The older woman kept smiling, but it wasn’t a warm, inviting one…it was like she was eager for us to come in, and her eyes were…dead. I gave Jasmine a look, and she just lightly nudged me and whispered ‘Oh, come on, loosen up.’ That little phrase was Jasmine’s personality in a nut shell, to just ‘loosen up’. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t and I wish I had let my suspicions win. When we got in the shop, I immediately felt weirded out and…heavy. I can’t explain it. The air just felt heavy and I felt like I was being watched.

Jasmine immediately started picking things up, telling me to ‘look at this’. Eventually the shop lady came over to us and asked Jasmine if she liked the little figurine in her hand. Jasmine said, ‘yeah’, then the shop lady told her that she could take her with her forever if she ‘invited her in.’ I thought the wording was a little weird, her? Jasmine can take her home?

Jasmine didn’t actually believe in voodoo or hoodoo, so she was smiling and playing along. She told the shop lady, ‘Yes, I invite her in’. After that, the shop lady just smiled and walked away. At that point I was ready to go, but Jasmine said she wanted to check one more thing. Right as Jasmine was going to look at something on the wall, her mom ended up FaceTiming her. Jasmine answered the phone, and as soon as the shop lady noticed, she got super mad and told her she needed to hang her phone up right now. Jasmine thought the lady was just playing a part, but to me she seemed dead serious. At that point, I told Jasmine we needed to leave right now and that I was going to wait outside. She could tell I was serious so she left with me.

On the way back to the Vrbo, Jasmine told me I needed to calm down and that the shop lady was probably just acting weird to make tourists actually believe voodoo is serious. I told her it definitely didn’t feel like an act, and that she really shouldn’t have said yes to inviting whatever she did ‘in’ even if it was fake. She then told me I was being too serious, and how I was always so careful and needed to live a little. I started getting angry so I told her I just wanted to drop it and go home. Tomorrow morning, we had planned to go to the beach before it got super hot, so I wanted to get some sleep. The next day we woke up, and I was still a bit weirded out and kept a close eye on Jasmine thinking maybe she did invite something in; but nothing ended up happening the next day or night, but on the fifth night, weird things started happening with Jasmine. That night we were supposed to just stay in and watch a movie, but she wanted to take a shower first. I didn’t think anything of it. Her routine usually only took around 20 minutes, and it was still quite early in the night.

She got in the shower and after about 15 minutes, the water shut off, so I knew she'd only be another 10 minutes; but 20 minutes passed by, and then 30 minutes, so I got up to check on her. As I walked into her bedroom, I could see her standing at the bathroom vanity. It seemed like she was dead-staring at herself, completely expressionless. When I got closer to the bathroom, she noticed I was there, and immediately snapped out of it acting like she was just doing her face routine. I asked her what she was doing, and she asked me ‘what did I mean?’.

I told her she was just sitting there staring at herself and I didn’t know how long, to which she replied ‘Oh, not long’. Then she picked up her red lipstick and put it on. I asked her why she was putting lipstick on to go to bed. I reminded her that we were staying in tonight and she told me she always wears lipstick. Giving her a confused look I said no, you don’t, you only wear lipstick on special occasions. She turned to me and said, and I quote, ‘she does now’. I was taken aback. ‘She’ does now?…I was creeped out, but I brushed it off as Jasmine playing around.

She must have been able to tell I was suspicious because she then said ‘I’m just joking, come on, let’s go watch’. She gently placed her hand on my back and guided us into the living room, which I found annoying. We watched the movie for about an hour, but we couldn’t finish it because Jasmine had taken too long in the bathroom. I was a bit annoyed about that too. She seemed normal during the movie, so my jitteryness had died down and we went to bed.

But that same night, after going to bed, I woke up in the middle of the night to a shadow moving back and forth underneath my bedroom door. I was spooked, so I slowly got up and cracked my door to look through the crack and I saw Jasmine in the hallway just walking back and forth. When I opened the door all the way to ask her what she was doing, she just looked at me and smiled without saying a word. She kept walking back and forth until she stopped right in front of me and looked me dead in my face for about 5 seconds without saying anything, then she just went back into her bedroom and slowly shut the door. It was like she was analyzing my face or something.

That whole night I barely slept, I stayed up on my phone paranoid and I also turned the lamp on; and made sure to lock the bedroom door and put a chair against it.

