“I’m coming. I’m coming,” Alec shouted as he nearly tripped on his way to open the door before whoever was outside pounded the door the floor. He was peacefully sitting beside the fire, pretending like he wasn’t home with hopes of avoiding any children. Now it was ruined by whoever thought it was funny to continuously beat a hole into his door. He yanked the thing open to find his friend, Jace, standing there, alongside Clary and Simon who also decided to tag along to their little event. He greeted them all as they entered his small house, his gaze, however, frozen on the pale box in Jace’s hands. “Why the hell did you bring a Ouija board? You know how I feel about that shit.”
“It’s Halloween,” Jace said as though that would make it better, “make an exception.”
“Come on,” he whined, “I want to see if this thing works.”
“No.” There was no way he was going to let Jace summon something into his house and then try to hide as though it was never his idea in the first place – that is, if it actually worked – which it doesn’t. He still didn’t want to take the risk.
Alec rubbed the bridge of his nose to try and relieve the headache he could feel coming on – or perhaps that was just Jace’s presence. “Will you never bring it up again?”
“One try? Even if we decide to call quits early?”
Jace’s eyes said no, but Alec stared him down. He pouted. “Fine.”
“Set it up in the dining room,” Alec sighed reluctantly.
“YES!” Jace cried out and bolted off to the dining room around the corner like a kid on Christmas. Simon and Clary laughed, but Alec really didn’t find the humor in it. He just wanted to keep Jace quiet for a couple more minutes. “Hey, do you have any candles?”
“Dammit.” Alec shook his head as he listened to whatever Jace was tossing and turning around in the dining room to get situated for the evening. Jace had always been so invested in Halloween and the supernatural forces. He didn’t understand it and he really didn’t want to. There were no such things as demons, ghosts, angels, or anything else of the sort. There was no higher being that answered prayers or questions with obscene signs like turning on a light or blowing out a candle. Alec knew. He’d given up a long time ago.
Simon and Clary followed Alec as he showed them to the dining room, finding Jace flopping down a black table cloth that he may or may not have brought himself. “Why are you so determined to see if this things works? Got the hots for a ghost?”
“Ew. Gross. No.” Jace scrunched his face at the thought and shivered dramatically. “Just think of it as a science experiment.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Alec sighed, something that would be a common occurrence for the rest of the night. Jace took his place at the head of table and the others fell into place on the other three sides, Alec across from Jace, and Simon mirrored Clary. Jace inhaled deeply then paused, jumped up from his seat and turned off the lights in the room. “Really?”
“It’s good atmosphere,” Simon whispered then yelped when there was a thump under the table. Clary looked all too pleased with herself.
Jace settled back down and set his phone down on the table, the flashlight gleaming up and under his face to illuminate the deep features there. “First, here are the rules: Never play alone. Never play in a graveyard. Always remember to say goodbye. Don’t ask about the future. Understand?” Everyone nodded. “Everyone place a finger on the planchette. We circle the board once for each player,” Jace circled one, twice, three times, four, “then once for the group. We call upon any nearby spirits for communication. Speak with us. We’re here to listen.”
The room fell silent. Alec imagined that there would be a crack of lightning or a surprise rain storm that would come alongside this little game. He rose an eyebrow expectantly at Jace. “Now, who wants to ask something first?”
“Is anyone there?” Clary voiced first. “What’s your name?”
Nothing happened at first. They were all looking at one another, waiting. And then it happened. It started moving from its initial position, sliding towards the upper corner.
The planchette kept moving across the board, the four of them spectating as it spelled out the rest of the word. D-I-C-K. As if. Alec removed his finger from the piece. “JACE!”
The blonde started laughing hysterically. “What? I can’t help it.”
“Not cool, man,” Simon huffed. “Not cool.”
“You didn’t come here for cool, Lewis. You came here to be scared,” Jace mocked, then resumed his place. “Alec, put your finger back.”
He contemplated leaving. This was a stupid idea in the first place. He reluctantly put his finger back on the planchette. “There.” As soon as he did, Jace’s phone’s flashlight sputtered and went out.
“What the hell? It was fully charged.” Jace used his other hand to smack his phone across his thigh to no avail. It was completely dead, the screen frozen on the pixeled screen. “That’s weird.”
“Simon?” Clary’s voice wobbled as she shivered. “Is it just me of did it get really cold in here?”
“Who’s here?” Jace called out to the board – the room around them. “If there is someone here, move the piece.”
Alec felt the cold too. It tingled up his spine and settled at the base of his skull, like the sensation of someone breathing down your neck, or being observed from afar. He rubbed his neck but the feeling still stayed.
Alec jerked slightly. “Jace, calm down –“
“Look,” Simon cut him off. The planchette was moving steadily towards the only answer that they didn’t want to see.
“Hey, this isn’t funny, Jace,” Simon laughed half-heartedly. There was something in his eyes that Alec could easily identify – fear.
Jace’s eyes were wide with the same look. He slowly shook his head and said, “This isn’t me.”
“I’m scared,” Clary whispered, probably unknowingly.
