by Ania Ahlborn
“Brynn would know,” Maggie said. “We should see if she wants to play.”
Cheryl shifted her weight almost uncomfortably, then gave Maggie an unsure glance. “No way, Mags. She’d for sure talk to someone bad.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Another shrug. Clearly, Cheryl didn’t want to take responsibility for the gossip that was going around about Maggie’s sister, but Maggie had heard it, too. Brynn was always seen hanging out with combat-booted Mohawk-spiked Misfits-jacket-wearing Simon, always messing around with her new group of high school friends. Rumor had it they believed themselves to be real-life vampires. Some kids said that sometimes Brynn’s group would wander around Friendship Park after dark and do devil stuff. These stories eventually reached their mother, and were brought up at the dinner table in exasperated tones.
Do you know what they’re saying, Brynn? Do you have any idea? It’s embarrassing. I can’t go anywhere without people looking at me like . . . like I’ve raised a monster.
Oh, for God’s sake, Stella. Their father dropped his fork onto his plate and tossed his napkin onto the table. If they’re looking at you like that, then maybe you should stop filling those spaces.
Filling spaces? she asked. You mean, stop going to the salon? The Publix? Perhaps next you’ll suggest that we stop eating, is that it? Should I stop buying groceries? Feeding the family?
She’s just a kid, their dad insisted. If your hairdresser is too dense to understand that, you should find a new one before your hair goes up in flames.
Brynn took their father’s defense as an invitation to up the ante. She spent less time at home because, as she once told Maggie, I’d rather kill myself than spend another second anywhere near that bitch. Their mother had no desire to accept Brynn for who she was and, in turn, Brynn hated her for it.
“I don’t think she’d talk to someone bad,” Maggie told Cheryl, defending her sister, determined to not follow in her mother’s judgmental footsteps. “Those stories are lies. Brynn’s just different.”
“Yeah, but she and her friends go to the cemetery, right?” Cheryl asked. “Why would you do something creepy like that if you aren’t doing something weird? My mom says that unless you’re going to the graveyard to pray for someone, you’ve got no business being there.”
“Well, I’ve gone there a bunch of times, and I wasn’t praying,” Maggie confessed. “Does that mean that I was doing something wrong?” Granted, some would frown upon Maggie robbing graves of their fake flowers, but that wasn’t a crime, was it? She wasn’t stealing them, just spreading them around so nobody would feel left out. And yeah, she’d grabbed Dolly off that old tomb, but it was Brynn’s, and she’d only done it to protect it from getting ruined in the storm. Dolly was still hidden away in the closet. She needed to return her to her rightful spot . . . if she didn’t forget.
“You went to the graveyard with Brynn and her friends?” Cheryl didn’t buy it. Boys like Simon didn’t hang out with tweens like them.
Maggie shook her head no. “Just with Bee, and it was a long time ago.” A pause. “She told me this dumb story.” She got up, moved to the closet, and dug through the various miscellany upon her closet floor until she located the porcelain doll that had sat out in the graveyard for weeks. “She left this to freak me out.”
Cheryl frowned, clearly not liking the look of that thing. “You should have left it there.”
“I couldn’t. A storm was coming.”
“So? She was the one who put it there. Who cares if it got ruined?”
Maggie looked at the toy in her hands. She had cared. The idea of the doll getting ruined, regardless of whether it was a prank, had bothered her too much to let it happen.
“Besides, that’s creepy, too,” Cheryl said, staring at the doll. “What if they did something to it, like hexed it or something?”
“Hexed it?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Because that’s stupid,” Maggie said. “So, Brynn’s a witch now?” She gave the doll a final glance before returning it to the closet, making sure to shut the door tightly behind her.
“Maybe not Brynn, but her friends might be. Or maybe she is, because she got sucked into it. That’s how people in cults get other people to join. I watched a documentary about it.”
Maggie frowned at that.
“You know what it says in the Bible, don’t you?”
