The Price of the Past


The air was thick with the scent of rum and grave dirt. Midnight draped itself over the city like a funeral veil, and deep in the swampland, beneath the gnarled roots of a cypress tree, Étienne knelt before a crude altar of bones and black candles. He had whispered the old incantations, spilled the right blood, and left the finest tobacco wrapped in black silk. He had done everything right. Now, he waited.

A cold wind coiled around him, and the candles flickered, their flames bending as if paying homage to an unseen force. Then came the laughter—deep, guttural, laced with something both sinister and amused.

“You called, petit?” The voice was thick as molasses and sweet as decay.

Étienne raised his head. There, standing before him, was Baron Samedi, draped in a tattered black coat, a top hat perched atop his skull-painted face. His eyes gleamed like twin obsidian stones, knowing, mischievous, and utterly terrifying.

“I seek your help, Baron,” Étienne said, voice barely above a whisper.

Samedi cocked his head. “Oh? What kind of help does a man like you need from the lord of the grave?”

Étienne swallowed hard. “I want power. The power to summon the dead, to bend spirits to my will, to make them speak.”

The Baron chuckled, rolling a cigar between his fingers before lighting it with a snap of his fingers. Smoke curled like phantom hands around his face. “And what makes you think you can handle such power, eh?”

“I have nothing to lose,” Étienne said, voice firmer now. “No family, no fortune, no future. Just this.” He gestured to the pitiful altar. “I offer all that I am.”

Baron Samedi grinned wide, teeth flashing like a skeletal grin. “All that you are? That’s a dangerous thing to offer, boy. But I’ll take it.”

With a wave of his hand, the ground beneath them groaned, and the air turned thick with whispers of the long-dead. Shadows stretched unnaturally, and the weight of something unseen pressed against Étienne’s chest. The veil between the living and the dead was splitting, a gaping wound in the world.

Étienne felt the knowledge pour into him—rituals, spells, the names of spirits lost to time. His fingers ached with power, his breath came in ragged gasps. It was intoxicating.

“Ah, ah, ah…” The Baron waggled a finger. “One rule, petit. Never, ever look back.”

Étienne nodded. He could feel it—something lurking at the edges of his vision. Something pulling at the fabric of his past, whispering, beckoning. But he would not look.

The power was his. He could summon souls, command them to speak, to do his bidding. He was no longer a man lost in the world—he was something more.

But then, one night, as he stood in a forgotten cemetery, calling forth a soul to answer for a crime long buried, he heard it. A voice. A voice he had buried deep, long ago.

“Étienne…”

His blood ran cold. His mother’s voice. Soft. Broken. A voice from before the hunger, before the betrayal, before he had done the unthinkable.

He clenched his fists. He would not look. He could not.

“Étienne, mon fils… why did you leave me?”

Tears burned at his eyes. His breath hitched. He turned.

The moment his gaze met the past, the wind roared like a thousand voices screaming at once. The ground buckled. The spirits he had summoned, the power he had gained—it all turned on him. Hands, cold as the grave, clutched at his flesh, dragging him down, down into the abyss he had dared to open.

The last thing he saw was Baron Samedi, grinning, tipping his hat. “I warned you, petit. The past don’t let go so easy.”

Then, darkness.

And the grave swallowed him whole.


Theresa Star🌠 Cattouse

Twin Soul Connections

twinsoulconnections33@gamil.com

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