Chapter 02 - The Prank

  The moon was starting its ascent into the sky by the time my friends and I crept under the chain link fence into Ole’ Walsh’s Graveyard. Cayetana was up front, holding an LED lantern which, in retrospect, would’ve given away our location to the groundskeeper quickly. But she placed a free hand over it to dim the light as we ducked low enough behind gravestones to reach the mausoleum at the center. We rushed inside the stone structure, with me giving the surroundings a quick look around before turning and nodding at the other two.

  Cayetana dropped the lantern down gently and the three of us quickly removed our backpacks and pulled out our usual materials: a plaid blanket to lie on, a bag of popcorn, and a few sodas. When all that was set up, I pulled out our main event and placed it in the center between all of us. The Ouija board.

  Cayetana sat down, wiped her hands on her pink sweater and swiped a stray lock of her hair away from her eyes. She looked at both me and Benji before smiling and announcing, “I now call the Greywood Academy Charter: Supernatural club into session!”

  “Do we really have to do this in the graveyard?” whined Benji, slumping on top of the blanket. He fidgeted where he sat, shadows playing upon his Asian features in the lantern light. “I can think of many things to do before school starts, and angering the dead isn’t one of them!”

  “We’re not going to anger them,” I comforted, shuddering a bit in my hoodie from the cold of the night. I was sitting between the two of them, legs crisscrossed, and my head resting on my left hand. “We’re just going to see if this thing really works.”

  “And,” added Cayetana, taking the chance to toss some popcorn into her mouth, “if it does, I’m sure the dead here would like some conversation. They’re probably excited and want to talk to people since they’ve been dead for like…” she turned and looked at one of the plaques on the wall, eyes squinting while trying to do math in her head.

  “Fifty-two years,” I helped her.

  “Yeah! That’s a long time not to talk to anyone.”

  “Or,” countered Benji, “they’re enjoying their rest and don’t want anyone disturbing them!” The frown on his face continued to deepen, and Cayetana and I just laughed.

  “For someone who claims he doesn’t believe in the supernatural, you’re awfully nervous about this,” I laughed.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Just because I don’t believe it doesn’t mean weird shit can happen.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “You don’t make sense!”

  “It’s ok, lil Ben-Ben,” Cayetana cooed. “If you’re so scared, you can just leave me and Ky here to try ourselves. But you know what that would mean?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he sighed with an exaggerated eye roll. “I’d owe you guys a week of lunchroom fries.”

  “Fries do sound good right about now, don’t you think, ‘Tana?” I snickered.

  “Yep. Run along, Ben-Ben.”

  “I’m staying! I’m staying!” he huffed and opened one of the soda cans before taking a few gulps. “Someone has to make sure you all don’t get into trouble.”

  “Sure, sure,” I rolled my eyes.

  This wasn’t the first time we had snuck into the graveyard for our club meetings. It was actually Benji’s idea, though he meant it as a joke when Cayetana shared with us her plan to start the supernatural club during lunch one day. Even then, he was dismissing the whole idea of the supernatural while Cayetana tried to persuade us to join in on her quest to “see what’s out there.” In the end, I thought it’d be fun and offer me a chance to mess with my friends using magic, and Benji was outvoted two to one.

  Eventually, this evolved into us sneaking into the graveyard on some weekends, finally settling on the mausoleum as a good hangout spot. So far, we hadn’t been caught, but there were a few occasions when the groundskeeper came in and we had to hide behind the sarcophagus to avoid any trouble.

  It was a fairly large building that was erected sometime during the early 1900s - the earliest date on one of the plaques was from 1902, after all. We weren’t aware of the true history of the mausoleum, but Cayetana was adamant that the place felt connected to the supernatural. The building was made of weathered gray stone, decorated with two wolves carved into the walls of the front. If there once was a door, it was long gone. Moonlight was pouring into the room, but it didn’t produce as much light as the LED lantern. The walls were lined with numerous other plaques where I assumed family members were interred. It was a curious thing to see that some of them remained empty, perhaps reserved for still-living family.

