黑魔法仪式 -̵̨̀͜͜P̡͞R͝҉̶̛O̷̶̡͘͟J͏̡̨E̴͠Ć̵̨̢T̵̛͟ ͝͝M̶̀̀-̷̡̀͠͞

[MethodicalSlacker]

She covered her face with her hands and shrunk even more. A large, large part of her wished that she hadn't said anything.

An even larger part figured that it must be the right thing to do.

From behind her hands then she spoke clearly,

"I've only tried it once before, but I think I can do it again."

She was of course referring to basic "necromancy". Speaking to the dead rather than divining from it in this case. Violet believed that, if they set up the ritual right, she could act as a conduit for the deceased animal. Most people did not. A good deal would call her a liar or scam artists (despite the fact that she did this only once, for herself, and for free). She had held one with her sister for a bird that had died and it freaked Dana out so much that she hid in the bathroom for a solid hour. Not because she believed that what had happened was truthful and legitimately real, per se, but because she couldn't handle the emotional pressure. Violet believed in herself, though.

And selfishly, it would be a perfect opportunity to do what she had intended to do by coming here.

Taking her hands from her face, Violet looked Desiree in the eyes with newfound determination and conviction that despite the fact that what she was going to say might be taken as an insult, or as a joke, or as a cruel and mean thing to say, that it was right, the correct thing to do under these circumstances.

"We can hold a seance."

[Jilly]

Great, Desiree brought home another crazy person. Her face ran through a gauntlet of emotions, some not even known to man. She scoffed and buried her face in her hands again.

What was she supposed to do? Yell? Laugh? Cry some more? She wasn't mad. She wasn't glad. She wasn't sad anymore; just dumbfounded.

Souls didn't exist. You die, you get buried, you contribute to the nitroglycerin cycle. That was the circle of life; frayed ends didn't exist. Anyone who believed in ghosts and that bull was a dumbfuck; Desiree sure didn't. Not at all.

But... what if you could talk to the dead? To get some sort of closure?

...To ask for forgiveness?

More minutes passed with throat-tearing silence.

"...Okay," Desiree finally spoke. She rose her head and looked at Violet, then the floor, then the TV still stuck on the character select screen, and then Violet again. "I... I want to try."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Okay."

Violet felt judged. She understood it wasn't unjustified judgement. She wasn't sure exactly what kind of judgement it was, but it was there.

She glanced at the clock. It wasn't too late, but it was late enough that she'd have to skip the salt bath before the Seance. They'd be taking in any demons or bad energy with them, and it might mess with some things. Make it a little harder for the spirit to talk with them. Nothing that would get in the way of their seance, though. As long as they bathed afterwards, with salt. She'd do that at her own house, probably.

Probably.

"What's the quietest room in the house?"

[Jilly]

"Uhm..." Desiree looked down. Her hands wavered. She shook her head.

"The quietest room" was a little complicated. Quietest as in the least loud? Any room would do. Quietest as in the darkest? Her mother and Dad's room didn't have windows, but if either of them found out she was messing with some bad juju she'd be dead too. Quietest with regards to the principles of feng shui? If only Desiree paid attention.

One of the neighbors' dogs started barking. It was probably one of those god damn pit bulls again for the 18th time this week.

Desiree sighed. "I guess the Florida room."

Bark. Bark. Bark.

"...What do we need?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Florida room? That was a weird way to pronounce 'sunroom', but it wasn't as if Violet had one of those herself anyway. No need to fuss when there's no real point to be made.

Two angles of attack here, with regards to the openness of the room. Either the windows could be covered, keeping their energy sealed in the room and preventing them from channeling anything that they didn't want, or the windows would be left uncovered, letting them harness the power of the moon and do some correspondences with that in order to increase their energy output in a way that made it easier to hear the chinchilla over the voices of the other spirits that were sure to come in through the windows. They didn't need to talk to any dead slaves tonight, no thank you. That was above Violet's pay-grade (of free).

