Fuel the Fire

by Krista Ritchie

  He holds my gaze and then takes the matches from me, setting down the popcorn bowl. He begins to help light the remaining candles that circle the room. I catch his eyes flitting back to me, his smile still there.

  I can feel my lips traitorously mimic his expression.

  He grins more, but I strangely like the sight.

  “Is that the last rule?” Daisy asks, tying her hair into a high bun.

  I had more, but they seem superfluous. I just want everyone to have a good time. “That’s it,” I declare, taking a seat on my dark blue sleeping bag just as Connor finishes lighting the last candle. And then a phone rings.

  We all begin to check ours—

  “It’s me,” Connor declares. I stiffen, watching him put the matches on the couch. He’s going to take the call. I can’t read his expression, so I worry it’s…

  “Is it Scott?” I ask him.

  The entire room falls into a tense hush. They all know he’s been trying to befriend Scott, but no one knows what that entails but me. Even without the details, everyone can see how much stress has piled on top of him. He may not show it in his features, but there’s a quiet intensity that hangs above Connor that wasn’t there before.

  “No,” he says, passing me. “It’s Frederick.” He flashes the phone’s screen to me, just to ease my concern. “I’ll be a couple minutes. You can start calling upon air particles without me.”

  “No one likes a skeptic,” I retort.

  “On the contrary darling, everyone loves me.” He smiles as though he’s the exception. He is, in a lot of ways, though I won’t ever admit it to him. He puts the phone to his ear, disappearing into the bathroom for privacy.

  We’re all in a wide circle, the sleeping bags cushioning the floor.

  Lily hugs her popcorn bowl. “Is anyone else scared of ghosts?”

  Lo’s smile dimples his cheeks, and he swoops an arm over his wife’s shoulders. “I’ll protect you from the supernatural, love.”

  “What if Rose conjures a demon?” she combats.

  “I’m not going to conjure a demon.”

  “Because she is the demon,” Lo tries to whisper this to Lily, but his voice echoes off the vaulted ceiling.

  “Return to hell, Loren,” I rebut.

  “Not if you’re there.”

  I consider grabbing the bear spray and directing the nozzle at his face.

  “What first?” Daisy interjects and thusly breaks our small argument that could’ve escalated into a fight.

  This slumber party is about rekindling old times together while bringing in new things, all of the guys and Willow.

  “Light-as-a-feather first.”

  Daisy wags her brows at her boyfriend. “I think we should do Ryke first.”

  It comes off as a sexual innuendo.

  “I’m rating this party G,” Lo says, “for Gross.” His voice is lighthearted, not meaning the words as anything more than a joke.

  Daisy smiles. “I give it a NC-18-to-27 rating.” She extends her arms theatrically. “No Cake for any of us.” She puts her hand to her forehead, feigning fainting. “The horror.”

  Everyone laughs, even me. When we quiet down, I motion to Ryke, “You need to lie in the middle of the circle.” He does as instructed without complaint.

  Lo eats popcorn out of Lily’s bowl. “Good luck, bro. May your sacrifice bring us twenty days of good harvest.”

  Lily pokes his chest. “We’re playing light-as-a-feather, not sacrificing him.” Her head whips in my direction. “Right?”

  In no way would I harm one of our own. “We’re not sacrificing anyone,” I declare.

  “You girls may not be able to lift me,” Ryke warns us.

  I laugh shortly. We will conquer.

  “We’re the Calloway sisters,” Daisy proclaims, nudging my arm and then Lily’s. “We can do anything, right?”

  “Definitely,” Lily and I say together.

  “Plus Willow,” Daisy adds and raises her hand to the eighteen-year-old girl. Willow high-fives her with a growing smile, and I recognize now that Daisy is better at integrating people on the fringe of groups than maybe I am.

  Lo shuts off the lights before returning to his popcorn.

  “Are you going to participate?” I ask him.

  “I’m going to casually observe my brother being picked up by a bunch of girls at a sleepover.” He snickers like this is too good to pass up and eats more popcorn.

  “I can fucking hear you giggling,” Ryke tells Loren, about to turn his head, but I snap my fingers and he looks at the ceiling again.

