"Ari, why did Penny seem to know you?"
Stella's pallor didn't subside, even after they burned the Ouija board—a trick Mrs. Sullivan told her about if a seance got out of hand. She assured Arielle her mom had plenty of other homemade boards, and she'd prefer them to be safe than for one of her many occult devices to be salvaged.
"I don't know. Because of Jade? Seems like she knew her, right? Maybe she mentioned me." The words tumbled out of Arielle's mouth, but she had no notion how they got there. Her brain was mush and her insides swarmed by discomforting waves of nausea. Her lies continued to bite her soul away.
Penny... it had to be her, the same one from that night. Why would she do this? What does she want?
For years, Arielle had tried to suppress those memories. Jade's winces, her fingertips trembling on the planchette, her beautiful bright eyes brimming with tears when Penny issued her threats.
Watch out... I remember... do not betray...
This spirit, whatever or whoever she was, had bruised Jade beyond belief. And here she was again, attempting to do the same to Arielle, and to some extent, to Stella.
Unless Stella had heard the entire thing from Jade, and this was her sick way of torturing the truth out of Arielle.
She glimpsed her best friend, who glared at the flames swallowing the board, their flicker reflecting in her darker-than-usual chocolate eyes. Her lips fixed into a straight line, and she was tense; Stella was mad. But... would she go through such measures to see if Arielle would cough up the reality of events that happened years ago?
Jade swore she'd never speak of it; Arielle did the same. Could it all be coincidence?
"Right, and Jade was friends with both of us. So why you?" Stella blew out her cheeks and threw chunks of the planchette into the flames. She'd had to jump multiple times on top of the marble thing before it finally crunched and broke, Arielle recalled.
Marble doesn't burn... but at least it's shattered and can't be rebuilt.
"I conducted the seance. I led the questions, I spoke. Mom... never mentioned something like this happening. A spirit ignoring the one talking to it and targeting someone else right off the bat." She squinted at Arielle, brows hesitating to inch up or droop down. "I don't like it." She stormed to the car.
"Hey!" Arielle ran up to her, after ensuring the fire wouldn't spread to the grass—they'd started it on the pavement, on the opposite side of the lot. "Hey, wait!" Her heart had been through so much that night that she was breathless by the time she caught up. "Are we okay? Did I... did I do something wrong?"
Stella tipped forward and looked at her boots, covered in ash and dirt. "We're fine. You... you didn't ask for this." She spared a quick side-glance at Arielle before opening the door. "But I... I need a break from all this stuff. That chick spooked me. Her presence wasn't good. I couldn't grasp her intentions... and yeah, I'm new at this, at channeling spirits, but I've seen Mom do it enough times and... I'm not cool with how this went down." She slid into the driver's seat. "I'm going to change our tickets for the Lighthouse tomorrow, okay? We should take our time driving to St Augustine, see the sights, relax... go to the beach? We'll do the tour another day."
Arielle wouldn't disagree. The past few days had been strenuous, full of things they couldn't explain and probably didn't want to. Populated with answers they didn't understand and were now fearful of pushing too hard to obtain.
You must die... to find out...
Gulping down the angst clogging her throat, Arielle slipped into the car and they drove off from the haunted school parking lot.
***
Arielle's nightmares were almost normal at this point. This time, the constant tossing and turning was caused by the black-and-white girl blinking in and out of focus, her neck whipping in impossible ways. And of course, Jade made an appearance, her face splattered with blood and her mangled figure crawling up to eat Arielle's heart out. Common visions Arielle hated to be used to... yet she was.
But that night, Stella had nightmares too. She never had them, she'd told as much to Arielle weeks ago. But Arielle heard her as she mumbled sentences in weird languages that sort of sounded like Latin. She whimpered and huddled into a ball under her covers and shivered to the point of making the mattress beneath her shake. She even started convulsing like during the Cemetery seance, and Arielle almost woke her.
Hours later, a flutter of light pried into the room, seeping under Arielle's barely closed eyelids.
Should I bother trying to sleep more?
She checked the time—six AM. She had no clue when Stella had set her alarm to go off, nor when she'd want to head to St Augustine, Florida, their last stop. But she needed air. Fresh oxygen. A minute alone to think, to hash out the emotions festering in her abdomen and to calm the erratic beating of her heart.
She got up, tiptoed to her bag, and extracted a pair of sweats she'd brought in case the hotel rooms were cold. She shrugged them on, pulled her hair into a bun, splashed some water onto her face, and exited the room, her key in one hand, her cell and ear-phones in the other.
A jog—that's what I need.
