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“I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you aren’t looking,” Willow provoked her. And it worked like a charm.

“Really?” Carmen twisted around, eyes wide, before catching herself. “I mean, not that it matters or anything. I could care less how he looks at me.”

“You are the worst liar ever,” I accused her, and couldn’t help laughing at her futile efforts to hate him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He walks around like he’s God’s gift to women… showing off his nice body and flashing that sexy grin every chance he gets…” she trailed off as we started laughing. A guilty smile crept across her face and she looked down, “Whatever.”

“I’m back!” Phoebe scampered down the beach with as much finesse as a Bigfoot, “I found everything we need!”

Deciding to let Carmen off the hook for the time being, we abandoned our fire pit and helped her set up a circle several yards away using only the candles for light. Five minutes and one sea salt fight later, we were sitting around the candles in true séance fashion. Carmen had lit the four white pillar candles and placed them in a large hurricane glass that Phoebe had stolen off the mantel in the living room. A ring of sea salt encircled them, while another ring of salt surrounded us; creating the official ‘circle’. The blood red rose Phoebe had plucked from the garden lay in the sand in front of Carmen. Its soft petals had collapsed in on themselves; heavy with the finality of nightfall. The thorns protecting its long, slender stem were a vivid warning to anyone who dared to touch it. As I stared at its undying beauty, I could sense its will to live falter after being severed from its life source. Carmen’s voice broke into my thoughts and I tried to pay attention.

“Okay so here’s the plan. We want to contact a specific ghost, so first we’ll do a chant to calm our thoughts and energy, and then we’ll reach out to her. While we are calling out to her I’ll be burning the rose to release its energy into the air. It will help draw her spirit in.” She sat up straighter, “Now, we’ll need to close the circle during the calming chant. To do that, we just hold hands. Try to center your energy and breathe slowly.”

“What if we contact a bunch of ghosts and they all attack us?” Phoebe’s eyes grew wide with alarm.

“That’s not going to happen, trust me,” Carmen answered nonchalantly.

“What if we contact something other than ghosts?” Willow asked with apprehension.

“That’s not going to happen either,” Carmen declared. With a condescending cloud of fear looming over our circle, we timidly held hands and, following Carmen’s lead, closed our eyes.

“I am peaceful, I am strong. Though darkness sometimes seems so long. For day must follow every night, everything will be alright. I am peaceful, I am strong. Though darkness sometimes seems so long. For day must follow every night, everything will be alright. I am peaceful, I am strong….” We began chanting softly with her, centering our energy and opening our minds. The warm breeze swirling around us dwindled and I could feel my entire body relaxing; filling me with a serene sense of self.

“Now that we’ve closed the circle and calmed our souls, we must remain within this space to call upon her spirit,” Carmen instructed us in a low, eerie voice. We opened our eyes and glanced around with trepidation. The candles still danced, the sea salt still lay on the sand and the flower remained in front of Carmen. But I could tell something was different. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Carmen began the second chant as we watched on with fascination.

“Guardians of the Spirit realm hear and guide my plea. This sacred place in time and space was created just for thee. So bring her forth, the hour is near; our hearts and minds revere. On this night, I ask you thrice: Appear. Appear. Appear.” She began to repeat it again, but this time she vigilantly lifted the rose and dangled it above the jumping flames of the candles. I held my breath as she lowered it inch by inch; an agonizing display of torture playing out for the sacrificial flower. I made myself look away as the fire withered and blackened its petals; a steady stream of smoke ascending silently into the heavens. Willow and Phoebe were hopelessly entranced in the burning rose at the center of the circle, gazing at it with wonder. That’s when I felt the darkness.

It crept along my spine and penetrated my soul with a quickness that I couldn’t defend. As the air in my lungs stifled and chilled, I looked around to see where the feeling was originating from.

The other three girls were still staring at the rose, unaware of the evil that had arrived.

“Carmen, I think we should -“ I whispered.

“Oh my God.” Phoebe’s strained voice and stricken eyes had us following her shocked gaze to the sand dunes at my right. Not a word was said. Not a sound was made. No one so much as took a breath as our eyes met hers.

Dressed in the same faded blue dress, she was poised several feet away watching us curiously. Her flowing blonde hair still hung down below her shoulders, and her thin arms remained limp at her side. Her bright green eyes locked on me and I watched as a shadow of fear crossed her features. In that instant I could tell that the darkness I was feeling wasn’t emanating from her. With a start, I felt something else. Phoebe’s hand. And it was currently crushing every bone in mine. I squeezed it to let her know everything was going to be okay, but I wasn’t sure I believed that, so it probably wasn’t very reassuring. As the ghost girl continued to stare at us, I tapped into my ‘other’ sense, as Finn had called it, in an attempt figure out where the evil chill was originating from. It simply seemed to be all around me; not approaching from one specific direction.

“What’s your name?” Somehow Carmen had found the courage to speak.

“Bianca.”

The blood vessels in my left hand were threatening to burst under the pressure of Phoebe’s vice grip. But this time I gripped back just as hard. When Bianca spoke, it had resembled a soft echo riding on a light breeze. It lightly tickled your ear drums, but also resonated deep within your soul.

“Why are you here?” I mustered up the nerve to speak; hoping she could enlighten me on why she was appearing to me.

“You called me,” she responded plainly. She furrowed her brow, somewhat confused at my question.

“Why have you been appearing to me?” I tried again with more tenacity.

“She makes me,” she answered matter-of-factly; her voice bereft of lightness. My heart leapt to my throat, and I tried to exude calmness despite the explosion of terror and hysteria that had engulfed me at her foreboding words.

“Who’s….she?” I asked carefully; hearing the unsteady waver in my voice. She glanced around, and began closing in on our circle.

“The Reaper,” she whispered.

Chapter 11

I heard Willow’s surprised gasp as well as Phoebe’s high pitched squeak of fear. My own terror was so all consuming, I was having trouble breathing. Glancing sideways, I noticed Phoebe’s face had completely drained of color as she continued gawking at Bianca.

“She is close,” Bianca warned as her green eyes flitted toward the ocean and then back to us.

She stopped at the edge of the sea salt ring and peered down at the scorched rose lying at Carmen’s feet; its petals now decrepit and charred. Her placid face fell as her eyes glistened with translucent tears of mourning.

“The living never understand the plight of the dead,” she breathed, face pained. Suddenly she looked directly at me in a panic. “The beacon - it calls to her, too. Use it wisely. She –“ Her words cut off abruptly and I felt it again in earnest. As I looked on with dread, her slight body trembled and blurred before us. My own body became racked with waves of icy daggers; relentlessly slicing into my heart and causing a piercing pain that echoed out from my chest. I bent over in agony, attempting to catch my breath and to understand what was happening. The trace on my wrist and hand had taken on a brackish color; absorbing the darkness pulsing through me. Bianca’s image stabilized.