“Prudence’s soul is asleep,” Monica said, shaking her head. “But we don’t have much time.”
Andrea came closer and closer. She was floating just above the ground, the tips of her feet brushing against the wet grass. Her eyes were closed and I could sense that she was barely alive, that she was on the very edge of death.
“Andrea,” Monica said, snapping her fingers. “Wake up.”
Andrea’s eyelids flew open. “Hello, Elizabeth,” she said softly. “It’s been a long time.”
I stared right back at her. “Yes,” I replied. “Yes, it has.”
Chapter Eight
Andrea
When I was a little girl, my mother used to hold me in her arms and tell me that I was the most special child in the world. For a long time, I never really thought anything of it.
But as I got older, I realized how different my life was from the other children I knew.
We were always a very close-knit family. I was close to my mother, my aunts and uncles, and my brother, Steven. Mother prided herself on being the strength of the family, the backbone that kept the rest of us going. She was so strong that it scared me sometimes – I could hardly watch her without wondering if I’d ever learn to be as tough.
When I was four years old, something happened that would change the rest of my life. I remember the day really well – it was bright and sunny and humid, one of those summer days that makes you tired just from the heat. My older brother, Steven, and I were at church, in the basement: it was Vacation Bible School week, and I’d just gotten my very first bible. I was so proud and happy, I couldn’t stop running around and showing it off.
One of the other children pulled me aside and gave me a mean look.
“Do you believe in Hell,” she asked, plucking the bible from my hands and flipping through the thin pages. “Because I think we’re all going there.”
I can’t remember what I said back to her, but it really upset me. I couldn’t stop crying, and I wouldn’t tell my mother – or anyone else – what was bothering me so much. I was suddenly terrified of dying and going to Hell. For months and months, it was all I thought about. I barely slept. At night, I’d pull the covers over my head and pray for hours, too keyed up to drift off.
I thought it was real, you see – I felt it was real, with every cell in my body.
That was when I became truly religious. Our whole family was very pious, even Steven, before he got into high school. Mother would pray with us nightly, holding our hands and instructing us to stay close as a family. It was hugely important to me. And I have to admit, I enjoyed the special attention that I got from Mother now that I was learning to have a personal relationship with God.
But when I started school, everything changed. In kindergarten, I wasn’t very happy. Eventually, after a couple of months, the teachers tested me and decided that I should be placed in first grade. They thought that would help, but at first, it just made things worse. I felt so much smaller and younger than the rest of the children in my class, even though they were just one year older than myself. It was a strange and scary experience, and the only thing that got me through it was knowing that at the end of each day, I’d go home and Mother would be waiting with a snack in the kitchen.
My brother, Steven, took naturally to school. He was smart and athletic, and his older friends would always hang around the house, eating all of our food and making a mess in the kitchen. Mother didn’t mind, even when I sulk about it – she was happy that her children were doing well and making friends.
“Andrea, you’ve got to be friendly,” she’d say when I complained about not having any friends. “You’ve got to make those older kids realize that you deserve to be with them, don’t you understand?”
I understood, but I was so naturally shy that it was hard.
Then one day, everything changed. I was crying in the bathroom and two girls in my class – Elizabeth Hartsell and Monica Boer – walked into the bathroom. I’d never talked to them before. Elizabeth seemed nice enough: she was quiet, like me. But Monica was a troublemaker. She was loud and brash and she’d made half of the boys in our class cry.
I was afraid of her.
“Why are you crying?” Monica asked, walking over and putting her hands on her hips. She was short and slim, but somehow she seemed as intimidating as an adult. “There’s no reason to be upset,” she added. “You’re fine.”
“Monica…” Elizabeth looked at her friend and trailed off. “Andrea, what’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid,” I said softly.
“Don’t be stupid,” Monica said. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“But I might die,” I replied. Tears filled my eyes and my chin began to tremble and shake. “I might die and go to Hell.”
Elizabeth and Monica exchanged a weird look.
“You’re not going to die, don’t be stupid,” Monica said. She spoke with the arrogant air of our teacher. “Stop crying. We should go back to class.”
But Elizabeth had been kinder. She’d taken my hand and told me that everything was going to be okay, that I just had to take a few deep breaths until I calmed down. To my shock, she was right.
After that, we sort of became friends. I wasn’t particularly close to either of the girls, but my mother was just happy that I had a few acquaintances for playdates. And Monica was oddly fascinated with our house – she loved coming over and poking around, sticking her nose in all of Mother’s religious books.
“Little girls shouldn’t be reading that,” Mother said once, flushing as she plucked a book about natural contraception from Monica’s hands. “It’s inappropriate.”
Monica stuck her tongue out. “Jamie and Brian let me read whatever I want,” she said, tossing her fair hair. “I don’t think it’s fair.”
My mother didn’t care for Monica after that – she said she was disrespectful – but I couldn’t help it. I was suddenly in awe of her. She was so cool. She never cared what anyone thought about her, and she could come up with insults quicker than I could snap my fingers. Most of all, her parents let her wear whatever she wanted…and she called them by their first names! She was like a character from a show: cool and wild and more than a little scary.