What did they need? Anything special ingredient wise? Not that she knew of. Well...

"We need a table and two chairs, one for each of us, maybe some candles, um, and, uh. Hm."

Violet looked at the floor.

"A medium."

[Jilly]

"...A medium?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Something to talk to Toby through," she explained, "a way to communicate with him. Like, a ouija board, or some other kind of signal system, or..."

"Um..."

Violet tapped her foot nervously. What had been so obvious a solution to her before started to seem like something that wasn't allowed, a taboo she was about to break. Maybe in her world it was.

"Uh..."

[Jilly]

Desiree shook her head. "...No, it's fine. I have a Ouija board, uh, somewhere. There's candles in the kitchen, and the Florida room has a table in it already."

Desiree slowly rose from her seat. Her right hand grabbed her left arm as it dangled in front of her. Her eyes looked through Violet's head. "Uhm... I'll go look for the board if you wanna get the candles. The Florida room's at the very end of the hall, last door on the left."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Violet did not breathe a sigh of relief, but she did exhale just a little.

"Okay," she said, bringing herself to look at Desiree again, "I can get the candles, no worries."

She moved to leave the room before realizing that she didn't know what drawer the candles were in. She wasn't about to tear up the whole kitchen area just to look for some candles. She'd also need some matches, too, now that she thought about it.

"Um," she started, looking back over her shoulder, "do you know, um..."

Why was she getting flustered now, of all times?

"Where the, uh, y'know?"

[Jilly]

Desiree raised an eyebrow. Did she forget where the bathroom was?

Oh, wait. Maybe she was talking about the candles. That'd make more sense maybe. Unless she forgot where the kitchen was already, too.

"...Yeah, uhm..." Desiree furrowed her brow and concentrated. "...First top cabinet on the far right. My mom keeps a bunch of candles up there, but they're scented. That... would that matter too much? There should be a lighter up there, too."

In the distance the dog was still going at it, barking probably because of a squirrel or something. Hate these god damn neighbors.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Thank you," she said, nodding, as she walked off down the hallway over to the kitchen.

Scented candles would be a little distracting, but nothing that really would set her off or disrupt the two of them in a psychic sense. They would be just about fine with that going on. As she entered the kitchen and heard in the distance the wind whipping outside, she felt more confident about the evening. Elsewhere her friends were having fun on some dance-floor or another, doing lewd things in bathrooms, making drugs happen, having a good time, and here she was helping someone. Violet didn't really like to brag, but she wished in moments like these that there were cameras watching her every move. No advertisement to the feed, but a feed that anyone could see, and recognize a good person doing a good thing.

Violet went to open the cabinet that Desiree described, but was interrupted by a bright light shining into her eye. Covering her face with a hand, she backed up a step and saw the source of the light; a moonbeam glinting off of a piece of silverware in another part of the kitchen.

She tsk-tsk-tsked her way to the knife drawer, closed it, and went back to her search.

[Jilly]

Desiree watched as Violet left the room, doing the same after turning off the TV and Wii. She closed the door behind her.

---

The basement was a bust. It was Desiree's first suspected hiding place for the Ouija board, but it wasn't with the other dust-covered copies of Perfection and Mall Madness and other games sitting neglected on one of the shelves. So after spending only as long as she had to in the dim basement, she went for the other logical place.

The closet in her room.

Desiree hesitated opening the door, but eventually pushed it all the way open and turned on the combination ceiling light and fan. Toby's cage was the first thing that caught her eye. She opened the bottom dresser drawer hugging the wall opposite her bed, got out a spare blanket, and draped it over the cage. A faint odor of decay hovered, though maybe it was just in her head.

She'd deal with him later. But first, the game.

Desiree opened the walk-in closet door and turned on the light. Clothes were scattered all over the floor along with the random cardboard boxes thrown haphazardly in that exacerbated the claustrophobic feeling of the already compact space, a juxtaposition with the picturesque and pristine main room. She trudged through the mess of probably clean clothes and got to work tearing the floor and shelves apart.

