Disclaimer: I do not own the Baby Sitters Club or any of its "sister" books. The Baby Sitters Club belongs to Ann M. Martin and Scholastics. I am simply borrowing their characters for a non-profit writing.

Thanks to: Ann M. Martin for writing such a great book series and Christopher Pike for inspiring me with his book, Remember Me. Without these two, this fanfic would not be.

Chapter FOUR

(ZodiacRain, started 1/30/07)

Dawn awoke in the middle of the night. Looking around the bedroom, she wondered what woke her up. Suddenly, it became extremely cold. She looked at the window, wondering if that was the cause, but it was closed tight. Her bedroom door was closed, too. Whatever was causing this coldness was originating inside the room.

It was unnaturally quiet; her breathing sounded very loud. The moonlight coming in from the window cast a long white stream of light; it was the only thing that illuminated the room. It was too quiet… far too quiet.

"Is… is someone there?" Dawn asked softly.

"Séance, Dawn Schafer."

Clear as crystal, the words cut through the night, like a knife through butter. The voice, itself, was quiet, like someone whispering over a phone. But Dawn recognized the voice right away. It was undeniably Kristy's.

Dawn nearly shrieked, but stopped herself. She controlled the urge to run out of the room and into Mary-Anne's. In hope of hearing more, she held her breath. It was unbearably quiet. There wasn't a single body in the room, besides Dawn. There might have been two souls there, however…. "Kristy?" Dawn whispered hesitantly after ten long seconds.

There was no response. Dawn knew that the only way she could get a hold of Kristy was if she preformed the séance. Why else would Kristy request it? Not even bothering to change out of her nightgown, she ran into Mary Anne's room.

In the other room, Mary Anne was sleeping quietly. A frown crossed her face, as if though she were in the middle of a nightmare. Lightly, she muttered something; Dawn knew that, from time to time, Mary Anne would speak in her sleep, but it was never anything understandable. Dawn quickly, but silently, shuffled across the room. She bent down next to Mary Anne and lightly shook her arm.

"Mary Anne! Mary Anne!" Dawn whispered in an urgent tone. "Wake up! Come on, Mary Anne!"

"Dawn?" Mary Anne asked sluggishly, her eyes still closed. "Is it morning yet?"

"Wake up, Mary Anne!"

"Only if breakfast is ready…" Mary Anne mumbled, almost incomprehensibly.

"I heard Kristy."

"Hmmm?" Mary Anne asked sleepily.

"Kristy… she just spoke to me." Dawn smiled lightly as she noticed Mary Anne getting up. Her eyes opened slightly as she sat up in bed.

"What are you talking about, Dawn?" she asked, still sluggishly, but understandably.

"I just heard Kristy. She asked me to start a séance. She needs to talk to us, Mary Anne."

Mary Anne was staring at her. "Dawn, aren't you sure you weren't dreaming?" she complained.

"I wasn't. Mary Anne, you believe me, right?"

Her step-sister's eyes traveled across the room, and Dawn's eyes followed. The alarm clock said that it was two thirty five. "Dawn, it's two in the morning! Can't it wait?" she growled.

"No. I think she has something important to say, Mary Anne, and I think she needs to say it soon."

Mary Anne looked at Dawn, and saw the expression in her eyes. She knew that gleam; Dawn was not going to take no as an answer. Reluctantly, she said, "Okay."

A few minutes later, Mary Anne's bedroom looked like something out of a ghost movie. Dawn and Mary Anne had managed, somehow, to get the coffee table from the living room into the center of her room almost noiselessly. They pulled the chairs from their desks to one side and one edge of the table.

Dawn pulled a few spare candles from the dining room, and lit them carefully. Silently, she closed the door to Mary Anne's bedroom, hoping that nothing would wake up her mom or Mary Anne's dad.

However, the two had never participated in a séance before. The books Dawn read on the subject had never been too detailed. She whispered this to Mary Anne.

"I do know one thing, however," Dawn whispered, after sitting down. "One of us will need to be a medium."

"A medium?" Mary Anne asked, confused.

"A channel," Dawn explained, "someone that Kristy can contact us through."

"Well, she came to you, right?" Mary Anne said. "I think you should be the medium."

Dawn nodded, and the two sat down, staring confusedly at the table. "I don't know how to work with séances, but I think we'll need a Bible, or olive oil, or something besides this…"

"I don't have olive oil, and the Bible is in dad's room."

What Dawn did remember about séances was that everyone was supposed to hold hands. The medium was the only one who was allowed to talk… but she was the medium. What in the world was she supposed to say? Maybe I could look it up online… No, we don't have time! I'll just have to freestyle and hope for the best.

She explained her thoughts to Mary Anne, who nodded seriously. They held hands, and became very silent. Dawn then said, clearly, "Kristy Tomash, can you hear me?"

