Chapter 36 – Just The Girls / Spooky Time

Chapter 36

Just The Girls / Spooky Time

            After Mary finished cleaning up the mess caused by the hyperactive princess and my stoic cousin, she helped me get changed into my nightgown and even took the time to braid Izzy’s hair for her, this time in a single braid.  With her immediate tasks done, she took her leave, reminding us not to stay up too late.

            “S-so, what would you girls like to do?” I ask, my nerves a bit on edge since this is not only my first sleepover as a girl, but quite literally my first sleepover ever.  As Michael, I never really had any of my friends over to my house and was only allowed to go to theirs for study sessions.  A night like tonight is a whole new experience for me.  I know that the original Beira has had sleepovers before with these two friends.  I actually have a few of the memories of those floating around in my head, but as with everything I have experienced from Beira’s life, remembering something she did and actually experiencing it for myself are two different things.

            “Well,” Izzy says, drawing the word out before continuing rapidly, “there are always my favorite topics, boys, clothes, shoes, well, fashion in general, school gossip, oh, speaking of which, that gardener you like, Jessie what’s his name?”

            “Fairbairn.”  Mari interjects quickly before Izzy carries on without skipping a beat.

            “Yeah, him.  Anyway, Samantha Byrne said to let you know she saw him flirting with Agatha Nunley and she thinks they kissed.  What was I talking about again?  Oh, right, my favorite topics, there’s boys, cloth-“

            “You already said those.” Mari says, speaking up.

            “Did I?” Izzy pauses for a moment, and I swear I could hear the gears turning in her head.  “Anyway, point is, there’s lots we can talk about.  There’s even my nemesis, Mrs. Crafton, who says I talk way too much during class-“

            “That’s because you do.” Mari says, her expression never changing, but I get the distinct feeling that internally her eyes are rolling… hard.

            “Slander!  You take that back right now, Mari!”  Izzy replies, mock anger on her face.

            “It’s not slander if it’s true.” Mari states plainly.

            Izzy starts to giggle and for a brief moment Maribelle wears the hint of a smile.

            “Okay, fine, maybe I do, but that’s not the point.”

            “What is the p-point?” I ask.

            “The point, Beri, is that we have all night and we can talk about anything and everything.  We have so much catching up to do.  Also you never did answer me about coming back to school.”  Izzy replies.

            The moment school is mentioned again, my breath catches.

            Mari shakes her head at Izzy, causing the princess to look at her confused for a moment before glancing back at me. 

            Truth is, while I did have friends as Michael, at school we were always the outcasts.  Yes, we had each other to lean on for support when the bullying got really bad, but that didn’t prevent us from getting hurt from time to time.  When I had made plans to start taking steps towards transitioning, I was still a bit worried about that making me an outcast of the outcasts.  Of my few high school friends, there was only one I trusted enough to even talk to about the personal hell I had been going through because of the dysphoria I had been struggling with and, to be honest, Chloe was one of the reasons I finally decided to take the steps I had started to take to transition.  She knew my secret.  She encouraged me, in private she would use the name I wanted to be called, use the correct pronouns.  She had agreed to prepare our other friends for when I came back home from Korea.  She had said that she would make them accept me for who I was, or kick their asses and I believed her.  Not that it mattered any more. 

            I hope Chloe is okay.  Knowing her, she is taking my death harder than my own mother… assuming my mother even told her.

            “Beri…”

            The sound of my name and fingers snapping in front of my face draws me back.

            “What?”  I ask, trying to act like I had never spaced out to begin with.

            “We asked which you would prefer,” Izzy says, going back to where she was sitting.  I don’t remember when she stood up.  “Mari mentioned the card game she wants us to learn together, and I mentioned telling spooky stories in the dark.  Do you have a preference?”

            I blink a couple of times and look around the brightly lit room.

            “But, it’s not dark,” I say slowly.

            “That’s why we put out all but one light, silly.”  Izzy replies with a giggle.

            “Or cards.”  Mari says, a deck of cards appearing in her right hand that looks very similar to cards from Magic: The Gathering, except there are three stats listed, and a small grid that I suspect indicates movement, and no casting costs that I can see.  “Affinity Siege.”

            I look at the deck of cards, interested, and Mari holds it out offering it to me.  I take the deck, noting it feels cold to the touch and thumb through it.  It appears that there is a commander type card with no grid displayed, and multiple spell and creature cards.

