sure. Sex had always been a major step for her. The notion of sex with Jack simply boggled her mind. For a moment she tried to imagine what it would be like, but quickly gave it up as a bad idea. She didn't want to have to explain to anyone in the morning why she had been taking a cold shower in the middle of the night.
Most of the people they knew had never understood their friendship. Many believed they were already lovers and simply smiled knowingly when she insisted that they were just friends. Looking at their relationship objectively, she could easily see why people thought the way they did. Dana and Jack had shared so much of their lives with each other for so long, the joys and the sorrows, the laughter and the tears, the good times and the bad.
They knew each other so well, that on many occasions their level of communication seemed to border on the psychic. There was an emotional closeness between them that many of their married friends didn't share. And they had a comfortable, albeit non-sexual physical intimacy that seemed to be rare in male-female friendships. So was the prospect of sexual intimacy really that big of a step, after all?
At the soft knocking on the door, Dana practically jumped out of her skin. Jeeper’s creepers! She used one of Jack's favorite expressions. Was it possible he really could read her mind? She opened the door and cautiously peeked out. The powerful sense of disappointment she felt when she saw it was Rose and not Jack, told her all she needed to know. Her hormones and the rest of her were now in perfect accord.
Rose put her finger to lips then gestured for her to follow. Puzzled by her sense of urgency, Dana didn't even bother searching for her robe. Rose was tiptoeing down the hall that led to the upstairs music room. Dana had not had occasion to go into this room yet. Despite the Hollywood stereotype that would have audiences believe that all castles had a grand ballroom where lavish parties were held, Dana had learned that grand ballrooms were rare. However, most did boast a formal music room, where recitals and smaller dances and balls could be held.
Rose was leading her towards just such a room. She could now see that Grace was waiting for them, hovering just outside the door.
"Wait until you get a load of this," Rose whispered in her ear.
Grace's eyes were wide and fearful and her face seemed much paler than it should have been even in the moonlight. She was wringing her hands in agitation. As Dana came closer, she clutched her arm frantically. The strength of her grip and the trembling in her hand surprised her. In a tone that raised goose bumps on her arms, Grace whispered a single word. "Voodoo." She then pointed a shaky finger into the music room.
On the left side of the room was a marble fireplace mounted by a handsomely carved mantel made out of some kind of bone-colored wood. But it wasn't the fireplace that had grabbed their attention, but the figure in front of it glowing in a ghostly light. It was a very large, very purple chicken wearing a top hat and doing some kind of a dance.
Dana couldn't help herself. Peels of laughter filled the hallway, causing doors to open and lights to click on. The apparition at the fireplace flickered and winked out. Jack had once said that full-bodied laughter from Dana was a force of nature that could wake the dead. Or in this case make it disappear.
Grace was clearly terrified. "Oh, don't laugh!" Grace said. Jack came running down the hall with Noah on his heels. "Jack, make her stop."
"What's going on, what happened?" Jack asked.
"It's voodoo," Grace whispered.
Dana wiped tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry ,” she began, trying to stop her giggling, "but what makes you say it's voodoo?"
"We learned all about it in New Orleans. At the museum they said that voodoo poltergeists appear as purple roosters in top hats. Or sometimes it could be a snake in a polka-dotted bow tie." Fresh laughter erupted from Dana and she fell