The next morning, I walked into Jasmine at the stove making eggs. She noticed me walking in and the very first thing she said was, “So you’re the one playing pranks now.” I asked her what she was talking about. Then she said, ‘the lipstick’. I said, yeah, you put that on last night after taking a shower, I thought you were messing with me. She said, ‘that’s ridiculous, why would I put lipstick on at night?’ I told her I didn’t know, but that she did. I also asked her if she had a history of sleepwalking. She said, not that she was aware of, nobody has ever told her she did. I asked her, “Do you really not remember how weird you were acting last night?” She looked at me worried, she could tell I was being serious. I was never the joker like she was. At this point we were both a little weirded out, and I was waiting for her to admit it might have something to do with that shop we went to, but neither of us seemed to want to say it outloud. For the entire day, we just acted as if nothing happened, which was a mistake. And looking back we should have got help immediately.

The next night we had decided to go out because I told her I didn’t want to stay in due to what happened last night. She agreed, and the night went fine, until later. We got home pretty late and had both tried to stay out as long as possible to avoid anything weird happening again; but we eventually went home.

When we decided to go back, Jasmine seemed…off…like she was nervous to go back, which I understood; but I told her we couldn’t stay on the streets all night, that would be more dangerous.

We eventually got home, and I went to bed for what would be my last night in New Orleans ever. That night, at about 3:15 AM I woke up to a loud thudding sound over and over and over again. It sounded like it was coming from Jasmine’s room right across the hall. I quietly crept over to her room and I cracked the door open.

My mouth dropped wide open.

When I peered in the room, she was banging her head over and over and over again on the wall.

Freaked out, I screamed "What the hell are you doing?!” and I turned on the light and rushed over to her.

As I approached her, she went faster and faster. Her head had gushed open and was completely swollen. When I grabbed her away, she was staring off in a trance like she couldn’t see me, and she had smudged lipstick and blood trickling down her face. I was frantically crying and screaming at her to snap out of it and that she was scaring the crap out of me and she started having a seizure and fell to the ground. I started screaming for help and I grabbed my phone to dial nine one one, but by the time my phone was unlocked and I started dialing, she instantly stopped convulsing and shot straight up and looked me dead in the eye. I froze and waited for her to do something. She stared right at me and in a frightening voice she said, “You aren’t welcome here.” She passed out again and I finished calling nine one one.

When the medics came, I told them what happened. They looked at me like I was crazy and took her away. I stayed behind and just stood outside shocked.

While I stood outside, a woman who was living beside the house we were staying in came out. I looked over to her, and when I did, she asked me if I did anything I shouldn’t have. I said, I don’t know what you mean. She said, voodoo. I was afraid to answer, but I hesitantly told her yes. She looked over at me and informed me, “That’s why.”

I ended up calling my parents and telling them everything, about how I lied and how we went into a voodoo shop and now Jasmine was in the hospital. When my mother found out, she told me that she and my father would be on their way to meet me but they were about 7 hours away. She told me in the meantime they would pray for me and recommended I go stay somewhere else if there was evil in the house. I didn’t feel like arguing and telling them I think it’s Jasmine, not the house; so I listened. Jasmine stayed in the hospital that night, and I ended up staying in a hotel right beside a church.

Eventually both our families got there the next morning and we both eventually got taken home. Jasmine was confused and had no idea what she had even done. I can honestly say that our relationship was never the same after that night, or honestly, after the first night weird things happened. When we got home, we both had a few months before working full time, but we didn’t see each other even once. I was honestly afraid of her.

I’d hear my mother talk to her sister, Jasmine’s mom, about how Jasmine was still sleepwalking, having seizures, and wearing red lipstick.

About two weeks before October, Jasmine ended up getting hit by a car. A couple bystanders just said she peacefully walked right out in front of the car, like she waited for it to pass, but there was no video surveillance where she got hit and reporters didn’t believe the bystanders because they were a group of young kids. I don’t believe Jasmine walked herself into traffic… I think something else did.

Looking back, that shop lady definitely knew Jasmine would be an easy host for whatever she put in my friend. As for me, I’m on meds now and suffer mild PTSD from seeing my best friend smash her head against a wall until it gushed open. Whether or not my parents' prayers are what kept me from the same fate, I don’t know. My parents believed that Jasmin was possessed and that anything that isn’t of God is of the Devil, and that there is no such thing as ‘ghosts’ - they are demons.

I don’t know what to believe anymore, but I am certain of one thing, I will never go to New Orleans again or mess with the spiritual world.