The Dark Reunion

The Dark Reunion Read Free Page B

Book: The Dark Reunion Read Free
Author: L. J. Smith
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couldn’t.”
    There was another silence. At last Sue said hesitantly, with the faintest catch in her voice, “Do you think … do you think
you
could contact
her
?”
    It was what they’d all been wondering. Bonnie looked toward Meredith. Earlier, Meredith had dismissed the dream, but now she met Bonnie’s eyes seriously.
    “I don’t know,” Bonnie said slowly. Visions from the nightmare kept swirling around her. “I don’t want to go into a trance and open myself up to whatever else might be out there, that’s for sure.”
    “Is that the only way to communicate with dead people? What about a Ouija board or something?” Sue asked.
    “My parents have a Ouija board,” Caroline said a little too loudly. Suddenly the hushed, low-key mood was broken and an indefinable tension filled the air. Everyone sat up straighter and looked at each other with speculation. EvenVickie looked intrigued on top of her scaredness.
    “Would it work?” Meredith said to Bonnie.
    “Should we?” Sue wondered aloud.
    “Do we dare? That’s really the question,” Meredith said. Once again Bonnie found everyone looking at her. She hesitated a final instant, and then shrugged. Excitement was stirring in her stomach.
    “Why not?” she said. “What have we got to lose?”
    Caroline turned to Vickie. “Vickie, there’s a closet at the bottom of the stairs. The Ouija board should be inside, on the top shelf with a bunch of other games.”
    She didn’t even say, “Please, will you get it?” Bonnie frowned and opened her mouth, but Vickie was already out the door.
    “You could be a little more gracious,” Bonnie told Caroline. “What is this, your impression of Cinderella’s evil stepmother?”
    “Oh, come on, Bonnie,” Caroline said impatiently. “She’s lucky just to be invited.
She
knows that.”
    “And here I thought she was just overcome by our collective splendor,” Meredith said dryly.
    “And besides—” Bonnie started when she was interrupted. The noise was thin and shrill and it fell off weakly at the end, but there was no mistaking it. It was a scream. It was followed by dead silence and then suddenly peal after peal of piercing shrieks.
    For an instant the girls in the bedroom stood transfixed. Then they were all running out into the hallway and down the stairs.
    “Vickie!” Meredith, with her long legs, reached the bottom first. Vickie was standing in front of the closet, arms outstretched as if to protect her face. She clutched at Meredith, still screaming.
    “Vickie, what is it?” Caroline demanded, sounding more angry than afraid. There were game boxes scattered across the floor and Monopoly markers and Trivial Pursuit cards strewn everywhere. “What are you yelling about?”
    “It grabbed me! I was reaching up to the top shelf and something grabbed me around the waist!”
    “From behind?”
    “No! From inside the closet.”
    Startled, Bonnie looked inside the open closet. Winter coats hung in an impenetrable layer, some of them reaching the floor. Gently disengaging herself from Vickie, Meredith picked up an umbrella and began poking the coats.
    “Oh, don’t—” Bonnie began involuntarily, but the umbrella encountered only the resistance of cloth. Meredith used it to push the coats aside and reveal the bare cedarwood of the closet wall.
    “You see? Nobody there,” she said lightly. “But you know what
is
there are these coat sleeves. If you leaned in far enough between them, I’ll bet it could feel like somebody’s arms closing around you.”
    Vickie stepped forward, touched a dangling sleeve, then looked up at the shelf. She put her face in her hands, long silky hair falling forward to screen it. For an awful moment Bonnie thought she was crying, then she heard the giggles.
    “Oh, God! I really thought—oh, I’m sostupid! I’ll clean it up,” Vickie said.
    “Later,” said Meredith firmly. “Let’s go in the living room.”
    Bonnie threw one last look at the closet as they

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