“Is everything okay?” She asked with a quirked eyebrow.
Holding my breath, I pulled on the best poker face I could manage and forced a smile.
“Nope. I mean- yeah! Everything's fine. Great.”
“I thought I heard-”
“Scary movie,” I interrupted. “Those Jason movies do a number on me. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.”
“Oh, uh, okay.” She poked her head inside the room and glanced around, looking for who knows what. “Well... switch to a comedy for a while.”
“Ha! Right. Will do.”
I waited until she made it a good way down the hall before shutting and locking the door behind her. Leaning back against the heavy metal, I covered my eyes and took long, deep breaths, trying to rid myself of the anxiety attempting to screw with my heart.
Air... I need air.
I did a one-eighty, unlocked the door and dashed toward the exit. The dorm was deserted. The only noise echoing through the hall was coming from my shoes slapping against the tile floor. Most of the residents were either out celebrating the end of the semester or they were studying for finals they had yet to take. But I didn't care about any of them. I just needed to calm myself enough to process what had just happened.
Fresh air slapped me in the face as soon I pushed open the outside door and I inhaled like my life depended on it. Naturally, I placed a hand over my heart like I'd done so many times before.
“Steady.”
I was already sick of whatever my rebellious heart was trying to do. Was I just overwhelmed? Could that be it? Maybe... but as I stood there waiting for my body to ease back into it's natural rhythm, a much more terrifying thought registered in my brain. Was my body rejecting this heart? After three years?
Surely not.
Not knowing what else to do, I decided my only option was to rid my life of any excess stress - starting with that damn Ouija board. Just the thought of it was enough to send my pulse skyrocketing, let alone all the things that had happened after using the stupid thing.
I stood outside for as long as I could without drawing attention. As I stared up at the brick building towering over me, I realized that I didn't have to worry about my problem for much longer. Whatever we'd conjured up in that room could stay behind to screw with whatever poor soul moved in next fall.
Yeah. That's right. After a few more days, this won't be my problem anymore.
That thought calmed me to the point that I found my feet moving back toward the door. That is, until the harsh reality set in. Chastising myself, I realized that what has just flitted through my mind was the single most selfish thought I'd ever had. I wasn't the kind of person who just shoved my problems into someone else's lap. I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing that someone else was suffering because of my stupid decisions.
Good job, Bree. Way to fail at being a decent human being...
The idea of what I had to do next made my stomach roll. But I wasn't a coward, and I wasn't evil. If I made a mistake, I worked and strategized until I found a solution. So, knowing what I had to do, took a deep breath, built walls around all the fearful thoughts bouncing around inside my head, cracked my neck from side to side, and slowly made my way upstairs.
Returning to my room, I found the board and planchette and returned them to their rightful place at the table. After sweeping my hair up into a fresh ponytail, I rolled my shoulders back and had a little pep talk with my heart.
“Quit being a pansy. This is ridiculous. We can do this.” I pointed at my chest for emphasis. “We're stronger than this thing.”
Placing the planchette in the center of the board, I closed my eyes and summoned every ounce of determination and courage I had in me... before summoning something else.
“Okay, listen up. I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know what you want, but I do know that you shouldn't be here. Asking for you to contact us was a mistake and it's time for you to leave.”
A cold tingle slithered its way up the back of my neck until my hair was standing on end. My gut felt empty as I waited in silence for a clue, a sign, a message.
“Jake? What do you want?”
My voice wavered and I let out an uneven breath, hating the fact that there were tears forming in my eyes. I tried to hedge my shoulders down, to relax my muscles as I waited.
“Shit!”
I screamed as the planchette flew out from beneath my fingertips. I couldn't do anything but stare and shake as it made its way across the board, scooting from letter to letter. Without taking my eyes off its progress, I grabbed blindly for the pen and paper we used to take messages. I scribbled each letter as the planchette stopped for just a split second. It didn't wait for me, it carried on with an urgency that an inanimate object shouldn't possess.
Seconds swung by in a blur as I focused on the message being spelled out in front of me. Yes, I was scared, but there was something else pulsing to life inside my chest. Exhilaration. Not many exciting things had happened to me in my short life, but this was definitely on its way to shooting its way to the top of the list.
Finally, after all movement ceased, I let out the breath I was holding and looked down to find a jumble of letters. It was an easy enough puzzle to solve. I swiped slashes between the letters, breaking them up into words until one sentence stared at me from the page.
“He won't understand,” I read aloud. I hadn't expected that. I'm not sure what I expected, but the words left me wanting. “What does that even mean? Who won't understand?”
Chuckling, half out of annoyance and half from sheer terror at what I was doing, I hopped down from the chair and started pacing the length of the room. I was too wound up to sit still.
“Who is 'he'?” I asked, raking my still-shaking hands through my hair.
After watching the board come to life so quickly, I expected more. It was a deflating let down to find it silent. Silence was what I had hoped for in the beginning- but not after receiving a message. Now, I wanted answers.