She hadn't gone running in years, because she hadn't needed to. It was therapy, in Middle School, when dealing with her mother's death, her brother's death, her best friend's death. But after meeting Jade and Stella, finding her way into their routine, becoming a part of their clan, she'd stopped the jogging and took up yoga and Pilates and cycling instead.
Today... she needed that therapy again.
She set off through the foggy morning breezes, unsure where she was going, but not caring too much. Switching on her music player and pressing the shuffle button, she smiled when one of her favorite Lana Del Rey songs came on.
And she took off.
Penny.
The name swirled in her head like a poisonous smoke, infusing into every crevice of her brain as her sneakers hit the pavement.
Unavailable.
Warning lights had flashed to life after that word. That was a lengthy set of letters for a spirit to move a planchette over. And the marble thing moved so fast, not letting Stella finish her sentences. Like this Penny anticipated everything they said... or Jade sat right next to her, telling her.
Was she there? Did Penny lie? Or...
Unwelcome images of the paranormal shows Jade once watched floated into her mind. The stories of ghosts trapped by other ghosts, by malevolent spirits, by... demons. Those who were in pain, suffering, stuck, unable to move on because another being wouldn't let them. Was Jade... trapped by Penny? Penny, the one who bullied her all those years ago, caused she and Arielle to never want to see another Ouija board again—did she hold Jade captive?
You must die... to find out...
Jade had said that in her nightmares. She rarely spoke in them, but last night, as she clawed her way up to Arielle, shoved her down and snarled, her chapped lips moved and raspy voices erupted. And a recent addition to the dream was fire. Arielle assumed the burning Ouija board had something to do with that. But to envision red and orange and yellow sparks and swirls billowing up Jade's bloody arms and surrounding her head in a halo of flames had prompted her to stop seeking to sleep altogether.
Does one have to die to find out? What is so precious that it can't be revealed to all?
Thoughts showering her in doubt and anxiety, Arielle hadn't realized how far she had run until she stopped to catch her breath. Then she took note of the sign for the Middle School they'd been at last night.
"Weird." She removed her earplugs and peered through the hazy atmosphere, to glimpse the building in its early morning gloom. It was a Saturday; there would be no classes, no curious kids. No one to question her jog through the parking lot.
I have to make sure the board burned.
Erasing any trace of the Ouija board might mean never having to speak to Penny again... she hoped.
She maintained a brisk pace, and the closer she got to the parking lot, the more fuzzy recollections swept into her mind. She imagined her car, sitting in the lot, a street-light blaring down on it. And she envisioned herself and Stella, seated on the blanket, hunched over the board, gasping and groaning. Then the fire. Vivid, draping the horrible device in hungry flames, capturing it, eating it.
Approaching the space she remembered they left the fire to die on its own, she slowed her jog, set her hands on her hips, and widened her eyes. She saw no ashes, no remains, not even tiny pieces of the marble planchette.
"Hm... did the wind blow it all away?" She peeked around and did a double-take when she noticed something shiny in the grass ahead of her, near the fence lining the school yard.
Something stirred in her gut with each step she took; dread, fear, anticipation. And it culminated, swooshing over her, making her dizzy, when she found what she'd detected, glimmering in the faint light looming overhead.
The planchette. Parked in the dewy grass, untouched. Impeccable, as if never destroyed by Stella.
"What the..."
Allowing her gaze to graze the fence, hoping it was some weird coincidence, that they weren't the only ones doing ghost-summoning sessions in a school parking lot at night using a marble planchette, Arielle held her breath.
A few feet farther, she spotted it, and hiccuped. The wooden, worn-down Ouija board.
"No fucking way." She walked closer, her legs so weak they almost gave out—though whether it was from her run or from sheer panic, she couldn't tell. "That... no... I saw that thing burn!"
She remembered the board melting. The ink from the letters drizzling off and disappearing. The thick wood swallowed by hues of blue, flames licking its edges, devouring its core.
"It burned. No... this can't be our board." Swallowing, she proceeded closer, and kicked the board with her shoe, flipping it around. And on the back, in the same bright red ink Stella claimed as her mom's favorite Sharpie, she saw the inscription.
S. Sullivan—#3
"Fuck." Arielle's knees buckled as she kneeled, digging her fingers through her hair, her messy bun coming undone. Waves of strawberry and crimson curls traipsed over her forehead as she inhaled and exhaled and winced from her lungs squeezing tight. Too tight.
Her phone vibrating out-of-the-blue sent her falling backwards onto her behind, her heart running a marathon in her chest. "Fuck!" She grabbed the thing from her pocket and on the screen, Stella Cell flashed. "Shit." She pressed the green button. "Stel?"