Maggie nearly rolled her eyes. It was always the Bible these days. Heck, as far as Maggie was concerned, it was Cheryl who was going to turn out weird, judging by how often she went to church. Maggie, on the other hand, went two or three times a year.
“It says that you don’t have to be bad if you’re hanging out with bad people. Those bad people can bring the devil into your life. You could be the nicest person, but hanging out with bad people is contagious. Like a disease.”
Maggie didn’t want to believe that. Brynn’s friends were definitely strange, but she’d met Simon a couple of times, and he had seemed nice, more interested in Maggie than Brynn ever was. And sure, maybe he was just being polite to his girlfriend’s kid sister, asking questions like what television shows Maggie liked and whether she listened to a lot of music—she didn’t dare bring up Justin or Kelly to a guy like him—but Maggie liked to think that he was genuine, a sincerely cool guy who just happened to have a crazy haircut.
“You know what we should do? Talk to someone from the graveyard,” Cheryl suggested.
Maggie retook her seat upon the floor. “Why?”
“Because if Brynn is doing something creepy, they’d know about it.”
Cheryl had a point. There were hundreds of ghosts lying in wait in Friendship Park. If Maggie wanted to clear up the rumors about her sister, what better way than to go to the source?
“But we’d have to know who to ask, I guess,” Cheryl said. “We’d have to go over there and get a name or something. Off one of the gravestones. And I’m not going out there, especially not in the middle of the night. You’d have to pay me a million bucks.”
That wouldn’t be necessary. Maggie inhaled a steady breath and spoke. “I know someone. A little girl . . .” She didn’t know the girl’s name; the limestone atop that fractured tomb was far too weathered to make out. But Maggie was confident she could summon her. After all, she’d visited so many times. She placed her hands on the planchette and spoke in a low voice: “Little girl from Friendship Park, the one with the dolly on top of the box . . . are you there?”
“You mean Brynn’s doll?” Cheryl asked, but Maggie shushed her, focusing on the planchette beneath their fingertips, waiting for it to do something wild. Spin around in circles. Levitate. Spontaneously combust. But it did nothing.
“Dolly?” Maggie said. “Remember me?”
Nothing.
“Maybe you’re doing it wrong,” Cheryl said.
“Shhh!” Maggie hissed just as Brynn had. “We’ve got to concentrate or it won’t work. Don’t talk!”
“Jeez, sorry!” Cheryl looked a little perturbed, not appreciating being snapped at. But she had a point—Maggie was doing it wrong. She was forgetting the most important part.
“Little girl of Friendship Park, I call you . . .”
No. That wasn’t right.
“I call onto you . . .”
Nothing. Cheryl shifted her weight, growing impatient.
“Crap, umm, I call upon you . . . ?”
“Ugh.” Cheryl rolled her eyes.
“I call upon thee!” That was it.
“Magic words?” Cheryl asked, unimpressed. “There’s no place like h—”
The planchette moved.
Both girls yelped and jerked their hands away.
“Mags!” Cheryl yelled.
“I didn’t do it!”
“Yeah right!”
“I swear, I didn�
��t . . .”
“You’re such a liar. You’re just as weird as Brynn, I swear,” Cheryl said, quite serious. “I keep telling my mom she’s wrong, but maybe not.”
“Your mom’s a jerk,” Maggie said.
“She is not! Take it back.”
But all Maggie managed was a muttered “I’m not weird.”
Except, now, Maggie was wondering if her fate truly was sealed. What if she grew up to be just like Brynn and, in the end, her own mother hated her? She pushed the board away. It thunked against the ground, still half propped up against one of Cheryl’s knees.
“I’m not weird,” she whispered again. Except . . . who was the girl who kept sneaking off to the cemetery despite Brynn having lost interest long ago? Who was the girl who had bought a Ouija board with her birthday money and had requested a séance instead of a party? Who was sitting with that board next to her feet right now? Was this her destiny, to follow in her sister’s footsteps? Would she argue with her mom the way Brynn did now?
