Muddy Waters

Devil You Know

Chapter 8

“What the hell is up her ass?,” Rhyan asked Lorraine as they entered the restroom.

“I don't know, but she seemed really bothered,” Lorraine responded.

“I wonder what happened,” Rhyan commented back. “Oh, well. I guess we can go to the cemeteries now. I'll just be glad to get out of here,” she said as they headed back out.

The girls finally arrived to the St. Louis Cemetery and it didn't fail to deliver. Rhyan thought about how beautiful it was. Was it strange that she found a cemetery beautiful? Lorraine looked around and realized how interesting she thought it was for their dead to be buried above ground. And of course, Betsy just walked around waiting for them to be done gazing at dead people. She really was shallow.

“Lorraine, look at this,” Rhyan called out. “There are a bunch of candles around this one and something else. I don't know what it is, but this whole set up is just neat,” she said. And it really was. The way the candles were arranged and the other stuff around them, which appeared to be coffee grounds or something like that, and some pictures and other random knick-knacks. It looked like an offering of some kind, similar to the ones set up on the altars at the voodoo shop for Marie Laveau.

“You're right, that is very neat,” Lorraine agreed. “I wonder what it all is. Like what it means,” she pondered. She felt a huge gust of wind blowing through. Her hair whipped around wildly, and she had to readjust her grip on her map of the cemetery so she wouldn't lose it in the wind. She began to feel an urge to find out who it was. But she didn't know why. “Who is it?,” Lorraine asked aloud, taking a look at the engraved name.

“Says it's Jadis Moreau,” Rhyan said, brushing her fingers across the stone.

“Jadis?,” Lorraine said almost in question form. “Isn't that the name of the witch in Chronicles of Narnia?,” she asked.

“I think so, actually. I wonder what the name actually means. It's a beautiful name,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I'm going to look it up right quick,” she said, typing away. It was common for them to look up the meaning of names since they were writers. Anything that could make good content for a book was interesting to them. Bonus points if they had real and deep meaning.

“Okay, cool,” Lorraine said as she stepped in to take a closer look at the pictures around the stone wall. One of them was a picture of a gorgeous dark-skinned woman with jet-black hair holding two small girls on her lap on a porch with tons of plants behind them. Both of them looked so much like her. Another picture had the same woman in it, but with a man, a very attractive man with his hand around her waist, looking down at her, smiling. The last picture had the woman in a sleek little black dress that had a long-flowing train running behind that wrapped back around toward her. The dress had a slit in the front that exposed her bust and went almost all the way down to her belly. She had a tattoo of a crescent moon in between her breasts. A small little moon, all black, with three little dots above it.

“Okay, I found it. Jadis basically means witch. It derives from French origins, but the name itself comes from the word 'jadu' which is Persian. It could also mean 'long ago'. How cool is that? I wonder how her parents came up with it,” she commented.

“I'm not sure but I really like it. Maybe we could use it for a story,” Lorraine said. They liked to work together to make stories sometimes. Together, they always had such great ideas for books, as they had the same taste, mostly. But they also loved to also write separately since they had such different writing styles.

“We could do that,” Rhyan agreed. She began looking around. “Where is Betsy?,” she asked.

Lorraine turned around and looked to the left and to the right. Betsy was nowhere in sight.

“Betsy?,” she shouted. No answer. “She couldn't have gotten that far,” she said to Rhyan.

“I know. I bet she is around the corner somewhere waiting to try and scare us,” Rhyan said. She had a point. Betsy was known to find humor in seeing other people scared. Sometimes she would take it too far.

“I'll just call her. Maybe she went back toward the entrance to wait for us. You know she was ready to leave before we even walked in,” she said, grabbing her phone out of her purse. She dialed Betsy's number and brought her phone up to her ear.

You've reached Betsy. You know what to do. Beeeep.

“Her phone went straight to voicemail,” Lorraine said as she put her phone back in her purse.

“That's odd, she always keeps her phone charged. Afraid she's gonna miss something,” Rhyan said. They walked around the corner to the right, anticipating Betsy to jump out. She wasn't there. They continued on the path back to the front gate.

They reached the last turn and saw her standing directly in front of one of the stone crypts. She was just standing there, staring at it, not moving a muscle. What the hell was she doing?

“Betsy? What are you doing?,” Rhyan asked as soon as they spotted her just standing there. But she didn't respond. She just stood there.

“Hello? Earth to Betsy,” Lorraine said loudly, agitated that she was ignoring them. But she didn't budge. Lorraine figured she was playing another prank on them and expected her to turn around acting zombified or something stupid and immature. But she didn't. She still hadn't moved. Lorraine walked up behind her to get a closer look at what she was staring at. There was nothing there. Only an engraved name on a crypt. Marat Durand. “Do you recognize the name? Family name or something?,” Lorraine asked, thinking that may be what she was staring at. Betsy didn't respond. She just stared blankly at the name. Lorraine had a really hard feeling sweep through her body. She became cold and frustrated. She instantly became uncomfortable in her skin. Tying to ignore it, she imagined brushing it off and grabbed Betsy's arm.

“Don't f*****g touch me, you cow!,” Betsy said in the harshest voice she had ever used with Lorraine, jerking her arm away from her aggressively.

“What the actual f**k, Betsy?,” Rhyan said, walking over to them.

“Trust me, I won't,” Lorraine said with an attitude, being sure to give Betsy a cold look before walking quickly toward the front gate.