Cursed by Lizzy Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

Estelle’s when she heard her father’s voice. She poked her head out of her tiny room.
    Grizzled and tired, her father had worked late today despite it being Sunday. He still wore the overalls from the shop where he was a mechanic and held a six-pack of beer in one hand. He kicked the door closed with his foot and held out a bubble mailer.
    Curious, she walked down the shallow hallway and took it.
    “You expecting something?” he asked.
    “Not really,” she replied. Turning it over, she caught the small symbol in the corner: a snake and protective symbol of Papa Legba – the guardian god of the voodoo pantheon - that decorated her mother’s shrine back home in New Orleans. “Might be from Mama.”
    Her daddy said nothing at the mention of his ex-wife. Adrienne returned to her room, where the ironing board took up the space between her bed and the door. After her shift reading tarot cards yesterday, she’d spent an hour on the pleated skirt of her school uniform and did her best to iron the wrinkles out of the white shirt. The more she ironed, the more accidental wrinkles she put into the shirt until finally she’d given up.
    Adrienne plopped onto her bed and tore open the package, not recognizing the black leather journal inside. She was about to wad up the mailer and throw it away when she saw a small note inside. It was a familiar, square sticky note in pale yellow.
    Keep this journal safe. Another symbol of protection was in the corner, a hastily drawn skull and crossbones.
    She stretched for her rickety nightstand and opened the top drawer to pull out her Bible. She’d received two other notes like this one and hid them where her daddy wouldn’t look. The first she’d received upon arriving to New Orleans a couple of weeks before. It had appeared on her pillow one day. The second surfaced a week later.
    Adrienne added the third mysterious note to the other two. If neat writing were any indication, they all appeared to have been written by women. Although it looked to be three different women wrote the notes.
    She set them aside and opened the front cover of the journal. She gasped.
     
    Property of Therese St. Croix
    DO NOT READ!!!
     
    Adrienne read the words over and over, unable to believe she held her dead sister’s journal. Therese St. Croix had disappeared five years before and was presumed dead, the first victim of a serial killer who had eluded the police for five years. He took a new life in the Lower Ninth Ward every month for the first year and then sporadically for another four years. The police claimed the serial killer was probably keeping his first kill as a gruesome trophy and insisted it wasn’t possible she was still alive.
    Where had the journal been all this time?
    Adrienne studied the bubble mailer closely. While the journal’s pages had yellowed from age, the mailer was new and crisp. There wasn’t even a postage stamp on it, as if someone had dropped it off at the building.
    “Daddy, why did the mail come on Sunday?” she called down the hallway.
    “It didn’t. Someone stuck it in Mrs. Hatchett’s box, and I ran into her on the way up.”
    “Okay. Thanks.” Adrienne ran her hands over the journal, imagining her sister as the last person to hold it. Her eyes misted over at the thought.
    Therese, the oldest of five girls, moved away to live with their father in New Orleans after the sign of the family curse appeared on her. Their mother hoped someone in New Orleans could help her escape the curse, while Therese had hopes of being scouted by the jazz music industry and earning a record contract that would help their impoverished family. It was a dream Adrienne shared with her.
    She recalled how beautiful Therese was and how she could light up a room with her smile. People loved her, even the crotchety old ladies at church, where Therese sang weekly until she left for New Orleans when she was seventeen.
    Although Adrienne was considered a better singer than Therese, the