The Thirteenth Thread

Chapter One: Messages in the Flesh

New Orleans wasn’t exactly quiet, but tonight felt unnaturally still—like the air was listening. Serenity Black knew that feeling too well by now. It meant someone on the other side was trying to scream through the silence.

She sat in her blacked-out Dodge Charger outside an upscale barbershop called "Lined Up," tapping ash off a pre-roll that hung loosely between her fingers. The engine idled low. Her nerves were tight. This wasn’t a usual visit—this was business. Spiritual business.

The spirit had come to her in a dream three nights in a row. Always the same man—tall, gold-toothed smile, tattoos on his neck—and always the same urgent message: "Tell my brother to stop playin'. If he don't change, he gon' die like me."

Serenity hadn’t asked for this life. But when the dead come to you, begging, crying, desperate to make amends through you, what are you supposed to do—ignore them? Not when they crawl inside your chest and make your ribs ache from holding their secrets.

The shop’s door jingled. Out walked Jovan, the man she was here for. Tapered fade, caramel skin, and a swagger that said he knew he was fine. But Serenity wasn’t here for flirtation. She was here because Jovan’s dead brother was haunting her with tears and threats.

"Excuse me," she called out, stepping into the halo of the streetlight. "You Jovan?"

He squinted, phone in hand. "Who’s askin'?"

"Your brother, DeAndre. He sent me."

The way Jovan’s face cracked—just for a moment—told her he’d heard that name recently in more than memories. Maybe in dreams. Maybe in guilt. Maybe in nightmares.

"Look, lady, I don’t know what scam you runnin’, but—"

"You had a dream two nights ago," Serenity interrupted. "You were in a white car, crashed, and you heard DeAndre yelling at you to stop playing games with women. He told you to stop before it’s too late. You woke up sweating and your nose was bleeding."

Silence.

Jovan froze, phone still in his hand. Then he started laughing—cold, brittle, fake. "Aight, you got a good guess. That’s all. I still don’t know you."

Serenity stepped closer. "You won’t get the message unless you open yourself. I ain’t talking about fake nodding and going through the motions. I mean *genuinely*. You have to be willing to see your life for what it is—broken. Dangerous. Headed for a grave."

Something shifted. Jovan’s smile twitched. "You a psychic or some type of medium?"

"I’m a messenger. If you lie to me—or to yourself—the message won’t come through. And if you play around, you’ll die the same way he did: surrounded by lies, betrayal, and silence."

That got him.

He looked away, jaw tight, suddenly remembering every woman he’d ghosted, every fight he’d started, every time he told himself he wasn’t the problem.

"What did he say?" Jovan’s voice was gravel.

Serenity inhaled. The smoke curled like a spirit into the air. "He said you’re about to be exposed. A group text. Twelve women. All think they’re the only one. It drops this weekend. You’ve got two days."

"Man, you buggin’."

"Then ignore me. But when your face is swelling from a bullet wound or you bleeding out on your mama’s porch, remember—I tried."

Jovan walked away.

Two nights later, Serenity couldn’t sleep. Her ribs felt like they were burning. The spirit hadn’t left. If anything, DeAndre was louder—screaming in her dreams, whispering in her shower, flickering lights.

Then the news hit: Man found dead in New Orleans. Shot three times in the face. Stabbed 18 times. His genitals mutilated. A woman turned herself in. Claimed she was driven to madness by lies and betrayal.

Serenity threw her phone across the room and sobbed. Not because she was scared.

Because the message never made it through.




Chapter Two: Her Name Was Monroe

Serenity drove through the Marigny District with the windows down, letting the thick summer air roll over her skin. Her hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel, and she hadn’t been able to shake the sensation of something—or someone—riding shotgun, invisible but heavy.

Her ribs still ached. Not as sharp as before, but now it was replaced by a different pressure—like heartbreak trying to climb up her throat. The new spirit had arrived just before dawn. A woman this time. Soft voice. Velvet laugh.

Her name was Monroe.

Serenity couldn’t forget the whisper that came with her. "She won’t survive unless she loves again. Let her see what I saw in her. Let her feel how I felt."