I didn’t understand why she and Elizabeth were such good friends.
As we got older, I lost a little of the awestruck feelings I had towards Monica. We butted heads more than a few times, and when my beloved aunt died, Monica made fun of me for crying in the middle of school.
“You miss your aunt, don’t you,” Monica said after class, bumping her hip into mine with more force than necessary. For someone so small, she was actually quite strong.
“Yes.” I sniffled. “She was my best friend.”
“Well, we’re in ninth grade now,” Monica said, raking a hand through her pale blonde hair. “I mean, my grandparents both died last year. We’re getting older, people are starting to die off.”
“That’s not very nice,” I said, swallowing hard. A weird feeling was starting to bloom in my chest and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
“Well, yeah, I just mean, I’m sorry it happened,” Monica said. “It still hurt when my grandfather died, even though he had cancer. Like, we all saw it coming…but it still sucked.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “It hurts a lot.”
Monica’s eyes flashed mischievously. “I know a way you can talk to her,” she said, smiling. “Wanna come over?”
“What?” My heart skipped a beat in my chest. “What are you talking about?”
Monica smiled – a secret, cool little smile. “Just come to my house after school,” she said. “It’s fun, you’ll like it.”
I frowned. “I don’t know,” I said. “I should probably get home – I got extra homework in biology to make up for that test.”
Monica waved her hand through the air. “Forget biology, it’s easy,” she said. “Look, I’ll even help you with your work, okay?”
“What about Elizabeth?”
Monica laughed. “If your brother has soccer practice after school, Elizabeth won’t budge,” she said. “She’s got a huge crush on him.”
“Really?” I squinted. “On Steven?”
“Yeah,” Monica replied. She laughed. “Don’t tell her, she’ll kill me,” she said. “Or fine, tell her and watch her flip out. She’s so sensitive about it, it’s like the first time she’s ever liked a guy.”
I swallowed. “Steven’s not allowed to date yet,” I said. “Mother wouldn’t let him.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Monica said. She laughed again. “Elizabeth doesn’t care about that – she’s terrified of guys,” she said, snickering. “The one time Steven spoke to her, she turned bright red. So, come on, over to my place,” she added, jerking her head to the side. “And then we can talk to your aunt.”
I had a bad feeling about whatever it was that Monica was about to do, but I couldn’t deny that I was curious, too. I called Mother and told her I’d be a little bit late, and then followed Monica across town and into her parents’ rambling farmhouse.
“This is it,” Monica said triumphantly, pulling out a rectangular box and dumping it on my lap. “Come on, open it!”
I frowned. The box had a picture of a board with letters, numbers, and a sun and moon on it. “Oh-eye-ja? What is that?”
“Ouija,” Monica said. She shrugged. “I don’t know, I found it in the attic. But it works, look.” She plucked the box back from my hands and opened it on her bed. Pulling out a small plastic triangle, she held it in the air. “We put our fingers on this,” she said, demonstrating. “And close our eyes and then we can talk to spirits.”
“This doesn’t seem right,” I said slowly. “I…I don’t know, Monica. I don’t know that I want to do this.”
By now, I was so frightened that my curiosity had almost completely ebbed away.
“Come on, it’s totally harmless,” Monica said. “We’ll go up to the attic, Jamie and Brian won’t bother us there.”
So, I did what Monica wanted. I followed her into the attic, sat down, and put my hands on that horrible thing.
And after that, my life was never the same.
---
At first, after the séance, I was sure that the problem was with me. I couldn’t even remember what happened – the last thing I remembered was climbing up the rickety attic stairs behind Monica’s slim figure. And Monica wouldn’t talk to me – not that I wanted her to. I’d apparently run out of her house, screaming and crying and hysterical. And then my parents had called her parents, and Mother told me that I was forbidden to see Monica from that point forward.
That’s when the dreams started. Strange, scary, foreign dreams – dreams of a far-away place and people with funny clothes and even stranger accents. In my dreams, I was a young girl, in the time of the Puritans. And everyone called me Prudence.
“That’s not my name,” I remember saying once in a dream. “My name is Andrea.”
A strange, beautiful woman with black hair and bright blue eyes seemed to hate me. She followed me around from place to place, threatening me whenever I tried to do something good.
I expected the dreams to stop, but they never did. And a year later, things started happening around town. Monica went missing, then Elizabeth. I couldn’t explain it: during the day, I felt awake. But at night I’d wake up in bed and shake and shiver, unable to believe the things I’d said and done. I felt myself transforming completely into another girl, a monster, who pushed others around and used my religious beliefs for evil.
“I’m proud of you, Andrea,” Mother had said one night. “If this keeps up, you might think about taking orders and becoming a nun.”
That wasn’t what I wanted, but somehow, I couldn’t even express that.
And now, I only had the vaguest idea of what to do. I’d woken up at the edge of the woods, wearing dirty and torn clothing, bleeding and confused. And Elizabeth and Monica had been right there, staring at me. Elizabeth had looked horrified – like she was staring into the face of a ghost. But Monica had that same satisfied smirk, the smirk I’d come to hate.
