As I Descended

Except—even with all the windows wide-open, there was no breeze. Not tonight. The air in the room was heavy and still. Heavy, still, and cold.

The old dining hall was on the first floor of their dorm, right next to Maria and Lily’s room, but it wasn’t used anymore. A massive cafeteria had been built in the new student life center on the other side of the hill years before any of them had come to Acheron. This room was much too small for actual dining anyway. It was the size of a small classroom, with just one long wooden table and a straight row of stiff-backed chairs on either side.

Until tonight Maria had only ever been in this room for a minute at a time, cutting through it on her way to the staff kitchen to rinse her coffee mug or avoid one of her so-called friends. But for all the years Maria had lived in this dorm, every time she’d been in this room—and sometimes when she’d only passed by the door in the hall—she’d felt it. The tingly sensation she remembered from staring into that mirror on the porch.

That was why Lily had suggested this room for their first session with the board. That, and because the old dining hall had never been renovated.

The Acheron campus was a converted old plantation, one of the oldest in Virginia. Most of the school buildings were new, but their dorm, where all the high school students lived, had been the plantation’s big house, where the master and his wife and children lived. It was huge and ostentatious—a typical plantation house—and it had been remodeled and expanded over the years, with new technology put in and more rooms added to the wings. This part of the house, though, was original. For all any of them knew, the table they were sitting at was the same one where Acheron’s original owners, the Siward family, had been served dinner by their slaves. The room had high ceilings, a huge fireplace, dusty landscape paintings in moldy frames, and a diamond-patterned wood floor that had probably been beautiful before it was scraped raw by generations of chairs. In the far corner was a rocking chair too rickety for anyone to sit in. The lower-school students liked to spook each other, saying they’d walked by the old dining hall late at night and seen the chair rocking with no one in it.

The nicest artifact in the room, though, was the ancient chandelier over their heads. It had surprised them all by lighting up when Brandon climbed onto the table and pulled the cord, shaking up enough dust they were still sneezing an hour later.

The shadow in the corner of the ceiling was ten feet from the chandelier. It wasn’t moving, but Maria could still see those bent knees and elbows. Crouched. Waiting.

Waiting for what?

The planchette started moving again before Maria could ask the spirit another question.

“What’s it doing?” Brandon said.

Maria didn’t know. She’d never seen this happen before.

The planchette slid into the top right corner of the board. That didn’t make sense. There weren’t any letters or pictures there.

It slid to the bottom left corner. Then the top left. Then the bottom right.

“What does that mean?” Lily said.

A faint hum buzzed in Maria’s ear. It didn’t sound like it was coming from the board this time. It was as if someone was humming a tune.

“Who are you?” Maria whispered. She kept her voice low. No one but the spirit needed to hear. “What happened to you?”

The planchette slid toward the dead center of the board. Then it moved fast, so fast Maria and Lily had to sit up in their chairs to keep up with it. It slid out in an arc, then down, then over, in a figure eight. Then another figure eight. The same pattern, three times, four, without stopping.

“How the hell are you doing that?”

Brandon really couldn’t tell. The girls were both biting their lips, leaning over the board as if they were trying to keep up with the planchette’s movements instead of the other way around. Brandon watched their arms but he couldn’t see their muscles flexing, the way you’d think would happen if you were trying to swoop a chunk of wood in an enormous figure eight.

Then the planchette moved back to the alphabet at the top of the board. It slid from letter to letter, moving so fast Brandon had to lean all the way over the board to see where it paused. It started at F, then moved to I, then R, then E.

“Fire,” Brandon whispered. He shivered.

“Is there something you’d like to tell us?” Maria murmured into the still-swerving planchette. “Do you have a message for the living?”

The planchette started moving even faster as soon as the words had left Maria’s lips. Brandon did his best to scribble down all the letters.

MARIA MARIA MARIA

USTED CONSEGUIRÁ LO QUE MÁS DESEA

MARIA

“Usted,” Lily whispered, her eyes flashing as she followed the planchette’s movement. “That looks Spanish. What does it mean, Ree? What’s it saying?”

Brandon expected Maria to flinch, the way she always did when someone brought up the fact that she knew Spanish. Maria liked to pretend she was just as pasty white as Brandon and Lily, even though anyone who looked at her knew better.

Except—Maria had her eyes closed. It didn’t look like she’d heard Lily at all.

How was Maria moving the planchette with her eyes closed?

“What’s going on?” Brandon whispered to Lily.

Lily shook her head. Her eyes never left the board. Her long blond hair was falling out of its neat French braid. Brandon would’ve thought she’d whip out her bobby pins and fix it back up—Lily hated for anything to be out of place—but this was a different Lily from the one Brandon knew. This Lily was bending forward over the board, sweat clinging to her temples. Her eyes were fixed on the planchette, waiting for it to move again.