  “Is the sacrifice supposed to be talking?” Lo asks me.

  I ignore Loren, and I sit on one side of Ryke with Willow, and then Lily and Daisy are on the other side of his body. After I give brief instruction, we each slide no more than two fingers beneath him. I’m near his shoulder blades.

  I say first, “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” The girls then begin to repeat the chant with me.

  “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.”

  “Light as a feather, stiff as a—”

  “Cock.” Lo causes Daisy to break out in a fit of laughter, ruining the concentration of the ritual. Lily is probably a new shade of red, but I can’t even tell in the dark, the candles only adding a dim, orange glow to the room.

  I wish we started with Lo in the middle—then I could’ve purposefully dropped him on his ass.

  My glower should send Loren shrinking, but he just stares right at me, unaffected. “What?” he says. “You knew I was going to do it.” When I had slumber parties with Lily and friends, he always crashed them, and whenever we reached this part, he’d make the same infantile comment.

  “For some insane reason, I thought you would’ve matured past ten-years-old.”

  “I’m twenty-five. I am acting my age. My ten-year-old self was the one ahead of his time.”

  I wave my hand at him, silently telling him to shut up. My heart may be smiling though—if a heart can smile. It is like old times, but better…I look at Daisy. “Let’s do this again.”

  Daisy gives me a thumbs-up, and Willow and Lily nod, ready.

  We begin the chant in hushed whispers, “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.”

  “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” We begin slowly raising Ryke with only our fingers. His body feels more weightless as we go higher, transitioning from our knees to a crouch.

  “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” It becomes easier, his body hovering off the ground with our teamwork and focus.

  “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” We’re standing, and he’s now four feet off the ground.

  “Light as a feather.” Ryke is at my shoulders. “Stiff as a board.” Our voices grow in octave and the chant picks up pace. He continues to rise higher and higher, past my neck, past my head.

  “Holy shit,” Lily curses in surprise.

  Instantly, his body feels like a ton of weight, ready to snap my index finger into two. Lily gasps and lets go first, then Willow falters, and Ryke crashes downward.

  Onto me.

  My ass hits the floor hard, maybe karma for my evil thoughts towards Loren Hale. Ryke’s left elbow digs into my ribs, his body weight crushing me. This is not ideal.

  “Fuck,” Ryke curses. “Rose, are you okay?” His sincerity and concern is greatly appreciated.

  “This is a new game.” Connor’s voice electrocutes my insides. I can’t see him past Ryke’s large head. Ryke picks himself off me as quickly as he can and apologizes to me, not to Connor. Since I’m the one he body-slammed into the ground.

  “Enrage a spirit already?” Connor says as he steps over bowls to reach me in the middle of the sleeping area. His eyes sweep me for signs of injury. I’m all in one piece, and my glare must calm him enough because he never mentions ice bags or trips to the hospital.

  “No,” I say, straightening my black pajama top.

  Connor puts a foot on either side of my legs and he squats in front o
f me, the whole motion caked with dominance, and I freeze altogether. “Were we playing twister without the mat?” he asks, and I notice the wine glass in his hand. I didn’t see him slip out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, but if he did, he saw our game.

  He’s just being an ass. His lips rise as he takes a sip, intolerably slow. An infuriating, attractive ass.

  “Light-as-a-feather, stiff-as-a-board,” Lily answers. “We were lifting Ryke.”

  He knows, I want to say, but I’m having a stare-a-thon with my husband. I will not blink and lose.

  “I can’t believe it worked,” Daisy beams, and Ryke messes her hair out of the bun. It’s her first time playing an adolescent game. When she finally reached the “slumber party” age in her life, she was treated so much older than that. Our mother aged her with us, but in doing so, Daisy skipped these youthful, fun years.

  “Yeah, it worked before Ryke crash-landed on Rose,” Lo says. “It was literally like a scene from The Wizard of Oz.”

  I whip my head to him, about to have some choice words, but Connor clasps my hand. I lost the stare-a-thon. I sigh as he helps me to my feet.

  I place a hand on his chest. “You’re just in time.”

  “For what, darling?”

