Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels
***
It was 11:17 when everyone arrived at my house for the séance.
My friends came in without knocking. We always hung out at my place, so my parents never minded if they showed up unannounced. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for me to come home after soccer practice to find Carlos, Tori and Ivy (or any combination of the three) already sitting at my kitchen table, chatting with one of my parents.
“What took you so long?” I called down from the top of the stairs. “I’ve been waiting.”
“Are we really doing this?” Carlos whispered, a faint tremble in his voice. Carlos was the least adventurous in our group; he had a nervous disposition and tended to be our voice of reason. But Ivy and Tori ignored him as always, already filing up the stairs toward me. Carlos sighed, resigned. Peering around with wide eyes, he hurried to catch up.
I could hear the game playing on the living room TV downstairs. Dad didn’t come out to greet them, so I figured he must have fallen asleep in his Lazy Boy. Mom was working another overnight shift at the hospital and my older brother, Riley, was out at some party and wouldn’t be back for a few hours.
As Tori and Ivy reached the top of the stairs, I turned and led them to my bedroom.
“Come on, guys, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Carlos whined, hovering in the doorway. “Isn’t it, like, disrespectful or something? What if we accidentally summon something bad?”
“Don’t be a baby, Carlos,” Ivy snapped. The leader of our pack of misfits, Ivy tended to hyper-fixate on things. Her latest fixation was ghost stories and the occult; the séance had been her idea. I knew by next week she’d be onto the next thing, and we’d be pulled into some other crazy plan.
As I sat on the edge of my bed, the girls remained huddled in the center of the room. I could tell they were just as nervous as Carlos, even if they were trying to hide it. I wasn’t nervous at all, because I knew this whole thing was a load of crap. Spirits and séances? Yeah, right. I knew when nothing happened, we’d abandon the séance and end up playing Smash Bros or something; I had already set up my Nintendo 64 in anticipation.
“You can sit down, you know.” I drawled. Nobody moved. “You guys really are nervous, huh?”
Ivy slung her backpack off her shoulder and fished out several tealights, a bundle of herbs and a large, ornate black candle. She began arranging the tealights in a large circle in the middle of the room, then took a crumpled photograph from the pocket of her jeans and placed it facedown in the center of the circle, next to the black candle. I suspected it must be a photo of whoever we were trying to ‘contact.’ Ivy struck a match and lit the herbs, then started waving the smoking bundle around in haphazard circles. I wrinkled my nose at the smell.
“Close the door,” I said to Carlos, who was still hovering in the doorway. I didn’t want the smell to reach my dad downstairs; if he caught onto what we were doing he’d probably lecture us about fire safety or something.
“What’s that for?” asked Tori, gesturing to the bundle of herbs that Ivy was still waving unceremoniously through the air.
Ivy rolled her eyes. “It’s for protection, obviously,” she said, as she busied herself with lighting the tea lights. “Close the door, Carlos.”
I rolled my eyes. “I just said that.”
“Oh, sorry.” Still glancing around with wide eyes, Carlos finally stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Whatever. Let’s get this over with, it’s giving me the creeps!” whispered Tori. Carlos and I nodded fervently in agreement, but Ivy rolled her eyes.
“You guys are such babies,” she snapped. “You were so into this, like, five minutes ago!”
I got up and hit the lightswitch, so the only light in the room came from the flickering tealights on the floor. “Now, let’s all step into the circle and sit down,” Ivy instructed.
She sat cross-legged on the carpet, just inside the ring of tealights. A mischievous smile lit up her face. She lit the black candle, casting long, eerie shadows throughout the room. I found myself looking around apprehensively… as if something were lurking just in the shadows, waiting for the perfect time to pounce. I shivered despite myself. Now that the plan was in motion, it was even starting to give me the creeps.
Ivy looked down at her watch and her smile grew wider. I glanced at the time on my alarm clock next to the bed: 11:23.
“It’s time,” Ivy whispered. “Repeat after me.”
Then, in a loud, grandiose voice, she began the séance: “We gather here tonight with intentions of love and light only. May only those spirits who share these intentions enter this circle.”
“We gather here tonight with intentions of love and light only,” we all droned back in unison.