Trying not to say the word 'umm', she continued, "Kristy, its Dawn… and Mary Anne. If you can hear us, please show yourself."

Drifting… floating…. I was drifting, not a feeling going through my body. But thoughts went through my mind, burdensome, worried thoughts. Who killed me? Why did they do it? Won't someone help me?

"Kristy…"

Did someone say something?

"Kristy… it's Dawn…"

The voice is louder… Dawn? Who is Dawn? Wait!

"Please show yourself…"

Yes, Dawn, I remember now. She was a member of the Baby Sitters Club. She liked ghost stories, didn't she? Séances and all that stuff…. Séance! I'm supposed to hold a séance with them!

Come on, Kristy, they're calling for you…

A peculiar smell filled the room, sort of like someone with a lot of perfume on had entered the room. Suddenly, Dawn began to feel sleepy, but she continued on with the séance, despite the tiredness. "Kristy… please show yourse…"

Then, without warning, Dawn fell forward, her head banging onto the table. She entered a deep sleep….

Hmm, Dawn thought as she stood in an empty field. I'm dreaming… odd, I can't believe I just fell asleep like that. Dawn looked up at the sky and noticed it was red… blood red. A white balloon was floating in the sky, but it wasn't moving; it seemed to be waiting for Dawn.

Dawn turned around to see two other people. One of them was Kristy, she noticed, and she almost yelled her name- but then she saw the other person. There was a cloud of evil around the other person. Dawn couldn't see any of the other person's details, just a dark, man-shaped haze…

Suddenly, Kristy pointed frantically at the balloon. She seemed to be yelling something, but Dawn couldn't hear her. Dawn turned to the balloon and noticed that it was flying away into the blood red sky. Dawn turned back to Kristy, noticing that neither Kristy nor the person wrapped in evil seemed to notice her.

Without warning, Kristy fell to the ground. A loud, thundering laugh filled the space; it was an evil laugh that shook the ground. Dawn's eye widened when she realized that it was coming from that evil person… Kristy's murderer!

The murderer was pointing to the balloon, laughing loudly. Then, the person pointed at Kristy and laughed even louder. The laughing was so loud, Dawn could hardly stand still. She pulled her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound, but it wasn't working at all….

Dawn gasped and sat up. She looked around, wondering where Kristy was, before turning to see Mary Anne. Mary Anne was paler then a ghost, and her jaw was hung open.

"What happened?" Dawn asked.

Mary Anne started speaking very quickly. "Dawn, when you fell asleep, I was so scared… and then the room suddenly became really, really cold and I was more scared then ever! Then I heard Kristy's voice, she was saying something… then I saw her, Dawn, I saw her, and she looked terrible…"

"What did she say? What did she look like?" Dawn asked urgently.

Mary Anne was close to tears, but she took a deep breath. "She was talking about the night of the murder, I think. K..Kristy said that she was going to get a drink of water…that she needed it really bad, for some reason, then she said when she was down there she saw a flash of yellow and felt a pain in her back-"

"Probably," Dawn murmured quietly, "the murderer stabbing her in the shoulder blade…"

"Then she said she felt another pain in her wrist and that she was falling into a deep slumber…" Mary Anne was crying now, though very silently.

"A pain in the wrist?" Dawn asked, confused.

Mary Anne nodded. "Then I saw Kristy…. She was pale, I could see through her, Dawn… and she had blood all over her back, and all down her wrist… and she looked really upset…. Then she disappeared and the room became a normal temperature and you woke up."

"I had a strange nightmare," Dawn said, coming closer to Mary Anne to pat her on the back, comfortingly, "about Kristy… and I think her murderer was in the dream, too."

Mary Anne looked up at Dawn, wiping her tear-filled eyes. "What was the dream about?"

Dawn told her the dream in detail. Then, the two agreed they'd had enough for the night and put everything back before going to sleep. But their rest was plagued with nightmares….

In Dawn's dreams, she saw the same vision over and over again. But the very last time, as she watched Kristy point frantically at the white balloon, Dawn jumped up to grab it. She popped the balloon. A terrible scream emerged from the murderer, who faded away. Kristy ran up to Dawn and hugged her a thousand times, thanking her, although Dawn could not hear her….

Mary Anne dreamt about Kristy, too. They were sitting in the attic, and Kristy looked completely normal… except her wrist was bleeding slightly. She asked Mary Anne for a Band-Aid, and Mary Anne complied.

What are these images? I don't remember them…. They seem to be like dreams…. Maybe they are dreams! That's it… I'm seeing Mary Anne and Dawn's dreams.

Bleeding wrist…. I must have died when the person hurt my wrist…. That must have been the thing that killed me, not being stabbed in the back…. Why else would I have died right afterwards?

The dream about the balloon doesn't make any sense. All of us were wearing balloons that night, but none of them were floating into the sky…. Why was the sky red, anyway?

Balloon… air balloon…

Air bubble?