“There’s no time, Andrea,” Monica said. “We have to go. Now.”
I was so weak that I could barely walk. Monica led me inside, up the stairs to her bedroom. Elizabeth brought steaming mugs of tea and a grilled cheese sandwich that I devoured in a matter of seconds. They stared at me, cautiously, for what seemed like a long time.
“Andrea, how much do you remember?” Elizabeth asked softly.
“I was in the woods for years…” I trailed off, shaking with fear. “A man and a woman kept me there.” I shuddered again, spilling hot tea from the mug and over my fingers. It burned, but I could barely feel the pain. “They hurt me,” I said softly. “And they called me Prudence.”
“You were possessed, but the spirit inside of you is sleeping now,” Elizabeth said quickly. She took the cup of tea back and set it down on the floor. “And we have to defeat those people – the witches. And you have to help us.”
Tears came to my eyes and I shook my head. “I don’t know what to do,” I said quickly. “I…I can barely remember anything!”
Monica and Elizabeth glanced at each other. “Andrea…that was years ago,” Elizabeth said softly. “A lot has changed since then. I’ve been away for years, but Monica was there the whole time.”
“I kept you safe,” Monica said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was the reason you never died, Andrea.”
“Why did they do that?”
“Because they’re evil,” Monica said. “And we have to attack them – soon, or else it’s gonna be too late.” She tossed her hair impatiently and suddenly I noticed she looked different, older. “I swear, it’ll be okay, Andrea. But we can’t do it without you.”
“Please,” Elizabeth added. “We really need your help.”
“It’s your fault this happened,” I said, staring accusingly at Monica. “If you’d never made me do that stupid séance, I never would’ve been possessed!”
“And I’m really sorry about that,” Monica said in a pleading sort of voice. “I really am, Andrea, I feel terrible. But we have to move on, okay? Or else you’re gonna spend the rest of your life trapped in the woods.”
“I’m still angry with you,” I said bitterly. “But…I think I’m angrier with them, the witches who kept me trapped.”
Monica nodded. “I’m angry with them, too,” she said. “They lied to me, for years. They lied to Elizabeth, too.”
“What can we do?”
Monica sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I’ll think of something,” she said, reaching for a pen and pad of paper. “We’re going to have to go back and act like everything is okay, like we want to stay there. Catch them off guard. And then we can attack them, maybe even using the soul of Prudence.”
My jaw dropped. “No way,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not letting that…that thing in my body again!”
“Okay, well, we’ll come back to that idea,” Monica said with a shrug.
“No,” I said. “No way, it has to be something else.”
Monica flopped down on her bed and scribbled at the pad, pursing her lips.
“I’m sorry about this,” Elizabeth said softly. “I know it can’t be easy for you.”
I sighed. “I…I just wish I could remember more,” I said. “The last thing I remember is high school.”
Elizabeth looked guilty. “Do you remember what happened to your leg?”
I frowned. “No. Should I?”
Elizabeth pointed to my knee. “You…you broke your leg, years ago,” she said. “That was um, back…well, back when we sorta found out about Prudence.”
Reaching down, I rubbed my leg. A faint pain shot through my body and I winced.
“Yeah,” Elizabeth said, looking guilty. “Sorry about that.”
I tried to smile. “It’
s okay. Not much I can do about it now.”
“Yeah,” Elizabeth said. The relief in her voice was obvious. “How do you feel, I mean, being home?”
I bit my lip. “I want to see my family,” I said softly. “I want to see my mother, and Steven.” I frowned as a sudden memory popped into my head. “You’re with Steven, aren’t you?”
Elizabeth made a face. “I don’t know.”
“She was,” Monica said, glancing over from the bed. “But something happened. They broke up.”
“You should try to make things right,” I said, reaching over and touching Elizabeth’s wrist. “I know you two liked each other a lot. Why not try to make up? I’m sure whatever it is that happened can be fixed.”
Elizabeth gave me an odd look. “I don’t know,” she said. She frowned. “I…Andrea, sorry, I just don’t get it. This sounds really weird coming from you.”
“Why?”
Elizabeth began gnawing on her lip, a habit I recognized from our high school years. “Because…I don’t know,” she said, looking to Monica for evident help. “Maybe she can explain better than I can.”
“Elizabeth’s confused because you had a thing for your own brother,” Monica said calmly, not looking up from the pad she was scribbling on. “You know, you do remember that, don’t you?”
“It was after the spirit possessed me,” I said softly. “I never meant to do anything like that, Elizabeth. I swear – I don’t know, I couldn’t control my own body!”
Elizabeth stared at me for a long time, until tears came to her eyes. She pulled me into a hug and squeezed me with surprising strength. By the time I pulled free, Elizabeth was sobbing.
“I’m so sorry,” Elizabeth said, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Andrea, god, I feel like such an idiot. I never would have guessed that.” She shook her head bitterly. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
“That spirit wanted me to make you – and everyone else in Jaffrey – very unhappy,” I said. I swallowed hard. A lump had started to form in my throat and I felt dangerously close to crying myself. “And keeping you from Steven was the only way to do that – at least, the only way that I could think of at the time.”
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