“We banish any non-human entities, or spirits with negative intentions from entering this circle,” Ivy continued. I rolled my eyes, but we all dutifully repeated it back to her. I wondered if she made this up herself, or if she had gotten it from a library book or something.
A gust of wind outside rattled the windowpanes. We all jumped.
“Guys, are we sure we –“ Carlos began to interrupt, but Ivy shushed him.
“The gears are already in motion, Carlos,” she whispered sharply. “We couldn’t stop now, even if we wanted to. Now shut up or you’ll mess it up!”
Ivy cleared her throat and continued to speak. “We call upon the spirits of Heaven and Earth to be with us and protect us on this night. Hear us!”
“We call upon the spirits of Heaven and Earth to be with us and protect us on this night,” we recited. I could see Carlos and Tori eyeing each other nervously, and resisted the urge to giggle. I knew how easy it could be to get caught up in Ivy’s dramatics. “Hear us!”
At that moment, a strong gust of icy wind whipped around the room, strong enough to rustle the posters on my wall and even rip out a few of the tacks holding them up. The large black candle in the center of the circle flickered and then went out. Miraculously, the tealights remained lit. We all stared at each other; even Ivy’s eyes were wide. Had I left a window open? I looked around wildly and my heart began to race as I saw the windows remained firmly closed.
A strange feeling began to stir in the pit of my stomach.
“It’s working,” Ivy whispered. She lit the black candle again with trembling fingers. Then she flipped the photograph over, so it was lying face up. I squinted at it, but it was too difficult to see in the flickering candlelight. My head was throbbing now.
“Guys, I think we should stop,” I said, trying to hide the nervousness in my voice. “This is stupid. Besides, I’m getting a headache.”
Ivy ignored me, and continued on with a quivering voice: “T-tonight we summon the spirit of our dear friend, Angela Walker. Come to us, Ang. Follow the sound of my voice. Come to us!”
I laughed out loud. Was this some kind of a lame joke? That would be just like Ivy.
“Very funny,” I said, still chuckling. “You got me.”
“Did y-you hear that?” Carlos said, looking around frantically. His eyes were wide. All the blood had drained from his face. Ivy and Tori nodded, almost imperceptibly, and I saw matching expressions of terror on their faces as they peered around the room. I had to hand it to them, they were better actors than I expected.
“Okay, seriously,” I snapped, my voice rising with frustration. “This isn’t funny anymore! Just stop it, guys, let’s just play Smash or something.”
The feeling in my stomach had intensified. I felt like I was about to crawl out of my own skin. I grabbed the photo from the center of the circle. It was a photo of the four of us we had taken just last week at the pool. Ivy had folded it so only my beaming face was visible. I was wearing my favourite red bikini.
“A-Angela?”
I looked up to see all three of them staring at me. Ivy, directly across from me, had silent tears streaming down her face. Carlos was frozen in terror, looking slightly green. Tori was staring blankly, as if in complete shock.
“Is it really you?” Ivy’s voice was faint. She looked like she might pass out at any moment.
“Last time I checked,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Can we do something fun now?”
“Um,” Ivy stammered, edging slowly backward. “I… I didn’t think… I didn’t expect… How are you here?”
“Well, I live here, don’t I?” I replied. I stood up, tired of this game, and when I did the three of them jumped back.
They grouped together and backed up against the bedroom wall, staring at me with wide, frightened eyes. I was growing more and more frustrated, and the throbbing in my head had reached an all-time high. I could hardly see through the pain. I rubbed my temples.
After several long moments, Tori was the first to regain her composure. She looked at Ivy and Carlos.
“I – I don’t think she even…” Tori’s voice trailed off for a moment. She cleared her throat. “I don’t think she knows.”
I crossed my arms, trying and failing to ignore my throbbing head and the gnawing feeling festering in the pit of my stomach. “What exactly don’t I know?”
Tori continued to stare at me. Her mouth opened and closed silently, as if she didn’t know what to say next.
“You… you died, Ang,” Carlos answered instead. His voice was a broken, raspy whisper. “Look.”
He pointed at me, and I looked down at my hands. They were transparent. A faint glow seemed to emanate from beneath my skin.