The vision came hard. Serenity had been pulled into the kitchen of a warm home, filled with candles and wine glasses and jazz records. A woman with locs stood barefoot in the kitchen laughing with another woman—Monroe. The woman’s name in this life was Tasha.

Monroe had loved her. Deeply. Desperately. But she died too soon to say it out loud. And now she was clawing her way through the veil just to get one last message through.

Serenity pulled up to Tasha’s home, an art-deco bungalow tucked behind palms and an iron gate. She didn’t ring the bell. She stood there with her hands shaking, heart too full.

Tasha answered the door in sweats, her eyes rimmed red from a night of crying.

"Who are you?"

"My name’s Serenity. I have a message from someone you loved."

Tasha narrowed her eyes, then tried to shut the door.

"Her name was Monroe," Serenity said softly. "She smelled like orange blossom. You used to call her "Mo." She died in that wreck on I-10 the week after Mardi Gras."

Tasha froze. The blood drained from her face. "That’s not funny."

"She doesn’t want to scare you," Serenity said. "She just wants you to love again. But only if it’s real. If you let me in—let her in—you’ll hear her. But you have to stop lying to yourself about who you are."

The message wasn't just words. It was a wave. It rushed over Tasha like a fever, her knees giving out as she fell to the ground.

Serenity caught her.

Later that night, they sat on the porch, smoking. The moon full and thick with heat. Tasha listened. Serenity spoke—not her own words, but Monroe’s. About the nights they danced barefoot, about the morning Monroe knew she loved her, about the fear that stopped her from saying it before that wreck.

And something shifted. For the first time, Serenity saw someone truly receive the message. No resistance. No ego. Just aching gratitude.

When Serenity left, the weight in the passenger seat was gone. Her chest light. Her ribs no longer burned.

But peace is brief for a messenger.

By the time she pulled into her driveway, another presence had already arrived.

And this one was screaming.



Chapter Three: Hollow Doors

Serenity sat parked outside a small shotgun house deep in the Ninth Ward. The blacked-out Dodge Charger idled, low hum vibrating under her feet, but Serenity didn’t move. She stared through the windshield like she could see through the thin curtains and into the soul of the man inside. She had that look again—the one her Auntie Viv used to call "storm eyes." It meant something was coming, and she was the lightning about to strike.

Tonight’s message was different. The ghost hadn’t spoken in words. It had wept. Hours ago, while she was brushing her teeth, Serenity had been hit with the echo of a scream that didn't belong to her. The sound had cracked her spine like ice, and she dropped to her knees, gagging on fear that wasn't her own.

She’d traced the voice to this house, to a man named Tyler Duval. On the outside, Tyler looked like a man trying to do right. Worked construction, took care of his mama, kept to himself. But Serenity knew masks when she saw them. The spirit that haunted her now was a woman—young, maybe early twenties. Her name came in a whisper: "Keisha."

The moment Serenity stepped out the car, her stomach clenched. The air got thick. Her gift always bloomed in humidity, and tonight the New Orleans air hung heavy like soaked cotton. She knocked once. Silence. Then again.

Tyler opened the door half-dressed, tattoos snaking down his chest, eyes wide like he hadn’t slept in days. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, voice rough with suspicion.

“I’m someone with something to tell you,” she said calmly. “From Keisha.”

He flinched. The name hit like a slap. “I don’t know no Keisha.”

“Yeah, you do,” Serenity said, her voice low. “You just don't want to remember what you did to her.”

Suddenly, the lights flickered inside the house. Serenity’s nose began to bleed. Tyler stepped back like he’d been punched. That’s when she saw her—the spirit. Keisha was behind him now, hair wet, eyes black, and dress torn. She opened her mouth but made no sound.

Serenity staggered forward. “She’s trying to talk to you. She’s here now, Tyler.”

“No—no, this is crazy,” he said, backing up. “Get out. Whatever you’re on, take that shit somewhere else.”

“She ain’t leaving until you hear her. And neither am I.”

Keisha lunged. Serenity felt the blow—cold, like frostbite across her ribs—and she gasped. Tyler saw it too. The wall behind her cracked, and a picture frame crashed to the floor. That’s when he screamed.

“Make it stop!” he begged. “Please, make it stop!”

“You want it to stop?” Serenity said, choking. “Then admit what you did. Tell her the truth. Say her name.”