  This definitely wasn’t the place teenagers would normally decide to hang out. Most kids our age were more interested in parties, getting drunk, or joining in more of the mundane activities of high school life. But not us. Maybe it was because Cayetana was obsessed with the supernatural, but that obsession did give us to a lot of fun memories. One time, we’d mess around with tarot cards, hoping to divine some kind of future reading. Another night, we tried wandering the graveyard with an EMF reader that Cayetana bought online. A smile crept on my face, remembering how Benji almost cried the entire time we wandered the graveyard. And when I triggered the EMF reader to jump with my magic, his scream shattered the silent night, and we had to bolt out of there with the groundskeeper chasing after us.

  But thinking about normal people reminded me of my encounter with Rory today. I found myself wondering what kind of things he would find interesting. Probably sports shit. He is the football captain, after all. What would someone like that do anyway? Based on my pop culture knowledge, it probably meant he was out drinking with the team or tossing a football in a field. Maybe he's hanging upside down, legs held up by friends as he participated in a keg stand.

  Or maybe spending his time with some girl...

  I did my best to wipe that thought out of my mind quickly. But thinking on him reminded me that he knew I was friends with Benji…

  “Hey Benji. How do you know Rory?”

  His attention snapped to me, and I could see his eyes widen in surprise. “I… don’t? How do you know him?”

  “I met him while going inside school today. The doors were locked, and he opened them for me. He acted like he knew you and me were friends.”

  Benji shrugged. “I mean, we do hang out a lot, so it’s no surprise he’d figure that out.”

  He had a point. I was probably looking too deeply into it. “So he’s your neighbor?”

  “Not really. He lives in the biggest house in the neighborhood and just hangs out with his other friends. He’s kind of a bigshot in the community, always volunteering during events and pack meets.”

  I frowned. “Pack meets?”

  Benji flinched and tried to mask his reaction. “I mean, during the monthly cookouts. Yeah. Our HOA has monthly cookouts. They’re kind of a big deal in Greywood Forest…”

  “Why don’t we ever get to go to these cookouts?” whined Cayetana. “They sound fun.”

  Benji shrugged. “HOA rules. Community members only.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Not even guests?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  “Is that why your parents won’t ever let us visit you or have sleepovers?” I asked.

  “Kind of…”

  “Well, this is fun and all, learning that Ky has a thing for football boys, but we’re here to talk to the dead,” Cayetana redirected us and pointed to the Ouija board.

  I blushed. “I don’t have a thing for football boys!”

  “Just Rory Grey, football captain.”

  My face heated up a bit more. “Definitely not.”

  “You do know your face turns beet red when you’re flustered, right?”

  “Shut up!”

  “You can’t be with Rory,” Benji said, almost too seriously. “You just can’t!”

  I blinked at his strange shift in tone. “I mean… I know he’s out of my league and all… He's probably not even into guys...”

  His expression softened. “I didn’t mean to sound mean about it. Just that Rory is… intense.”

  “So what you’re saying,” smirked Cayetana, looking at me directly, “is that you do have a crush on him.”

  I groaned and removed the lid of the Ouija board’s box. “It’s time to talk to the dead.”

  I pulled out the yellowed instructions and handed them to Cayetana since Benji immediately refused them from me. As she read, I placed the wooden board between all of us while Benji moved the bag of popcorn aside and out of the way.

  I had never seen or used a Ouija board in person, so I stared in awe at how well-made this one was. It had the usual Yes/No, alphabet, and numbers engraved on it, but on the top corners was a decorated sun and moon, while on the bottom corners were two wolves facing each other. My fingers traced over the designs, feeling the texture at my fingertips.

  Though I wasn’t nervous, I did bite my lip in a bit of anticipation of what I had planned to do tonight with my magic. I could already imagine Benji’s reaction to seeing the planchette moving. He’d probably scream again. Cayetana, though… she’d probably be freaked out, too. I grinned, adrenaline starting to rise as I got ready to prank them.

  “So… what do we have to do?” asked Benji, snapping me out of my thoughts. He looked nervously at Cayetana, shaking slightly.

  “Uh… we all are supposed to hold the planchette at the center of the board where the eye is. Then… we ask a question and maybe the spirits will answer us,” she said.

  “Does anyone have a question in mind?” I asked.

  “Ugh…do we really have to?” Benji whimpered.

  “Yes,” Cayetana grinned at him. “Let’s try something simple first. Ok, everyone place your hands on the planchette.”