            “My Void deck,” Maribelle explains. 

            While the cards look interesting, I don’t know if we have the time, nor I the energy, to dedicate to learning a whole new card game.

            “How about we learn this t-t-tomorrow when I’m not exhausted from traveling and dealing w-with emotional fallout?” I say, yawning unintentionally.

            “Huh?”  Izzy says with a confused look.  “Emotional fallout?”

            “Don’t worry about it.”  Mari says to the princess, then turns to me.  “Okay, cousin.  Tomorrow, I will teach you.”

            “So,” Izzy says, her face brightening.  “Spooky time?”

            Mari and I both nod at the same time.

            “Okay, okay. Mari, can you put out most of the lights so that we have a proper atmosphere?”  Izzy asks.

            Maribelle nods once and stands up.

            While she is doing that, Izzy looks at me wide-eyed, clearly trying to make a scary face but it just comes off as cute, if I’m honest, and I have to suppress a giggle.

            “Beri, ARE you PREPARED… to be SCARED!?!?” she says dramatically, her voice alternating between very loud and very soft.

            I start openly giggling.  I can’t help it.  She comes off like a little kitten trying to be fierce for the first time.

            “What?  You used to be a scaredy cat.”  She says, disappointed I’m not quivering in fear.

            “To you behaving like that?  Pfft.”  I reply, giggling.

            “You did,” Mari says simply, sitting back down.  She places a single flickering candle on the floor between us, the weak flame casting strange shadows to dance along the walls, reminding me of the night of the masquerade.

            I shiver involuntarily as a chill crawls across my spine.

            “Okay, me first!”  Izzy says cheerfully before her voice takes a turn toward the dramatic.  “This is the tale of the girl who wasn’t there.”

            Both Mari and I look to her with expectation as she drags out an overly long pause for dramatic effect.

            “This girl, you see, she sat at the back of class in the corner beside the window.  She was just a normal student.  She was always on time to class, answered questions when called on by the teacher, talked with her classmates… everything.”

            Izzy eyes both of us and, seeing that we are paying attention, lowers her head in a way that I can only assume is supposed to be creepy.

            “And then, one day while taking attendance, the teacher calls the girl’s name… and the girl answers.”

            I sit up straight not realizing that I had been leaning in.

            “That’s it?”  I ask, tilting my head slightly to the side in confusion.

            Izzy just shakes her head and puts a finger over her mouth shooshing me before continuing.

            “After the girl answered, the teacher pauses, then looks up and asks the class ‘Who just spoke?’”

            “The girls in the class all look at each other in confusion.  Who had just spoken?  No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t remember the name that had been called.  Seeing the confusion in the class, the teacher quiets them down and points to the desk in the corner, beside the window.”

            “’Who sits there?’ she asks the class.”

            “The girl sitting in the desk one row over points to it.  ‘She does.’”

            “The teacher looks at the girl who spoke up with a confused expression.  ‘Who?  There is nobody there.’”

            “The rest of the class murmurs, wondering what is wrong.  Their classmate is right there, surely the teacher could see her, right?  They all point to the girl in the corner, insisting that she is there.  The teacher, unable to see the girl then asks her class ‘Then, what is her name?’”

            “But try as they might, none of the students can remember the girl’s name, not even the girl sitting one row over.  The students all look back at the now empty desk and wonder where she had gone.”

            Izzy leans in for dramatic effect, her eyes wide and face serious. 

            “Some even say that if you talk about her too much… she’ll sit next to you.”

            Izzy leans back, her story concluded.

            The candle sits, flickering silently between us.

            I sit still for a moment before speaking up.  “Izzy, that story m-m-makes no s-sense.  How could nobody remember her name when the t-teacher had just called it?  And how could she just v-vanish?”

            “That’s the POINT, Beri!”  Izzy says, grinning from ear to ear.  “Spooky, right?”

            “B-b-but,” I stammer out.

            “Memory can be altered,” Mari quietly interjects.

            Right, I guess it can.

            “Your turn, Beri!”  Izzy says loudly.

            “M-me?”  I ask.  I quickly try to remember a story that would be sufficient.

            “Ehm,” I say, clearing my throat.

