Page 71 of The Woods

“Okay,” Quinn says, feeling better. “And don’t let this shit scare you,” he adds. “I’m pretty sure it’s rigged. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Really? It feels legit to me. And I watched Sierra set everything up.”

“Sure, but did you watch the quiet, clammy guy?”

“Ethan? No, not really.”

“Exactly. Let’s just get this over with. Then we’ll get high and laugh about how stupid it all is.”

She smiles and nods, looking reassured. “Okay, sounds good.”

Ethan is gathering up the items from the circle while Quinn and Polly take care of the gadgets. They’re relocating to Quinn’s bedroom. Quinn isn’t happy to have them hanging out in there, especially to summon a ghost, but he’ll play along until he finds a way to prove the whole thing is a bunch of bullshit.

Sierra’s off listening to the audio recording of the living-room séance while the rest of them do the grunt work of moving it all to his room. He’s just finished relighting the tea lights when she arrives holding the audio recorder aloft, a look of excitement on her face.

“You guys need to hear this.”

They all gather around the gadget. She presses Play. Whatever she’s excited about is barely audible. To Quinn it just sounds like wind.

“It’s really windy out tonight,” Quinn says. “It probably picked that up.”

Sierra glares at him, rewinds the tape, and presses Play again. She’s gone far enough back so they hear her voice asking for John to give them a sign that it’s him. The other noise doesn’t start until after Sierra invites the spirit in, and she turns it up so that they can hear it better. It sounds like wind, but one that is blowing inside and doesn’t stop. Then there’s the rattle of the fire poker falling and Ethan and Polly’s screams. The wind noise gets even louder for a few seconds and then stops suddenly. Sierra fiddles around with the recording device and then presses Play again. “I’ve slowed it right down. Sometimes that helps.”

It still sounds like wind, but there’s another sound now, one within the wind, and it sends a shiver through him. He laughs, as if in disbelief, to mask it.

Polly

Sierra plays the recording a few more times until Polly finally tells her to stop. It sounds like a crowd of people all talking at once, there in the room with them. Every time she hears it, her stomach clenches and she can feel the fear growing inside her. She can’t believe how unbothered Quinn seems to be. He’s usually the anxious one. If Quinn’s not freaked out, then she shouldn’t be either.

They’re back sitting in a circle, this time on Quinn’s bedroom floor. Sierra passes around the photo. “This is fifteen-year-old Riley Gordon, who lived in this room until his mother suffocated him in his bed.” Polly glances at the picture, thinking there’s something familiar about him. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s the same age as Quinn that fills her with sadness. She passes it to Ethan, hoping to stop the sensation. He barely looks at it before passing it to Quinn.

Sierra does her thing again, calling to the spirits, asking if Riley is there with them. Other than a whine from Panda, there’s no response. Not even from the EMF meter. Sierra tries again in a deeper voice. “Is anyone here? Please give us a sign of your presence.”

The doorbell rings, and everyone except Sierra screams.

“Probably just trick-or-treaters,” Polly says, feeling silly. She pulls her hands free and gets up. “I’ll hand out some candy and be right back.”

“Don’t break the circle!” Sierra yells, but Polly ignores her and leaves the room. She’s so done with this stupid séance shit.

Her mom left a huge bowl of candy by the front door and there are two lit jack-o’-lanterns on the front step. Polly grabs the bowl and opens the front door. Nobody’s there. She steps outside to get a better look down the long driveway. There are no costumed figures passing under the beams of the lampposts. Not a single person in sight. Only the strong wind whipping through the trees, making branches creak and crack, spilling leaves to the ground.

She turns to go back inside when she hears someone call her name from the side of the house. Abandoning the bowl of candy on the front step, she hurries over to the figure standing amongst the trees.

“Gray,” she says, reaching out to pull him into the light from the house. “Where have you been?”

He gives her a distracted hug before pulling free from her grip. He points at the house. “Are you having a séance in there?”

“Were you spying on us?”

Without answering, he marches over to where Quinn’s bedroom window is. She follows. They have a clear view of Sierra, Quinn, and Ethan sitting on the floor around the circle of candles, with the photo of the fifteen-year-old in the center and the rest of Sierra’s paraphernalia spread around them.

“It looks to me like you’re having a séance.”

“Yeah, so? What’s the big deal? It’s Halloween.”

His expression is deadly serious. “It’s not right. You guys should stop right now.”

“Wait. I haven’t seen you in almost two weeks, and all you care about is some stupid séance?”