Author’s Extremely Long and Misplaced Note: Alright, so it’s been a little over a month. I am bad. Sorry.

I had something important to write in this note, something that had to be disclosed before you read this chapter (hence, why it’s up here instead of way down there), but then I went ahead and changed that something, so the placing of this author’s is completely pointless.

I could have cut and pasted it to the bottom, but I’m ridiculous and lazy.

This chapter is especially long, which I either apologize for or receive with welcome. Depends on your preference with short chapters versus long ones. (Side-note: See my profile for an update on the summary of this story if you have not already.)

I am in ramble mode. Expect this chapter to be random and un-funny, for that is how I feel.

Um, so I love you all. Especially Katherine, Faster and Rizzy (pssh, see above. I am lazy and not spelling your names; however, I still love you.) Happy trails!

†

After the extremely tiring days of late, it was quite necessary for Hazel to sleep a good—and recommended—eight hours once they got home. Being the lackey of a banshee, however, she was lucky she got a solid four.

“Wake up, stupid, it’s time for chores.” Dreau dumped about a dozen century old and unwashed dresses on the slumbering child. Curled up in a fetal position on a threadbare rug during the middle of December, Hazel welcomed the dreadful and revolting clothing like a warm blanket. Until she got a good whiff.

“Ewwww!” she gasped, squirming under the mountain of vile garments, “Ewwww! Get it off! Get it—!”

Dreau snatched up a particularly soiled brown dress and stared into the sleepy eyes of a very disturbed sixteen year old girl. “Laundry Day,” she grinned, “I envy you not.”

“This is…” She chocked back her revulsion, the smell gagging her like a spoon, “This is…,” she shuddered as her eyes rolled back a little.

“Are you having an epileptic seizure? I know what that is, you know. I wasn’t born yesterday. Get up, or you’ll bite off your tongue.”

Hazel jumped out of the laundry with enough enthusiasm to be semi-conscious. For a girl in her predicament, it was quite a feat.

“Laundry. Now. You. Idiot.” Dreau spoke in gaps and breaths, completely exasperated with this lackey’s efforts, before turning back to her small bedroom.

“Do you have a washer and dryer?” Hazel asked, grimacing.

“Noooo,” Dreau seemed elated as she slunk back to bed.

“I’ll go ask Bolé, then,” she sighed.

A quick check to make sure her hair was decent and her underarms did not reek, she skipped to the cabin a little behind theirs. Skipping, a terrible habit she acquired through years at an all girl’s Catholic high school, seemed a bit much this early morning. They had gotten back home sometime past three (Dreau had demanded an ice cream sandwich from the creamery in a blip of a town not too far from their destination,) so the current time was just a little after seven. Even through exhaustion, and a bit of shock, Hazel was chirpy and horrid (and by horrid, I mean perky.)

She figured Eli had already left for work, so she knocked on the squalid white-distressed door. It mismatched the dark bricked home greatly. After some shuffling, Bolé peeked it open, shy of his appearance. “Hello there, Hazel,” he clicked through his iron jaw.

The girl barely wondered how he knew it was her, him being blind and all, “Hi Mr. Bolé! Ugh, I was wondering if I could use your washer and dryer real quick. Well—,” she reiterated, “—it might take a few hours.”

He smiled a little, looking confused. “The shower? Sure you can use that, kid,” he coughed, “But we don’t have one of those hair dryers.”

She gave a light chuckle, “I meant, your washing machine and dryer. Like, for clothes?”

The disfigured man kept smiling, “What?”

“Don’t you have a clothes washing machine?”

His smile faltered, as if he noticed he was talking to a crazy person, “No.”

Figuring he wouldn’t be able to see, she gaped. “That’s a bit gross.”

“Nah, it’s just Eli and me, and there’s no girls here. We don’t mind so much.”

“Heh,” Hazel took a giant step back, “Well, um, would you happen to know where a good laundromat is?”

“What? I can’t understand half of what you’re saying—,” he smiled, and Hazel had new empathy for Dreau and her accent, “But I’m sure Eli would.”

She blinked. “Nevermi—,”

“Eli! Get your ass out here! The young lady needs you!”

Completely humiliated, Hazel slapped her forehead and mumbled her legendary curse words quietly.