I let go of the photograph in astonishment and it fluttered to the floor. Suddenly, my legs felt like they had been turned to jelly. I backed up to collapse onto my bed, only to realize my bed was no longer there. All that remained was a bent, rusted bedframe.
As I looked around my bedroom I realized all the furniture was gone. The posters on my wall disintegrated before my eyes, their charred remains drifting to the floor. My soccer trophies, along with the wall-mounted shelves they had stood on, were melted beyond recognition. My wallpaper, once a pretty robin’s egg blue I had picked out when we first moved in, was now blackened with scorch marks and peeling from the walls. The carpet had been ripped up, exposing the underlay beneath. Some of it also appeared burnt, exposing the beams so I could see into the dark hallway downstairs.
“No,” I whispered. My entire body began to tremble violently. “No way. That doesn’t make sense, Dad is right downstairs.”
The three of them looked at each other.
“There’s no one else here, Ang,” Tori said. She took a tentative step toward me, reaching out as if she were going to touch me. I took a step back. “Your dad died… in the fire. Your mom and Riley moved out of town last year. It’s just us here.”
“Fire?” My head felt like it was going to explode. The gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach now felt like an angry swarm of locusts eating away at me from the inside. “That’s impossible. Dad’s watching the game. Mom dropped Riley off at some party on her way to work a little while ago. I’ll prove it!”
Suddenly, all I wanted was to hear my dad’s voice. All I had to do was get downstairs. He would explain this whole thing. I darted for the door. Ivy, Carlos and Tori stumbled out of my way, dumbfounded.
As I reached for the doorknob, my hand went right through it. I swiped frantically at it, to no avail. My hand went right through it, over and over. There was no sensation. It was like the door wasn’t even really there… or like I wasn’t even really there. I screamed in frustration.
Ivy had dissolved into a fit of hiccupping sobs. “Ang, stop,” she begged. “Wait a sec.”
“Dad will explain everything,” I repeated. “You’ll see.”
Giving up on my attempts to open the door, I stepped straight through it.
I noticed the hallway furniture had also been removed, aside from the analog clock on the wall. It was stuck at 11:23. The floor had been torn up, similarly to my bedroom. The walls and ceiling were completely burnt, and there was graffiti on the walls. The stairs had fallen in, yet I was able to walk down as if they were intact. There were rectangular outlines in the scorch marks on the walls where our family photos used to hang. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust and ash.
Downstairs, the walls and floor had been completely ripped out, and someone had begun putting in new drywall. A dusty sawhorse had been shoved against one wall and various power tools lay scattered about. Apparently the construction had been abandoned before they had begun work on the second level.
I stepped over a large angle grinder and entered the living room. I knew what I would find, but my stomach still dropped in shock. It was more of the same – tools everywhere, exposed studs. There were support props holding up parts of the ceiling. The game wasn’t playing on TV, because there was no TV. The couch was gone, too, along with Dad’s Lazy Boy. Dad was nowhere to be found.
I felt like I was about to be sick. I had just heard the TV playing… hadn’t I?
“Dad?” I screamed. “Dad, where are you? Dad!”
The answering silence was deafening. Suffocating. Numb, I headed back upstairs. My footfalls made no noise. Three sets of shoeprints in the dust led from the front door and up the stairs. My feet left nothing behind. Finally, the realization began to sink in. I had died… in a fire. I put my hand against my chest, desperately trying to will a heartbeat into existence from a heart that was no longer beating.
I could hear Ivy, Tori and Carlos whispering behind my closed bedroom door as I reached the top, but I continued down the hallway to Riley’s room. His vintage record player was the only furniture left in the room, but it had been charred beyond recovery. I wondered if any of the records had been salvageable. His record collection had been his prized possession; I was never allowed to listen to them. I continued on, stopping in the doorway of my parents’ bedroom.
The scorched doorframe was still intact. A choked sob escaped my lips as I saw several notches carved in the wood with our names and ages carved next to them. It was a birthday tradition in our household. Riley’s notches stopped at 13, when he decided he was too old for that kind of thing. Mine, however, continued on to my last birthday: Angela 15 yrs. I always thought it was a cute tradition, and I had planned on continuing it when I turned 16 next month.