“Hey.” Cheryl frowned. “Hey, don’t get upset, Mags. I didn’t mean it. Let’s not fight, okay? Here.” Cheryl placed the board back on Maggie’s legs. “I’ll be serious, okay?”
Maggie sucked in her bottom lip, but eventually relented. She didn’t want to fight, either, regardless of whether Cheryl’s last comment had hurt her feelings. She did want to know what Brynn was up to, because she missed the way she and her sister had once been: inseparable, almost best friends. An answer from the board wouldn’t just be useful in stopping all those nasty rumors; it would also help Maggie get close to Brynn again.
“Hey, Dolly?” Cheryl, this time. “We have a question.”
No movement.
Maggie shook her head. “We probably scared her away.”
“Scared a ghost? That’s a laugh. Dolly . . . if you’re here, do you know Maggie’s sister Brynn?”
“Let’s just forget it, Cher,” Maggie murmured. “I’m kinda tired anyw—”
The planchette began to crawl.
Both girls gaped at each other again.
“Are you—” Cheryl.
Maggie shook her head. No.
It stopped.
“Ghost!” Cheryl’s eyes were wide, glittering with a newfound sense of excitement. “Hey, ghost, do you know Brynn?”
One second. Two. Five seconds.
The planchette reversed direction.
Again, bewildered stares from both girls.
H.
Maggie watched the pointer swirl across the board, her own fingers hardly touching it at all.
I.
“Oh my gosh,” Cheryl whispered despite herself.
M.
“Him?” Maggie asked. “Him who? Simon?”
“Who’s Simon?” Cheryl asked.
“Brynn’s boyfriend.”
“That weird guy? It’s gotta be,” Cheryl said, her excitement continuing to grow. “The ghost is talking about Simon!”
A.
G.
It stopped there.
“Him A G.” Cheryl wrinkled her nose, not getting it.
“Who’s A G?” Maggie asked the board. Arlen’s name started with A. But G?
U.
“This is weird,” she said softly. “I don’t feel right, Cher. Maybe we shouldn’t be . . .”
“Oh, don’t be such a drag, Mags.”
Their wrists started to bend, the planchette slowly spinning in place rather than weaving across the letters.
“Him A G U,” Cheryl said. “How is anyone supposed to understand this thing without a dumb decoder pin?”
“Brynn said it doesn’t work, remember?” Maggie murmured. “She said it’s just a game.” But when she looked up, Cheryl was staring at her with a disturbed look across her face. “What? What’s wrong?”
“It’s not Him A G U,” Cheryl said. “It’s Hi, Mag. You.”
Maggie blinked, then looked down at the board. And that’s when she saw in what position the planchette had stopped. The tip of the plastic pointer was aimed right at her.
“I don’t want to play anymore,” Maggie said, and shoved the board away, once again hiding it beneath her bed.
“But don’t you want to know about what Brynn’s up to?” Cheryl asked. Maggie did, very much so. But it seemed to her that Cheryl was the one who was really intrigued now. Maggie, on the other hand, was nothing short of reluctant.
Cheryl wasn’t deterred by Maggie’s change of heart. She jutted her arm beneath Maggie’s bed and retrieved the board, repositioning it upon their laps. “Hands,” Cheryl said, nodding at the pointer, her own fingers already in place.
“Cher . . .”
“Hands!”
If Maggie didn’t do it, Cheryl always had Jenny. And sure, Maggie had other friends at school, too, but she and Cheryl shared a special bond. It was less than a year before they would both be eighth graders. After that, they’d be at a new school, changing classes every hour, learning how to navigate the halls, trying not to be outcasts amid all the cool kids in some massive cafeteria. Brynn would be there, but Brynn didn’t ever want to hang out anymore. For all Maggie knew, by the time she was a freshman, Brynn—who would be a senior—would pretend they were strangers. Maggie? Maggie who? Sulking, Maggie dropped her fingers onto the planchette. Because she didn’t want to lose Cheryl, not to something as stupid as this.
