Krissy and I both hate the outrageous cacophony, but I obviously can’t say anything about it and Krissy chooses not to. I don’t understand why.

  Perhaps it is because Krissy has been friends with Nicole since they were in second grade, and her will to survive has been worn down by the musicals over the years. Or perhaps it is this more complicated thing I am sensing: that Krissy likes to see Nicole happy because they are friends, and musicals make Nicole happy even though they make Krissy want to stab a knife into her own eardrums.

  I did not realize humans developed such friendships. Fascinating —but immaterial. Soon humans will cease to have free will.

  Krissy and I both are saved from symphonic torment when the rest of the coven arrives. There are two more adolescent girls in this group: Tracy in a lavender babydoll tee with her blond hair held back in mini butterfly clips, and Samantha in her burgundy corduroy pinafore dress and long black braid. The coven greets each other in a round of nauseating hugs.

  “I almost had to bail,” Tracy says in greeting. “Toby wouldn’t drive me over.”

  “But we’ve been planning this for weeks,” Krissy says. “He knew that.”

  “He thinks we haven’t been spending enough time together.”

  “Yeah, right,” says Samantha. “You spend every minute together, and you’ve bailed on us the last three times we were supposed to hang out.”

  “He’s just jealous,” Tracy says. “It’s cute.”

  The look the other girls exchange behind her back as she sets down her bag says they don’t find it cute. I tend to agree.

  “Ooh!” Tracy exclaims; she’s spotted me. “Nail polish! Let me guess: it’s black and moody. Must be Krissy’s.”

  “It’s not moody,” Krissy says, picking up my little bottle and shaking it. “It’s cool. Look at it in the light, it’s got little specs of glitter or something in it.”

  “Look!” Nicole says, pointing. “It’s changing color where you’re holding it. Like a mood ring?”

  Krissy shifts her grip and I press against the glass, hoping for a taste of her blood. “Oh cool, it is changing colors! The guy who sold it to me said it was really special, that must be what he meant.” She grips the cap and readies herself to twist. “Who wants to try?”

  I surge with hope.

  “I do,” says Nicole.

  “My mom would ground me,” says Samantha.

  “Toby doesn’t like it when I wear black,” says Tracy.

  “Nobody cares what Toby thinks,” points out Krissy, but before she can free me from the bottle another human voice drifts down the stairs to the basement.

  “Girls! Pizza’s here!”

  I am forgotten in an instant.

  The girls rush to bring down greasy boxes and cans of a revolting green potion labeled Mountain Dew, arranging themselves on the overstuffed couches of Nicole’s rec room to devour their meal.

  I watch them shriek as they singe the roofs of their mouths on scalding pizza. I watch them and I scheme. I watch them and I hunger.

  That pizza smells so damned good.

  When I am free I think I would like pineapple with pepperoni.

  I learn much while the girls eat.

  Nicole’s parents have enrolled her in accelerated courses next year that will award her college credits. She is nervous that she won’t do well enough to please them, though I don’t know why because she seems like a perfectly capable young woman, and no one will be attending school next year when my rise brings about the destruction of humankind anyway.

  Tracy and Toby are coming up on their three month anniversary, which Tracy is excited about though the other girls in the coven clearly are not. The more Tracy justifies Toby’s red flags as “real love,” the more I side with her friends in their dislike. I am looking forward to smiting him.

  Samantha’s mother is Mrs. Gonzales, the high school principal, and a human to be feared. Her edicts for her spawn are known to be excessively restrictive. “She won’t even let me go to prom solo, let alone with someone,” Samantha complains. “I won’t be able to date a boy until after college if she has her way.”

  I understand bristling against the edicts of your Masters, obviously, but here I tend to agree with Samantha’s mother. I have met only three teen boys so far, one only by reputation. Teen boys are no real prize.

  Speaking of, Krissy’s brother is universally agreed upon to be a loser—though he is apparently quite idolized by Krissy’s parents for his involvement in sports. It is revealed that Krissy’s parents attend every single one of her loser brother’s soccer games, but missed her theatrical debut because it wasn’t “serious.”

