Capricorn Cursed (17 page)

“You know, I don't live too far from here,” Natasha said. “Do you want to go do that at my place and then come back? We won't be long.”

Sandy looked at Natasha, the unlit joint in her hand. “Really?”

“Sure, why not?”

Natasha led the girl up her back staircase and into the music room. “Get comfortable while I get us some drinks,” she said.

“Sure thing,” Sandy said, walking around the room looking at the instruments. “This place is really cool.”

Natasha went through the door and into her apartment. The ghosts pressed down on her, and she shrugged them away as she opened her cupboards. A small vial of clear liquid was way in the back of the top shelf. She poured a few drops into a glass, then added some red wine. The other glass held only red wine.

When she returned, Sandy was sitting on the couch.

How familiar it all felt. How sad she was to lure this innocent girl here like this. But it was all about survival of the fittest.

Sandy drank the wine and smoked the joint, babbling on as the marijuana coursed through her system. Natasha let her prattle, knowing that soon, she would be silenced forever.

When the girl finally fell asleep, Natasha left her on the couch. She put her coat back on and returned to the club.

“Hey, have you seen Sandy?”The redhead came up to Natasha as the lights flicked on and the revelers started pouring out of the club.

“No, I haven't. Did she finally meet up with that guy?”

“I don't know. I haven't seen her all night.”

“Strange. Well, if I see her, I'll tell her that you were looking for her.”

Satisfied that her alibi was set, Natasha left the club and returned home to complete her grisly task.

 

 

Get your affairs in order. Clean your clutter and organize your mind.

 

Natasha Tries Again

 

Natasha checked her email and seeing no response from Gus, despaired that maybe she had done the wrong thing in breaking up with Craig.

What was wrong with her, anyway?

She and Craig were so perfectly suited. They made great music together, and he was fabulous in bed. He never asked her for anything, so why did she throw him away so hastily?

She was crazy, that was all.

She touched her cheek lightly and smiled as the fresh skin was smooth under her fingers. Sandy really had been a virgin, and Natasha was good for another year or two.

Natasha recalled that not that long ago, a virgin lasted for at least ten years. But as gravity took its toll, or as Lucy said, the body crumbled, the spell length was getting shorter.

Back in the ‘70's—and possibly even before then; she couldn't remember anymore—she had tried to avoid the kill. It was so horrible, to kill innocent girls who were trying so hard to be respectful and productive people. Or at least, respectful in that they were saving their virtue for that one special guy.

The guys never would have appreciated them anyway.
Sure, they would have gotten their virginity, but once the novelty was gone, most men would be back out on the streets tomcatting around with any old women. She wanted to scream to some of the girls that they might as well fuck as much as they wanted to, because in the end, it didn't matter if a girl was a virgin when she married anymore. Marriages didn't last. Love didn't last. Everything fell apart eventually.

Natasha probably appreciated the virgins more than any man did.

However, she didn't like to kill them. It sickened her every time she did it, but it was necessary. She couldn't walk around as a rotting corpse. She would be walking around, still looking for blood, for she could never die.

In her attempts to try to avoid the killings, she even stole used tampons and tried to make an elixir, but it didn't work at all. In fact, the half-assed attempts at creating potions did more harm than good.

There was one time that one of her breasts had nearly fallen right off when she immersed herself in a potion created from living teenagers. Luckily, she had been able to salvage the situation by recognizing that she had to follow the rules Marianne had set forth so very long ago.

The virgins had to die.

Maybe it had to do with their life force. She didn't know, and she never would know, so it wasn't worth worrying about.

It would be nice to meet another vampire. Someone who understood her constant cravings and how when she wasn't obsessed with hunger, she tried to help other people.

Even the dead.

She looked over at several spirits hovering in the corner, watching her. A new shimmering face was there.

Sandy.

Growing tired of the computer, she decided to set some thoughts down in her diary. She needed to keep a record of all these little piddly details of her life, for though she remembered everything now, she didn't know when the memories would slip away.

Savanna's spell wasn't perfect, but nothing ever was. How could anything created by humans ever be perfect? There was always a balance, a price to be paid for an action or reaction.

Another price Savanna may or may not have been aware of was that even though most of Natasha's memories faded after 50 or so years, some faded much sooner, and others flashed into her mind like sparks with images for fleeting seconds. It didn't matter what the memories were. The coming and going of them was entirely random.

Ideas in her diaries may have been memory, become memory or maybe they never happened at all.

Maybe some of the memories she recorded were only ideas she once had. Or even dreams. Or worse, wishful thinking.

She poised her pen above the paper, recounted the most recent of her virgin spells and noted improvements in her flesh and spirit.

When the entry was finished, she flipped back through the pages, glancing at words here and there as she searched through her past. She wondered if she had recorded the household ghosts at all. She was certain they hadn't always been there, and she wasn't sure how many were coming and going.

It was time to acknowledge them and remember who they were. She should try to keep track of who came and went and determine if there was any specific reasoning or even astrological significance or patterns.

Sandy was her newest addition. Recently slaughtered Pete came and went a few times, likely because his murder was unsolved. There were many men and, of course, the young women who'd provided her with beauty haunting her, but most of the time she never even knew their names.

Most of them were there haunting her, specifically. Reminding her of what she was. But the others, like Pete, wandered in, maybe looking for a party.

“What do you want from me?” she asked them aloud. The forms shifted and swirled. A young woman floated forward.

“We want you to stop what you're doing. It's wrong.”

“I can't stop. I would if I could. You think I don't want to die?”

“You're evil,” a young man wailed. “You're selfish and cold.”

“I can't help what I am. I do what I can,” Natasha said. “I'm sorry you're dead because of me, but it's survival of the fittest. I need something and I take it. Tell me you wouldn't do the same.”

