. "You caused this to happen."

"No. No this isn't what I wanted. Even still, the incantation David used shouldn't have brought you here in time." Holly's thin lips flat-lined and the woman reached out a bit, shaking her hands. "I only said 'fifteen' because I knew he used an aging spell-and that was the first number I thought of. I don't know what brought you here, but it could have been that spell…if you are even here in physical form."

"Clearly we are."

"No. You should be dead. You can't be alive."

"You wanted me dead? Is that it?"

"No!" Holly's voice bellowed like thunder and her hands slammed shut as the woman's chest started to expand. "I was going to force you to sleep, force you into the basement of my home. 'Sleep in the shadows'."

Her words hit Jade like a tidal wave, throwing her back emotionally and drawing tears to her eyes. Her anger was diminished in an instant and replaced by a sudden onset of grief and nausea.

To think her sister was going to hide her away all these years rather than simply killing her was hard to swallow; and while she didn't want to believe it, it didn't sound like Holly was lying.

"The ritual? It was supposed to put you to sleep, but leaving you subconsciously aware. I know it was cruel for the time, but I was angry…I wanted you to feel the pain that I felt, being the one in the shadows-being the one forced to watch while your sister gets everything she ever wanted and lives a happy successful life."

"Holly…"

Anger flashed in Holly's eyes and the woman's breath seemed to hiss as she inhaled. "But I am the successful one now. I work at the hospital as a registered nurse, my husband's a police officer. We've raised our nieces, are fortunate enough to have plenty of money…we're happy now. You two can't be here."

"Well we are, and we want to go back."

"No." Holly shut her eyes and her hand trembled over her mouth. Jade flexed her fingers and took a step towards her trembling sister. "No, I couldn't help you even if I knew how. I can't-I can't lose everything I've built."

"And I can? Holly, how can you be greedy even now!"

"Because I'm finally happy." Holly chuckled sorely and dropped her hands to her waist. "I finally have the life I've always dreamed of." The woman stepped forward, to the point she was only an inch from Jade.

Jade could feel the woman's hot breath striking her cheeks, heating up the blood beneath her skin. "I'm only here to let you know, I'm not going to let you take that away from me." Jade gnashed her teeth and slammed her fists shut.

"You should be glad I don't know the first thing about magic, curses, rituals and all that shit." Even if she did, she wouldn't do this to her sister. "You must have been pretty damn desperate to do this to your own sister. Sending her forward in time and all that?"

"Are you not listening? I just said that wasn't my fault." Holly poked Jade in the chest. The jab sent a wave of pain through her, forcing her back a step. "You shouldn't even be standing here-I don't know what spell could have brought you here because it wasn't what I did. Nor was it what David did."

"Well shit, it must have been that 'unpredictable consequence' of combining the two spells." Jade pushed Holly's arm away with an angry scoff and turned away from the woman. "I just want you to know, I don't hate you. You're my sister, and I could never hate you, but what you've done to us? I can't even bring myself to even think of how I feel right now…forgiveness is pretty far from my mind at the moment."

"I don't need your forgiveness, Jade." Holly crossed her arms and her eyes darted out to the sides. "Besides, even if I wanted to help you and Beck go back to where you belong…I wouldn't know how. I've forgotten a lot of spells and rituals."

Numbness overtook Jade's body and she turned her head sideways while uttering a whisper. "What does that mean?" The anger in Holly's eyes faded and her shoulders shrugged.

"After what happened to you and Beck, I stopped. That was what you wanted after all, was for me to stop, right? You called it dangerous, I wouldn't listen." Holly's trembling voice was shattering to listen to, and it carried a tension that Jade never expected from her. "I watched you and Beck vanish, Jade. The two of you, I thought, exploded right there…." Holly raised her hand to the side of her head and started to groan. "All I can remember from that was hearing your daughter scream so loud, and I must have hit David so many times-I-I couldn't do anything."

Jade twisted partially, her eyes slanted and her nostrils flared as Holly's mournful gaze hit hers. "Don't you understand, Jade? You and your husband can't be here. The memories you have that you say you're forgetting? That should have happened to you fifteen years ago as a result of David's spell, had mine not done anything to you."

Jade questioned Holly in silence, processing the conversation word for word. Her eyebrow rose and the frown lines around her lips deepened. "Wait a minute, Holly. Are you saying there might actually be a way to go back and change things?" Holly was saying she couldn't help even if she knew the right spells, but if she was saying something like that, then there must be a way.

Her heart leapt joyously and a smirk formed at her lips. "There's a way to reverse it. To go back and keep ourselves from waking up in this time, and you don't want to help because that means you lose everything you gained from what you did to us."

Holly averted her gaze and bit down on her lip. Jade waited for a response which never came, watching only as tiny beads of sweat formed under Holly's bangs. "I see." Jade breathed in slow to calm the simmering rage inside her. "You stole my life-ruined it. Thank you for taking care of my daughters, Holly."

"Jadelyn-"

"Shut up." Her eyes flew open and Holly's body stiffened. "I may never get to see my children grow up, clearly I missed the last fifteen years of their lives. I missed my youngest baby's first steps, her first words. I've obviously missed Trina's first date."

"Tori's too, actually."

Her head leaned back and she closed her palms together, prayer style as the energy in her body collapsed. She heard Beck mumble something, but ignored it. "Okay Holly I think it's time you left." She forced Holly around and began shoving her towards the door. "You may have done your thing because you were jealous, and maybe you want to be greedy and keep things the way you had them….Since there seems to be a way to fix this, we're going to, with your help or not."

Holly turned around once she was on the porch and raised a hand to the wall for leverage. "Jade, it's just, the way things are now-"

"You're happy?" She couldn't take it any longer and lunged forward, releasing the anger she was holding back. "Yeah well if you were so fucked up before, you could have asked me for help. I was your sister. I would have done anything to help you, but what did you do? You destroyed my life."

She pushed Holly forward, grabbed the woman's shirt and yanked her forward, growling as she glared into the woman's fearful eyes. Holly's eyes grew wide and she gripped Jade's wrists, digging partially into the skin with her nails.

"You have the gall to keep me from trying to get back the life you stole from me? We'll figure a way to fix this, and once we do, you'd better watch your back because sister or not-I'm a mother first and foremost."

"My goal wasn't your children."

"I know, just an 'unfortunate circumstance', right? Still, they're my children and I'll get them back. I'll get my life back. So if you won't help, then stay out of my way." She released Holly, watching as she stumbled backwards. Holly put her hand to her chest and looked up, gasping as Jade slammed the door on her.

She turned her back to the door and started to bring her hands to her head, growling with frustration. "She pisses me off so much," she exclaimed. Beck walked over and reached for her shoulders, then pulled her into his arms. "Why can't I hate her? She gets me so worked up, she destroyed our life. She's a bitter, vindictive, hateful bitch, but I can't hate her."

"She's your sister, Jade. Family. I'd question if you did hate her." She sighed and let him guide her to the couch. "We will figure out how to get out of this hell we're in, and maybe once we do, we can save your sister from herself…"

So they're beginning to lose pivotal memories of their life from between the age of 15 and 30, and it looks like they're pretty much on their own. What are your thoughts towards everything here? Seems Holly does feel guilt over that ritual, but I guess she considers too difficult to pull away from her own life. Her selfishness is unfortunate.