"Fortunately, in the history of the world, four scantily glad teen girls trying to call up a ghost has never ended badly," Cassie said sarcastically. "What the Hell were we thinking?"
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Duplantier House, Willow Creek, 2000
I'm sure it says something that Duplantier House had a seance room, albeit one smaller and brighter than Ophilia Villa's. Honestly, I think it says a lot... both about our families and about the wealthy of Willow Creek in general.
We gathered around the table. Carmilla was plainly eager to make a foray into the Netherworld. Molly was, as always, willing to go along on whatever ride Carmilla and I had in store. Gwen... I remember thinking that Gwen seemed perfectly at ease with the idea of a seance. The panic that had plainly filled her earlier was nowhere to seen now.
This may have been Carmilla's slumber party, but we both knew the seance was all mine.
"Clear your minds," I said. "Focus on the sound of the rain, the wind, the smell of the dried flowers. Open yourselves to the Netherworld."
As I said the words, I recognized the similarities between my father's seance incantation and Gwen's centering exercise... but in that moment I was swept into the trance of the ritual.
"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I chanted. "Here, in your house, in the company of one who is your family, we call you."
I could feel the spiritual energies, like I had never before. I felt the rush of shivering energy, like my mother's magic but also different. Colder, darker... hungrier.
I was distantly aware of those energies wrapping around me, lifting me up.
"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I repeated. "Come to us. Come to us. Come to us."
I could feel the Veil... the border between our world and the Netherworld. The rushing energy inside me seemed to throb in time to my heart, echoing against the cold, dark power beyond the Veil. I'd performed seances many times with my father, but I had never felt things so clearly before.
Without really thinking, I let the energy inside me reach out and push against the Veil, forcing it aside.
Somewhere, as if far away, I heard Gwen's voice whisper my name. "Cas?"
"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I called a third time.
There was a sound, like a deep, loud bell tolling once, and a rush of cold wind.
"What was that!" Molly fairly shrieked, leaping to her feet.
I felt the circle break and as it did my awareness of the energies around me vanished, like a soap bubble popping.
"That was awesome!" Carmilla said.
"No Guidry though," Gwen said softly.
"Good," Molly insisted. "That was... really weird."
"Come on, Mol," Carmilla said, still smiling. "Let's go downstairs. Gramma D made peanut butter cookies."
"Cookies?" Molly said. "Yeah, cookies sound good and... hey, you're not trying to calm me down with food, are you? Because I'm not freaked out... and I don't, like, comfort eat or anything."
"Peanut butter cookies are very grounding," Carmilla said. "They're just what we all need after touching the Netherworld. Everyone knowns that."
"Ok, cool," Molly said.
"That was pretty intense," I said to Gwen as the others left. "Though I guess it didn't work..."
"It definitely did... something," Gwen replied cautiously.
"Well, like you said, no Guidry," I smiled. "That would have been cool, though."
"I don't mind ghosts," Gwen said, "but we should be careful. I think we might have disturbed something. The house feels... unsettled."
"Well, at least we didn't start any fires," I said.
I ignored Gwen's look, which said 'yet' so plainly she didn't need to speak.
After sharing a plate of Mrs. Duplantier's delicious peanut butter cookies, I more or less set aside the strange power of the seance. If Gwen's concern that we had disturbed something nagged at the back of my mind, I set it aside too. After all, my father's seances were always perfectly safe. What could possibly happen?
So, I put the whole thing behind me, and we carried on with our slumber party. As we had promised Gwen, there was no actual slumber involved.
We quite literally danced the rest of the night away.
Mrs. Duplantier made us all breakfast, and, with that weird mix of tiredness and energy that comes with staying up all night, we said our farewells.
I did suggest to Gwen that we should meet up again after school, soon. After all, I hadn't told her any of the things about my mother's book that I really wanted to. I wanted to tell her everything... about my mother, my magic and the strange new awareness during the seance.
Maybe, I thought, we could talk about other things, other interests, too.
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