The pointer swung to the C.

“C,” Brandon read, scribbling it down and looking back toward the board to make sure he didn’t miss any more letters. But it was moving slower this time, looping around the board, until it finally spelled out:

CAWDOR KINGSLEY

“Whoa,” Brandon muttered. “This thing must think it’s talking to Delilah.”

As soon as he’d said it, Brandon wished he could take it back. Maria’s mouth was set in a straight, tight line. He’d hurt her feelings.

Then her arms jerked to the left so fast Brandon was worried she’d get hurt for real.

Lily moved too. It looked like the board was dragging her.

The planchette was pointing to the word “NO” in the far corner of the board. Then it moved back toward the center, only to jerk back again to the “NO.” It moved there two more times. Then three.

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

“All right, we get it,” Brandon said. “You said ‘no,’ right?”

The planchette was still moving. Back to the alphabet this time. More Spanish.

LO QUE ES SUYO ES TUYO

Brandon rubbed his forehead, trying to figure out what that could mean. He’d taken a year of Spanish in middle school before he transferred to Acheron and started French. The first sentence, the one with “usted” in it, had meant something like You will have what you most desire. And “lo que es suyo es tuyo” meant something like That which is his is yours. Well, it could be either “his” or “hers.”

The planchette was still moving.

LO QUE ES SEGUNDO SERA PRIMERO

That was a little easier to translate—That which is second will be first—but it still didn’t mean anything to Brandon.

“All righty, then,” he muttered. “Thanks, spirits, for your ever-so-clear words of wisdom.”

He waited for one of the girls to shush him, but neither seemed to have heard. Lily’s eyes were fixed on the planchette, but they looked empty, vacant. Across from her, Maria’s entire body trembled except for her hand. Her hand, resting on the planchette, was perfectly still.

This was all getting a little too intense for Brandon.

“Hey,” he said, leaning over the board. The planchette started to move again, slowly this time, in plodding figure eights. “Hey, ghostie, hey, Casper, buddy, what about me? Why does Maria get all the love? I’m doing all this work writing down your fancy foreign poetry. Don’t I get a fortune cookie of my own?”

The girls didn’t bother to chastise Brandon this time either. He wondered if they could speak at all.

That idea scared him. He was about to suggest they stop playing when he heard a strange sound from above.

Brandon looked up.

He was the only one. The girls were both bent over the planchette. It had come to a sudden stop in the center of the board.

The cats were still staring at something in the corner of the ceiling that Brandon couldn’t see.

What he did see was the chandelier. Swinging on its cord, hard, as though someone invisible were pushing it. Or riding on it, pumping their legs, like a swing.

The planchette swerved so fast it almost skidded off the table. Brandon leaned over the board again. He didn’t bother trying to write anything down this time. He couldn’t possibly keep up. The board went to H, then A.

Lily and Maria both had their eyes closed now. The chandelier was rocking harder.

HABRA TRES PRESAGIOS

There will be three . . . something. Brandon had never seen that last word, “presagios,” before.

There wasn’t time to dwell on it. The planchette was still flying over the letters. He didn’t realize it had switched to English until it had already spelled out the same set of words twice.

THIS IS HOW IT ENDS

THIS IS HOW IT ENDS

“How what ends?” Brandon whispered.

The planchette jerked in the girls’ hands and shifted back to the middle of the alphabet. Moving just as fast as before, it spelled out:

MEMENTO MORI

Brandon rubbed his forehead again. That wasn’t Spanish, but he knew that phrase. He’d seen it before. It was Latin. He tried to remember what it meant. Something about—

A jagged piece of glass flew past Brandon’s face, missing his eye by an inch. A split second later the chandelier crashed down onto the table, smashing the Ouija board into shards.

Brandon screamed. Pieces of glass whizzed around him and tinkled onto the floor by the hundreds, the thousands, smashing against the wood and shattering into jagged slivers.

Brandon waited to feel the first one slice into his skin. He burrowed his head into his arms to protect his face.

Then it was over.

The room was pitch-dark and silent. Brandon shook so hard he could barely breathe.

It took him half a minute to realize he wasn’t hurt. The glass crunched thick under the soles of his sneakers when he dropped his feet to the floor.

Then he remembered the girls.

“Maria?” Brandon peered into the dark. A blurry shape was huddled in the chair where Maria had been. “Ree? Lily? Are you all right?”

One of the girls made a sound like a whimper.

