"Because, you know, when the first time you try to impress a girl by summoning the dead doesn't work out, the logical next step is to try again... on Halloween," Cassie sighed.
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Duplantier House, Willow Creek, 2000
Edwards drove us all back to the house, pirate-Alexander having looted and pillaged Foundry Cove for all the candy he could carry. Poor Edwards. Bella was still at work, so he really had no choice but to stay with Alexander when I announced that I was heading over to Duplantier House with my friends. I know he wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't going to be stopped.
So, still dressed in our Halloween best, we trouped over to Carmilla's and headed up to the seance room. I think her grandmother was at some charity event and her mother... I seriously wonder if she was ever at home.
At least we weren't in our underwear this time.
"Clear your minds," I commanded. "Focus on the sound of the rain - tapping against the window like phantom fingers. Focus on the wind - blowing through the bare branches of the autumn trees. Focus on the smell of the dried flowers - the smell of sweetness and death. Open yourselves to the Netherworld."
I could feel the magic filling me up... cold and dark and hungry. The magic of the Netherworld.
"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I chanted. "Here, in your house. Here, with your blood. We call you!"
I could feel the Veil around me, a tattered lace curtain lashing in the cold wind of that power. My power.
"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I repeated. "Come to us. Come to us. Come to us."
"You don' need to shout, cher," said a rich, accented voice. "I heard you. Everybody heard you. This is the problem."
"You're... you're here!" I gasped.
OK, I admit it. I was actually stunned. The seances I'd performed with my father had made the lights flicker, knocked over the occasional knick-knack and called up the spectral voices that babbled nonsense more often than offering Otherworldly wisdom. We'd never actually called up a genuine, full-bodied ghost. Much later, my father would confess to me just how much he had held back.
"Who's here? You mean Guidry's here? Where?" Molly asked, looking around. "What are you guys looking at?"
Not everyone can actually see ghosts. I could. Gwen could, naturally. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Carmilla could. Molly couldn't.
"Of course I'm here, cher," Guidry said. "I live here. Well, I don't live here, obviously. I'm a ghost. I haunt here. It is my family house after all. Have to haunt somewhere. Usually, I don't make a fuss about it. You hardly know I'm here at all."
"You didn't appear the last time we called," I said.
"Well, cher, it didn't seem it would be gentlemanly of me to pop up with you all in your lovely night clothes," Guidry smiled, then grew more serious. "But that night's why I'm here now. Your lovely friend has the right of it... you've caused quite a disturbance."
"I told you," Gwen said softly.
"What do mean, we caused a disturbance?" I asked, feeling a sudden chill.
"The last time you called me, you fairly shouted down the walls of the world," Guidry said seriously, "and tonight, you've gone and finished the job. The Veil is thin here at the best of times. Now, cher, the Veil is torn."
"Torn?" I blinked. "What do you mean? Why would a seance tear the Veil?"
"An ordinary seance shouldn't, but you're not an ordinary bunch." Guidry looked significantly at all of us. "You didn't just brush the Veil aside. You punched clear through it."
"The balance between the World of the Living and the Netherworld has been disturbed," he continued, "and it's only going to get worse. Otherworldly objects are already starting to appear here. Specters - the manifestations of forgotten dreams and old nightmares - will follow. As more and more come through, the situation will get worse. The Netherworld will bleed through... and that's dangerous for all of us. The Realms of the Living and the Dead aren't meant to coexist."
"Oh," I said weakly. I broke the world. Well, that's one way to impress a girl.
"So, what can we do? I mean, you can fix this, right?" I said.
"I can't fix it, cher. I'm dead," Guidry said. "But, like I said, you're not an ordinary bunch. You can fix this. You need to restore the balance between the worlds and heal the breach."
"Restore the balance. Heal the breach... between worlds," I repeated, a little stunned.
"Before the situation gets out of hand," Guidry nodded.
"So, we ripped a hole in the world and now we have to fix it!?" Molly demanded.
Guidry, his dire warnings given, had disappeared. Stunned, we'd all gone downstairs and tried our best to explain everything to Molly, who by that point was feeling very left out.
"That's about it, yes," Gwen nodded.
"How do you fix a rip in the world?" Molly asked. "Do you have a cosmic sewing kit laying around?"
"Well, no," Gwen smiled. "Unfortunately, I don't know much Netherworld magic. It was an elective at my old school... and I took Art instead."
"Right," Molly said skeptically. "What was your old school again? Hogwarts!?"
"I started reading one of those books," Gwen mused. "I didn't like it. It felt like there was a meanness in the writer."
"Anyway," I cut in before we got sidetracked. "I'm sure we can figure something out."
"Absolutely," Carmilla said. "It's like Guidry said... we're not ordinary. We can do this."
"How?" Molly pressed.
"Well," I said, taking a deep breath. "Oh... I know. Guidry said we need to restore the balance between worlds. My father's talked about a balancing ceremony, for handling spiritual disturbances..."
"And you know how to do this balancing ceremony?" Molly asked.
"No," I admitted, "but I'm sure I can figure it out."
"I may be able to help," Gwen said.
"I thought you said you didn't know much about the Netherworld," Molly said.
"I don't," Gwen smiled, "but I know someone who knows a lot more magic than I do. I'm sure he'll help."
"Great," Carmilla said. "Cas will figure out this balancing ceremony and Gwen will reach out to her friend for help. We'll meet back here tomorrow night and fix this. No problem. We've totally got this."
We totally didn't have this.
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Author's Note: So, the Hogwarts reference... This story is set in the year 2000, albeit in an alternate world, but still when those books were both popular and acceptable (and there are several references to them in the Sims game). It wasn't until 2018 that the author outed herself as an anti-LGBTQ+ bigot. So, it seemed appropriate for Molly to bring them up. It also seemed appropriate for Gwen to dismiss them. Gwen's comment concerning the "meanness" of the author is meant to be reflective of her sensitivity... she recognizes something most of us missed at the time.
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