“Yet there are people to whom you give so much. What did I ever do to you?” a brown-haired lady cried. “I didn't even know you.”

“I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry,” Natasha said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I don't like what I am. I try not to kill, I really do. But I hunger. You don't understand.”

“Now we hunger too, with you,” wailed the woman.

“So be it,” Natasha said and returned to her diary. The moaning continued, but Natasha kept writing. She recorded the conversation and slapped the book shut.

“Now you're in here too. One day, people will find out what I am. If they're smart, they'll burn me at the stake. I'm sure I can burn,” Natasha said grumpily. She marched into the kitchen and poured cranberry juice into a large, black glass. As she went into the living room, she was glad to see the ghosts had gone elsewhere. Probably to amass a ghost army.

She chuckled as a book flew off the shelf. Then another. As she stood up to put them back, all the books from the top shelf shot out like pellets and landed in a heap on the carpet.

“Wonderful,” Natasha said as she kneeled down to scoop them up. “Ellie will be here soon. Thanks, guys.”

A few knickknacks flew off the lower shelf and smashed onto the floor.

As she picked up the pieces, she muttered, “Less for Ellie to deal with. Again, thanks, guys.”

She swept up the remaining shards and threw them out. No sooner was she pulling out her dusting cloths than the doorbell rang.

She buzzed Ellie up and opened her door. As she finished organizing the cleaning supplies, Ellie came in, snow falling off her in soft clumps.

“It's bad out there today,” she said as she pulled off her boots. Natasha took her coat and hung it on the shower curtain rod in the bathroom.

When she returned, Ellie was looking at the pile of books on the floor.

“Oh, that.” Natasha smiled. “We must have had an earthquake. A whole shelf of them fell off.”

Ellie looked up at the shelf. “Just one shelf?”

“Yep. Weird, huh?” Natasha said.

“No, just ghosts. There are some here, but you know that. You're the medium.”

“Yes, there are some that come and go. Sometimes it's like Grand Central Station.”

“It's an old town. There's lots of energy at work here.”

“And that's what you're here for. To change the energy.”

And get rid of these ghosts.

“Well, let's get started.”

As before, Ellie pulled out Gwen's charts and noted where the planets were placed in Natasha's house. She compared it to her
feng shui
grid and then drew up the room.

They rearranged the dining room and living room a bit. There were too many bookcases and heavy pieces of furniture for them to move. They would need help, but, in the end, Ellie decided it was workable.

“What you need in here is plants. Lots of plants. You can have ivy growing along your bookcases. Some green for growth.”

“I'm no good with plants. Look, I bought that little tree just before New Year's and already it's dead.” Natasha pointed to the husk in the corner.

“That's so sad. Maybe you just don't know how to water it properly.”

“I always follow the directions exactly as written. I even have a special watering can.”

“Some people are just lousy with plants.”

“You can say that again.”

Ellie walked around the room, rearranging a few of the gemstones and placing Natasha's large crystal ball higher up on a shelf.

“Well, let's sage it while I think about crystals and gemstones and such.” Natasha retrieved her sage stick from the little altar by her desk.

As they walked around the room, they chanted and hummed. The smoke wafted up from the sage stick, filling the room with a thick, sweet smell. Natasha saw the ghosts recoiling from the smell of the herb.

“Be gone, spirits,” Natasha called out. “Haunt me no more.”

When they had finished walking around the room, Ellie doused the stick in the bowl of sand.

“Okay. I know what to do now. The black and burgundy is overpowering. I know you like it all gothy and stuff, but you need more earthy tones. Browns, tans and greens. Maybe a few throw pillows. Lord knows, you'll never part with your drapes.”

“Try me. I'm sick of being haunted. I'll try anything.”

“More living, less dead. Look at those morose pictures you have hanging around here. All those depressed Waterhouse maidens luring men to their deaths. You need happy pictures. Lovers and animals.”

“Good Lord.” Natasha sighed. “Animals? Should I print out some LOL cats and hang them on the walls?”

Ellie laughed. “No. There are lots of classic paintings you can get that aren't depressing.”

“Okay, because I draw the line at slogans.”

“Nothing to fear, Natasha. You are who you are.”

 

* * *

 

After Ellie left, Natasha had measured her windows and ordered drapes online from the department store down the street. Now she looked around the room and was relieved to see there were no ghosts. With glee, she ran over to her couch and scooped up the book she had been reading.

It was so nice to have the place to herself again.

Natasha sat on her couch, staring at her new green drapes. Why did they feel so garish? Perhaps the color was too bright for her sensitive eyes.

She resisted the urge to tear them down and decided to give them a week. Maybe by then she'd hear from Gus. He still hadn't answered her email. Now she didn't even have jam sessions with Craig to look forward to anymore.

The new crystal hangings in the window sparkled in the glare of the streetlights from down below. They reflected off the walls and the glass of the new paintings Natasha had found.

She decided to go with framed posters of old movies and chose
West Side Story
,
Romeo and Juliet
and
Gone with the Wind
as well as a few smaller placards.

Her apartment felt like a vintage store.

She went into her bedroom. At least she didn't feel out of place there yet. She had saged it and, so far, the ghosts seemed to be staying away.

Her mind was racing. What a day it had been. It had started with a phone call from that Bob guy. He wanted her to go over to read for him. He'd sounded so nervous that she almost didn't take the job. But a job was a job, and who was she to decide whether or not he was allowed to communicate with a dearly departed person? His intentions could be pure, for all she knew.

Still, something about it all didn't seem right.

Then she had gone through the ordeal of picking up the curtains and actually hanging them. What a pain in the ass that had been. She was sure her friends would have killed themselves laughing had they seen her climbing up on the window ledges to push the drape brackets in place.