  We did as she asked, placed our hands onto the wooden piece and looked at her expectantly. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before speaking in a deep voice, “Is anybody there?”

  “Not funny, ‘Tana,” said Benji.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Just talk normally.”

  “Fine, fine,” she said before repeating her question. “Is anybody there?”

  We sat there in silence amidst the lantern light while nothing happened. Benji and I looked at each other a few times while Cayetana's eyes remained focused on the board. It seemed like she was holding her breath. After about another minute, she finally broke eye contact and looked at us with a sigh.

  “I guess it doesn’t work.”

  “Thank God,” said Benji. “If anything had happened, I would’ve just started running out of here.

  As soon as he said it, we gasped as our hands started to feel a pull on the planchette. Slowly, the inner circle moved upward toward the ‘Yes’.

  “No no no,” said Benji. “Who’s doing this!? This isn’t funny!”

  We all looked at each other for a few brief seconds in silence. Then Cayetana's lips curled upward and she laughed. “Ok, that was me! You both should’ve seen your faces!”

  “That was not cool, ‘Tana,” I complained, my own heart picking up there for a moment. We all took our hands off the planchette and went to snacking.

  “Ok, we did it. Are we done?” asked Benji.

  “What if we tried a different question? Or we took turns asking, instead?” asked Cayetana.

  “I think we should leave.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We just got here, Benji.”

  “So? We had our fun. I really think we should leave.”

  But before I could let anyone else talk, I put a hand behind my back and swirled a finger around. The effect was immediate, and the board shuddered while the planchette snapped over to ‘No’. Cayetana dropped the popcorn she was about to toss into her mouth, and Benji’s eyes widened as he froze in fear.

  Everyone was silent, eyes darting from each other and to the board. I did my best to match their shocked expressions, but I have to admit that it was really difficult not to laugh at the situation.

  “You all saw that…right?” shuddered Cayetana.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “No no no no,” was the only thing Benji could say.

  Cayetana slowly put her hands back on the planchette. She looked at each of us expectantly, and we followed her lead and returned our hands to it.

  “This is such a bad idea! This is such a bad idea!”

  “Shush, Benji,” hissed Cayetana. “We don’t want to make them angry.”

  “I thought you said they wouldn’t get angry!?”

  “Just be quiet! Let me think.”

  He whimpered in reply.

  “What should we do?” I asked, biting my lip, more so to let the pain prevent my mouth from curling into a smile.

  She looked at both of us again before asking, “Are you a spirit in the graveyard?”

  This time, I focused the planchette to hover over ‘Yes’.

  “Ok, not cool. One of you has to be moving this thing,” accused Benji.

  “It’s not me!” I replied. I really should get an Oscar for my acting.

  Cayetana ignored the two of us and continued to ask a question. “Who are you?”

  Slowly, the circle went over the letters: A-B-R-A-H-A-M.

  “Who’s Abraham?” whimpered Benji, but Cayetana’s eyes widened in shock. Slowly, she turned her head back toward the sarcophagus behind us and looked at the placard on it. When Benji’s eyes followed her direction, he let in a sharp breath before reading out, “Abraham Ballard…”

  “Are you Abraham Ballard?” I asked, before letting my magic move the planchette back to ‘Yes’.

  “W-what do you want?” shuddered Benji.

  P-E-A-C-E

  “Does that mean you’re friendly?” asked Cayetana.

  S-L-E-E-P

  “Ok, guys, we need to get out of here,” demanded Benji, pulling his hands away. “He wants us to leave him alone.”

  “This is actually happening…” muttered Cayetana. It was hard to say if she was speaking in awe or fear.

  But I figured I should put the nail in the coffin, so to speak.

  Benji was already packing up the bag of popcorn and drinks when he noticed the planchette was moving on its own again. His eyes bugged out, and he looked at the two of us as if pleading to just get up and go.

  J-O-I-N-M-E.

  “Join…me?” whispered Cayetana.

  J-O-I-N - M-E - B-E-N-J-I

  The scream that came out of the boy was the highest and loudest I had ever heard. It was so loud that Cayetana also screamed and ran out of the mausoleum the instant that Benji did. I waited to hear their panicked footsteps fade away before I fell over laughing. I did my best to wipe the tears from my eyes as I folded up the blanket, packed the ouija board into its box, and headed home myself.