This time, the planchette didn’t hesitate. It began to trace circles across the center of the board before settling upon an H, and then an I.
“It’s talking to you,” Cheryl said. “Say hi back, Mags.”
“Hi,” Maggie said softly, frightened. “Do you remember me? From the . . .” The cemetery. She didn’t want to say the word, didn’t want to remind the little girl speaking to them through the board that she wasn’t the same as they were, that she was dead. Because if Brynn was right, that would make Dolly’s owner angry. It would make her rage.
The planchette circled, then stopped on YES.
“Do you remember Brynn?” Cheryl asked.
YES.
Maggie didn’t want to do this anymore. But she forced herself to keep her fingers on the pointer. She needed to prove herself. She didn’t want to be the boring fraidy-cat friend.
“Do you know what she does out there with her weirdo friends? Is she doing creepy stuff?” Cheryl was really getting into it now.
NO.
“See?” Maggie whispered across the board at her friend. “Let’s stop, now.”
“You made it say no,” Cheryl suggested. “You’re pushing the thing around.”
“I’m not pushing anything around,” Maggie said. “How am I supposed to know you’re not pushing it?”
Cheryl narrowed her eyes, annoyed by the insinuation. “Because I’m not. I already told you. And if I was pushing it, I’d have made it say yes.”
The planchette circled.
NO.
“Whatever.” Maggie frowned. This wasn’t fun anymore.
L.
I.
“You’re making it mad.” Cheryl.
K.
E.
“I thought you said I was just pushing it around.” Maggie.
NO.
“Well, you probably are.”
LIKE.
“Hey, ghost.” Cheryl. “Prove that you’re real.”
The planchette increased speed.
“Do something. Slam a door. Push something over. Make a sound. Pull Maggie’s hair.”
“Pull my—hey.” That hadn’t been nice.
NO LIKE.
“No like—no like what?” Cheryl asked.
“Cher, let’s stop, okay?”
NO LIKE.
It spelled it out again.
NO LIKE.
“I don’t want to
stop,” Cheryl insisted. “We’re having fun, right?”
And then, it settled upon a single letter.
NO LIKE U.
Maggie slowly looked up at Cheryl, and when their eyes met, Cheryl lost her nerve. She lifted her fingers from the pointer. “Yeah, okay, fine,” she said. “Whatever. Let’s do something else. Something boring.” Leaning back on her hands, she exhaled a sigh, trying to play off her rattled nerves as casually as she could. “I guess we can watch American Idol.”
But Maggie couldn’t get her hands off the planchette. She tried to lift them, but they were cemented there.
“Maggie, come on,” Cheryl whined, impatient. “I thought you didn’t want to play this stupid thing anymore.”
The planchette glided across the board.
FRIEND.
MAG.
YES.
“I’ll just call my mom, then,” she murmured. “Since you’re the one being creepy.”
FRIEND.
MAG.
YES.
Maggie could feel the words at the back of her throat, but they were getting stuck there, like water held back by a dam. I’m not doing this. Cher, it isn’t me.
FRIEND.
Over and over, like a mantra.
FRIEND.
Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Weird,” she said. “Like you-know-who.”
CHER.
“Um, yeah?” Cheryl arched both eyebrows, as if unsure whether to be annoyed or amused.
BITCH.
Maggie’s mouth dropped open.
HATE.
She shook her head. No, this wasn’t her. No, no, no.
“. . . What?” Cheryl blinked in disbelief. “What?” But rather than storming out, she snatched up the pointer, tearing it away from Maggie’s hands. “You think that’s funny?!”
“Cher . . .” Maggie’s voice returned, as though that planchette had temporarily stolen her ability to speak. Her right hand leapt to her collarbone, pressing against her half of their mutual best-friend necklace.
Cheryl threw the plastic pointer across the room. It hit the wall with a crack.
“It wasn’t me,” Maggie said weakly, knowing how ridiculous it sounded. “Cher, I promise, it . . .”