The floorboards groaned. Something unseen grabbed Tyler by the neck and lifted him off the ground. Serenity’s eyes rolled back as Keisha poured into her like a flood. Her voice was now Keisha’s.

“You said you loved me,” Serenity whispered. “You said I was the only one. And then you left me in that motel room to bleed out alone.”

Tyler’s mouth opened wide in terror. He urinated on himself, eyes bulging.

“Say. My. Name.”

“Keisha!” he finally screamed. “I’m sorry, Keisha! I didn’t mean to! I panicked!”

Just like that, it stopped.

He dropped to the floor in a heap, sobbing. Serenity collapsed beside him, body trembling from the possession.

Keisha was gone.

“I gave you the message,” Serenity whispered. “What you do with it now… that’s between you and whatever’s waiting on the other side.”

As she walked back to her car, blood still trickling from her nose, the streetlight above her flickered once, then went out.

Something told her she was going to be back in this neighborhood soon. Maybe not for Tyler—but someone else was hiding a secret. And death had a way of keeping receipts.


Chapter Four: Her Name Was Lala

Serenity didn’t usually do love. Not hers, anyway. That door had closed a long time ago after a man whispered promises over her skin while hiding a second family across town. But sometimes, the dead had different plans. And that’s how she found herself in the arms of a woman named Lala.

Lala came like a summer storm—fast, unexpected, and loud. They met at a poetry reading in the Marigny, where Lala took the mic and spit bars like bullets, every word dipped in fire and pain. Serenity had felt a pull in her chest—an ache that wasn’t hers.

After the show, she tried to leave without saying anything. But Lala caught her at the door.

“Hey, witchy woman,” Lala said with a crooked smile. “You been staring at me like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Serenity paused. “Maybe I have.”

They went for drinks. Then back to Lala’s place. The night was hot and slow, full of whispers and hands tracing old scars. But when Serenity closed her eyes, she saw someone else’s face. A woman. Crying.

The spirit came two days later.

Her name was Star, and she used to be Lala’s first love. Star had been found floating in Bayou St. John five years earlier. No suspect, no answers. It was ruled a suicide. But that wasn’t the truth.

“She didn’t jump,” Serenity told Lala in the dark. “She was pushed.”

Lala sat up in bed, her back tense. “What are you saying?”

“She wants you to know that you weren’t the reason she died. That she never stopped loving you. But she’s angry. She said someone else was there that night.”

Lala’s eyes welled. “I never believed the suicide story. She called me that night. Said she needed to tell me something. I never made it to her. My phone died.”

Serenity stood, the air getting thick with static. The spirit was near.

“She says it was your old producer. Reggie St. Claire. He caught her recording the call. She heard something she wasn’t supposed to.”

Lala gasped. “The tapes... The day she died, she said she had proof he was trafficking girls. She told me she was scared.”

A picture frame fell from the wall and shattered. The room went ice-cold.

“Reggie killed her,” Serenity said, voice trembling. “And she wants you to take him down.”

The next morning, Serenity woke up to Lala gone. A note on the table read: She gave me the strength I needed. I’m going to make it right.

By nightfall, Reggie St. Claire’s name trended across social media. Lala had leaked hours of recordings, emails, photos. It was damning.

Two weeks later, Serenity got a postcard from Detroit. It was blank except for one line:

Star sends her love.

Serenity smiled, but it was short-lived.

Later that night, the spirit of another woman sat at the foot of her bed. This one didn’t cry or speak.

She pointed. Blood dripped from her fingertips.

Another door had opened.

And Serenity wasn’t done walking through them.


Chapter Five: Thicker Than Smoke

The woman’s spirit that appeared at the foot of Serenity’s bed was no soft whisper. She came with heavy silence, the kind that makes your chest feel too tight, like smoke filling a room. Her eyes were sunken and distant, and her skin shimmered faintly under the glow of the streetlight sneaking through the blinds.

She didn’t say her name.

Instead, she dropped an object on the floor—a charred engagement ring.

Serenity sat up, clutching the edge of the bed. “Who are you?” she whispered.

The ghost pointed again, toward the window.

Serenity stood, walked slowly to the window, and looked outside. A man stood on the sidewalk smoking a cigar. He wore a red velvet blazer, gold chains, and a smile far too smug for midnight.