A squinty eyed, drowsy Eli came to the door a minute later, dressed in exactly what she had seen him in the previous day. Horrified of how much odor she would smell today—between the Bolé’s unwashed selves and Dreau’s laundry—Hazel briefly considered jumping from the nearest seven-story building. ‘Damn the country side,’ she thought.

“What—?” the peeved goblin glared at his father.

“Tell him, Hazel,” Bolé grinned goofily.

“Um—thanks, but I’m good.” She smiled and turned around.

“Hazel needs a wash, I think she said.”

Now completely humiliated, she whirled back to explain. “I need a laundromat.”

Eli ran a hand through his matted hair. He appeared to have just woken up. “It’s my day off.” he turned to his father’s blank gaze and gruesome face. Hazel had not taken into consideration that he might not work every day. She chastised herself terribly.

“Sha—this young lady needs your assistance. As a good gentleman, you should be more than glad to be assisting.”

Hazel stuttered, “Fine. Really. Banshee’s calling. Got to go.” She whipped back to walking away.

“There’s a laundromat by the, um—store I go by, down in New Orleans. If you wait till noon, I—,” he seemed rather annoyed as he grimaced towards his father, “Might be able to give you a ride.”

She blinked. “How far is it?”

“About an hour away.”

An hour with a smelly goblin boy, complete with stinking, eighteenth-century laundry. Hazel pondered. “Eh—, maybe I’ll just…um, do something else.”

Eli snorted, a delightfully gross act considering his nose. “I got to go down that way anyhow.”

“Oh,” she tried to conceal her terror, “Well, I would appreciate a ride, I guess.”

The goblin made a strange noise, produced from the back of his throat (it sounded something along the lines of “Merissulliskajahufua,”) before turning back into the cabin.

Hazel cocked an eyebrow. “He’s a morning person, I can tell.”

“Sha—kid, you’re funny. He’ll come get you for noon.” Bolé smiled dumbly, stepped back into the hut and shut the door with a soft click. He then had to kick the old wood into place so it would stay shut.

The girl walked back to the banshee’s cabin, no longer chipper or horrid, but instead a bit disturbed.

†

They had both hoped for this to be a quiet affair. In fact, Hazel went so far as to wish Eli magically lost the ability to speak. Or perhaps damaged his larynx with some swallowed bleach. As long as she didn’t have to converse, she would be happy.

Much to her—and his—dismay, they began fighting the moment she hopped into the battered truck.

“What is this?” She screeched to be heard over the rough, loud rock music hammering from the speakers. She thought it sounded like the wail of a thousand cats, being bulldozed into a taco shell. ‘Wait—why does that sound so familiar?’ she asked herself, bug-eyed and holding her ears. Doonie, who had been given explicit instructions to keep an eye on Hazel, crawled out of her pants pocket to examine the situation.

“Music,” he murmured, almost five minutes after she had asked the question.

“Don’t you get any better stations?” she was ticked off by now, sitting beside one of the offending speakers. The pile of odorous clothes smelled wretched combined with the stale, moldy air of the truck.

“Like what?” he barely raised his voice.

“I don’t know…country?”

The truck, which had been pulling out of the leaf coated trail behind the Bolé cabin, came to screeching halt. “You like country?” Eli sounded distressed and nauseated.

“Yes?” Her left eye twitched. She didn’t think she could take much more of this lunacy. First Dreau gives her a terrible task, then she’s assigned a cockroach body guard, and now she had to put up with him.

He turned and stared at her, then slowly looked back through the windshield. He turned the music down to a dull fuzz in the speakers, and proceeded to exit the forest. The girl poked Doonie back into her pocket, annoyed and slightly irked by its presence.

They kept quiet at first, but began to feel the awkwardness of their situation. So they took turns making noise. Hazel would tap her finger on the dashboard for five minutes, then Eli would hum an unrecognizable tune for a little while, then Hazel would roll the window down manually a few times, the Eli would tap his left foot exhaustingly, and etcetera.

Both felt gauche during the short ride out of the woods, but once they hit the highway a new problem arose.

“Oh my God!” Hazel screamed, slapping her mouth with her hand. When the shock faded, she immediately pulled on her seat belt, gasping, “Slow down! Oh my—Stop! Stop! Slow! No, we’re going to die!”

