Voodoo Curse

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N: Here's the chapter that makes me wish I had thought of this idea at the start of October...big reveal coming that answers the question, did they really go forward in time?

Chapter 13 (The True Horror)

Jade rolled over in the bed, groaning softly as an echoing bang stirred in her mind and ears. Beck's arm was over her waist while he spooned her. She felt safe in his arms, and secure.

In her mind she could see him beginning to slip away from her. She still remembered so much about the many important days of her life: her daughters being born, her wedding; but those memories were among the last ones she could feel, and they were fading quickly.

She didn't want to worry him, but aside from the aforementioned memories, she was finding it harder to remember anything beyond her fifteenth Christmas

The banging echoed again and she felt Beck's weight shifting on the bed. His arm tightened around her stomach and his lips brushed against her neck. "Honey, do you hear that?" He whispered. "Or is it just me?"

Her eyes opened partially as the banging grew louder. "I hear something." She looked at the bedroom window and noticed a shadow moving outside. Her eyes shot open and she jumped up as a jolt of fear gripped her throat, rendering it impossible for her to scream.

Beck sat up behind her. "What is-" The figure outside began to pound on the window, creating an earthshattering bang that vibrated off the walls. "Shit, wait here." He flung the covers off and rushed out of the bedroom, grabbing a bat along the way.

Sensing possible danger, and not wanting to wait in the bedroom if there was an intruder outside, Jade bolted from the bed and followed her husband out. As she began to wake more, she could hear her doorbell chiming repeatedly. At first she thought it was just a part of some dream while she was sleeping.

Jade flipped the houselights on and Beck slammed his hand onto his forehead. "Damn it, Jade." The banging ceased and the doorbell continued to chime. Jade walked out, still in her blue, white-dotted nightgown and curved her hands over Beck's shoulders.

"Someone's at the door. I think whoever's outside is just trying to get our attention." She glanced nervously at the phone on the table. "Should we call David?" Beck rolled his eyes and tightened his grip on the baseball bat.

"It's past midnight, your brother-in-law is going to be asleep."

"Do you want me to call the police, then?"

Just then a rapping on the window caught her attention. "Mom, dad, let us in!" It was Tori's voice. A gasp fell from her lips and the next bang came from the baseball bat falling from Beck's hands. "Please, hurry, we need you to let us in."

"Don't just stand there," she yelled while rushing to the door as if someone were shooting at her heels. She unlocked the door and yanked it open, freezing in shock at what she saw. "They're not alone."

Trina and Tori were standing with Jason, Erwin, Cat, and an older woman with a long flannel robe and curly auburn hair. "Finally," the older woman growled, "I'm Nona Albright. We've been trying to get your attention for the last half hour, and we certainly weren't going to bust our way in."

Jade stammered as the woman waved her hands into the air and walked into the house, leading the others inside. Beck looked like a deer caught in headlights as the woman narrowed her eyes and looked around the house, shushing anyone that might speak up.

"Darling." Nona motioned to Cat and pointed at the couch. "Be a dear and move that, would you?" Cat did as instructed and rushed over to the couch with Tori and Jason, pulling it away. The elder's eyes opened wide and her lips separated to release a rush of air as she saw the stain on the floor. "Ah there it is."

Nona's arm swayed through the air and her fingers touched to her chin. "Now I see the blast marking on the floor, but I see no ash or residue." Just then Trina walked to the fireplace and grabbed the jar of ash.

"I think this might be it, ma'am."

Jade and Beck exchanged confused expressions, with him shrugging and shaking his head. "Um I'm sorry…" Jade cleared her throat and walked towards Nona. "What exactly is going on here?"

"Simple. I'm correcting an idiot's mistake." Jade raised an eyebrow and out of the corner of her eyes she saw Erwin's head fall guiltily. His hands closed up and he averted his eyes as Nona's sharpened glare fell onto him. "The dabbler here didn't have the slightest idea what he was doing."

"I was desperate," Erwin muttered.

"Dabbler." Nona smacked his head and he jumped back, shouting out in pain. "What did you do, pick the first corpse spell you saw and go with that? You had no idea what was going on, did you."

At a loss for words, Jade fell back onto her couch and brought her hand to her chest. Beck walked over to her, gazing at Erwin with a suspicious eye. "D-Did you do something, Erwin?" Erwin looked away from his best friend and slowly ran his hand over his neck. Tears filled the man's eyes, but all that he could say came out in wavering breaths.

Jason crossed his arms as both Trina and Tori looked somberly upon their parents. "My uncle was desperate to see his best friends again. He called you forward. I'm sorry, sir."

