A very short story.
Séance
They looked at each other in turn, and not without trepidation.
“Does it have to be me? Maybe Mary can do it again, so I can see what to do, maybe, um, be more prepared for next time.”
“Sorry, Mel, it has to be you. It only works once for a person, and we’ve all done it before. There’s no other choice.”
Mary looked at Mel and gently took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Then she turned to her right and placed her hand in Sarah’s. Sarah turned to her right and gripped Lauren’s, who in turn took Amanda’s with her right hand. Mel looked tentatively at Amanda for a long pause, then placed her hand on top of Amanda’s.
They all looked towards the small stone obelisk set into the center of the table and started chanting. It was pensive at first, but as the seconds passed they gained confidence and repeated the mantra more assertively. Glyphs on the obelisk started to emanate a faint light, small flecks of light flickering softly onto the table before disappearing.
Mel’s head lolled forward briefly, her hair falling to cover her face.
After a moment a voice came out of Mel’s mouth, but it wasn’t her own. It was layered, pitched up and down, stumbling over itself as though several people were trying to speak at once from the same vocal cords. Mel mumbled incoherently in this fashion for a minute until the voice had a stronger measure of control.
Her head raised back up, revealing all-white eyes and a deep shadow in her cheeks.
The voice spoke slowly, so slowly. “Iiiiiiit’s difficult, being called like thissss. Why have you callled meee?”
The other girls looked at each other, then at Mel.
“We called you back,” Mary answered, “because we have a new recipe for you to try. Apple and blueberry! We used the same process as last time, but we added the fruit right at the end. We know you liked apples when you were alive so we decided to make some muffins and apple tea for you.”
Mel’s possessed face smiled warmly.
This was the nicest thing anyone had done for her in the last 600 years.