I stomped back to the board and screamed as if it could hear me. “Who is he? What kind of vague ass warning is that? You can't just tell me something like that and then disappear. Elaborate, dammit!”
I slammed my hands against the table, causing the planchette to bounce off the board and land on its side. Heaving deep, angry breaths, I clawed one hand over my chest - because it felt as if my heart was being seized by a Charlie horse- and used the other to wipe away the tears that had begun trailing down my cheeks.
“This is ridiculous,” I whispered. “I don't need your cryptic messages. You need to cross over and leave the living to their lives... Do you hear me?”
Of course, there was no answer.
Slowly, but thankfully, the cold grip of fear that was strangling my heart began to lessen. It became easier to breath as the room seemed to warm by ten degrees. And by the time I regained the ability to breathe normally, the tension in the air was gone.
And so was Jake.
***
After Sydney and Veronica returned from taking their finals, we decided to splurge on pizza instead of going to the student center for dinner since Nora was still stuck at the library. That was fine with me. I didn't want to be around any more people than I had to be. I was exhausted. Mentally and physically. The same questions kept ping-ponging their way around my head over and over.
What have I done?
Why did I want that stupid Ouija board?
Why on earth did I think trying to communicate with a freaking spirit was a good idea?
My poor heart echoed this question with every beat.
What have I done?
What have I done?
What have I done?
“What's wrong?”
I jerked to attention at the sound of Sydney's worried voice.
“What? Nothing!” I quietly told myself to chill as I forced a smile to my face and tried to act as if I wasn't on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Just stressed over grades being posted, I
guess.”
“Well, I am too but... don't take this the wrong way or anything, because you know I love you, but you look like shit. Hammered shit.”
I laughed at her bluntness but continued on with the lie. “It's just grades. And my mom wants me to come home for the summer. I'll feel a million times better after this weekend. I could use a few days to just unwind and have fun.”
“Ditto,” Veronica chimed in. “We'll have plenty of time to lounge around, drink skunky beer, and get super hot suntans that-”
“Burn. I'll get a sunburn.”
“That will have all the boys beggin' to see our tan lines,” she finished with a seductive shoulder shrug.
“Tan lines are sexy now? How about Melanoma? Is that sexy too?”
I ducked to avoid the pillow Veronica lobbed at my face.
“You're such a killjoy,” she laughed.
I didn't disagree. If it meant that I could go the rest of my life without feeling like I'd made the biggest mistake of my life, I'd gladly be labeled as a killjoy. And as if my fears were typed out in a thought bubble over my head, Sydney asked a question that had my fake smile tugging down at the sides.
“What'd you do with the Ouija board?”
I hadn't been able to bring myself to throw it away. After all, it was a birthday present from Nora, one I'd wanted for a very long time. So, it was packed away in a box. Two boxes actually. I was paranoid enough that when I packed my belongings for the move, I put the board in one box and the planchette in another. A small part of my mind reasoned that without the two pieces together, it didn't wield as much power.
“Packed it for the move.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She left it at that and I was thankful. I wouldn't be able to hide the panic that the mere mention of the board caused for very long. My friends could read me like a book.
So, like the good little book I needed to be, I straightened my cover, smoothed out my binding, and pushed myself in between Sydney and Veronica on the couch like they were my own personal bookends.
***
I had always been a heavy sleeper. My mother used to joke that I could sleep through a tornado. That wasn't far off actually. I'd slept through more than one tornado warning as a teenager and as an adult, I'd fallen asleep at two concerts, one open-mic night, and more hard-core action movies than I cared to count.
So, it struck me as odd when the beat of the second hand on Sydney's wall clock pulled me from sleep.
Disoriented and sleep-heavy, I opened my eyes and glanced around the room with an unsettling feeling of deja vu. The room was quiet, all except for soft breathing and the ticking clock. Even so, I peered through the blanket of darkness, waiting.
My mouth went dry as a cold chill ran through my limbs and I watched goosebumps erupt along my exposed skin. The breath I'd been in the process of taking caught in my throat and I wrapped my arms around myself, not knowing what to expect next.
I wasn't naive. And I wasn't stupid. I knew exactly what was happening and why.
“Go. Away.” I whispered harshly.
The temperature grew impossibly colder and I fought to keep my teeth from chattering as my mind went wild. Holding the blanket against my chest, I squinted into the darkness. The board was safely packed away in a box with movies and books while the planchette was wrapped in a washcloth nestled among my toiletries. The communication medium was gone. There was nothing left for this spirit to manipulate.
Not wanting to wake Sydney, I swung my feet off the bed and quietly made my way to the bathroom. After locking the door, I turned to face the mirror. The overhead light was a welcome assault to my eyes. I was growing to hate the darkness. Too many things lurked just inside the shadows, and I had no need to figure out what those things were.
Squinting, I tilted my head from side to side, taking note of the bags under my eyes and the lack of color in my cheeks. As I surveyed my reflection, something stirred in the back of my mind... A story Sydney had once told me. According to her, there was a figure that appeared in the mirror if you called their name three times.