The spirit was gone. But the message wasn’t.

—

The man’s name was Lionel Dupree, and he owned a cigar lounge off Esplanade. A charmer with cash and secrets, he had a reputation for hosting “after-hours” events that no one talked about in public.

Serenity went to the lounge the next evening, dressed in black with her energy shielded and her crystals warmed in her bra.

Lionel greeted her like an old friend. “You a tourist, baby? Or you here to cleanse my aura?”

She smiled thinly. “Something like that.”

He led her to a private booth and poured whiskey. She accepted but didn’t drink.

“I’m looking for someone,” she said. “A woman. Light skin. Curly hair. Name might’ve been Camilla.”

His eyes didn’t flinch. But his hand gripped the glass tighter.

“She died in a fire last year. House out in the 9th Ward.”

Lionel blinked slowly. “Don’t know her. Sorry.”

Serenity leaned forward. “She was engaged. Ring was found in the rubble, blackened but not destroyed. Her spirit gave it to me last night.”

Lionel froze. The smile faded.

“You don’t scare me with ghost stories,” he muttered.

“Maybe not,” Serenity said, standing. “But you scare yourself. That’s why you haven't been sleeping. That’s why you drink at 3 a.m. and keep a gun under your pillow.”

She left before he could reply.

—

That night, Serenity lit candles and called Camilla’s spirit properly. The temperature in her apartment dropped so fast, the windows frosted.

Camilla showed her the fire. The smoke. The screams. And Lionel laughing.

He’d found out about her plans to leave him and expose his trafficking ring. He’d set the fire himself.

—

Three days later, Lionel was found dead in his lounge. Shot three times in the head. No sign of forced entry. The security footage? Wiped clean.

Only one thing remained: a blackened engagement ring sitting on his chest.

Serenity watched the news in silence. No spirits appeared that night.

But her phone buzzed at 3:33 a.m.

Unknown number. Just one message:

She’s free now. Thank you.

Serenity turned off the phone, climbed into bed, and closed her eyes.

But just before sleep came, a voice whispered from the corner:

“Not done yet, Messenger. There are more.”

And she believed it.

Chapter Six: The Thirteenth Thread

The French Quarter breathed with ghosts, but this one came through Serenity’s dream.

She was in a garden—dark, lush, overgrown—and a woman with twisted dreadlocks and a lace veil pointed at a patch of earth covered in red thread. Thirteen strands in a tangled loop, each thread pulsing faintly.

“Only one of them will listen,” the woman said. “The rest are bound by ego.”

Serenity jolted awake to the scent of jasmine and sulfur. Her sheets were damp, heart racing.

—

Later that day, she received an anonymous envelope with a single address written in blood-red ink: **“1313 Desire Street.”**

No name. No note.

Serenity tucked her protection stones into her bra, blessed the soles of her feet with oil, and drove her blacked-out Charger straight into the heart of New Orleans.

1313 Desire Street was a crumbling Victorian house with boarded windows and wind chimes made of bones.

She knocked once. The door opened on its own.

Inside was a man in a wheelchair. Bald. Early forties. Sad eyes. Serenity could feel the pain bleeding from him like heat off asphalt.

“You the messenger?” he asked.

“I am.”

He nodded. “Then come in.”

His name was Raynard, and he hadn’t walked since Katrina. His wife, Toni, disappeared during the flood, presumed drowned. But no body had ever been found. And every night for thirteen years, Raynard dreamed of her calling his name through water.

“She’s not gone,” Serenity told him.

Raynard lit a cigarette with shaking hands. “I feel her. Some nights she touches my shoulder. But I’m losing grip, Messenger. I’m losing grip.”

Serenity took his hands and closed her eyes.

A rushing sound filled her ears. Water. Screaming. Hands gripping wood. A baby crying.

Serenity gasped. “She didn’t drown.”

She opened her eyes. “She survived. Someone took her. She was pregnant. That baby—he’s alive.”

Raynard stared. “What? No. She wasn’t showing—”

“She didn’t tell you. But she was. And someone took her. Forced her into hiding. Your son is alive. He's in Baton Rouge.”

Raynard sobbed. But before Serenity could comfort him, every candle in the room blew out. The temperature dropped.

