The only writing on the postcard was;

‘Answer both the door and your questions on November 6th, 2020.’

The postcard was very simple and handwritten in decent handwriting. Thank God it was stamped with today’s date because quite honestly, Vic was tired of crying.

It had been several weeks since Vic had received a message from his past. He had gotten himself back together as best he could. Placing Elliot’s letter in his family Bible, he had reconciled that he would never know what was going on with this situation. Things just sometime simply remain unexplained. And isn’t that the beauty of life? To have odd happenings? If it were all perfect, what a boring life it would be.

Vic had decided to focus on the content of the letters and the love that was intended from them and remember the good times. He could not and would not allow himself to be pulled into some time-warp conspiracy thing. He was too old for that kinda game. And he could confirm that a good attitude is what drove both he and Elliot through med school and a successful career. Well, it had been successful up until that one fatal mistake he made. He could not focus on that one death though. Instead, just like this mystery letter situation, he focused on the positive that he had done and repressed all of the self-doubt and second-guessing.

He assured himself that he would be ok.

II

He wasn’t surprised at the knock on the door on Nov 6th, 2020. He was surprised at the height of the person standing there. She had to be no more than 6 years old. Spindly little girl, very Creole looking actually. Even her eyes were deep and pensive and had years of life in them. Far more than the typical 6 year old should have.

No words were said, she simply handed him the letter and walked back down the steps. Pausing at the bottom step, she glanced back up at Vic. He was unsure what that was all about. If she had meant to tell him something or, it seemed as she looked him up and down, that she was sort of ‘sizing’ him up. Regardless, it was creepy and he was ok with her leaving and walking back down the street. Given her demeanor, Victor Willis was not the least bit inclined to go seek her out or find out where she had come from.

Closing the front door, the first thing he did was flip the letter over. Of course, there was no postmark, silly, it was hand delivered by a dark haired young girl with olive skin and eyes of stone.

He decided to approach this letter differently than the others he had stumbled upon because this letter had an intention about it. Hopefully it would explain these letters.

Larry, of course only a few feet away, joined Vic as he settled into his recliner. It was a nice fall day and the windows were open in his Louisiana one story stucco home. The wind chimes chinged outside as the wind had picked up lately. There was a disturbance in the gulf that nobody had named just yet. You could feel it in the air though. Eventually it would be named and you’d be living with your generator for a week or two.

This envelope was odd because it was in the shape of a thank you note envelope. Had he not known differently, it appeared to be the same stationary envelope that he had used when his wife had passed. They were typically given by the local funeral home for families to send out for ‘thank you’ notes for flowers and gifts.

The front of the letter simply said ‘To Dr. Willis’.

Dr. Willis;
As I lie here in my last days and write this letter to you, know that I will seek vengeance after my death that you have caused.

The pain of death that my family is experiencing right now is a pain that is best to only temporarily suffer through and then recover and go on with your life. 

It gives me pleasure in my last days to know that after I’m gone you will be revisited by the pains that you had suffered through and settled in your past. This is your penance for killing me instead of saving my life like you were supposed to do.

Things that once kept you up at night, will keep you up at night again and again by their fresh revisits.  

You will live out your your days in the repeated reminders of the pain of loves and lives that you have lost. 

Peace will be only something that you used to know.

Heed the gifts of a vengeful sòsyè.

Paulina.

III

The jaw muscles relax. Your diaphragm stops moving. All of your energy runs down your arms and legs and spills onto the floor below you.

You actually feel your eyes dilate in their sockets.

You hear your heart pounding in your ears trying to get you to snap out of it and start breathing again. But you can’t do anything because you are in some weird mental state of shock and simply unable to perform your normal bodily functions.

You know you need to breathe….but you can’t.

Staring straight ahead from his recliner, with eyes wide as if they’d seen someone’s head chopped off right in front of them, Vic suddenly realized what was going on with the letters he’d been sent.

Somehow, the patient that he had accidentally miscalculated her chemo dosages and she died, had apparently cast some sort of Creole spell on him. He had heard stories from a few of the older people there that some of the people in the bayous around them had that ability. But Vic had always laughed that off as just superstition.

‘Witches weren’t real’ Vic muttered out loud with his last breath and energy as he finally inhaled a long breath and got his wits back about him.

When he could focus again, Vic could see Larry was standing on his chest, balanced on his front paws and leaning forward, the cat had his pink eyes staring directly downward into Vics eyes. For a moment, Vic was scared that Larry was part of some spell or something. The way he looked at him was unusual.

Finally, Vic took a long deep breath in and out. Initially his first breaths were quick, as if catching up to his episode of not breathing. Soon, they settled down and back into normal rate and rhythm. He could feel his hands and feet again. As soon as he started breathing normally again, Larry relaxed and lay down on Vics chest.

Rubbing Larry’s white head, Vic began to try to formulate a plan. He would get up in the morning and get rid of this stupid spell. He knew people that would be able to direct him to someone to have this spell removed.

Good Lord, ‘to have this spell removed’? What sort of insanity was Vic playing along with? But then again what about those letters? He couldn’t deny those, them being postmarked on the date of their sender’s deaths and HOW would they have known his address now?

Vic glanced at his Bible across the room. Maybe he’d just go over and get those letters out and touch them to confirm this all isn’t a bad dream. As he got up slowly and walked across the room towards it, he could hear the wind outside. He could feel the difference inside his house as the pressure was changing from the storm out in the gulf.

The air felt thick and sticky and weird, even for this area. Things seemed restless around him.

He picked up his Bible, unzipped the brown leather cover and flipped through the funeral home pamphlets of people that had died and he brought home those things like they were some sort of weird funeral souvenir. But that’s what people did.

Larry stood on the end table staring at every move Vic made. His stark white cat head and pink eyes followed each turn in the Bible until Vic found what he was looking for.

Opening the letters to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, he realized it was all true.

He would have to go through the rest of his life reliving the pain of the loss of people he loved. HOW would he live like that? He would never know when a letter would appear.

He wouldn’t be able to not open it because the letters were from people that he had loved with his heart. And they were in THEIR handwriting. Not typed.

The letters were real.

This spell was real.

The witch was real.

Clenching both of the letters, Vic sank to the carpeted living room floor on his knees and wept uncontrollably. Sobs of tears drenched the papers as he realized his fate. Paulina had ruined his life just as he had ruined hers but hers was over quickly.

He would live out his days in pain.

As he came to this reality with the wind blowing stronger and feeling more weird through the open windows, Vic had kept his eyes closed in mental pain.

Still on his knees, Vic finally opened his eyes, and through the tears that
filled them he looked on the carpet directly below him. And for the first time ever he saw Larry in a different perspective. Instead of his welcoming and loving demeanor, he looked…

suddenly different now.

Sitting directly below Vic, Larry the albino white cat with pink eyes that
now emitted a glow like two brilliant pink diamonds, was looking straight
upward into his best friend’s eyes..

And Larry was

smiling.