            “O-once in a sleepy little town there was a s-s-secluded stretch of road called Lovers L-Lane.  It was a popular spot for t-teenagers and young adults to drive their c-cars to…”

            “What’s a car?”  Izzy says, interrupting me.

            “Um,” I hesitate for a second before answering.  “I-it’s like a carriage but without horses and the d-d-driver sits on the inside along with the other p-passengers.”

            “That’s weird.”  Izzy states, her face turning thoughtful. 

            Maribelle nods in agreement.

            “A-anyway,” I say, shaking my head.  “They drive their ‘carriages’ to spend some p-private time with their significant other.”

            “Oh!  You mean sex, don’t you?”  Izzy interrupts again.

            “Let her tell her story.”  Mari says, staring flatly at Izzy.

            “Thank you, M-Mari,” I say before continuing.  “A-as I was saying, they go there for some alone time in private.”

            “If-“ Izzy starts to say, but Mari cuts her off with a glare, so I continue.

            “This p-particular night, a young couple pulled up and p-parked under a large tree, eager to p-partake of one another.  What they d-didn’t know was that a serial killer-“

            “Wait, wait.” Izzy interrupts again.  “Why would someone kill cereal?  How would that even work?  I mean, cereal is kind of bland but it doesn’t deserve to die, though I guess eating it is killing it?  Oh, am I a cereal killer then?”

            “Serial with an S, not a C,” Mari explains.  “It is someone who has murdered a lot of people.  Now stop interrupting.”

            I nod as Izzy makes an ‘oh, I see’ face.

            “Correct, Mari.  Thank you,” I say.

            “What they d-didn’t know was that a serial killer had escaped from a pr-prison on the other side of the forest the lane p-passed through.  As they were getting friendly w-w-with each other, they heard a noise outside of their car-carriage.”

            “Mari, Beri is blushing,” I hear Izzy whisper loudly, followed by Maribelle shushing her so I continue without pause.

            “The s-sound was a bump, followed by a dragging sound.  Bump.  Drag.  B-bump.  Drag.  The b-boyfriend steps out of the carriage to investigate and a moment later, the girlfriend h-heard a thumping noise followed by a dragging sound, then… silence.”

            “The silence didn’t last long, though.  S-soon there was a loud thump on the roof of the carriage, followed b-by more silence.  A few minutes p-passed and then she heard it.  Bump.  Drag.  Bump.  Dr-drag. The sound was moving away from the c-carriage.  She waited until the sound faded before gathering the courage to p-p-poke her head out of the carriage window.  As she looked out, something wet dripped onto her face.  She w-wiped at it and noticed that her hand came away red, b-blood smeared on it.  Looking up, she saw the lifeless body of her b-b-boyfriend hanging upside down from the tree they had p-parked under.  His throat had been ripped open and it w-was his blood that had fallen on her.”

            “S-scared, she hopped in the driver's seat and drove the car, er, carriage off, heading to the nearest p-police, err, constable station.  As she turned off L-Lovers Lane, she saw a man, bloodied and dragging his right l-leg.  Bump.  Drag.  Bump.  Drag, as he walked along.  On his left wrist was a hook, still d-dripping blood.  As she sped past him, she heard a loud thump at the rear of the c-carriage.  That thump made her drive faster.  As she arrived at the Constable’s place, she jumped out and ran inside.  The constable followed her out t-to the carriage and on its rear b-bumper, there was the hook, still dripping blood.  He ordered men to go search for the man the h-h-hook belonged to, and retrieve the body of the boyfriend, b-but neither was ever found.”

            We all sit for just a moment in silence.  Izzy, surprisingly, has nothing else to say.

           “Are you finished?”  Mari asks me, cocking her head slightly to the side.

            I nod.

           “My turn,” she says plainly.

            “There once was a house.  It had no windows, no furniture, no decorations of any kind.  There was only a door.”  She pauses, looking at us.

            “People who entered the house were never seen again.”  Another pause.

            “Eventually, someone opened the door and looked inside.  It was still empty.”

            With that last line, she falls silent.

            “That’s not a story, Mari.”  Izzy says, puffing her cheeks out in irritation.

            “It is,” Maribelle replies calmly.

            I look at Izzy.

            “T-technically she is correct, Izzy.”  I say to the princess before turning to Maribelle.  “S-so… what happened to them?”

            “They are not there,” she simply replies.