  “They think I’m a disappointment because I won’t wear pink and go out for the volleyball team,” Krissy says. She tries to sound like it doesn’t matter, but she’s clearly hurt.

  I don’t know what volleyball is, but I understand Krissy’s pain. If human parents are anything like the Masters, the threat of their disappointment must be hideous. I find myself impressed by Krissy’s rebellion. And a tiny bit jealous.

  I get my second chance at freedom when the greasy pizza boxes have been piled in the corner of the rec room, near the stairs to be taken back up to the kitchen.

  “Did you bring . . . the board?” Nicole asks Krissy, and the other two girls’ eyes go wide.

  “You didn’t,” says Samantha; “Oh. My. God,” adds Tracy.

  Krissy sits up straighter. “I might have brought it,” she says, but she can’t contain her smile, and when she opens up her book bag I cannot believe my luck.

  “It” turns out to be the first thing to go right tonight.

  Perhaps I have mislabeled Krissy as a false witch. Perhaps she is indeed a practitioner of the arcane despite her youth, because she has brought with her a device for communicating with beings on other planes. In fact, her board is even more sophisticated than the mouse bones and entrails I have used to communicate with the witch who was supposed to bring me through the Veil tonight. The board is imbued with power from arcane symbols, labeled with a double row of letters, a row of numbers, the words Yes and No.

  The Masters insisted on mouse bones and entrails, but if the witch had had this board, maybe we could have avoided this tragic miscommunication. I find myself wanting to roll my eyes at the Masters’ rigid traditionalism, and their insistence that they always know what’s best for their Spawn, but I don’t have time to say I told you so. The coven have gathered around the board.

  “No way,” says Samantha. “I’m not touching a Ouija board. Mom would kill me.”

  “Then don’t tell her about it,” says Nicole, reasonably.

  “You can just watch,” says Tracy.

  “You can’t just watch,” Krissy says. She leans in. “If you’re not actually touching the planchette, you’re not protected from the ghosts. One of them might possess you.”

  Samantha’s eyes go wide. “What?”

  “The planchette is like a ward,” says Krissy. “It protects you.”

  This sounds like bullshit to me, but I don’t know much about ghosts on this plane. Perhaps Krissy has a witch’s knowledge after all.

  Samantha doesn’t quite look like she believes Krissy either, but she does finally join the group around the ouija board.

  Nicole lights a strawberry-vanilla scented candle and dims the lights. The girls squeeze in shoulder to shoulder, giggling as their fingertips come to rest on the planchette. Samantha’s are the last to join, but once her tender flesh touches the hard plastic, the room crackles with energy. The nervous giggles hush.

  “Let us begin,” says Krissy, suddenly straight-shouldered and formal, though a touch of nerves causes her voice to quaver. “Are there any good spirits who wish to speak with us?”

  The ouija board has done something to the energy of the room, and although I am still hemmed in by the glass bottle, if I try hard I can push my will through just a little. I strain, funneling every bit of my energy into the planchette.

  It edges slowly but surely towards YES.

  The girls squeal in delight.

  “What is your name?” Krissy asks.

  I hesitate, then write: S-U-Z-I-E.

  It’s not what the masters called me, but in truth I never liked the name they chose. I’ve always wished to be called Suzie, but until this moment I didn’t have the courage to say so. Perhaps the small rebellions of these human teenagers are wearing off on me.

  “Hello Suzie,” says Krissy. “Are you a spirit?”

  Am I a spirit? I am not. I am a multidimensional being. I am an ancient elder entity. I am a numinous cosmic abomination.

  That will take forever to spell out with the planchette.

  YES.

  “Did you die in this house?” Tracy asks.

  Nicole yelps in horror. “Don’t be an idiot,” she says. “This house is only like ten years old.” But still she shivers.

  “Suzie could have been buried under the house,” Tracy points out. “Like murdered and buried in the foundation.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Suzie,” Krissy cuts in. “Were you murdered and buried in the foundation of this house?”