"Ari, where are you? I need to talk to you ASAP." Stella's voice was strained, groggy as if she'd just woken up, but also laced with worry.
"I'm... uh, I went for a jog, and ended up at the parking lot from last night—"
"—okay, I'm coming to you. This is..." she huffed, and Arielle could have sworn she started stomping, "I'll be right there."
The line cut off and Arielle lost all energy to hold herself up. She sank, her back hitting the hard and wet grass. Damp pebbles dug into her spine, but she didn't pay attention to them—she wished to feel numb, to fall asleep, to never think again.
The board... didn't burn...
Was Penny not done talking to them? Did she have more information? Did she somehow conjure the board back to life?
"How... the fuck?" Yanking herself to a seated position again, she glowered at the board. Then at the planchette; a brilliant jewel in a sea of green grass, beckoning her closer. "Do you... have more answers, Penny?" She craned her neck and glanced about the area. "You're still here, huh? And you have Jade. You have Jade." The fear once circulating through her veins turned to a molten rage, a fiery desire for vengeance. "You can't have her, you bitch. Y-you traumatized her." She shuddered, and a swish of crisp wind blew over her, so strong it almost shoved her backwards. "You will not keep my best friend from moving on."
As she prepared to yell at Penny again, to threaten her—with what, she wasn't sure—a car screeched into the lot, prompting her to leap to her feet. She recognized her beat-up Toyota scrambling over, and Stella's wild platinum curls the only thing she saw in the driver's seat.
"Get in!" yelled the latter as she slammed on the breaks, waving for Arielle to hurry over.
"But... the board... it didn't—"
"What?"
"The board didn't burn, Stel!" Arielle jammed her thumb behind her, indicating the spots she'd found the items.
Stella's eyes widened as she froze. "What?" She sent her head out the rolled-down window, gaping towards where Arielle pointed. "The... is it... mine?" She lifted a trembling finger to point at the area. "Did you check? The inscription—"
"—It's on there, Stel. So... what the fuck does this mean?"
Stella wrapped both hands over the steering wheel to drag herself back in, and her gaze lost focus as she drifted off. "It... it's bad. It's all bad. I-I had nightmares last night."
Arielle walked up and leaned against the vehicle. "I know. I heard you. My usual ones came up too; I guess we both had more on our conscience than we thought, huh?"
"No, you don't get it," said Stella, concern scrambling into her tone. "I don't have nightmares, I told you. They're terrible omens. And Mom..." she sniffled, and Arielle reached into the car to search for her hand, to squeeze it, to remind her she was scared, too. "Mom called. She had nightmares, and she usually doesn't, less so than me. But when she does... they always mean something. Always. And above all, she never has them... about m-me. But this time... she did."
"She dreamed about you?" Something got stuck at the top of Arielle's throat.
"About both of us. And fire. And she... she told me she's buying me a plane ticket right now. She wants me home." Stella rested her cheek on the wheel. "She insisted I leave at once. Said the fire, after a seance... it's terrible. One of the worst things. She said since the Penny chick knew you, maybe you have a connection, but me... I'm in danger. Well, you are too, but... you have the car. You can drive home. You should. Abandon this ridiculous Spring break scheme. Who the fuck were we fooling? Jade has no idea what we're doing. Jade is... who the fuck knows where, for who the fuck knows what reason. You can't get closure this way. We'll figure it out... so let's go."
"Stel... I... I can't." The something in Arielle's esophagus grew, turning into a lump, agonizing as it constricted her breathing.
Brows drawing into a frown, Stella readjusted herself. "You should. I can't force you, but... I'm leaving." She sighed, her torso raising up and deflating fast. "But I know you. You'll want to finish this. To figure out if Jade's okay, because of... Penny." She squinted. "Ari, this was never a safe trip, but now... it's worse. It's dangerous. And with the board..."
Arielle didn't want to look behind her. "What do we do with it?"
Stella opened the glove compartment and pulled out several trash bags. "Grab it, but don't touch it. Wrap it in this and put it in the trunk. You need to burn it and drown the ashes."
"I need to? Y-you're not helping?" Legs turning frail again, Arielle took the bags but pressed against the side of the vehicle for balance.
"I told you, I'm leaving. And you should head north too, okay? Please? Mom is uncomfortable, she's... sickened. She can't buy you a ticket, and you can't ditch your dad's car in South Carolina, so... please?" Stella glanced towards the board again and hugged herself. "Go get it, bundle it up, let's go. My plane is this afternoon and I want us checked out of the hotel and at the airport fast. I want... to get away from this place. It stinks. Reeks of death and fear and evil ghosts, Ari."
But... Penny is still here... she has Jade... my best friend... the girl I love...