The Unseen (3 page)

“That seems like a bad idea,” Tamila said. “Just take off the pentagrams, okay?”

“
The pentagrams are great!” Barb said.

“
Hell, yeah, keep them,” Reese nodded.

“
What other occult symbols are there?” Cassidy asked.

“
Inverted crosses?” Reese suggested, then smirked at Tamila’s shocked look.

“
There’s a symbol for each horoscope sign. I’ll sketch them...” Barb drew the symbols on a scrap of notebook paper, and Cassidy copied them in marker around the edges of the posterboard—blue waves for Aquarius, a red bull pictogram for Taurus.

“
The symbol for Cancer is a sixty-nine?” Reese snickered, looking over Barb’s shoulder.

“
That’s what Cancers like.  I’m a Cancer, so I know,” Barb replied.

“
Here it is—the ultimate Ouija board.” Cassidy held up the colorful, glittering poster board. “We should be able to talk to ghosts from all over the world with this thing.”

“
Sweet, international ghosts!  Let’s see how it looks in the dark.” Barb turned out the light, leaving the room in the dim glow of three candles.  The letters and numbers glowed an eerie green.  Outside, the trees rustled in the wind and light rain tapped on the balcony.

“
Maybe I should go,” Tamila said quietly.

“
Maybe you should!” Reese snatched the newly made board from Cassidy’s hands and tugged Barb down to the carpet with her. “Come on, let’s call up some dead people.”

“
What do we use as a pointer?” Cassidy asked.

“
You mean a planchette?” Barb drained her wine glass, then placed it upside down in the center of the board.  A few droplets of red wine dribbled down and blurred the glowing letters
M
and
N
.  Barb and Reese laid their fingertips on the base of the inverted glass.

“
Let’s do this!” Reese said.

Cassidy slid down from her bed and sat across from Reese.  She placed her own fingertips on the glass along with the other two girls.

“One spot left,” Cassidy said to Tamila, who had made no move to leave the chair.

“
I’m not doing it.”

“
Come on, Tami.  It’ll be fun.  Please?” Cassidy resorted to a begging tone, locking eyes with Tamila.  What she wanted to say was:
I am desperately trying to make you part of the group here, so please stop acting like such a tromboner tonight
. “As a favor to me?”

“
It does work better with four people,” Barb added.

Tamila sighed, looked at the board, and reluctantly left her chair to sit next to Cassidy, while offering a shaky, frightened smile to no one in particular.

“Okay.  Let’s get it over with,” Tamila whispered.  She placed her trembling fingers on the base of the upside-down wine glass. “We should say a prayer first.”

Barb and Reese found this hilarious, and Tamila frowned at their peals of drunken laughter.

“Let’s go,” Barb said.  She closed her eyes. “Are there any spirits—”

“
Come talk to us, spirits!” Reese interrupted, closing her eyes and also swaying from side to side.  In her best drama-club voice, she projected, “Speak to us, give us
messages
from the
world
of the
dead
...”

The glass trembled under their fingers, and Cassidy gasped.  Everybody leaned in for a closer look, but the glass became still again.

“You should say only
good
spirits,” Tamila whispered. “Or we could end up talking to demons, or evil ghosts, or dead murderers...”

“
Calling all demons, evil ghosts, and dead murderers!” Reese cried out in a slurred voice, then doubled forward, laughing.

“
Be serious, Reese,” Barb said.  In a louder, more formal voice, she asked, “Are there any messages from the Other Side?  Like from our spirit guides or totem animals?”

“
Totem animals,” Reese snickered.

“
We all have one.  Mine’s a frog,” Barb told her, and Reese laughed and shook her head, tossing her blond hair.

“
You
look
like a frog!” Reese said.

“
Sh!  It’s moving,” Cassidy told them.

The wine glass shuddered again, and this time it began to slide over the poster board, the lip scraping and smearing a few of the still-wet letters, gathering glowing paint around its rim.

The glass moved across the alphabet to the word
YES
in the upper left corner of the poster, scraping up glue and glitter from a sparkly red pentagram along the way.

“
Who’s doing that?  Are you doing that?” Reese asked Tamila, who shook her head, her wide eyes fixed on the board.

“
Hello?  Are you a spirit?” Barb asked.

The glass slid half an inch, then right back into place. 
YES
again.

“
Who are you?” Barb asked. “I mean, to whom do we have the pleasure of speaking?”

The wineglass lay still for a moment, then vibrated and hummed as if someone had plinked it with a fingernail.  The glass slid over the alphabet.

Cassidy felt her heart racing.  She hadn’t expected it to work at all, and it was starting to freak her out.  She wished they hadn’t turned off the lights.

The wine glass smeared its way across the board, its entire rim glowing green now.  It stopped at the letter
N
, and didn’t move again until Barb said the letter aloud.  It stopped again on the
I
.

“
N...I...” Barb said.

“
Nipple?” Reese suggested.