Eli remained calm. “What is your problem, again?”

“How fast are you going? Oh my God, we’re going to die!” She flailed her arms and pounded her feet against the console. “Slow! Slow!”

“Are you having a seizure?” He turned, wide eyed behind the nose.

“That’s the second time—,” she groaned softly, then resumed freaking out, “Stop! Slow down! Ahck!”

“Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

“No! Now, slow down!”

The speedometer went from eighty-five to seventy in a few minutes. The truck swerved behind and in front of other cars mercilessly.

“Are you trying to kill us? Are you on a death mission? Are you, like, one of those kumquat terrorists?”

He kept his eyes on the road and then grinned. “Kamikaze terrorists? Did you just call me a kamikaze terrorist, or at least mean to?”

“Oh—whatever! I meant the suicidal, terrible ones.”

“Aren’t all terrorists the suicidal, terrible kind?”

“Well, they’re not all suicidal. Terrorism is, essentially, a selfish need to startle others for egocentric reasons.”

He sped up on impulse, but then slowed so she wouldn’t spaz out anymore. After a moment of serious brow furrowing, he asked, “Do you have a smart switch or something?”

“Pardon?”

“Well, you seem like a really dumb blonde, and then you go and say something like that.”

“The terrorism thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I’m just eclectic sometimes…”

“Umm…eclectic?”

“You know, weird but in the good, genius way.”

He didn’t respond, but he made the smug consideration that she had meant eccentric, which she had.

Hazel, on the other hand, was smug because those were not her words. They had come straight from Mr. Dickson’s mouth last Tuesday, when he lectured the homeroom on fear, insecurity, and terrorism.

“So, umm—,” she now felt the need to chat, “How old are you?”

His brows piqued, but he stayed a defensive driver—always looking forward. “Eighteen.”

She nodded, “That’s cool.”

“I can buy cigarettes…”

“Yeah! Yeah, I can’t wait till I’m eighteen.”

Doonie, hearing the slight change in Hazel’s attitude, took this opportunity to sneak out of her pocket.

“And how old are you, Mr. Bug?” she smiled, petting the fairy.

“I am a few more decades older than a century,” he crrrreaked, “But I am not a bug, Hazel. I am, in fact, a fairy Prince under a witch’s spell. My mother, Queen of Mold, had once angered the vile witch of New Orleans with a taunting jeer. It was just my mother’s way, of course. In revenge, the witch picked out the Queen’s favorite son and turned him—well, turned me—into the hideous bug you see today. My curse can only be broken by the kiss of a fair maiden, and when I apprehend this kiss, I will—,”

“That’s nice Doonie,” Hazel shoved the talkative bug back into her pocket, completely unaware of the unintelligible crrrreak monologue he was delivering. Too bad he had such a terrible crrrrrreaking dialect. Had she understood though, perhaps things would have been easier.

Really, these humans never listen.

“Well,” Hazel sighed, “I’m sixteen, but I’ll be seventeen in February.”

“Yeah, my birthday was in November. Seventeen kind of sucks, but you’re a year closer to eighteen.”

“Great! Then I can buy cigarettes, porn, and be drafted by Uncle Sam!”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he smiled, sincere for once.

She laughed, just a little. “So, where’d you guys live before you came here?”

“We moved around a lot,” he licked his lips, dry-mouthed, “But mostly up North. Way up North.”

“Like New York?”

“Like Canada.”

She went wide-eyed. “You’re Canadian?”

Eli grinned, “Dad says I might have been born in Toronto, but I’m still all Southern cause of my upbringing.” He tried to sound as red-neck as possible.

Hazel stayed quiet. Two minutes later, she shouted, “I’m in a car with a crazy Canadian, half-goblin driver!”

“Yes, yes you are.”

†

Besides the artful driving of Eel Eyes, the trip to New Orleans was a little uneventful. Hence the omitting of most of it. It could be told of the near accident with a lumber-truck, or of Hazel’s excitement when they pulled into the city limits, but when they finally made it downtown—and after Eli begrudgingly paid the twelve dollar parking fee in a lot—the girl tripled in her enthusiasm level.

“It’s so pretty! It’s all gothic and cool! I want to live here! Do you think Dreau’d move over here? It’s so awesome and pretty and decaying and morbid and friendly and—oh my God, that complete stranger just said hi to us, Eli! This is so cool!”

