VANISHED (#1 in the VANISHED series) #NaNoWriMo2019 ✔

f o u r t e e n ✔

Shit. Did she do something to Jade? Is she... coming clean?

A phantom itch on Arielle's cheek—a remnant of her imagined drizzle of bloody tears down her skin—prompted her to lean from Stella and gulp. "What is going on?"

Stella sneered. "Girl, chill. I'm searching for the best way to ask you this." She sucked in her lips and inhaled, then expelled her breath and grimaced. "To... bring up the Ouija board."

Arielle winced. "Stella!" She tapped the blonde's shoulder. "We said we wouldn't use that word!" She hunched and lowered her voice. "And not here, where there might be murderous ghosts and shit!"

"Oh, stop it. The spirits here won't hurt us, I'm sure." Stella perked up. The street-lamp basked her face in hues of yellow and blue, turning her platinum locks to silver and gold. She was a modern witch, a spirit-whisperer, a gorgeous girl with abilities and intuition. "I want to use the board... here. Tonight. Yeah, we agreed on tomorrow, but... we're pumped with adrenaline now! With what happened at the Jail, the stuff the spirits said... I still worry those ghosts lied. Since they were prisoners... but it was a perfect introduction. Here, now... this is the ideal moment."

Arielle scoffed. "Oh, and you think the ghost of a murderer will be any better? Come on, Stel."

"But what if we contact the victim?" Her cheeks puffed up as she smiled; an ominous, mischievous grin Arielle hadn't seen in a long time. Not since their last outing as a trio, sneaking sips of booze in a metallic flask before swooping into a fancy upscale party they weren't invited to. Stella wore an all black, tight-fitting number that accented her voluptuous curves, outlined her figure. Arielle sported a shorter dress she hated, as it amplified how skinny she was, how small her boobs were, how scrawny her legs were—

But Jade? Jade... was exquisite. That night, she looked like a goddess. Also in a dress, but one with a slit up to her mid-thigh, exposing her bronze skin, luminescent in the overhead car light. The gold fabric shimmered, brilliant as treasure from a sunken ship. And her hair, curled and voluminous and smelling like raspberries and Chanel—

"... and maybe the victim can tell us, yeah?" Stella's pleading tone seized Arielle from her golden goddess fantasies.

"Huh? Tell us what?"

"What happens after death! Isn't that your big go to? If we can't talk to Jade, at least we can use that. Maybe we'll get more than secret this time."

"But Jade..." Arielle struggled to return to the real-world, to pry out of her imagination. To yank herself out of Jade's light eyes and her pouty lips, colored in a mahogany shade. To erase the image of her kissing a napkin, to smooth out the texture and even the surface. Then she saw Jade kissing her, not the napkin. Holding her with her soft hands, not the lipstick—

"Arielle, hello? Are you there?" Stella's huff blew through Arielle's hair and whipped against her skin, breathing life back into her.

"Huh? Fuck, I'm sorry, Stel, I..." she peered out at the street-light. At the gloomy school building nearby, at the thick bushes and faded grass lining the area. "Contact Jade here? She'd come to us in a parking lot in Charleston, South Carolina, you think?"

"Why the heck not?" Stella opened her car door. "We have to try, right? If it doesn't work, I'll put the board away and we won't talk about it again, okay?" She didn't wait for an answer and grabbed the keys as she slipped out into the night air.

It was breezy but muggy when Arielle finally joined her. Stella had opened the trunk and gazed down at it.

The Ouija board.