Possessed

Chapter 9: The Ritual

"I'm SO going to get you, Aries Avelda!" Odette shrieked and aimed a bulging water balloon at me. I ducked behind her dad's car. The balloon missed me by a few seconds and I heard it slam into her dad's car window.

I stood up to see a dripping wet Odette shooting death glares at me.

"My dad's not going to be too happy about that," she admonished, her voice smug.

I stuck out my tongue at her. "You're the one who threw it. Your dad asks, I'm giving your name and it won't be a lie."

"Don't you dare!" Odette yelled, before plunging a balloon at my face again. This time I didn't see it coming, and therefore couldn't prevent it from hitting me. One second I was leaning against the body of the blue sedan, expressing my satisfaction at getting to blame Odette, and the next, I was hit square on my face with water soaking my top.

I heard Odette's deliberate laughter beside me, and turned to glare at her. Muffled voices in the background caught my attention. I looked over to the other side of Odette's kempt lawn, and saw Elaine and Aaron still bickering.

"Give it a rest you two, will you?!" I shouted across the lawn.

They stopped for a moment and looked at me.

"I mean," I said, throwing my hands up in the air, "We've been outside like for an hour and you both have been arguing the whole time! We're supposed to have a water balloon fight! If you two don't get yourselves here, we're going to start without you!"

"He started it!" Elaine huffed, pointing at Aaron, "He said the Twilight Saga was the worst thing that could happen. Who says that?!"

"Please!" Aaron made a disgusted face and stated, "I'd rather date a cow than watch that crap!"

I burst out laughing. Partly because I also thought Twilight was absolute nonsense. I mean what kind of a vampire boy sparkles in the sun like a fairy?

Elaine glanced at me sharply, and Odette piped in, "Guys, if you wanna stand out here in the middle of the afternoon, immaturely quarreling on something no one cares about, it's fine with me. Now I'm going inside for lunch. We can start the water fight after lunch is over."

With that, she turned around and strode towards her door with purpose in her steps. We all stopped talking and shrugged. My stomach growled loudly and involuntarily, making my cheeks tint red. Oh god! This was so embarrassing! In front of Aaron, too!

"Looks like someone's real hungry," he teased, rubbing my stomach. I slapped his hands away playfully, and we all followed after Odette eagerly.

I opened one of my lids and risked a peek. My friends, excluding Aaron who had gone home, and I were sitting upright in our positions, creating a circle in the centre of the dimly-lit room that we were in. In the middle of our circle were four candles, one for the each of us, and a heavy, shabby-looking book that Elaine had been given by her Aunt who lived in California and was rather superstitious. She had said it had spells for summoning the spirits of the dead if you needed to communicate with them. Even though Odette had believed her right away, I hadn't. Spirits of the dead? Pfft. Yeah right.

So, I was, forcibly convinced into doing something utterly nonsensical. I looked around the room, bored. We were in the room where I'd found the skeleton just a few weeks ago. Elaine and Odette were staying true to their words and not even attempting to lift a lid. I, on the other hand, felt an urgent need to burst out into laughter when I saw the hilarious faces of my friends.

Finally, after what seemed like way too many minutes to waste in a lifetime, I spied Elaine fluttering open her eyes and quickly closed my own, as if I had been doing so all along.

"Looks like this ain't going to work," Odette intoned, and we all nodded in agreement.

"I know, but it's SUPPOSED TO," murmured Elaine, shaking her head. She kept on running her hands over the worn pages of the book.

"Okay, I'm going-"I was ungraciously cut off by Elaine's excited yelp. I looked at Odette to see her covering her ears, looking pained.

"Gosh, no need to scream, Ellie. We're all here. You can talk, you know," I said.

"I found the page!" she yelled, completely ignoring my advice.

I hurried over to her side, Odette in tow. We three pored over the yellowing page of the book and I saw ancient runes printed on it.

"You can't read it, can you?" I asked mildly.

"Nope," Elaine answered, not at all deterred by my question, "but there's a guide at the back of the book that can decode it."

And so, we spent the next hour matching the alphabets to the runes and trying to decipher their true meaning.

"Aha!" Elaine held up the book in her hands, looking triumphant when we had revealed the meaning behind the last of the runes.

"Let me read it," Odette suggested, reaching for the book. Elaine passed it to her.

Odette read, in a voice of grave monotone, "LET THE SPIRITS OF THIS THRESHOLD BE SUMMONED. FOR THE BEST OF PURPOSES, WE CALL THEE TO REVEAL THYSELF UNTO US."

We all waited, our breath held back.