From Bad to Cursed

I tapped her on the shoulder. “Where’s my sister?”

“Oh, I’m not sure,” Megan said, like it was no big deal.

I looked around, panic rising inside me.

“Lex,” Megan said, putting a hand on my arm, “she’s not a two-year-old lost at Disneyland.”

“But she’s never been to a party like this before.” I knew most of the kids there, but not all of them. A couple were even in college. What if somebody spiked my sister’s drink? Lured her away from the crowd?

Seeing my face, Megan relented. “All right,” she said. “Commence Operation Find Kasey.”

We wove through the house, finally ending up in the hallway in front of a closed bedroom door. Sloppily taped on it was a handwritten sign that said, BAGS IN HERE.

“You check that room,” Megan said. “I think there are some people in the garage. I’ll go look out there.”

I opened the door.

“Kasey?”

No answer.

The room was dark, but it wasn’t empty. Three kids—none of them my sister with her golden ponytail—sat on the floor, with flickering candles scattered around. My pulse perked up at the sight—we Warrens weren’t big decorative flame (or any kind of flame) folks anymore. Watching your house burn to ashes sort of reduces the appeal.

On the floor between them was a Ouija board.

“You know, those aren’t toys,” I said, trying to keep my voice as light as possible.

“Oh, really?” replied a voice I knew. “Because I bought it at a toy store.”

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw Lydia Small in the central position. Her long dyed-black hair was in a deliberately messy updo, and her brand-new eyebrow ring glinted in the candlelight. Her fingertips rested lightly on the planchette, a little wooden piece that moved around the board, and the other two girls had their fingers on either side of hers.

Lydia and I were friends for freshman and part of sophomore years. But lately things were pretty strained. She couldn’t get over the fact that I could possibly prefer to hang with anyone besides her and the rest of the pretentious, black-clad Doom Squad. And I couldn’t get over the fact that she was insufferably a

“Hurry, ghost of the Ouija board,” she said in an oogie-boogie voice, “tell us something interesting before scaredy-cat Alexis runs away.”

The other two giggled. I stood with my back to the wall.

“What was that?” Lydia said, lowering her ear to the board. “What did you say?” Then she looked up. “The ghost wants to know if you’ve always been boring, or if it’s something that happened when you started hanging out with clones—hold on, I’ll answer.”

I sighed. “Grow up, Lydia.”

She leaned down to talk to the board. “The answer is B,” she said. “Clones.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I should try harder to be unique…like you and the other fifty people at school exactly like you.”

The door opened, letting a slope of light fall across the room.

“Lexi?” my sister’s voice asked. Her hand groped the wall and flipped the light switch, blinding us all and bringing forth groans of protest from the girls on the floor.

The light popped off again. Kasey stepped in, with Megan behind her.

“What is this, a Losers Anonymous meeting? You guys are totally killing the mood,” Lydia said, getting to her feet. “I’m going to get something to eat.” Her minions followed her out.

Kasey stood motionless, staring down at the Ouija board. After a second, her body gave a little jolt and she looked up. “Megan said you were looking for me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I am,” she said. “Just tired.”

I knelt, grabbed a candle, and blew it out, then reached for another. “I can’t believe they would leave these burning.”

“Um…Lexi? You should maybe…see this.…”

While I’d been focused on the candles, Kasey’s eyes were locked on the board itself.

I looked down and froze.

The planchette was moving.

It glided from letter to letter, making a light scratching sound against the board.

Megan breathlessly rested her hands on my shoulders, bending down to watch.

“It already said B-E,” Kasey whispered.

The movements seemed feeble, but it was perfectly confident about where it was headed.

C-A-R-E-F-U-L

“Will do,” I said, trying to figure out how to get the three of us as far from this situation as possible in the smallest amount of time. “Let’s go, you guys.”

“No, Lex, wait,” Megan said, grabbing on to the leg of my jeans. She knelt on the floor.

Kasey was standing with her palms flat against the floral wallpaper. “It’s not my fault,” she whispered. “I didn’t do it.”

“I know, Kase. It’s all right—we’re leaving. Megan,” I said, looking pointedly at my sister. “Come on.”

“Shh,” Megan said, not moving her eyes from the board. “Be careful? Why? Who are you?”

The pointer wobbled and began to move again. Megan grabbed the pad of paper and little wooden pencil from the open box and wrote down each letter.

In spite of my eagerness to go, I found myself watching its progress.

E-L-S-P-E-T-H

Enough. I tried to tug Megan toward the door, but she leaned forward, her eyes blazing. The bow from the front of her shirt dangled almost to the board. I had a horrible vision of something reaching up and grabbing on to it.

“Elspeth,” she asked, “why do we need to be careful?”

E-X-A-N-I-M-U

I yanked my arm free and slapped my hand on the planchette, holding it still. Under my palm, it pulled insistently, trying to get away. I turned to look into Megan’s indignant eyes.

“We talked about stuff like this,” I said. “About not doing it, remember?”

“This could be important, Lex,” Megan said. “She’s trying to tell us something.”

“We don’t even know who she is!” I protested. But before we could get into a debate, the door opened with a crash.

Lydia and her followers came back in, smelling vaguely of cigarettes. “Oh, whoa,” one of them said. “It’s dark.”

But my darkness-adjusted eyes could see fine.

And what I saw was: the pointer turning around and around, faster and faster, until it spun in place like a top.

Just as Lydia turned on the light, I backhanded the spi

“What are you doing?” Lydia demanded. “That’s not yours!”

“Relax,” I said, relieved that no one else had noticed the spi

“They blew out all the candles!” one of the girls whined. “That sucks.”

“Alexis sucks in general,” Lydia said. She looked at Megan, who was still clutching the paper and pencil. “And that’s mine too!”

“Let’s go,” I said, my hand on Kasey’s arm.

We were on our way out when Lydia called to me.

“Hey!” She stared at the pad of paper, which Megan had handed back to her. She looked at us, half-questioning and half-accusatory. “Elspeth? Why did you write that down?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

“What’s the matter, Lydia, are you scaaaaared?” one of the girls asked.

Lydia scowled. “Shut up! I’m returning this stupid game. I’m going to get my money back.”

“No you’re not,” the second girl said, laughing. “Look, this piece fell in a candle and melted.”

“Sorry, Elspeth!” the first girl cackled, and they dissolved into a fit of giggling.

I could feel the heat of Lydia’s glare on my back as we closed the door behind us.

Megan checked her phone. “My curfew’s ten thirty. Are you guys staying, or do you want a ride?”

Staying was the last thing I felt like doing. I found Carter at the end of the hall, still surrounded by preps. I heard the words “outreach” and “social consciousness,” but he abandoned the conversation to draw me close to him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Megan’s taking us home,” I said. “Kasey’s worn out.”

His brow furrowed. “I can leave now if you need me to.”