Just thinking about that sent a wave of bile roaring to life in my gut, so I leaned over, turned the faucet on, and splashed cold water on my face, hoping that would ease the tension.
It didn't.
After patting my face dry, I checked my reflection one last time before turning back to the door. I flipped the light off and moved to step over the threshold into the adjoining room. But as I moved, my breath caught in my throat as I was met by a cool wall of nothingness.
No. It wasn't just nothing. At least, it didn't smell like nothing. Accompanying the terrifying chill pressing in on me was something entirely out of place.
It wasn't familiar, but I knew exactly what it was.
Men's cologne.
As if on cue with the recognition, my heart started beating loudly in my chest. I could hear it in my ears as it blasted into a fearful tempo while I swung my head from side to side, searching every corner for movement.
“This is bullshit,” I said, turning back to the mirror as I swiped tears from my cheeks. “Just show yourself!”
Two cold tendrils of fear walked up my spine as my body curled in on itself and I realized that was the wrong damn thing to say.
No. No, no, no.
Shocked into silence, I could do nothing but quake as a figure stepped forward to stand by my side. As if he sensed it was finally safe to come out of hiding, the dark shadows that had been concealing him fell away to reveal something I hadn't expected to see.
Pale skin that should have caught the moonlight, but didn't.
Hair as black as pitch. As unruly as it was dark.
A dress shirt and tie that had seen better days.
And beguiling blue eyes rimmed in red.
The man standing next to me in the mirror was... well, he was terrifying. Because he did NOT belong there.
But it wasn't his appearance that had me fighting for breath. A small, tiny crevice of my brain was able to suspend my fear long enough to acknowledge that he was a beautiful creature. What had my heartbeat tripling in speed was the hollow, lost look that painted his face as our eyes collided in the mirror.
“Jake?”
The whisper was so soft it didn't even make a sound. Yet, he understood.
One nod.
I nodded too. No idea why- it was completely involuntary.
“You can't be here,” I said a bit louder. “You- you need to leave. Cross over. Go haunt someone else. Something. I don't care, just get out of my mirror.”
My words possessed a strength I had no idea I had. I clenched my mouth shut with such force that a tiny bolt of pain shot through my teeth. Every muscle in my body was taunt with a maelstrom of emotions I couldn't name nor control.
“Please,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “Please leave.”
The spirit, the apparition, the.... whatever he was, lowered his eyes before taking a step back and melting into the shadows.
And that was it.
He was gone.
I let out the breath I'd been holding for who knows how long and turned to make sure he was really gone. The room was empty. Void. Quiet. Nothing in the room had been affected by his visit. There was no sign of him at all. Even as the shadows stood still, my heart plummeted down into my stomach and I didn't understand why.
Something was off.
As I made my way back to bed, where I knew for certain I wouldn't sleep, something snagged at the edge of my brain and I realized just what had me so worried.
Jake. His lips. And the way they had twitched just the tiniest bit as he was turning to leave.
Almost as if he was... smiling?
Chapter Four
The girls and I sang along to the dumbest song ever written as we made our way to the lake. With every mile we drove, more tension eased from our shoulders. It was nice to be able to just relax in the company of best friends, and I intended to fully unwind while camping. Nothing mellows
a girl out like three days of sun, sweat, and Skyy Vodka.
By the time we reached the campground, we were all in party mode. We no longer looked like four women who had spent a month vigorously studying for finals we could never prepare for. I also no longer felt like I was wearing my shoulders for earrings, so that was a nice improvement. I had never been more grateful for the opportunity to relax.
“There it is!” Sydney shouted as we pulled up behind a line of parked cars. They seemed to be walling in an entire village of tents set up in one huge cluster.
“Do we even have a tent?” Nora asked.
We all rolled our eyes before exiting the car. If Nora hadn't been so busy eye-banging the hot checkout guy at Wal-Mart, she would have noticed the enormous five person tent we bought.
We made our way across the grass, scoping out the scene before us. The crowd mostly consisted of our fellow dorm-mates, but there were quite a few people I didn't recognize. Everyone had a red solo cup in hand, a smile on their face, and a victorious gleam in their eye – the tell-tale symptoms of college students free for summer break.
“New meat,” Sydney giggled as she ogled the crowd.
Normally, I would have scoffed at her objectification of the male form, but I was too excited to pay it any mind. Plus, wow. Guys in nothing but swim trunks and backward ball caps? Swoon...
“Look! Carter saved us a spot!”
I shielded my eyes from the sun and squinted in the direction Veronica was pointing. Sure enough, there was Carter, stretched out in a lawn chair, giving the stink eye to any man who dared step foot in his ten-by-ten stretch of grass.
As we approached, Carter slid his sunglasses down to rest on the tip of his nose.
“About time ya'll showed up.” He stood and dusted freshly mowed grass off his flip-flop clad feet. “I was worried I'd miss out on all the skirt chasing because none of you can keep to a schedule, but now that you're here, I bid you adieu.”
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