And Toni appeared.

Wet. Shivering. Glowing.

She whispered, “Help our son. He’s in danger.”

And then she vanished.

—

The next day, Serenity tracked down the child—a seventeen-year-old boy named Elijah with piercing gray eyes and a rap sheet two pages long.

He was about to be pulled into a gang initiation that would end in bloodshed.

Serenity got there just in time. She posed as a lost delivery driver, faked a flat tire, and delayed the initiation long enough for the leader of the crew to lose interest.

Elijah’s life took a turn that day. He was placed in a mentoring program and moved back in with Raynard two months later.

But not all threads ended this way.

Because when Serenity returned to her apartment that night, thirteen red threads were on her pillow.

Twelve burned up in seconds.

Only one remained.

And it vibrated with a name: **Makayla.**

The woman Serenity once loved. The one who got away.

The one who’d begged her, years ago, to stop giving messages and just be human.

She picked up the thread and knew—this time, it would cost her.

To be continued...


Chapter Eight: The Boil Over

Keith Holloway had a charm that made women forget their intuition. A big man with soft eyes, gray at the temples, and the gift of gab, he prowled Facebook Dating like a predator in a church suit. Each message the same: "You're different. I can tell."

Serenity met Keith in July. His voice was gravel and honey. His compliments rolled off his tongue like scripture. He said all the right things. Too right.

But she knew better.

She didn’t want to like him—didn’t mean to—but the connection was spiritual. She was *sent*. The mother of his four children, long gone from this earth, pulled Serenity into his orbit with a desperate cry from beyond.

“Love him. Heal him. Warn him.”

He was married to his grief and loyal only to lust. Since his wife died five years ago, Keith had become a machine: meet, charm, lie, sleep, discard. He never used protection. Never told the truth. Never slowed down. He had a woman in every zip code from Baton Rouge to Biloxi.

And Serenity was the only one who could get close enough.

“I haven’t been with a man in five years,” she’d whispered to the mirror before meeting him. “Don’t make me regret this.”

She didn’t regret it. But she *dreaded* what came next.

It started with a ping.

A text thread. 3 a.m. Her name. A dozen others.

“Ladies. We’ve all been sleeping with Keith. Same lies. Same lines. No protection. We need to talk.”

The thread ballooned. Four women turned into ten. Ten into fifteen.

One woman said she'd been with Keith for four years. Another had just left his house the night before. Several had been exposed to STDs. One said she was pregnant.

And one—her name was Dionna—wasn’t talking. She was plotting.

Serenity felt it coming. The psychic bile in her stomach. The heat behind her eyes. Death was walking.

She tried to warn Keith.

“I was sent by someone who still loves you. The mother of your children. She says your son—one of them—is going to unalive himself. And your whole legacy will burn. You can’t keep lying like this.”

He laughed. Laughed in her face.

“Man, miss me with that voodoo shit You were just another notch. Don’t get crazy now.”

That night, Serenity lit a black candle. Prayed over the photo of Keith’s children. Tears in her throat. “Please,” she whispered to the spirit, “let this man open his eyes.”

But he never would.

Dionna found him the next morning.

She’d let herself in with a key he gave her months ago. He was asleep. Vulnerable.

She shot him three times in the face.

Stabbed him eighteen times in the chest.

Then she dismembered him. Boiled his head on the stove. Left his hands in the sink. The police found scripture pages stuck to the blood-stained floor, like someone tried to cleanse what couldn’t be saved.

The news rocked New Orleans. Women cried in silence. Some cursed him. Others mourned him. But none of them were shocked.

Serenity was arrested briefly. Questioned for hours.

“How well did you know Keith Holloway?”

“I was sent to love him,” she said. “But he refused it.”

She was released the next day. No charges. But the scars stayed.

Keith’s children never got the message.

The son who needed it most jumped off a bridge two months later.

And the mother’s spirit never came again.

That night, Serenity sat on her porch in New Orleans, watching smoke curl from a sage stick.

A single red thread floated down from nowhere and landed on her lap.

She burned it.

Then lit another candle.

There were always more souls.

And more warnings.

But not everyone listens.



Sidenote: This story is still playing out in real time... But this is the vision I have for his demise