"What are we waiting for?" Lydia asked to the assembled group of friends. "Come on, let's get this started. Tick, tock. It's almost midnight." Taking charge, as she was wont to do, she soon had the candles lit and spread out around the room, their flickering flames mostly serving to make more shadows rather than to diminish the ones already there. Enough illumination filtered in from the streetlamps to make the effect interesting rather than frightening.
Despite themselves, the group felt a building sense of anticipation. Something about sitting in a darkened house, knowing that no flick of a switch or push of a button would change that made it easier to accept the possibilities of All Hallow's Eve. The lightning storm continued outside, charging the air with a faint electric tingle.
"I've never done this before," Allison interjected. She inspected the board with its rows of letters and numbers arcing across its face, a yes and no printed independently at the top of the board, and a large good bye at the bottom. "I mean, I've got the basic idea, but … I've heard stories." She said the last quietly, with a downward glance, afraid that she was setting herself up for ridicule if she admitted to believing any of those stories. She didn't. Er, maybe?
Lydia flounced to the carpet next to her, folding her legs crosswise. "Do you think I'd let anything bad happen?" she asked. "We just have to make sure to follow the rules…." She rested her elbows on her knees, her chin on her folded hands, and started to lay out those rules.
Jackson rolled his eyes. He could tell that she was making them all up as she went along. "Don't let go of the pointer while it's in motion." Ha! Seeing his opportunity to get some real answers, Jackson grabbed Scott's arm and pulled him down the hall.
Scott let him, shook free as soon as they were out of earshot of the rest of the group. "What's wrong, Jackson? You didn't have a locker to slam in my face?" His grip tightened around the empty Twizzler bag he held in one hand, and the pair of empty Coke cans in the other from a preempted attempt to clean up a little.
"Shut up, McCall," Jackson responded. "I know you see it, too." A tremble crept into his chin and voice. Though he still maintained his veneer of bravado at school and on the field, it was quicker than ever to develop cracks in private, especially on the almost non-existent occasions when he allowed himself to be alone with Scott. He shook his hand out, like touching Scott had burned him.
Scott sucked his lips back, brushed a hand through his hair, thought about playing dumb. But, what was the point? "Yeah, I see it, too," he conceded.
"All right. Now tell me why I do."
Scott's eyebrows quirked. "We are talking about the fact that Lydia's glowing, right?"
Jackson rolled his eyes, discarded a half-dozen sarcastic responses before finally settling on, "Duh." His breath was warm on Scott's face and stale, smelling of chocolate and old grease. He really hadn't touched the beer.
"I don't know," Scott replied with a shrug. He turned so the hall opened behind him, not interested in letting Jackson keep the small amount of power he thought he had. A cold breeze wafted across his ankles, made him shiver. "Maybe because you're not completely human anymore, idiot." So much had happened the night of the winter formal that it had all melted into a blur, like a box of crayons left in the back window of a car in August.
Lydia had been attacked and, there'd been blood … and Jackson couldn't remember. He did recall going to Derek afterward and begging for the werewolf bite, and being told to wait. Scott had heard the story a bit differently. By Derek's admission, the new Alpha was not stupid enough to grant it. At all. Unfortunately, the previous scratches that Jackson had received had some lasting side-effects. This, apparently, was one of them.
"Whatever," Jackson snapped, shaking off the memories that wouldn't quite form. "So…?" He left the rest hanging in the air: What about Lydia?
Scott shrugged again. "Hell if I know. I can see it. That doesn't mean I know what I'm seeing."
Jackson mulled that over, discarded it. Scott might not have much of a poker face, but he'd had a lot of practice at not exactly telling the truth. Jackson suspected that this was one of those times and he wasn't going to put up with it. "I know you're holding out on me, McCall." He stabbed a finger at his younger rival. Scott did not flinch. "If this all blows up in our faces, I'm blaming you." He turned, his shoe squeaking on the tile floor, and stalked back to his spot by the couch.
Scott watched him go, then continued to the kitchen to discard the garbage in his hands as if that had been his plan all along.
Lydia's laugh chimed through the house. Allison's laugh soon sparkled along with it. "No, no, no. It doesn't work like that," Lydia said. "Look." She pushed the plastic piece out of the middle of the planchette and held it up, revealing a simple plastic disc that could have belonged to anything. "Do you really think this could trap a ghost? Jackson, sit there and try to look like you're having fun." She indicated a spot on the carpet with a wave of her hand and steeled her gaze at him, head slightly cocked, until he gave in and complied.
"So, are we trying to contact anyone in particular?" Allison asked. Her eyes flicked to the couch, where Stiles had landed. He was the only one of them with a deceased family member. A string of licorice dangled from his mouth. He waved her off.
"Of course not, silly," Lydia chirped. She stretched back and propped her feet up on Jackson's leg. "Why would we want to do that?"
Jackson wrapped one hand around her ankles and moved her feet pointedly to the floor. "Because it makes as much sense as everything else we're doing?"
"Stop being a killjoy," Lydia chided. She directed Allison and Jackson to rest their fingers on the planchette, assigning them the job of being the primary conduits.
Scott took a seat on the couch next to Stiles, resolutely staying out of the way. He might consent to being in the room, but he could not be persuaded to participate.
Stiles popped another string of licorice into his mouth, slouched back into the cushions. "I'm just going to stay over here, because, you know, concentrating—not really my thing. Do you think we could, like get started, though, because I've got all kinds of questions."
Everyone groaned in unison. Once Stiles got started asking questions, no one else would be able to get a word in.
The point soon seemed moot, though. After several minutes of the planchette staying stolidly in the middle of the board, Jackson snapped, "This isn't working."
"You just gotta empty your head," Stiles quipped. "It shouldn't be that hard for you, Whittemore." Scott snorted, looked away. He smiled at Allison, resisted the urge to look back and meet his best friend's eyes, knowing that once that started laughing, they wouldn't be able to stop.
"Be patient," Lydia responded in a sing-song. She lay back on her elbows, again propping her feet on Jackson's leg. This time he left them there. Another flash of lighting lit the room. It seemed farther away, the storm finally moving off. "The spirits work on their own time."
They waited, Allison and Jackson resting their first two fingers on the pointer. They tried not to let their impatience creep through in case it tainted the results.
The clock struck midnight without anyone noticing. Jackson and Allison felt the planchette slide across the board, uncontrolled by the light touch of their fingers. It circled the board, as if searching. They both sucked in a breath. Allison almost pulled her fingers back reflexively, remembered Lydia's warning. Finally, it slid to the bottom of the board, hesitated, then settled on top of Good Bye.
"What do you think that was about?" Allison asked, looking around at her three friends. Would they believe that she hadn't pushed the planchette? Would they believe that Jackson hadn't either? The pointer had truly moved on its own.
"Happy Halloween," Lydia said, though she knew that they could no longer hear her, no longer even remembered that they had spent the evening together. "See you next year." But she would never forget.
"See, Scott," Stiles said. "I told you nothing would happen. You've gotta get it through your head that..."
She faded away, unaware that her vanishing made Scott's pupils dilate, irises flare briefly.
END
A/N: Fulfills AU Bingo square #13: Wild Card: Ghosts. Happy Halloween.