II
The first thing I felt was my body, melting into the couch. The second thing I felt was the couch, melting into me.
The Lady’s face appeared in a haze of purple smoke, spoke of nothing, and left just as suddenly as it appeared. Odd, I thought. Normally, faces don’t do that. The logical explanation to this was that she was not there. The illogical explanation was that I was not there, either.
The Lady sighed as she sat back in her chair. Man, this dude was having it rough. She’d already given him some orange juice and a few crackers to help with the nausea, but the past hour he’d been running back and forth between babbling on the couch and vomiting in the sink. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all, but hey. His father took well to it, as did his mother before him. No reason to doubt that this guy would be able to handle a minor hallucinogenic.
To pass the time, she took to turning on the TV. It worked, for a while. Some mind numbing entertainment would definitely be the ticket to surviving the next four hours with this dumpster fire of a person. A reality show was on, about a bunch of vapid men with strange haircuts. They appeared to be holding some sort of celebration, dancing around a large flame as they attempted to intoxicate their female companions.
She couldn’t watch for long though, as her “patient” started ranting about how he was stronger than all of them and at one point attempted to punch her TV, so she started channelsurfing. Documentary about clowns. Yeah, that’s a no. There’s no telling what that that’ll do to the poor man’s paranoia.
Cartoons. Fine, but these are the kind that gets scary and surreal halfway through and has rotoscoped walruses singing about heroin addiction. Also a no. The Lady decided, rather than distracting herself, she would try to make the best of this situation after all.
I was stuck in a gray wasteland of meat. Flesh rolled from the hills, chasing after me with gaping mouths. I ran, but got stuck on a snare of fleshy fibers, wrapping around my ankles. I screamed, but nothing came out. I was dragged off into a cave of bone. The tendrils were gone, and I was free to stand up, wading through the thick serum that seeped into my shoes and stained my slacks. After several hours, I happened upon a staircase, flooded by thick, not-quite-congealed blood. There was no choice. I had to swim.
Okay, finally. The guy was asleep. She had been enduring his screaming and babbling for the past three hours, only for him to collapse on the carpet and fall fast asleep. Something about fields of bone. To most people, that would be a sure sign of bad news, but the Lady knew what it meant, what it represented.
The Peanut Fields.
Only those with a true attunement to the occult could ever hope to reach this place, in their meditation-induced stupors. According to certain great teachers of her field, they were a place that was stuck deep within anyone’s mind, hidden away behind the folds of childhood trauma, phobias, embarrassing moments you had in grade school, and disgust.
They said that this place beyond time and space was also THE place to go to for answers to all your questions about the self. Why are you afraid of spiders? Ask the peanut fields. Why has that damned speech you had to give at your grade school where you farted loudly on stage and everybody laughed impacted you so much? Okay, maybe you don’t need the fields for that. There’s simpler methods for discovering the why and how of most questions, and certainly safer methods.
As any self-respecting occultist can tell you, tapping into any kind of arcane resource has its price.
The Lady smiled, having carried Mark to the guest bed in the attic. It always helps to be prepared. It’d have been nice to have given Rosaleen a bed to wake up from instead of a cold bathroom floor. Okay, maybe the Laveaus had a bit of a history with reacting heavily to even the simplest of concoctions. At first the Lady thought it was due to an affinity for the occult sciences, but after having Arthur insufflate a line of ibuprofen and testing some minor pain stimulus reaction times (involving a hammer), she concluded that the Laveaus simply had a massive medication tolerance problem.
The Lady went back downstairs, leaving the heavily snoring Laveau behind her as she went to her cartoons. God, she loved cartoons.
Gasping, I emerged from the lake of bodily fluids. I could stand here, but the disgusting liquid was still waist-high. I waded through, taking in the “scenery”, for lack of a better term. I was known for being a bit of a germaphobe, and this place was NOT helping. The thick rivulets of god-knows-what dripping from stalactites made sure of that. In the distance, I could see a part that was solid bone. Any excuse to get away from the foul mess I was standing in was welcome to me, so I sped up.
Climbing up, I slumped against the walls, hugging my knees. After gathering my bearings and wiping myself as dry as possible, I continued onwards. This part of the cave was more well-lit, owing to the bioluminescent plants growing out of the ceiling, brushing against me as I walked past. A voice rang out behind me, begging me for its attention. It was a male voice. Wasn’t it? I mean, I think it was.
I turned back, and what I saw that moment has been permanently burned into my mind. A warped mockery of a human being called out to me, pleading with me to listen to what it had to say. If you have ever had the misfortune of reading my father’s medical encyclopedias, and happened upon the page that described Harlequin-type Ichthyosis, the being would remind you of the pictures included.
I stuck up my hand in a (hopefully) non threatening gesture, and answered it’s call.
“Good… good day.”
I had trouble not recoiling at it’s visage, especially once it laid it’s hand on my shoulder, leaned up to my ear, and parted it’s malformed lips to whisper to me. I couldn’t understand the language it spoke… and yet, it’s message felt perfectly clear.
My field of vision appeared to zoom backwards at breakneck speeds, and the bone hallway stretched out before me until it looped back in on itself, creating a disturbing void in whatever this place’s idea of reality was. I do not know what caused me to reach out and touch it, but for some reason I felt no fear at all. After what I had seen and heard, nothing would be too weird.
I felt a soft, female hand grasp mine, and gently pull me in. I allowed it to.
I slowly opened my eyes, and found myself looking towards a dusty ceiling. Cobwebs hung from the corners, with various critters seemingly mocking my disturbing nightmare. I sat upright, and patted my hair. Dry. Of course. I did not smell anything disgusting anymore, apart from the now-familiar aroma of The Lady’s home. A deep sigh of relief escaped from my lips, as I held my head in my hands.
I had the headache god would have the next aeon after drinking all the vodka in existence, past, present and future, and then some. I startled upon realizing that I basically fell asleep in a strange lady’s house. Had The Lady not been a family acquaintance, there was no telling what could have happened in my sleep, or what others would think of me.
I crept downstairs, intent on thanking her for taking care of me. Alas, she was nowhere to be seen. A post-it on my jacket informed me that she went out to get some, and I quote, “Witch shit for my witch needs”, which amused me greatly. As an admittedly half-assed way of thanking her, I left fifty bucks on the coffee table. A swamp hag wouldn’t have any use for money, but maybe it’ll help pay off the electricity bill, seeing how her cartoons were still running.
Shutting the front door behind me, I chuckled to myself. Finally, I KNEW what my purpose was.
I have to admit, I was glad to leave the overwhelming scent of potpourri behind me. I was never fond of it, but man. I decided to head to the nearest diner, to catch some breakfast. My watch informed me it was, after all, ten in the morning, and it had not even been evening when I entered her home.
“Two slices of toast, hash browns, sausage and scrambled eggs. That right, hon?”
“Yeah.”
“Be with you in a sec.”
