I dug my fingernails into the rough carpet beneath me, wishing there were some way to slip out of the room unnoticed. When Molly struck a match to light the candles someone had arranged on the floor, I jumped. She brought the flame to the wicks and the candles sizzled to life.
“Try not to make any sudden movements during the séance,” Abby said, glaring pointedly at me. “We don’t want to alarm the spirit. It has to feel comfortable with us.”
“You know from experience or from what you’ve seen on the John Edward show?” Madison asked sarcastically, unable to help herself.
“The women in my family have always been very connected to the other side,” Abby said. I didn’t like the way she emphasized the words other side, as if she were telling a ghost story at school camp.
“Have you ever seen a ghost?” Hallie asked in a hushed voice.
“I have,” Abby declared, deadly serious. “Which is why I should act as medium tonight.”
I didn’t know whether Abby was telling the truth or not. People sometimes caught flashes of the dead as they crossed between worlds. But most of the time ghost sightings were the result of a rampant imagination. A flash of a shadow or a trick of the light could easily be mistaken for something supernatural. It was different for me — I could sense the presence of spirits all the time — they were everywhere. If I focused, I could tell who was lost, who had just passed on, and who was searching for their loved ones. Gabriel had told me to tune them out — they weren’t our responsibility. I remembered when my elderly friend Alice had come to say good-bye after she’d passed on the year before. I’d seen her outside my bedroom window before she faded away. But not all spirits were as gentle as Alice; the ones that were unable to let go of their earthly attachment lingered for years, becoming more and more twisted, driven mad by the life around them that they could never be part of again. They lost touch with humans, came to resent them, and often acted out in violent ways. I wondered how keen Abby would be if she knew the truth about what was really out there. But there was no way of telling her, not without giving myself away completely.
The girls nodded in agreement, happy to relinquish rights to the role of medium. I felt Molly shiver beside me. “Now join hands,” Abby said. “And whatever you do, don’t let go. We need to form a protective circle — if you break the circle you set the spirit free.”
“Who told you that?” Savannah whispered. “Doesn’t breaking hands just end the séance?”
“Yes, and if it’s a harmless spirit then breaking hands will send it back to rest, but if it’s vengeful then we have to be careful. We don’t know what we’re summoning.”
“Well, how about we just summon a nice friendly ghost,” Madison said, prompting Abby to give her a contemptuous stare.
“What, like Casper?”
Madison didn’t appreciate being mocked, but we all knew Abby was right. “I guess not,” she conceded.
“Then it’s luck of the draw.”
I bit my tongue to refrain from commenting on Abby’s foolproof plan. Conducting a séance on the one night of the year when it was actually likely to work was stupid in the extreme. I shook my head and tried to banish my doubts. I reminded myself this was nothing more than a childish game; something most teenagers dabbled in for fun. The sooner we got it over with, the sooner we could go downstairs and enjoy the rest of the night.
Molly and Savannah, who were sitting on either side of me, each took hold of one of my hands and gripped them tightly. Their palms were clammy and I sensed a combination of fear and excitement. Abby bowed her head and closed her eyes. Her blond hair flopped inconveniently in front of her face and she interrupted her invocation to tether it into a loose ponytail with the Day-Glo hair tie she wore around her wrist. Then she cleared her throat theatrically, cast us all a meaningful look, and began to speak in a low voice that sounded like a chant.
“Spirits that walk the earth, we invoke you to come forward and dwell among us! We mean you no harm; we only want to make a connection. Do not be afraid. If you have a story to tell, we want to hear it. I repeat, we will not harm you; in return we ask that you do not harm us.”
The room swelled with a deadly silence. The girls exchanged uneasy glances. I knew that some were now regretting expressing so much enthusiasm for Abby’s project and wished they were downstairs drinking with their friends and flirting with the boys. I gritted my teeth and turned my thoughts away from the distasteful ceremony that was taking place before me. I had enough sense to know that disturbing the dead was not only unwise, but insensitive too. It went against everything I’d been taught about life and death. Hadn’t they ever heard of the expression rest in peace? I wanted to pull my hands away and leave the room, but I knew Abby would be furious and I’d be wearing the label of buzzkill for the rest of the year. I sighed heavily, hoping they would soon get bored when no response was forthcoming and abandon the game. Molly and I exchanged dubious glances.
Five long minutes elapsed with only the sound of our breathing and Abby periodically repeating her incantation. Just as the girls were beginning to get restless and someone complained openly about a leg cramp, the crystal glass began to wobble. Everyone sat bolt upright, each girl’s attention fully restored. The glass shook for a moment longer and then began to teeter its way across the board, spelling out a message as it went. Abby, as self-appointed medium, called out each letter the glass touched until it had spelled out a clear message.
Stop. Stop now. Leave this place. You are all in danger.
“Oooh, that sounds exciting,” Madison said mockingly. The others looked at one another uncertainly, trying to determine the person in the group who was behind the prank. With everyone’s fingers on the glass, it was impossible to tell who was moving it. I felt Molly clutch my hand tighter as another message began to be spelled out.
Stop. Listen. Evil is here.
“Why should we believe you?” Abby asked boldly. “Do we know you?”
The glass now seemed to move in giant swoops, entirely of its own volition. It swam across the board and came to rest defiantly on the word YES.
“Okay, now I know this is a joke,” said Madison. “Come on, own up. Who’s doing it?” Abby ignored her protest.
“Shut up, Mad. No one’s doing it,” Hallie snapped. “You’re breaking the mood.”
“You can’t honestly expect me to believe …”
“If we know you, tell us your name,” Abby insisted.
For several long seconds the glass seemed to stall.
“Told you this is all a load of crap,” Madison began, but no sooner had she spoken that the glass resumed its dance around the board. At first it seemed confused, lingering under some letters and then steering away suddenly as if to tease us. It seemed uncertain to me, like a young child, not entirely familiar with the process. It careered across the board spelling out T-A-Y. Then it stopped as if it were unsure what to do.
“You can trust us,” Abby urged.
The glass slunk back to the middle of the board and slowly looped across to spell out the final three letters, L-A-H.
It was Molly who broke the uncomfortable silence. “Taylah?” she whispered in a voice that came out sounding strangled. Then she furiously blinked back tears and glared around the circle.
“Okay, this isn’t funny,” she hissed. “Who did it? What the hell is wrong with you guys?”
Her accusation was met by a flurry of head shaking and protests. “It wasn’t me,” they each said. “I didn’t do it.”