  “The séance or, as you call it, speaking to air particles.” A funny taste is in my mouth even repeating those words.

  “So we’re not done playing pretend then?”

  “It’s magic,” Lily pipes in. “Not pretend.”

  “It’s not magic,” Connor says. “It’s science. You evenly distributed yourselves around Ryke, and it becomes easier to lift anyone like that.”

  “What about the chanting?” she asks.

  “It helps coordinate everyone, so your movements are in sync.”

  I’m married to the biggest disbeliever, and strangely, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I sit down in the circle again with Connor by my side, sipping his wine. Maybe he prefers to be intoxicated for this.

  “Ohhh,” Lily gapes in realization. She frowns a little and then turns to Loren. I hear her whisper, “So we’re not magic?”

  “We’re definitely magic,” he whispers back with a nod.

  “Then what are they?” Her eyes flicker to Connor and me, catching us watching them.

  Lo purposefully raises his voice so we can hear. “An immortal god who married an immortal demon.” He flashes a dry smile. “Match made in purgatory.”

  Oddly enough, I do feel in purgatory with Connor right now, our futures in flux with the press conference looming and Scott still nagging my husband for a season two.

  “Speaking of purgatory…” I rise and collect some of the candles, placing them in the middle before I take my seat again.

  “Oh wait, this is happening now?” Lily clutches a baby monitor and then tosses her quilt over head. Lo cocoons her in his arms.

  He whispers, “Are you trying to blend in with all the other ghosts, love?”

  “Uh-huh,” she whispers back, frightened.

  Daisy waves her hand through the flame, too quickly to be burned, so no one says anything. “Can we call upon Old Aunt Margot and ask her what she thought of Dad’s first bottle of Fizz?”

  “It must’ve tasted like shit,” Lo says. “Didn’t he make it in his basement?”

  “Garage,” I correct. He was a teenager with lofty ambitions, kind of like me, I suppose. Only he started from nothing. I started from the high platform that he gave me—more privileged than most.

  The more I relate Fizzle to his dream and his dream to fear of losing it all—I can understand his stance on the press conference. I just wish we were on the same side this time.

  “I didn’t know you had aunts and uncles,” Ryke says, a little surprised and hurt by this fact…maybe because Loren isn’t shocked at all. He’s as close to our extended family as we are.

  “All of them are in different parts of the United States,” Daisy tells him, “but Old Aunt Margot used to live with her sister, which is our dad’s mom.” Grandma Pearl is retired in Palm Beach, Florida, living in what she calls “paradise” thanks to her son’s generosity.

  Connor rubs his lips, slightly irritated, I can tell. “So she’s Great Aunt Margot?”

  “Old Aunt Margot,” all my sisters and I say in unison.

  “When did ‘great’ and ‘old’ become synonymous?” He looks to me for an answer since clearly she is our great aunt by relation.

  “No one ever called her great…” I trail off, realizing how upsetting this sounds. “She liked being called old.” Oh God, that’s worse, isn’t it? “It was her choice.” I end with that, which is as good as it gets.

  “I wish I could’ve met her,” Connor says with a smile. “She seems interesting.”

  I’m about tell him that he’s about to meet her, but Loren pipes in, “She smelled like rotten green olives, so consider yourself lucky.”

  I glower. “You’re going to wish you didn’t insult her.”

  “Did I offend her already? Where is she?” He looks over his shoulder mockingly.

  “You just broke rule number two.”

  “And I’m still alive.” He nods to Connor. “What do you call that, love?”

  “Favoritism,” he says.

  I gag. “He’s not my favorite anything.”

  Coconut suddenly howls from the kitchen, paws pitter-pattering on the floorboards. Daisy stiffens, and scans the room quickly. We all go quiet, and Ryke pulls Daisy closer to him, his lips by her ear as he whispers, most likely comforting words.

  “Aunt Margot it is,” I say, trying to draw attention off her. “Let’s all hold hands.” I clasp Connor’s and then Willow’s. Daisy takes a deep breath, especially as Coconut settles down.

  “Close your eyes,” I instruct.

