Everyone had their secrets and Thibodeux was no different. She had secrets and she had greed, greed that developed ever since she was a little girl living in the swamps with her parents and six siblings. She always wanted more for herself but she just didn't know how. For one she was just a child living in a shack with no running water, where they had to go outside to the outhouse just to use the restroom. She hated it. She absolutely hated it. She also hated having to go to school with humans from the ages of three to eleven. But children needed to learn how to read and write and do basic math. The human schools taught those and thats where many magae children went until they were able to go a magic school like Hacate.
At the age of twelve, she was accepted into Hacate like most magae children that age. She loved it but what she didn't love was having to go back home for the summer breaks to a run down shake. What she didn't love was wearing hand me downs or having to walk in the swamp in water that went up to her knees to get groceries. Water that was infested with alligators that she had to carry her wand with her.
What she desired most was to live with her cousins on her father's side. They were wealthy and in the crawfish industry but her father and his brother hadn't any relations with one another, something about a falling out.
"You look so down girl, why not cover over here and check out my toys," said a man with a wide smile, glistening black skin. He wore gold in his ears and wore a blue suit with brown dress shoes. He and his trailer were parked out in the swamp just there. It was strange since there weren't too many people that tracked these swamps. Only poor people. It made no sense to sell to people with no money. But Thibodeux was young and naive, and desperate to get out of her nightmare so she walked to the man.
"Hello pretty little girl, come look at my toys!" He opened the door to the trailer and revealed dolls that she knew were voodoo dolls. She pointed to one on the far top right.
"That one," she said.
"Hmmm," the man said. "I can't give ya that one. Its pocessed and those cost a pretty penny."
"Pretty penny?" She mimicked.
"Hmm hmm," he nodded his hands. "It takes a lot to find spirits and place them in those dolls. But how about this, Ill give you a free one."
He reached in the back of his trailer and pulled out a doll. It was worn and a bit dusty but she took it.
"You pay a lot for those pocessed dolls?"
"Yes suga, I do. If ya got any spirits where you from then I can put them into dolls."
"Will I get paid?"
The man jumped to little Thibodeux and smiled wide showing is gaped space teeth. "Absolutely! With a enough spirits you'll be rich!" He watched the smile on her face and how bright she became. As he watched her continue home with her knew doll, the witch doctor knew exactly what he was doing when the dolls brought him to her. A child wanting more was always a child worth waiting for. He laughed closing up his trailer.
As the weeks went on, Thibodeux didn't know how to find spirits for the man. At least that allowed her to not travel so far. Her parents wouldn't allow her to go too far and said cemeteries were bad omens. Her parents forever stopped her from doing what she wanted.
When it was time for her to go grocery shopping, she came across the man once more.
"No spirits today, girlie?" He asked.
Thibodeux shook her head.
"How about this? You want to be rich, right?" He watched her nod her head. "If you lead me to the spirits of your family then I will give you 50k don."
She was shocked to hear this man offered to kill her family and in turn she would receive fifty thousand don. Thibodeux shook her head. "I want 10k per person." That meant one hundred thousand don.
"Deal," he said smiling wider than ever before.
Thibodeux looked at her doll collection. In the front and center were ten dolls, her family. When the witch doctor had died, she took back the dolls he used to trap her family. And being the selfish person that she was, she refused to let them go and allow them to pass to the other side.
There was a knock on her door and since she was the only one of her roommates still there, she opened it. Before her stood one of the members of the spirit catcher club.
"Sous is looking for you," she said. Thibodeux nodded her head and walked out of her room, closing the door, once more leaving her family behind.