The glass continued on to the
B
, then
H
...
A
...and then it stopped on
Z
.

“
N-I-B-H-A-Z,” Barb said.

“
It’s just nonsense,” Cassidy said.

The wineglass jerked under their fingers, then flew to the word
NO
, dragging their fingers with it.

“
Who’s doing that?” Reese asked. “Is it you, Cassidy?  Barb?  It’s you, isn’t it, Barb?  You big Goth girl.”

“
Sh,” Barb said. “Nib...haz?  Is that right?”

The wineglass zipped over to
YES
.

“
What does that mean?” Cassidy asked.

The wineglass spelled out
N
...
A
...
M
...
E
.

“
Your name is Nibhaz?”

YES
.

“
Sounds like a demon’s name to me,” Tamila said in a soft voice.

“
Pfft, shut up,” Reese told her. “Like you would know.”

“
Do you have a message for someone here, Nibhaz?” Barb asked.

YES
.

“
For who?” Barb asked.

C
...
A
...
S
...
S
...

Cassidy felt her blood turn cold.

“Oh, shit, for Cassidy?” Reese asked.

YES
.

“
Nibhaz, what is your message for Cassidy?” Barb asked.

The four girls watched as the glass crept back and forth along the top row of text. 
D
...
I
...
E
...

“
Die?  It’s telling her to die?” Tamila gasped.

“
Sh, it’s not
done
yet,” Barb told her.

“
Yeah, it’s not done yet,” Reese echoed, her eyes fixated on the glass.

Cassidy shivered, trying to think of any non-scary word that started with “die.”

“Diesel?” Cassidy asked in a shaky voice.  She expected someone to laugh at her, but nobody did.

The glass moved back to the letter
D
.

“
Died,” Barb said. “He’s saying
he
died, I think.  He’s a ghost.”

The glass whipped over to the word
NO
, then returned to the letter
D
.

D
...
I
...
E
..

D
...
I
...
E
...

D
...
I
...
E
...

“Does it stand for something?” Cassidy guessed, trying not to sound scared.  Her heart was thundering inside her chest.

“
Is it somebody’s initials, Nibhaz?” Barb asked.

NO
.

“
He’s telling her to die!  Are you people blind?” Tamila snapped.  She took her fingers off the glass and stood. “I’m gone.  Forget this craziness.”

“
You can’t let go until the spirit says GOOD-BYE!” Barb yelled at her. “That’s how people get possessed!”

“
Oh,
now
you believe in demons?” Tamila asked, brushing off her knees.

“
Please don’t leave me, Tami,” Cassidy whispered.  She was genuinely scared now. “Not until this is done, okay?”

Tamila looked at her a long moment, then sighed and reluctantly sat on the floor again.

“Make it quick.” Tamila returned her fingers to the glass. “I mean it.”

“
Nibhaz, is there more to your message?” Barb asked.

YES.

“What?” Cassidy whispered.

The glass flew back to the top row of letters.

D
...
I
...
E
...

It moved faster, back and forth, never leaving the top row.

DIE

DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE

Cassidy watched in horror, spellbound as the glass raced back and forth, smearing the top row of letters into an illegible green streak, but still sliding back and forth, back and forth, touching the spots where the three letters
D
,
I
, and
E
had been.

She wanted to let go and pull away, but her fingertips felt glued to the wine glass.  The glass became icy, burning cold under her fingertips, a crust of smoking frost forming inside the bowl and along the stem.

She could feel the terror growing inside her like an abyss opening in her guts, yet she was unable to let go, or to move a muscle, or to speak.  All four girls watched the glass scrape back and forth, back and forth, as though hypnotized.

A rainy gale lashed against her bedroom window.  The balcony door blew open and slapped against the wall, cracking the door’s glass pane.  The wind brought cold rain into the room and blew out two of the three candles.

The girls screamed and leaped to their feet.  Cassidy took a step back from the board she’d made, and so did Barb and Tamila, the three of them spreading out and away.

Reese crouched over the board, staring, ignoring her blond bangs as they blew across her eyes, her blue eyes bright and entranced.  The wine glass had stopped its back and forth sliding.  It was in the middle of the board, still upside down, slowly rotating though nobody was touching it anymore.  It gathered a thicker coat of frost and emitted a hollow ringing sound, as though someone traced an invisible finger around and around its rim.

The glass rose slowly from the poster board, levitating just an inch in the air.  Reese watched it, mesmerized, reaching her fingers toward it as the other three girls backed away.

“
Reese, look out—” Barb began.

Reese slapped out her hand and smashed the glass down as though squashing a bug.  It broke, sticking her fingers with long shards, but she didn’t seem to care. 

She crushed her hand down on the glass and rolled it back and forth, slicing up her fingers as she broke the wineglass bowl into pieces.  She smeared her blood across the glowing green alphabet.

“
What are you doing, Reese?  Reese?” Cassidy asked.

Reese remained crouched over the board, rolling the broken glass back and forth, back and forth.