"What?" Beck chuckled nervously. He pulled his right ankle up over his left knee and extended his left arm around Jade's shoulders. "No that's impossible." Nona put her hands to her waist, raising her eyebrow while glaring sternly at Beck. "No, Holly and David's crazy ass spell sent us into the future. That's what happened."

"That's what you think happened," Nona replied. Jade whimpered as the woman took the jar of ash from Trina and cradled it as though it were an infant. Jade reached out, curling her fingers in, but dropping her hands when the woman looked with disapproval at her. "Don't worry dear, I'm going to be very careful with these. It is a good thing that you have gathered it up and saved it. Now, I think an explanation is due…for everyone here…"

Nona squinted her eyes and shot a look at Erwin. "Dabbler," she whispered. Erwin threw his hands up and paced away to the right. "No worries. Erwin's mistaken attempt may actually be a good thing."

Jade's breath hitched and she lurched forward, searching Nona's eyes for a sign of hope. "It is? What did he do? How is it good?"

"Because your memories-your souls are still alive. Here's the problem…" Nona took a deep breath and walked in front of everyone, stepping just an inch away from the stain on the ground. "There are three magicks at work here. The veil has been twisted in such a way that the only way to correct it is probably the very thing that will save the two of you."

"Three?" Jade squinted her eyes and began to count on her fingers. "Holly tried to use a sleeping spell on us that would put us in a coma." Nona smiled patiently, setting the jar of ash on the table and locking her wrists behind her back. "David used a transformation spell by mistake, drawing us back to fifteen years of age…but that's just two, unless the third is the combined result of the two."

"Allow me to explain."

"Okay."

Nona raised her hand, extending a swift finger. "One Holland did use a liquid mixture that paralyzed your bodies and enabled her sleeping spell to work. Had you not drank that mixture, her spell would have been useless." Nona's nose shifted and wiggled, and her eyebrows relaxed. "Remember that, by the way. Do not drink that mixture. It renders your spirit, mind and body vulnerable to the power of the rituals."

"Right, I'll make a mental note of it." She already figured it would be best not to drink it if she ever managed to reverse Holly's spell. She had more questions for the woman, but wanted to let her explain things in hopes that the explanation would clear away some of the clouds of confusion. "What else?"

"Second." Nona turned to them and her smile faded. "David's transformation spell succeeded in transforming the two of you to fifteen years of age. The combined spells would have made the memories fade much slower than normal." Nona walked towards them, peering into their eyes.

"And finally, fifteen years later, your best friend performs a dangerous and desperate ritual to try and resuscitate the two of you, not thinking of the consequences or knowing at all what he was doing."

"What are you saying?" Anger rose in her voice and she stood up, huffing loudly. "Are you saying we're dead? We didn't get pushed through time? What are we, puppets like Holly's former boyfriend?"

"You-" Nona raised an eyebrow and Jade threw her hands over her mouth. "Excuse me?" The woman folded her hands at her waist and leaned back. "Explain."

"I…" Jade dropped her hands and leaned her head backwards, groaning in anguish. "It's the whole thing Holly was so angry at me for in the first place, telling what she did. She tried to save someone's life and ended up using a corpse spell or something that made him a soulless puppet permanently attached to her."

Nona's tongue clicked and the girls brought their hands up, groaning into them with disgust. "Well then. I'll leave that to you to figure out. We've more important things to deal with tonight." Nona motioned towards her and her eyebrows arched high. "How are your memories, dear?"

"Fine?"

"You're lying, I can tell by the tone of your voice."

Beck looked at her with worry and she bowed her head. "I'm forgetting a lot." She tucked her hair over her ears and choked back a sob. "I'm forgetting everything. I can't remember anything after I was fifteen-except my wedding and my children." Beck gasped out and tears fell from her eyes as he rose up behind her.

"Why didn't you say something?" He asked. "You know we talked about it, I didn't know it was that bad for you."

Nona's eyes travelled to the jar and she started to sigh. "And yours, Mr. Oliver? How are yours?"

"Terrible." His voice was grim and his eyes were hazy. It was a clear sign he wasn't doing much better than Jade. "We wanted to approach you before."

"You knew who I was. My granddaughter told you about me. Why did you not come to me sooner?"

"We weren't sure how to approach you with the subject."

"I see." Nona picked up the jar and carried it into the kitchen. The group followed her and Jade watched the jar carefully. "These ashes contain what is left of the two of you. Your flesh, your blood, your memories."

The woman opened the jar and placed it carefully on the countertop. A hush fell over them as Nona grasped the sides and began whispering something above the ashes.

Cat brought a blender and two large cups over and also laid out a few herbs: Periwinkle and Ginseng. Also with her was a container of pure herbal green tea. Jade watched closely as the girl added these ingredients into her blender.