The goblin walked beside the hopping girl, smirking. “Yeah, everyone’s pretty friendly.”

“Let’s go!” she grabbed his arm with her free hand—for she was dragging a huge linen bag of laundry in the other.

“This way,” he pulled her down a narrow lane past Canal Street.

“Where we going?”

“Laundry?”

“Right!”

They strolled past some construction, orange uniforms, flags and signs warning of potholes being repaired—and Eli was extra cautious that the flaring blonde didn’t fall down a manhole—before they saw a small hole-in-the-wall with a poster in the window. Said poster deemed it a laundromat.

Hazel squealed and bounced inside, grabbing Eli’s hand so he would follow. He staggered before the shop door. “Um, I’m going to go to that store I was talking about. Got you money?”

She nodded, digging her left hand into her sweat pants pocket for Dreau’s twenty dollar bill.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes, ‘kay?”

“Don’t ditch me,” she said cheerfully, dancing into the store.

It didn’t take long to buy the soap, or to find two vacant washers in the semi-empty laundromat, but she came across the issue of care. Would these decades-old, practically ancient dresses live through the coin operated washing machine?

“Meh,” Hazel smiled to herself, hoping they might shrink just to piss off the banshee. She glanced at the other two laundromat-goers—an older woman hunched off in the corner of the store and a man in his forties with a baseball cap and a cell-phone to his ear. The girl felt comfortable here, almost.

She sat, after finishing the loading process, and watched the dresses swirl in the machine. Folding her hands in her lap, she hummed a bit, closing her tired eyes. Her poor stomach grumbled, indicating her distress. Doonie scuttled out of his pocket imprisonment and up her arm.

“Oh, Doonie,” she whispered, “I do wish Eli would hurry it up. It’s been at least fifteen minutes.”

The fairy, also fairly hungry, flew across the vacant room towards the corner away from the older woman. The snack machine buzzed with electricity. Hazel laughed as he crrrrreaked in craving, then she skipped to the device and inserted four quarters (she had gotten change at the change machine in the front earlier.) Doonie, euphoric, crawled over the glass, beside the brand of chips he desired.

She entered the E-2 code and the chips vended.

“Hmm,” beneath the dyed blonde hair and dark roots, a plan was forming in her delicate brain. She looked around. No Eli, no dumb banshee… just a little, foolish bug.

“Here you go, Doonie,” she opened the bag and accidentally dropped it. Then stomped on it. Then kicked it across the room. The man in the baseball cap narrowed his eyes but said nothing, then turned around.

The fairy cockroach raced, little leafy wings fluttering manically, to the spilled chips. Hazel smiled, calmly stepping backwards to the exit. Freedom had never seemed so…easy.

“Yes!” she cried, jumping into the street, ready to scream and cry her eyes out to any stranger. She ran through the narrow, grey boulevard, wondering if she should stop to tell the construction workers of her kidnapped self. Looking at them, and how they leered at her, she decided a nice grandmother, strolling an infant grandchild, might be better suited for the responsibility of consoling her.

She tried to race to Canal Street, one of the busiest and definitely widest streets, but became hopelessly and utterly lost in a small bunch of walkers going to a small, tavern filled street. A jogger in pink shorts—in the middle of December—jogged past them. Hazel decided there were enough clean looking people to get some help now. So she screamed.

“Help! Help me! They’ve kidnapped me! I’m from—,” suddenly Hazel went blank, the horde of strangers stared at her, walking past her. “I’m from—!” She gasped.

‘Where am I from again?’

Her eyes went wide with tears. “Help!” she turned to the business-type looking woman, trying to ignore the screaming girl by walking on the other side of the grey street. “I need help, plea—!” Hazel grabbed her throat, coughing viciously.

No, it was not magic that she couldn’t remember her name or her home; that was just shock and confusion. And it wasn’t magic that kept her coughing; no, that was an asthma attack. She hadn’t had one since she was eleven…but the crisis called for it.

In the few days she had spent with Dreau, the panic—the sheer and utter panic of it all—had not come. It set in: Hazel was the prisoner of a dead woman. A zombie. A banshee who knew where she lived and how to get to her mom and step-dad. Hazel couldn’t breathe.