“Hey.” Brandon crept toward Maria, trying to avoid the biggest chunks of glass, afraid of what he’d find if he got too close. One of the cats brushed against his leg, its back arched, hissing. Somewhere far away, footsteps pounded down the hall. His vision was adjusting to the darkness. “Talk to me, Ree. Say something.”

Maria was still sitting in her chair. Her eyes were closed. Brandon’s heart leaped in his chest.

“Maria!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

“What?” Maria blinked.

Brandon exhaled. He wanted to slap her for scaring him so badly.

Maria’s eyes were empty, but she could sit up, so she must be all right. Brandon went to the other side of the table to check on Lily.

It was a miracle the table hadn’t collapsed. The chandelier looked like it weighed about a thousand pounds.

Lily was on the floor, but she was sitting up too, rubbing at the dust in her eyes. “Did it work?” she said when Brandon reached her.

“I don’t know what the hell it did,” Brandon said. “But we are never, ever playing that game again.”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Brandon’s heart sped back up. Then he realized this sound was normal, not whatever that bizarre knocking had been before. This time, someone—a human someone—was pounding on the door to the staff kitchen.

“Open up!” It was Ross, the first-floor dorm monitor. “Guys, open this door right now or this will be a lot worse for you!”

Wait. Wasn’t that door unlocked? Didn’t the cats come through it earlier? How did—

Never mind that. Brandon had bigger problems.

He stepped gingerly over the broken glass, cracked the door, and peeked through the gap. Ross pushed past him, slamming the door open wide and flicking on the overhead switch. Brandon blinked against the sudden light.

The shadows that had clung to the corners of the room were gone. All he could see were dust and cobwebs and some revolting fungus creeping along the edges of the rug.

This was it for Brandon. He’d been caught out after lights-out once already this year. Tonight would be strike two. And the empty wine bottle would mean an automatic phone call to their parents, which meant he could count on being grounded all summer long.

But Ross didn’t care about any of that. He hadn’t even noticed Brandon yet. His eyes were locked on Lily.

All the Acheron staff, even the twentysomething dorm monitors like Ross, who just worked here for the free housing, were obsessed with Lily. If the disabled girl got hurt on their watch, there’d be hell to pay.

Ross texted for backup and helped Lily to her feet. Brandon gathered up her crutches from where they’d fallen and passed them to Ross. Lily glared at both of them.

“See who all’s out there and get rid of them, will you?” Ross told Brandon, gesturing toward the main door. He picked up the wine bottle from where it had rolled under the table and shook his head.

Brandon wondered how much this would cost to clean up. Not to mention the priceless antique that had been destroyed. Antiques, if you counted the Ouija board.

He tiptoed over the glass shards and pulled on the knob of the main door. It was unlocked, but now it seemed to be jammed. He had to throw his shoulder into the door to crack it open.

On the other side, a group of pajama-clad freshmen were gathered in the hallway. Felicia was at the very front. She was his friend Austin’s kid sister, but lately Brandon had realized he liked Felicia a lot better than he liked her brother. Felicia brushed her tangled hair back from her face and smiled at Brandon, but she looked worried. That crash must’ve echoed through the whole building.

“Jeez, are you okay?” Felicia asked.

“Just an accident, guys,” Brandon told her and the others. “Ross is here. He said for you all to go back to bed.”

Felicia pouted. Brandon shrugged and whispered, “Sorry, Fee,” trying to make sure she knew it wasn’t personal. She gave him another small smile and left, pulling her friends with her. Brandon closed the door again—it moved easily this time—and turned back to the room. Maria was standing up, still blinking slowly.

“All right,” Ross said. “It’s a miracle none of you got hurt with all that glass flying, but since nobody needs to go to the health center you should just go back to your rooms. I’ll call maintenance and write up the incident report tomorrow, and the dean will call your parents. How the heck did you pull the chandelier down, anyway?”

“We didn’t pull it,” Brandon said. “It fell.”

“Uh-huh.” Ross ran a hand through his thick brown hair and sighed. “Just go. Watch out for the broken glass. Lily, do you need help getting back?”

“Like I said, I’m fine,” Lily snapped.

* * *

Maria could hear the others talking, but they were far away. It felt like she was alone at the bottom of a cave, listening to the faint echo of distant voices on the surface. By the end of the session, that was all she’d wanted. She’d pleaded silently, over and over, for the board, for everything, to go away, to leave her alone.

Now she’d gotten her wish. The thing in the corner was gone. The room was empty.

But the shards of the Ouija board on the table—something was nagging at her. Something important.

It wouldn’t be until hours later, when she was struggling to fall asleep, that Maria would remember what it was.

The board had been destroyed before she could tell it goodbye.

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