The box in the middle of my room

While Frank and Sam were eating their dinner, Anna and I went to my room. I wanted to go through Louisa's stuff as soon as possible. Preferably, I wanted all of her things out of my room before I had to sleep there.

We sat down on the ground. I ripped open the box, and what I found there made Louisa level up even more on the psycho scale. I found all my class photos starting in kindergarten. Only they were altered. In these pictures, Louisa was next to me in all of them.

Then there were a bunch of diaries. I took one of them and saw that every day was an anecdote about me and her. The worst part was, these were my real memories, she just added herself to them. I could remember most of this stuff happening to me. Had Louisa been there too? I felt goosebumps coming all over me.

While reading the diaries, I found a part where she described testing voodoo spells on me and some of our classmates using a Voodoo for beginners book. The diary described how she had started with small spells to open my heart to her. Apparently, that was needed, before she could try something bigger. She thought she had been quite successful, because after her spell, I had come to talk to her, but she had run away crying because she had gotten scared of the power of the book herself. Did I really misunderstand that situation twice?

I just went to talk to her because it was my duty as the class representative. I hadn't been guided by Voodoo magic, had I?

In her last diary, the one before she died, there was a detailed test diary. She had wanted to get the two of us to fall in love using voodoo but had tried several spells first on other classmates to make sure she could do it right. First, there were petty revenge spells on Elsa, because she had been picking on me. She had done one to turn her friends against her but had given up because there were no results.

Then, there was a detailed resume of how she had tried to get Therese and Eve together, but in the end, she had also given up on that one.

But they were together now, and Therese Eve and Elsa did have a falling out. Elsa even had one with Tina before we got them together. Did she actually do something? I looked in the box and found 2 wax dolls representing Therese and Eve holding each other. The Elsa doll had holes in them. Had Louisa been putting in needles? So this was not just fantasy. She actually tried stuff like that. But eww. That meant that part of getting those girls' menstrual blood to make these dolls was true too! I am not touching those things!

There were a few too many coincidences. If this was all true... It also meant that removing those dolls from each other could make Therese and Eve split up. We could not take any risks with that kind of thing. We needed to find that Voodoo book, so we could find out how to undo the magic without any negative results.

“Anna, I found something,” I told her about the voodoo, and how everything she tried to do had eventually come to pass. Anna's eyes grew big behind her glasses. “Not that I really believe in all that stuff, but I think we should be really careful about this. Let's see if we can find out more.” Anna replied.

I could see that she thought it was creepy and that she was completely convinced it was real. “ Maybe we can figure out which book she used.”

We looked and looked but it seemed the voodoo was never mentioned again. It seemed to have been a rather short project.

“It seems like we will be visiting Josh and Nicole again tomorrow. To see if we can get our hands on that book.” Anna then said. I sighed. I didn't look forward to seeing those people again.

“We should also take all of this stuff to the yuriology department, and let Ms. Odes take a look.” Anna then added. Well, Ms. Odes was a scientist, so she would probably dismiss it as mumbo jumbo anyway. But really Anna? Do we really want Ms. Odes playing around with voodoo? Wasn't the yuridium bad enough already?

“Maybe we can loosely test the waters first, before dumping everything on her doorstep. I would not want her to cause damage to the dolls before we are certain it is okay to take them apart. I don't want a new Elsa and Tina case.” I answered her.

“You might be right. She is a scientist after all. She might not take voodoo seriously. Even if it is clear as daylight that it worked.” It seemed Anna already concluded the voodoo's effectiveness. as a fact.

We were engrossed in the diaries when I could hear shouting coming from the kitchen. I quickly made my way there and saw Sam and Frank were at each other's throats again.

What's it this time again? Frankly, I didn't care anymore. I smacked my fist on the table stunning the both of them “Now make up and go back to work! Or I'll get mom.” This time I would not listen to their petty squabbles. If not, I would get mom, and they both knew that that would not be their best day, since they were forced to eat together to make up.