“We should stop,” Simon tried to plead with Jace, but they all watched as he gulped – probably swallowing down the fear stuck in the back of his throat – and straightened in his chair. “What’s your name?”
“What is your name?” Jace repeated.
It was small, the jerk of the piece. It moved in the same manner towards a letter: M.
“That’s not a name,” Simon murmured low. “Is it?”
Alec wasn’t going to stay to figure it out. “Say goodbye,” Alec demanded. “Say it.”
He looked up and found Jace’s eyes, telling him everything that he was feeling. Jace looked down at the board and said, “Goodbye.”
The planchette didn’t move. “Goodbye.”
It still didn’t move. Jace scrunched his face and tried pushing the piece for himself, and it still didn’t move. “It’s stuck.”
“That’s not possible,” Simon said, pushing too, but it still wouldn’t move. Clary joined in, and finally Alec, but it was stuck in its same place over the M. They all removed their fingers and tried picking up the piece, scraping, peeling, smacking without anything happening. It was as though someone had superglued the piece to the board.
“This isn’t funny, Jace.”
“This isn’t me!” he pleaded. “I got this this morning and brought it over in the plastic. How am I supposed to glue something without even opening it in the first place?”
“Maybe there’s a magnet under the table? Or trip wires? Maybe Izzy’s under the table keeping the thing in place while you’re up here trying to scare the living daylights out of –“ Clary cut him off with a sharp cry.
She stood up from her chair. “I swear I just saw that move.”
The planchette was still over the M, but it was not pointed towards Alec rather than Jace. It had not been there a second ago. “Jace, what is happen-“
They didn’t know what to do. They just watched. The planchette moved on its own. It shot quicker than anything any of them had ever seen, sliding from one letter to the next.
They all exploded into shouts and cries and pleas all at once. The only things he could make out were: “SHIT!”, “What the hell, Jace!”, “What the hell is a Magnus?” At the sound of the name in use, the house grew eerily quiet. A few floorboards creaked but no one had moved from their spot. The four of them were on the verge of running from the room in fear. Their eyes all landed back on the planchette as they heard the wood scraping in another fury of letters: R-U-N-R-U-N-R-U-N-R-U-N-R-U-N-R-U-N-R-U-N-R-U-N. And then it started making a figure eight on the board without end.
“BURN IT!” Jace’s eyes lit up, flitting right over to the still lit fire that Alec had taken place beside earlier. The lightbulb lit in his mind and he immediately jumped into action. He grabbed the board, ignoring the stinging sensation coiling its way through his arms as it got stronger and stronger the closer he got to the fireplace, and then tossed the entire thing inside. It took it a moment to catch fire, but once it did, it went up in dark purple and blue flames. Simon and Clary joined Jace by the fire as Alec slowly made his way, his eyes catching someone moving out of the corner of eyes down the hall. A shadow. He chose to swallow down any dark ideas.
Alec blinked, finding the others looking at him expectantly, and with a tinge of worry. “Sorry.. I thought I saw something.” It’s nothing, he told himself. Your mind is playing tricks.
He felt as Jace placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. The pressure grounded him, bringing him back to this time and place with his friends. His friends. In his house. It’s fine. It’s nothing. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he gulped. “I’m fine.”
“We can stay, right?” Jace looked to the small entourage. Simon rubbed the back of his neck while looking towards the door and Clary was about ready to cry. That’d be a no.
Alec cut in before they even had to make a decision. “It’s fine. Go. I’ll call you throughout the night.”
“You better.” Jace gave him a pointed finger and then went on his way with Clary and Simon out the door and to their own, much better lives. Alec made sure to lock the door and turn off any lights before facing the hours that lie ahead of him.
He made sure to call every hour – after he got an angry call from Jace saying how he was supposed to keep checking in. Ten o’clock passed. Eleven. Midnight was gone. He fell asleep sometime after that with his phone in his hand.
It was some time after that Alec woke to the sound of nails scraping against the walls, growing louder and louder towards his bed. At first, he thought he was dreaming. But the sensation on the back of his neck was back – it was stronger. It made his stomach twist and his heart clench. His body jerked into an upright position and found that nothing was in his room. He made himself lie back in bed and close his eyes, willing himself back to sleep.
“You humans are always so gullible.”
Alec’s eyes shot open and there was a pair of golden eyes peering down at him. The cold, scrawling sensation of his neck was now full-blown fear, paralyzing him from even thinking about moving his limbs. He could still feel, however. He felt the additional weight of someone sitting on his chest and a sharp talon gliding over the surface of his cheek. “It’s actually quite entertaining.”
The cold finger kept sliding and sliding, following the curve of his cheek then his jaw then the arc of his throat. “I am centuries old. You need to do more than throwing the board into the fire to get rid of me.”
He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted to do anything else than just lie there and be this ragdoll stiff on a bed. It surprised himself as the word spilled from his lips, “Magnus.”
The man – this wicked spirit of some kind – smirked down at him, his teeth glimmering in the dark. “Let’s play, shall we?”
