Disappear: Into Shadow

- CHAPTER FORTY THREE -

For the last week, Tamara had been looking forward to this night. Having finally been allowed to throw a slumber party, it was well past the bedtimes of her and her best friends Brittany, Sandi and Julie. They were huddled in a darkened circle in the middle of the basement. Tamara's parents and younger brother Jamie were asleep. She felt so grown up being awake in the middle of the night. Only hours away from sunrise, the fifth graders whispered to each other in the glow of their flashlights. Sitting between her father's pool table and one of the basement's plush leather couches, the girls stared at the big surprise laying on the floor.

In the secret notes they had passed through class all week, the redhead of the group, Julie had promised to bring it. Pulling it out of her bag with a smug pride, she showed them the Ouija board. It belonged to her oldest sister, who was away in her first year at university. Tamara and Sandi, both blondes, held hands to their mouths. With a long, brown french braid that reached the small of her back, Brittany oohed and ahhed as Julie set up the mysterious board.

The girls were enthralled by ghost stories and witches. Tamara decided this slumber party was the best time to take their first steps into the mysterious world they had seen on television and read about online. Tamara hadn't told her friends the real reason she wanted to use the Ouija board. Her house was haunted.

She had many different reasons for believing this. The family cats were skittish. They jumped at their own shadows and the hair on their backs would ruffle up as though a dog walked through the room. When she was alone, she often felt like someone or something was watching her. After seeing a full cup of coffee slide across the kitchen table and shatter on the floor, she had been blamed for it. Her mother hadn't believed the ghost story and yelled at Tamara for lying; which, to Tamara, wasn't fair. She wanted to talk to this ghost.

When Julie told her she found the board while poking around her big sister's room, Tamara went to her parents that very night and asked for this party. Now the board was here and as Julie read the instructions to the other girls, Tamara was having second thoughts. Who was this ghost? What if it's a mean ghost? What if, what if, what if? The questions made her feel tired and afraid. "Maybe we shouldn't do this," Tamara said.

"Are you kidding?" Julie asked.

"C'mon, it's fine." "Are you chicken?" "Scaredy cat," were the calls around the circle.

Tamara knew her friends wanted to try the board after talking about it all week. As the girls nervously anticipated what might happen, their whispers became a buzzing. On the verge of breaking into excited chattering, Tamara shushed them. The last thing she wanted was her parents stumbling into this. With hesitant hands, each of the girls placed their fingers on the heart shaped planchette. Julie told them when a spirit answered a question, the little pointer would spell out messages from the other side. Letter by letter, the messages from the other side would be seen through its glass middle.

"Now what?" Brittany asked.

"Ask a question," Julie said.

"Is there a ghost here?" Tamara asked.

The next few seconds passed slowly. The girls exchange uncertain glances. When the planchette slid halfway across the board the girls squealed. Yanking their hands from the pointer, the connection was broken.

"You moved it!" Brittany accused the others.

"Did not!" Tamara said.

Sandi's voice trembled, "This is creeping me out!"