The both of them looked meekly at me, then made up with another handshake, and went back to the brasserie. I hoped that would be the last of that, but I doubted it. Those handshakes to make up, I never believed that anyone would use them beyond elementary school.

I went back to my room, where my entering the room really startled Anna. She had closed the book she was reading in a reflex. Suspicious! I went up to Anna and took the book she just closed and started leafing through. I should have known. “It's not what you think!” Anna said with a red face. “I am just going to put all of those things in a box and seal it for all eternity in the attic. But my instincts tell me I should really just burn it all.”

I started putting away the books and noticed the sketchbook was missing. I looked at Anna. She definitely would, wouldn't she?

“Where is it?” I asked her.

“Where is what?” Anna was pretending to be innocent. Okay, I can play that game.

“The sketchbook is missing!”

Anna turned completely red. Caught her.

“I just thought it would be such a shame to seal these incredible drawings.” Now my face turned completely red. She was being extremely outrageous again, wasn't she? I would have to teach her a lesson.

“Is the real thing not good enough for you?” Anna turned shy on me when I asked that question. I pushed her down and sat down on top of her. “Well?” I found it irresistible when Anna looked so meek at me. It made me feel completely in control “I-it's good enough.” she answered, doing her best to face my gaze.

“Then show it to me.” I kissed her. When our tongues met I felt myself melt. My outrageous but beautiful Anna. Her antics only made me love her more. I felt her hands slip under my blouse, while I unbuttoned her shirt. I kissed her again. I lost myself in this warm feeling of bliss.

After our short “intermezzo”, I put all the dirty books into a separate box and sealed them with duck tape. There would be no easily sneaking one out. Then I brought the box to the attic. I hoped I would never see those dirty books again for the rest of my life!

Anna's perspective

I was just leaving Claire's apartment. I held my phone. With shaking hands, I went to my picture gallery. I had really managed to take pictures of everything in the sketchbook and sneak them out. It had been a brilliant idea of mine to pretend I was taking the book. That way Claire would not suspect the content of my phone.

I was browsing through the gallery when suddenly my phone rang.

Mom! Why was she video calling me?

I picked up the phone and saw mom appear on the screen.

“Hi, daughter dear. I sent you your contract. I would appreciate it if you could sign it by tomorrow. Since you are going to lead a branch of the group.”

I sighed. With everything that had happened today, I had put that part of my day to the back of my mind. “Sure, I promised I would, didn't I? Could this not have waited until tomorrow?”

“No need to be so hostile. Or was I interrupting something? You are at Claire's aren't you?” I remembered everything that had just happened in Claire's bedroom and my face turned completely red.

“Oh, I'm sorry dear, it seems I am interrupting something. I was just so excited that we are going to be working together my dear. I just couldn't wait.”

I had to correct this misunderstanding. “No nothing of the like, I am outside, getting to my car. I quickly filmed my surroundings to show mom wasn't interrupting something.

Mom laughed and said “My mistake dear. Oh, talking about your restaurants, I have also mailed you a few locations that I found interesting in Brussels Paris, and London that the two of you should check out for your little project. These locations are close to other Lyst branches, so you would benefit from the fact that all our business lunches would be at your restaurants.”

Mom was doing it again. She was trying to do everything in my stead. “I promise to look into it, but I thought this was going to be our project to start from 0? I would appreciate it if you gave me the chance to actually do something, before butting in.”

“Just some motherly advice dear, there are no strings attached,”

Mother asked me some questions about the other girls and seemed to be particularly interested in Mia.

“I can't believe you are friends with her! You should have told me sooner.” Not that I knew Mia was Sinsin sensei or had ever seen any drawings by her. It's not like she drew yuri. I did not even know mom was a fan of Sinsin sensei. Now that she knew that Mia was Sinsin sensei, she wanted to know everything there was to know about her. I was surprised that my mother of all people could turn into such a typical fangirl.

When we finished our call, I wondered what that call was really about. It wasn't about that contract, was it? Was it really just to find out more about Mia?