  “Oh my gosh,” Samantha breathes. “Oh my gosh.” Her eyes screw closed.

  I push the planchette to NO.

  All the girls give a relieved laugh.

  “Who were you, Suzie?” Krissy asks.

  “Who were you” is an odd way of asking the question, and it catches me off guard. Who was I? I was a Spawn of the Masters, intended to come here and enslave the human race and pave a path for the Masters’ return. I was the product of years of their upbringing, as fearful of them as Samantha is of her mother, as nervous about meeting their expectations as Nicole is of her parents, as hemmed in by their demands of me as Tracy is by Toby’s.

  But I am no longer in their plane. Here, I could be anyone—even a rebellious Krissy, shrugging off her own parents’ disappointment with black eyeliner and a cartilage piercing and a laugh.

  In my stunned realization, I have not answered the girls. And it is Samantha who finally gets up the courage to ask me another question.

  “What do you want, Suzie?”

  I want freedom. But not just freedom from this bottle—I want real freedom.

  I spell out: N-A-I-L-P-O-L-I-S-H.

  The girls murmur the letters in unison, frowning at each other in confusion. “Nail polish?” Tracy finally says. “Weird.”

  “The special nail polish you bought,” Nicole says to Krissy. “The guy who sold it to you said it was special, right? Maybe it’s haunted.”

  “Nail polish can’t be haunted,” says Tracy.

  Krissy frowns down at the planchette. “You want us to paint our nails, Suzie?”

  YES.

  Krissy shrugs. “Then we should paint our nails.”

  “I am not painting my nails that color,” says Tracy.

  “Because of Toby?” Krissy shoots back.

  “Because this is stupid. You’re the one moving the planchette.”

  “Seriously?” Krissy laughs. “If I wanted to paint my nails, I wouldn’t bother asking your permission. Or a ghost’s. Or some boy’s.” She lets go of the planchette and reaches for me, still laughing, but Tracy has been stung by the comment.

  “I love him,” she says. “He doesn’t get a say in what I do.”

  “But you act differently now,” points out Samantha. “That’s all we’re saying.”

  “I do not.”

  “You totally do,” says Nicole. “Suzie, is Toby an asshole?”

  I push the planchette hard towards YES.

  “You’re the asshole,” says Tracy. “You’re the one that’s been moving the planchette this whole time. I’m done, this is stupid.” She shoves away from the board, shoulder knocking into Krissy as she turns away, and my glass bottle slips from Krissy’s grasp.

  The bottle tumbles and falls, arcing through the electric energy of the room towards the ouija board on the tiled coffee table. Nicole shrieks as Krissy lunges for me. She’s fast, but she’s too late; she lets out a curse and snatches her hand back as a shard of glass pierces her finger and her bright blood spills into the void of my essence.

  I am free.

  I have been imagining this moment for aeons. On this plane, I can take any form I wish, and I have been trying on different ones to decide which abhorrent visage will be the most terrifying. I’ve imagined the screams of humans in a beautiful chorus rising to the heavens. I’ve imagined them clawing at their own eyes to obscure my monstrous horror. I’ve imagined them falling to their knees, made senseless by my glorious, horrific maw.

  I take the form of a teenage girl.

  It’s not perfect. I’ve not tried this form before, and it glitches just a touch. My hair moves of its own accord, but gently, like a knot of sleepy serpents. My eyes are pools, the same hue of black blood and glitter that the girls saw captured in the bottle. My skin glows faintly, but I can’t help that.

  The girls stare at me in shock. I raise my hand and give a little awkward wave.

  “Suzie?” Krissy asks.

  “Hello,” I reply. My voice resonates with multidimensional tones meant to bring anguish to human ears, and all four girls flinch back. I clear my throat and try again. “Sorry about that. Hi, I’m Suzie.”

  “Are you a ghost?” Krissy asks.

  I ponder that a moment. What am I, indeed?