Except now I wouldn’t get the chance. I’d never have another birthday.
I sobbed again and ducked back through my bedroom door, without hesitating this time. Carlos blanched again at the sight of me. Ivy still appeared to be in shock; clearly she hadn’t expected her plan to actually work.
For the first time, I noticed my friends appeared older. Much older. In fact, the three of them had more angular, adult features – I hardly recognized them at all. Carlos had shaved his head, trading his wild brown curls for a crew cut. Ivy had grown out her hair. Tori wore glasses now. How had I not noticed?
“How long?” I demanded. “How long have I been… like this?”
“Ten years,” Tori said after a long, awkward silence. My jaw dropped. Heartbreak was etched onto Tori’s features, making her appear even older. “So much has changed, Ang. After you… after the fire, we –“ she broke off, as if her vocal cords had simply failed her.
My jaw dropped. Finally, Ivy seemed to regain her composure; she looked at me with a weird, disconnected smile. I must look exactly the same as I had when she saw me last – an echo, frozen in time. The same 15-year-old girl that was smiling up at us from the faded photograph on the floor. They must be in their mid-twenties now.
“Things weren’t the same without you,” Ivy said. “We all just kind of… stopped hanging out. Carlos joined the basketball team and ended up getting a full ride scholarship to play in college. Tori moved to the coast. I… I never left town. I didn’t even apply to college. I’m an office admin over at the dental office now. We fell apart without you, Ang, you were our best friend.”
I wished desperately that I could hug them. A little voice in the back of my mind noted that my headache had finally subsided. The feeling in the pit of my stomach had also settled, along with the panic.
Now, I only felt lost.
“What happened?” I whispered. “Where are Mom and Riley now? What happened to Dad?”
“It was bad wiring, apparently,” Tori, who had recovered her voice, explained. “None of the smoke alarms went off, they say the batteries were dead. It was late, you were already asleep. Your mom was working an overnight, and Riley was at some party. Your Dad fell asleep in front of the TV; he didn’t wake up until it was too late. When he went up to try and get you out, the stairs caved in…”
She paused and took a shuddering breath. I sifted through every thought and memory in my head, trying as hard as I could to remember, but it was no use. My memories of that night seemed to be lost in a haze of thick, black smoke.
“They say you – that you…” she stammered, “they say that you died of smoke inhalation. Suffocation. You were asleep. You didn’t even wake up.”
Tears were streaming silently down my cheeks now. I didn’t even bother wiping them away. “Where are Mom and Riley? You said they moved out of town…?”
“They moved in with your grandparents after the… you know,” said Carlos. “She refused to sell the house… for years. The town wanted to bulldoze it, they said it was an eyesore, but she wouldn’t let them. She wouldn’t fix it up or anything. It was like this creepy shrine. A constant reminder.”
Tori nodded along as Carlos spoke, staring forlornly at the floor. Tori lived across the street. My heart panged for her as I imagined how difficult it must have been to look out her bedroom window all those years and see the rotting, burnt shell of my home. It was no wonder she moved as far away as possible.
“So,” I said awkwardly, “if you all stopped hanging out after I – after I died –“ I paused, testing out the word. “Why are you here now? After 10 years, why did you come back? You said the house sold. There’s construction downstairs.”
“Last year, your grandparents finally convinced your mom to sell. To get a new start,” Ivy explained. Her voice was tinged by a deep sadness. “Tori and Carlos were long gone by then. Riley felt responsible for your mom; she was really messed up after the fire… I think she must have felt guilty. So, she finally sold, and he went to some fancy university across the country. Your mom found a place in the same city so they could be near each other.”
“That’s great,” I said. A small smile lit up my face, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bitter that my family had moved on without me. And where was Dad, then?
“Yeah,” Ivy said. “Anyway, some hotshot from the city bought the house shortly after. Turns out the structural damage wasn’t too bad, so they planned on flipping the place and renting it out. But when they started construction there were… disturbances.”
At this, the three of them looked up at me.
“What do you mean, disturbances?” I asked, confused. At this, Tori let out a small giggle. I was grateful for the sound, it lifted some of the heaviness from the air.
“You know,” Tori said, “the classic stuff. Haunting stuff.”