All of a sudden Nona spilt the ashes on the counter, and the ash split into two piles on its own. Her heart stopped and the color in her skin began to drain as the woman shuffled the remains into the glasses.

It was not long before she blended the ashes with the herbs and poured them into the glasses. "The herbs are meant to improve and aid your mental cognition while strengthening your hold on the memories."

She handed them the blended drinks, instructing them to drink. Jade looked up nervously as Beck started to groan. "Last time a witch gave us something to drink, we ended up-" Nona smacked Beck on the head, causing him to flinch and pull away.

"I am no witch. Now drink before I force it down your throat, young man!"

Jade gripped her nose, sealing off her nostrils as she brought the odd drink to her lips. The minute it hit her tongue, there was a sweet taste that was quickly overpowered by a revolting and bitter sensation.

She gagged while forcing herself to swallow, dropping her hand to her neck and closing her fingers around her throat. "Oh god it tastes like medicine," Jade whined. Beck downed the drink as one might a shot from the bar, and cried out in anguish.

"Technically it is medicine." Nona walked past the pair, sweeping her hand in the air and motioning for them to follow. Jade's brain started to swell and throb from a burning sensation. She brought her hands to her head and heard Trina ask Nona if they were going to be okay. Nona looked back and shrugged. "They'll be fine. It's going to hurt for a minute. They just drank their flesh, blood, and the memories that were mixed with it."

"Gross."

"What about the remains I used?" Erwin asked while nervously tapping his fingers together. "For the spell I did?"

"What do you think, dabbler?"

"Quit calling me that."

"No." Nona turned around and pointed at Jade and Beck. "The ash remains you used stand before us today." The sharp words struck Jade's heart and she lowered her hands slowly, breathing heavily while staring at the woman as though she touched something she wasn't supposed to. "The ashen remains of their flesh came together to form their flesh, and you ended up binding their spirts-their memories-to that ash. Just now, I had to merge them. To combine it all."

Sikowitz turned pale as though he'd seen a ghost and the girls cried out in horror. Beck spoke up first, his voice filled with fear and confusion. "I don't understand. Are you saying we're just flesh and blood, isn't the phrase 'skin and bone'?"

"Yes, and that would apply to you as well if true." Nona rolled her head to the right and narrowed her eyes. "You did not drink bone. The texture of that ash does not contain bone or organs, merely skin and blood."

Nona walked towards the couch and raised her head to the ceiling. "As I have examined and analyzed the possibilities of the combined spells, I've derived a conclusion. Would you like to know what that result is?"

"Yes."

The woman closed her eyes and raised her hands, than began to sway from side to side as she spoke another incantation. Jade wrapped her arm around Beck's and looked at her two daughters with a nervous gaze.

After a while, she felt a shift in the energy around her, and a pulse that vibrated through her body. Before turning away, she saw everyone else's eyes enlarge and their skin draining in color.

Tori fainted and Sikowitz ran towards a trashcan, hunching over and groaning. Trina turned away, burying her face into Jason's shoulder while he struggled to remain calm. Jade felt Beck's hand clutch hers and she pulled her gaze to the ceiling, where her eyes froze in horror.

Glued to the ceiling were two full skeletons, peering down at them with dark sockets filled with a pair of eyes staring down at them. The ribcages of both skeletons held hearts that were beating swiftly between lungs that were swelling and closing.

As Beck began to hyperventilate, one of the skeletons' lungs began inflating and deflating at a rapid speed. Below the ribcage were the intestines, somehow managing to remain frozen in place.

It took every bit of strength within herself not to scream. She watched the heartbeat in the smaller skeleton quicken and raised her hand up to her chest. A whimper squeaked out of her lips and her eyes started to roll to the back of her head.

"That is you," Nona said quietly. "Still alive, still comatose as Holly's mixture and spell rendered you." Nona tapped her chin while staring at the pelvis area of the skeleton closely. "Judging by the age of the bones, still teenagers like David's spell rendered the two of you…combined, the resulting explosion of the two spells only melted away your flesh, your blood, and rendered you invisible-frozen in time…"

The woman's shoulders fell and she turned slowly. "When Erwin decided to bring you back using the ash, he collected that flesh and that blood, forming ashen puppets. Reviving the skeletons and their organs. You two do not have organs within you, or much else…the heartbeats you feel, every breath you take when you can hear your lungs inflating…"

She raised her hand to the skeletons.

"Comes from them."

Well then. A lot of questions answered here. Seems Sikowitz is the one that brought them forward, or really, revived them. They've a similar situation as Gary, and Nona has to untangle all these spells very carefully-else they may perish. Your thoughts and observations?