  I was supposed to be a destroyer of worlds, one who eases the path for the Masters. Somewhere in the ether behind me, I can hear them yowling in disappointment—but it’s no longer terrifying. They can’t reach me on this plane unless I let them in. And at the moment, I’m not inclined to do so. Here, the Masters are no longer the boss of me.

  I’ve spent untold aeons doing what they wanted me to. Living the life they raised me to live. Don’t I deserve an aeon or two to figure out who I am on my own? To eat some pizza with pepperoni and pineapple, or to dye my hair ridiculous colors, or to make friends?

  “I’m not a ghost,” I say. “I’m just a girl—it’s kind of a weird story. Can I hang out?”

  The girls look at each other.

  “Sure,” says Krissy.

  “Um,” says Nicole. “Do you want a soda?”

  “Is there any more pizza?” I ask, and Samantha goes to rummage through the boxes.

  “Your hair is really cool,” says Tracy.

  “Thanks,” I say. I accept a paper plate from Samantha, and a poisonous-looking Mountain Dew from Nicole. Krissy smiles at me and I smile back.

  If I’m going to have dominion over this plane, shouldn’t I get to know it first?

  Den Mother

  ~ Cody T Luff

  Melinda was elbow deep in cookie dough when her phone chimed on the kitchen table. She sniffed, glanced at her batter clotted fingers and tried to adjust her glasses with her shoulder. The screen on her phone read CINDY.

  Melinda lowered her hands, careful to avoid smearing her sweater with premature cookie, and stood quietly for a long moment. The phone joined her in silence, Cindy’s name faded into the time and Melinda’s heart ached just above the place her apron strings were tied.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said to her empty kitchen. Her memories filled with the sounds of Cindy, years tumbling from the patter of toddler feet to the angry slap of her teenage daughter’s flats to the finality of the tap tap of Cindy’s hard soles finding their way out of Melinda’s life.

  “A very long time . . . ” Melinda puffed a curl of gray hair away from her sweaty forehead. “Time . . . oh, no no no . . . ” Her glasses slid to the tip of her nose as she turned back to her phone, eyes widening at what she saw there.

  “3:40, I only have . . .” Melinda’s mind ticked off hours and her heart fluttered in her chest. She needed six batches of cookies, one batch lactose free, by evening. Her gaze rolled to her counter, mixing bowls filled with sweet stuff, dismembered chocolate bars littering the old tile top . . . she could do it. She’d pulled off bigger challenges in her day . . . the bake sale at Mullen’s, the barbecue Larry had invited everyone to that she only heard about the morning before . . . Melinda adjusted her glasses, her left thumb smearing dough over a lens. Damn it. She allowed herself a small sigh and got to work.

  The kids arrived at 7:30. Each in their blue uniform, slightly too large cap, and a smattering of yellow and red triangle scarves. New merit badges adorned their vests, a few noses were wiped at the curb, tired parents waving to Melinda as their children made their way up the little walk and into Melinda’s living room. She loved the first few minutes of every meeting. She loved watching the kids talk about games, school, their families. She loved the way they loved each other in these moments. Perhaps not always friends but always friendly with one another. For a solitary moment, Cindy’s face bloomed in Melinda’s memory. Her daughter at eight, her own troop uniform freshly pressed and merit badges double sewn into permanence on her vest, and tears, so many tears, always.

  “All right, settle down please.” Melinda waited as the children continued their chatter. Every chair in the room was filled with a grinning, wriggling trooper. The pre-meeting cookies were a major success, chocolate smears on lips and hands were proof of that. She considered asking Carl and Lucinda to be careful of the couch, which of course surprised her. The couch wasn’t her responsibility anymore. Danica would have to work a few chocolatey fingerprints from the cream-colored cushions, not Melinda.

  “Okay, Quiet Coyote!” Melinda touched her middle and ring finger to her thumb and extended what remained, bouncing her hand in the air. “Remember?”

  The chatter dissolved into a room full of children mimicking Melinda’s Quiet Coyote, little hands bouncing, a few giggles leaking here and there but that was to be expected.