Soon enough, her efforts were rewarded. In the far corner on the floor buried underneath some math textbooks was the Ouija board, still factory sealed in its plastic prison and stamped with the Kmart price sticker. Desiree picked it up, gave it a gentle shake, and backtracked to the designated meeting spot.

---

The moon glowed and stretched her shadow through the giant windows on the walls and the skylight of the sunroom, settling on the small square table in the middle of the room. Desiree sat in one of the three table chairs, set the box down, and began unsealing it while waiting for Violet.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Violet walked into the Florida room shortly after, clutching candles and a lighter and gazing out at the moonlight and softly humming to herself. The moonlight was so present that, yes, it would indeed change some things. She'd have to be careful about what was and wasn't in character for the deceased, which was hard, because the deceased was a chinchilla. Careful not think negative thoughts, Violet made her way to the table and sat across from Desiree, making note of the extra chair.

"Do you think we could, uh," she stammered, "maybe move the extra chair? We don't want any uninvited guests tonight, I'm, uh, guessing. We want to, y'know, make sure it's Toby talking to us and not something else."

She went about setting the candles in place in the meantime. They'd wait until they were totally ready to light them, she figured. Admittedly, she was making up a lot of this as she was going along, but she knew that deep down that was what magic was all about. Not about knowing things, but feeling your way to the right solution. If your heart could guide you to a place that you felt was true, to a conclusion that you were comfortable with as a means to actualize yourself and attain peace, if it could even give you a taste of that, then its job was basically over. Any other goals at this stage were secondary. They would not be reuniting with All tonight. Nothing that far out and advanced.

"Other than that, well, I guess I'm ready when you are, Desiree."

The hard part was coming up. Violet needed time to prepare to not have any more time at all.

[Jilly]

Desiree wordlessly tore apart the plastic and opened the box, setting the top underneath the bottom and got out the spirit board. She rubbed her hands along the indentations of the letters and numbers, feeling each engraving in the laminated wood. She shoved the box aside and placed the board down between herself and Violet along with the planchette now resting on top.

"...I wanna keep the chair," she spoke and looked at the extra seat. "Toby needs a place to sit, too. I'll take responsibility if something else comes." Not like anything would since, after all, ghosts didn't exist. But if they existed, well, you know.

Desiree looked at the candles. They were the cheap apple scented ones. Her mother wouldn't miss them.

Desiree cleared her throat and clasped her hands together with the wad of plastic wrap under the table. She nodded. "... I'm ready."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Violet nodded. If Desiree was okay with it, then, sure. What the hey. It's not like she did this sort of thing to earn a living, which would probably involve faking things, because the rate of success with seances was pretty low. Would she have to fake it tonight? She hoped not. She wasn't a very good actor.

She set the candles up around the table, lighting them as she went. They were placed well away from the board. No danger of knocking them over and causing two more spirits to join Toby in the afterlife. The faint smell of apple filled the room. Violet stared into the candle flame and watched it flickering while considering options. She could go over to the middle of the room and perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram to weed out any unwanted influences but she didn't feel like she could do it with Desiree staring at her. They didn't have quartz, or sea salt, but the candles were pretty close to white, which would attract good energy. It was too late for lavender incense or rosewater.

This would be difficult enough without that. Thank goodness they didn't need her as a medium. She nudged the planchette over so that it started on the letter G, and wordlessly placed her fingers on it, lightly but firmly, anticipating the soft sensation of burning. The hard part.

"I don't know if you've used this thing before," Violet said, "but, uh, it can be a while before we get a spirit to respond."

She hoped it wouldn't be long. This wasn't going to be pleasant. Violet wished that there was somewhere else to focus the pointer, and that she could just scribe. But this wouldn't work without two people and she was a good friend doing a good thing for someone she felt very warmly about, and that was that.