She raised an eyebrow at me and giggled nervously again. Carlos jabbed her with his elbow.
“It’s not funny, Tor!” he chided, but even I was chuckling now.
“Wait, like, because of me?” I asked, incredulous. I had to admit, it was a little funny. “I don’t remember doing anything. What kind of stuff?”
“Mysterious footsteps coming from upstairs,” Ivy explained, wiggling her fingers dramatically. I was grateful that they were no longer looking at me as if I had three heads. A smile was playing at the corners of her lips. “Wailing and crying. Tools flying around everywhere, stuff getting lost. The sound of a TV and music playing. That kind of thing. Made it impossible for the construction guys to get anything done.”
I scratched my head. “So, you called Tori and Carlos back to, what… Put me to rest or something?”
I laughed, but the three of them looked guiltily down at the floor. Carlos began scuffing his foot awkwardly against the dusty boards.
“Kind of,” Tori whispered. Carlos jabbed her again with his elbow. “Ouch! It’s the truth, isn’t it? I’ll be honest, I thought it was all nonsense, but I came for Ivy. I thought she was going crazy or something.”
I glared at them.
“Please don’t be mad,” Carlos begged, wide eyed. “We just thought you’d want to… you know, move on.”
“Move on?” I said sharply. Another gust of icy wind blew through the room, and the floorboards shook beneath our feet. “Yeah, sure, obviously. Why would I be mad? First my ghost-dad abandons me, then my family moves across the country, and now my best friends are trying to exorcise me?”
“Ang, stop, you’re freaking us out,” Ivy said. She held her trembling hands out placatingly. “Besides, you’re not a demon or whatever. We can’t exorcise you, technically.”
“Right,” I murmured, rolling my eyes. “My mistake.”
I took a deep breath. There were more important things to worry about right now than my abandonment issues. I looked around at my friends, now adults, barely recognizable. They had their own jobs, their own homes away from here – their own lives. And I was just here… frozen. A snapshot. Maybe I did need to move on?
For a moment, I was overcome with sadness. Regret washed over me like a tidal wave. Regret for the life that had been stolen from me. From all of us. There was so much I had missed – so much I’d never get to experience. I always thought we’d all be there to see each other graduate and get married. I thought our kids would play together. I had wanted to go to university and become a marine biologist. But I’d missed graduation, and now I’d never see any of them get married. I’d never grow up or have a job. I wondered, if things had been different, if the four of us would still be friends today.
“So much has changed,” I said quietly. “I wish I could have been there to see it.”
“Wait until we tell you about social media,” Tori quipped, the small smile returning to her face.
“And streaming services!” Ivy added. Even Carlos cracked a smile at that.
Before I could ask what those things were, the sound of a car horn in the driveway pierced the air. All four of us froze.
“Did you hear that?” I asked. Everyone nodded.
“What if it’s the police?” Ivy asked nervously. “I really can’t afford to get busted for trespassing.”
But it wasn’t the police.
“Hey, Angie!”
It was my father’s voice. My heart thundered in my chest.
“Did you hear that?” I asked. Everyone nodded again.
I hurried to the window. My friends followed close behind, and Carlos drew back the tarp so we could all see outside. Sure enough, my father’s rusted, shabby station wagon sat idling in the driveway. The familiar rattling of the engine brought tears to my eyes. I peered through the windshield and let out a great sob of relief.
There was my father in the driver’s seat, smiling up at me. He waved one hand out the window, gesturing for me to come down. My heart swelled in my chest. He had come back for me.
“Come on down, Angie,” he called. “It’s time for me to take you home.”
“Where will you go?” asked Tori, looking worried. “I mean, where’s home?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess I’m about to find out, aren’t I?”
“I guess this is it, then,” I said, stepping away from the window and looking around at my three best friends. “I just want to say… thank you. You know, for exorcising me or whatever.”
I reached out to pull them all into a group hug like we had done a million times before, forgetting my arms would probably go right through them. To my surprise, my left hand closed around Ivy’s soft sweater and my right hand pressed against Carlos’ shoulder. Tori ducked under my arm and repositioned herself, so I was in the middle of the huddle. Grateful tears filled my eyes. Warmth from their bodies flooded into me. We stood like that for several minutes, and for those minutes I felt alive.
