(I didn’t really know how to end this so it’s a total cop out.)

          Jennifer decided to record the next night’s message as well to see if it remained the same or gave more details. Instead, only one new word flashed over and over again: HELP.

          Did her neighbor need help in some way? Or was something wrong with Jason? She still felt that it had to be him, but couldn’t make sense of why he would be asking for help. Confused, she decided to grab a Ouija board that afternoon. It was nothing fancy, just the colorful board game version sold for kids. She felt nervous as she unpacked it. The rules usually said to not play alone, but she didn’t want to try to explain her insane reasoning to anyone else yet. Still, she decided to go all out in setting the mood. She lit a few candles and sat them nearby and dimmed the lights. She sat with her fingers resting softly on the placard and after clearing her throat, nervously said, “Is it you, Jason? What do you need help with?”

          She sat perfectly still. The seconds dragged into minutes, making her feel sillier as they multiplied. The house was very quiet, the only sound the ticking of the wall clock and the drip of her bathroom faucet. “I need more information. I need to know what you need help with,” she tried again.

          After several more moments she sighed and stood up. This was pointless and childish. She felt tears burn at the edge of her eyes, and she felt surprised at how emotional this was making her. A part of her had truly hoped she could hear from Jason again. She decided to go to the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face. As she turned, perhaps a little too quickly in her strangely emotional disappointment, the board flipped onto the floor and the candle toppled onto it, the wax crackling in the flame as the board threatened to catch on fire.

          Cursing, Jennifer quickly patted out the flames, ignoring the searing pain of the hot wax on her fingers. Now more angry than sad, she tossed the lot into the trash.

          That night she had trouble sleeping again. As she tossed and turned, half between dreamfulness and waking, she was convinced she could hear a soft knocking from somewhere in the house. She couldn’t tell if it was real or a dream. If it was morse code, it was too quiet and muffled to translate for her. She could hear Jason’s voice as well, calling out for her, and screaming. This, she knew, had to be a dream. Jason had died years ago, right after they had started college. They had been young and stupid and drunk and hanging with friends. They had decided to drive out (to what? Jennifer couldn’t remember. Some stupid local legend spot, like crybaby bridge or a haunted forest). And they had crashed. Jennifer could remember the blood rushing to her head as she was still strapped into her seat, her ears ringing. She could hear someone crying, and someone else screaming. And she could feel Jason tapping on her shoulder in morse code: please be okay please I love you I love you I love you.

          She had wondered why he wasn’t speaking but when she turned she could see the way his neck was crushed, the blood spread across his face and soaked into his shirt, the glazed look in his eyes as the life faded from them, the slowing tap of his fingers as he stilled.

          The next morning she reviewed the tapes again, wondering if perhaps she was reading a pattern into something that wasn’t real. The nightmares and memories had left her feeling unsettled and exhausted. But now there was a whole sentence repeating again and again: PLEASE COME HELP ME!

          Jennifer marched across the street and knocked on her neighbor’s door. She wasn’t sure what she thought – she was halfway between wanting to explain that she thought the older woman was in danger, and accusing the woman of having set up this awful prank in the first place. As she went to pound on the door, she realized it wasn’t fully latched closed.

          Pausing, she knocked, not as hard as she had originally intended. Despite the softer knock, the door creaked open. “Hello?” Jennifer called. She started to wonder if the woman was in danger, perhaps collapsed in one of her rooms. She didn’t seem old enough to hurt herself from the fall, but maybe she had a heart attack or something else? Jennifer pushed the door open and walked in. She decided to take a quick perusal of each room and then show herself out, just to make sure things were all right.

          The house was quiet, and no one answered. As she opened one of the bedroom doors, she found a room – what must have once been a home office or a small bedroom. Strange symbols were carved and scrawled all over the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. As she opened the door, the symbols flashed bright enough to blind her, then dimmed with a strange inner light. Jennifer could hear a knocking, morse code, beckoning her inside. She gasped as she tried to step back, but it felt as though something pulled at the same time, and she stumbled forward into the room.

          Wendy watched from the corner of the room, unseen by Jennifer as the younger woman stumbled in and disappeared as she entered the circle. She breathed a sigh of relief, glad that the trap had worked. When she had learned that the girl across the street had once been a twin, she had felt particularly blessed. It wasn’t often that you could offer two interlinked souls as a sacrifice, and she was certain the boon from this would be great.  

          She asked the being beyond what it would grant her.

          And smiled as she listened to its whispered promise.