She spun around in the sparse crowd—which was certainly thinning out as the walkers took notice of the crazy girl—desperate for a familiar face. A friend, her mother, a teacher…someone.

Eli stepped behind her, a comic-book store bag in his hand. Her saw her shaking, left eye twitching and lungs filling with mucus and chilled air. He put a hand to her shoulder. “Want some lunch?” he asked.

She jumped away, eyeing him, shaking much worse.

It took a whole plate of lasagna at the local Italian bistro to calm her down.

Doonie, on the other hand, was irritated to no end. He had been humiliated, tricked, swindled and cheated. He had been ditched. Almost forty minutes after the terrible incident, both Hazel and Eli stepped into the shop holding hands. To the naked eye, it would appear two teenagers hand-in-hand. To the trained eye—of someone in the know—it was Eli keeping Hazel from running off again. She looked shaken.

Doonie darted to them, expressly to yell at the girl. He crrrrrrrrrrrrreaked, a very annoyed set of crrreaking, and demanded retribution for her actions. Still being incarcerated by Eli, she knelt down and picked up the fairy with her thumb and index finger, careful not to squeeze him.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffed, bringing him to her shoulder. “I’m so, so very sorry.” She reached the bench and snatched up the forgotten linen bag.

Eli mumbled indistinctly, leading her to the other end of the room.

“My stuff’s over here,” she yanked on their shared appendage, motioning towards the washers with Dreau’s dresses. What she didn’t notice was the old woman beside it, watching her closely.

“Let’s come back later,” the goblin simmered, eyeing down the woman.

“No!” She forcefully severed their connection, dashing to the machine. “Dreau would kill me if I left—,”

“Ahhhh!” the woman, crumpled and haggard, screamed with a pointing finger at Hazel, “Out! Out! Out! Ya’ evil get out!”

The girl put her hands out, jumping in surprise, “Alright! Just let me get—,”

“Out! Out! Out! Ya’ evil get out!”

“But—!”

“Hazel,” Eli grabbed her elbow, “We’re leaving, now.”

“No.” She broke away again, stomping to the old woman. They stared each other down, the hag still screaming her lungs off. Hazel snapped. “Get back! I’m getting my clothes, and you can’t stop me!”

The woman grabbed Hazel’s wrist, still chanting.

Eli watched, completely useless.

Doonie scurried into Hazel’s pants pocket.

At first the girl gasped, terrified the woman would hurt her. When no one moved, besides the woman’s crusted mouth, she began to unload the washers, grappling the damp clothes and stuffing them—one handed—into the linen bag. What a scene of bravery and stupidity it was!

Reclaiming her hand, Hazel tied the bag of sopping dresses and stomped back to Eli, grabbing his hand. “Let’s go,” she whispered.

“Out! Out! Out! Ya’ evil get—,”

“I’m out! I’m out!” Hazel screamed back, Eli slamming the door as they left the shop. “What the hell was that?” she screeched.

Eli looked blank, petrified and completely lank. “I think she was trying to exorcise you.”

Hazel gaped, “Excuse me? Who does she think she is?”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing she was Scottish.”

“Why do you think that?”

The corner of his mouth turned up, a little amused. “Scottish women and Irish banshees just don’t mix. It’s a rule of time.”

Hazel scowled, “And do I look like Dreau?”

“Nope, but you sure do smell like her.”

Dumbfounded, and even more frustrated than before, they walked back to the car.

Another rule of time: ulcers grow in the stomachs of extremely upset girls. Indeed, Hazel’s health was taking a pretty huge hit.

†

Trivial Note: Oh yeah! I had meant to say: No offence to rock music, country music, the country side in general, the beautiful city of New Orleans, Irish banshees, or Scottish women (big apologies to the last.) A lot of this doesn't make sense (random Scottish lady attacking Hazel?) and it probably never will. Just roll with it, please.

So you're asking yourself, 'What will happen next chapter?' Here's a questionaire

A) Bolé will do something daring.

B) Eli’s nose will bring sexy back, or at least produce boogers of some sort.

C) Hazel will pop a few brain cells.

D) Dreau will release Hazel, saying it was all a big misunderstanding.

E) All of the above.

Which one? Which one? Time will tell...