“Okay,” said Ivy finally, drawing back with a smile. “That’s enough of this mushy crap. Besides, it’s past my bedtime and we all know I need my beauty rest.”
I nodded, laughing through my tears.
“Right,” I said. “Take care of yourselves, okay?”
“You know we will,” said Carlos. “You too, okay?”
I nodded.
“Bye, Ang,” said Tori, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “We love you.”
“I love you guys.”
I turned and walked through the bedroom door. Then I had a thought, so I poked my head back into the room and gave them each a pointed look.
“I need you to promise me one more thing,” I said.
“Sure,” Ivy replied. “Anything.”
“I want you to promise you won’t drift apart again,” I instructed. “No matter how far apart you live or how busy life gets. You have to keep our friendship alive for me, okay? Do it for me.”
“We will,” they replied together. As if to seal the promise, the three of them clasped each other’s hands.
“Okay, you better, or I’ll haunt your asses,” I reminded them. We all burst out laughing, and with one last tearful wave, I disappeared through the closed door and into the hallway.
As I made my way to the stairs, I was surprised to find the house was back to the way I had known it. The scorch marks were gone. The plush carpet was fully intact again, soft beneath my bare feet. The ash and dust that had covered everything had disappeared, as if mom had just finished dusting. The stairs were fully intact. As I made my way downstairs, I smiled at the family photos adorning the walls. There were school photos of Riley and me throughout the years, and the family portraits we’d had done at the mall when I was 13. There were photos from family vacations, days at the beach and even my middle school graduation photos.
Downstairs, the construction equipment was gone, and the walls, floors and ceilings were fully intact. Mom’s hideous antique lamp was sitting on the console table in the entryway where it belonged, casting its familiar warm glow. As I made my way to the entryway, I silently said my goodbyes to the house and all the memories it contained.
I heard the horn sound again from the driveway and hurried out the front door. Dad was standing outside the car now, holding the passenger door open for me. His eyes were filled with happy tears.
“Angie, come here,” he called to me, opening his arms. I ran into his embrace and crashed against his warm, familiar body. I allowed the tears to flow unrestricted now, and my whole body shook with heaving sobs.
“I thought you left me,” I cried into his shirt, clinging to him like a child. He was wearing the cheesy “#1 Dad” t-shirt I had gotten him for Father’s Day when I was 13. The familiar scent of his cologne coaxed the last remnants of fear and panic from my mind. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“Oh, baby,” he said, peppering the top of my head with kisses. “They told me I had to wait until you realized for yourself what had happened. You’re safe now, Angie. I’m here now.”
I pulled back slightly, but my arms would not unclench from their vice grip around his waist. “They?”
He smiled and ruffled my hair. “You’ll see. Let’s get you home.”
I finally relented and ducked into the car. It was exactly how I remembered it, down to the heady smell of the leather interior mixed with Dad’s favourite vanilla air freshener. Suddenly, I felt very tired. I yawned.
“Tired?” Dad asked. “It’s okay. You can nap on the way. Watch your fingers.”
He closed the door behind me and circled around to the driver’s seat. Looking at it now from the outside, I could tell the house had lay abandoned for years. The lawn was overgrown, and the gardens had long since been choked by weeds.
As we began to back out of the driveway, Dad turned to me. “Seatbelt.”
“Oh, right.” Although I didn’t see the point, hearing that familiar reminder warmed my heart and I fastened the seatbelt tightly around myself, nonetheless. I looked over at him.
“Dad, what about Mom and Riley?”
He smiled. “We’ll be able to pick them up, too, when their time comes.”
I nodded. We pulled away from the curb, the station wagon’s engine rattling in its familiar way. Dad placed one hand on my knee, keeping the other on the wheel.
“You can rest now, Angie,” he reassured me. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up when we get there.”
“But where are we going?” I asked, my eyes already growing heavy.
“You’ll see,” he repeated, chuckling. I rolled my eyes at him but conceded, resting my forehead against the cool glass windowpane.
I knew in my heart that he was right. I was safe and we were going home.
I closed my eyes.
© Victoria St. Michael 2021