I felt a chill run down my spine. Deep down I knew none of the girls would stoop so low as to bring their dead friend into the game. Taylah’s death was still fresh, no one would dare joke about it. And that meant only one thing — Abby had made a connection, broken the barrier. We were treading on dangerous ground.
“What if it’s not a joke?” Savannah suggested tentatively. “No one here would be that sick. What if it really is her?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Abby said. “We have to summon her and ask for a sign.”
“But she just told us to stop,” Molly protested. “What if she doesn’t want to be summoned?”
“Yeah, what if she was trying to warn us?” Hallie shivered.
“You’re all so gullible.” Madison rolled her eyes. “Go ahead and summon her, Abby, nothing’s going to happen.”
Abby leaned forward, bending low over the Ouija board. “We command you,” she said, her voice deepening. “Come forward and show yourself.”
Through the window, I saw a dark cloud drift across the sky, obscuring the moon and completely blotting out the silver light that had been filling the room. For a moment I felt Taylah’s presence, radiating warmth as strong as the heat in the hand I held. But just as suddenly she vanished, leaving nothing but a cold space in the air.
“We command you,” Abby repeated with heightened emotion. “Come forward!”
The windowpanes rattled as the wind started to howl outside. The room suddenly felt very cold, and Molly wound her fingers so tightly around mine she was almost cutting off my circulation.
“Come forward!” Abby commanded. “Show yourself!
At that moment the window flew open and a harsh wind rushed into the room, snuffing out the candles in an instant. Some of the girls squealed and gripped each other’s hands more tightly. I felt the wind on the back of my neck, like cold, dead fingers. I shuddered and hunched forward, trying to protect myself from it. Savannah whimpered and I knew she felt it too. These girls might be oblivious to most things, but anyone could sense that there was now a presence in the room and it was none too friendly.
I knew then I had to say something before it was too late.
“We have to stop this,” I cried. “It isn’t a game anymore.”
“You can’t leave now, Beth. You’ll ruin everything.” Abby’s eyes darted around the room. “Is someone here?” she asked. “Give us a sign that you can hear me.”
I heard Hallie gasp and looked down to see the glass drifting silently across the Ouija board. It came to rest on the word YES. Savannah’s hand in mine was now slippery with sweat.
“Who’s doing that?” Molly whispered.
“Why have you come?” Abby asked. “Do you have a message for someone here?”
The glass spun in a circle across the board and responded with the same message. YES.
“Who is it for?” Abby asked. “Tell us who you’ve come to see.”
The glass slid down until it found the letter A. Then it loped gracefully from letter to letter as it began to spell out a name. Abby looked confused as she put the name together in her head.
“Annabel Lee?” she said puzzled. “There’s nobody here by that name.”
I felt a claw of ice fasten around my heart. That name might not mean anything to them, but it meant a lot to me. I could still remember him standing before the class and reading the poem in a voice like velvet: “It was many and many a year ago / In a kingdom by the sea, / That a maiden there lived whom you may know / By the name of Annabel Lee.” I remembered the way his dark eyes had seared into mine and I’d felt then a terrible, burning uneasiness deep within me. That same feeling flooded back to me now, and I felt my throat go dry and my chest begin to seize up. Could it really be him? Had an innocent prank really summoned something so monstrous? I didn’t want to believe it, but looking at the bewildered expressions around me, I knew there was no mistake. That message was intended for me and me alone. Jake Thorn was back and right here in the room with us.
My gut reaction was to instinctively tear myself away, but I fought against it. Protecting the others was the only thing that stopped me. I prayed we still had time to end the séance properly and return the evil we’d conjured back to where it came from.
“Tell us what you want,” Abby said, swallowing hard, her voice several octaves higher than before.
What was she doing? Couldn’t she see how out of our depth we were? I was about to take charge and demand that Abby stop when the doorknob began to rattle vigorously. It shook and twisted from side to side as if some invisible force were trying to get out. By all logical reasoning it was impossible — the door was unlocked. Such an unnatural occurrence proved too much for some of the girls to handle.
“Try to stay calm,” I counseled in as level a voice as I could muster, but it was too late. Molly pulled her hands free and scrambled backward on all fours. In the process she kicked the board with her foot and sent it skidding across the floorboards. The sherry glass flew into the air and landed beside me, splintering into tiny shards. At that moment I felt a rush of frosty air hit me in the chest, almost knocking the wind out of me. The bedroom door flew open, rattling on its hinges.
“Molly!” Hallie screeched as soon as she’d recovered from the shock. “What have you done?”
“I don’t want to play anymore,” Molly cried in a choked voice. She wrapped her arms around her torso, as if she could hug the warmth back into her body. “Beth was right, this was a stupid idea, and we should never have done it.”
I got up and fumbled for the light switch, my stomach twisting into a knot when I remembered the power at the house had been disconnected.
“It’s okay, Molly.” I put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her, trying not to let her see the panic that was welling inside me. Somebody needed to stay calm. I could feel Molly’s body shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to tell her it was nothing but a stupid game and we could all have a good laugh about it later. But deep down, I knew this was no harmless prank. I rubbed Molly’s arm and said the most comforting thing I could think of.
“Let’s just go downstairs and pretend it never happened.”
“I don’t think it’s that easy.” Abby’s voice was soft and ominous. She was still kneeling on the floor, picking up shards of broken glass, her eyes fixed on the mess before her.
“Stop it, Abby,” I said angrily. “Can’t you see she’s scared?”
“No, Beth, you don’t get it.” Abby looked up at me and I saw all her condescension had fallen away. Her blue eyes were just as wide and alarmed as Molly’s. “She broke the circle.”
“So what?” I demanded.
“Whatever we summoned was trapped within the circle,” Abby whispered. “We could have sent it back. But now …” Her voice was tremulous as she looked around the room uneasily. “Molly just set it free.”
5
Highway to Hell
I stood on the landing watching my hysterical friends stumble down the stairs two at a time. It wouldn’t be long before word spread that there’d been an actual ghost sighting on the night of Halloween. While no one had actually seen anything, I was sure the story would be embellished many times before the night was over.
A sudden wave of dizziness caused me to reach for the banister to steady myself. So far what had been planned as a night of fun had turned out to be anything but. I’d had enough of this party. It was time to leave. Now all I had to do was find Xavier and ask him to take me home. When the dizziness passed, I found my way into the kitchen where I was grateful to be greeted by a much more innocent Halloween activity. A group was taking turns bobbing for apples in a tin tub they’d dragged in from the barn and placed in the center of the room. A girl was on her knees practicing taking deep breaths before submerging her face in the water. The onlookers cheered her on. When she finally rocked back on her heels, her dark hair clung to her exposed neck and shoulders and a rosy apple was clenched triumphantly between her teeth. When someone propelled me forward, I realized I had unwittingly joined the line to play.