  I wait for everyone, mostly Connor though, who stubbornly keeps both eyes open. He arches a brow. After you, he seems to say.

  I trust that he’ll shut his eyes too. So I close mine first. “Aunt Margot,” I start…and I have to take a peek at Connor, to see if he’s playing along. Even if it’s not real to him, it’s real to me.

  His eyes are surprisingly shut.

  I love him even more for it.

  “We’re calling you, Aunt Margot,” I say. The rain thrashes more viciously than before, the wind whistling. “We miss your beautiful, lost soul. Please come to us.”

  Lo snickers first, and I can feel Connor try not to laugh.

  Ignore them, Rose. “Fight through the barrier of the afterlife so that we may speak with you.”

  Craaaaaaccck!

  Lily lets out a petrified squeal beneath her quilt.

  “What the fuck was that?” Ryke asks. He looks only out the floor-length window, so I think he’s actually worried about the structural damage from the storm.

  “It’s electrostatic discharge,” Connor tells him. “Also known as lightning.”

  The lights flicker on and off until a bulb cracks and they all go out. The TV clock blinks with them, so we’ve lost power.

  “Ohmygod,” Lily slurs in panic.

  “Old Aunt Margot?” Daisy calls out, the only one with her eyes still closed. “Can you hear us?” Despite her playful voice, I can tell that she’s putting on a brave front, her collar protruded as she holds in a breath. She white-knuckles her knees, and I worry that the whole séance might’ve been a horrible idea.

  Whhhaaaaap!

  Lily shrieks at the new noise, the one emanating from upstairs. Coconut scampers into the living room with determination, actually checking the sliding door…the dog locks it back with the nudge of her nose.

  I saw Ryke training the Siberian husky on the first day here, showing her the latches to the doors and all the exits, so I’m not surprised she has the talent to lock the door—I’m just alarmed that the door is unlocked to begin with.

  “What was that noise?” Lily asks, unable to see Coconut’s vigilant routine. “Connor?”

  He’s staring at the ceiling. “An object fell.”


  “By a ghost?”

  Thuuump! is followed by a long, sharp groan…maybe a human groan. No. There’s absolutely no way. We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one else is here. I made sure of it.

  Animals.

  There are live animals upstairs.

  I will butcher whatever rodent has decided to lodge in our house. Mice, I think. It’s probably an infestation of them.

  Ryke immediately rests a hand on Daisy’s head, her forehead coated in sweat, her breath shallow, struggling to swallow air.

  Ryke whistles, and I see Coconut’s white fur round the corner. “Lie down, Dais.” He helps my sister on her back to combat the start of a panic attack, and the dog curls onto Daisy’s chest, the applied weight acts as deep pressure therapy—I’ve seen it help her once before.

  Footsteps patter upstairs. I stand and grab my baby monitor, listening for Jane. I can hear her soft snores, which eases me a little, but I plan to check—

  More footsteps. It’s not a person. It’s an animal.

  Lily flings off the quilt. “Moffy,” she says, bolting towards the staircase, baby monitor still in her clutch.

  “Lily, wait—” Lo runs after her, and then Willow sprints in the complete opposite direction, through a darkened hallway.

  Without second thought, I race after Willow, feeling Connor hot on my heels. When she hurriedly ascends another staircase, Connor beats my pace and passes me, brushing my shoulder with his hand like it’s okay. He knows…something that I don’t.

  The second-floor hallway is pitch-black. I try to flick on the lights, but nothing happens. Connor takes out his cellphone and turns on the flashlight portion, a blue glow illuminating Willow as she tries to turn the knob of a certain door.

  She bangs on the wood. “Are you okay?”

  I rush to her a little after Connor reaches and asks, “Is he in there?”

  Willow says quickly, “He didn’t have anywhere else to go. I made sure to blindfold him here. I promise, he has no idea where this place is.”

  I raise my chin, in battle mode with Connor. I pull Willow back closer to me so he can open the door. When he does, he points the flashlight at the room, illuminating the quilted bed. An eighteen-year-old boy sits on the edge, a lamp shattered on the floor. He holds his bare foot, as though trying to check the sole…blood trickles—a piece of glass lodged in the bottom.