Liminality - 1. Liminality

 

 

 

 

“You watch too many movies, Jayce,” I said, shaking my head.

 

“No, it’s not from a movie,” Jayce leaned closer, that excited, intense look in his eyes that he got whenever something had hold of him. “I saw a program on the History Channel and I’ve read a lot about it.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “I think we’ve all seen that program, and everyone knows the history of Halloween and all the myths and legends.”

 

He made a frustrated gesture with his hands. “Look, Kyle, I’m serious about this. Halloween is supposed to be one of the liminal times, when the boundaries, the curtains between worlds—the world of the living and the world of the dead—are thin.”

 

Liminaltimes? Only Jayce would use a word like that—and know what it meant. I knew, but I don’t think I would have found a way to use it in everyday conversation. Not that this was precisely everyday conversation. It wasn’t every day that you talked about bringing back the dead.

 

“So, ok, the line is thin and a bit scuffed and the curtain is diaphanous.” I could throw out a “word of the day” every now and then, as well. “This means you can bring the dead back to life?” I shook my head. “I really think all that is meant figuratively, Jayce, not literally. Like maybe you could ‘open up your mind’ or something and enter some mental state that makes you think you are communicating with the dead. Or something like that. You know, like the Native Americans who go into a cave/pit/something and get high on peyote and communicate with their ancestors?”

 

Ok, I knew that people really believed in things like that, but I had never really been able to get my head to accept that it was anything more than imagination. Even if I sort of understood that it didn’t really matter whether something like that was “real” or not if it met the needs of the person experiencing it. I mean, if it gave you comfort or a sense of “spiritual grounding,” then that was all that really mattered, right?

 

“No, I don’t think it IS meant like that,” Jayce interrupted my wandering thoughts. “If the boundaries are thin, it means you can cross over from one side to the other. The dead can come into the world of the living—“

 

I interrupted him. “Yeah, and possess the bodies of the living—which is why everyone wears costumes and shit, to confuse them and scare them away. But even if that were actually true, it doesn’t mean you can bring someone back to life.”

 

Jayce shook his head and slapped his hand against the cover of the book he’d been holding. “You can. It’s in this book.” He looked uncertain for a moment. “Well, maybe not exactly ‘bring someone back to life’—though it might mean that. It just isn’t all that clear on that.” He flipped through the pages of the book and then turned it toward me. “But read this. Even if it doesn’t mean that you can actually bring a dead person back to life, then it at least means you can bring their spirit back from the world of the dead, bring it into the world of the living.”

 

I looked at the book, not even sure if I wanted to read it. It was stupid. Someone had made up a bunch of shit and put it into an “old-looking” book and put it on the mass market for $19.99 and probably made a fortune selling it to all the Goth kids. Not that Jayce was Goth. He was just gullible.

 

“Come on, Kyle, at least read it.”

 

I rolled my eyes and picked up the book.

 

“Summoning the Dead. On the night when the veil is thin and the shadows reach toward the light and the earth is balanced between the light and the dark, form a circle of light around the one who sleeps in everdark. Repeat three times these words—“

 

I rolled my eyes even more. “Come on, who wrote this? You don’t really believe this is real, do you?”

 

“Just read it, will you?”

 

I looked at Jayce. His eyes were bright, his cheeks flushed and his lips parted—which meant he either wanted to kiss me—badly…or he was serious. Since he was unfortunately straight, I figured he was serious. And he was my best friend, so if he really believed the words he wanted me to read, I guessed I’d better read them, even if they were beyond cliché.

 

I pretty much skimmed through the “words” that were to be repeated three times (I didn’t really think I needed to bother with a made up hocus pocus chant) and jumped to the end, where it finally seemed to get to the point.

 

“...offer a drop of your blood to Mother Earth, in whose eternal sheltering bosom he rests, and her arms will open to you. Speak three times his name through lips that have tasted the blood of your offering, and the one you call may not refuse your summons--and may not return to his rest until the veil is cast in light and the shadows dance no more.”

 

I laughed outright. “God, Jayce! Speak three times his name through lips that have tasted the blood of your offering…” I shook my head, still laughing. “Sounds like something out of ‘Taste the Blood of Dracula.’”

 

Jayce snatched the book away and stood up. I could see he was pissed. “Whatever. You don’t have to do it with me if you don’t want. You’d probably fuck it all up anyway because you are a nonbeliever. Besides, Mark and Tyler already said they would and I’m sure Ritchie will want in.”

 

Yeah, he would. Would probably show up in full Goth regalia with vampire fangs thrown in for good measure.

 

I shrugged my shoulders. “So we going to do this instead of the party?” Jayce’s family always threw a big party on Halloween. His whole family—even his mom and dad--got into it, costumes and everything. I’d been going to their party every year since Jayce and I had first met, which was in second grade. The parties were always PG rated, but they were also always pretty fun. And I kind of liked dressing up, even though I pretended it was lame.

 

Jayce shook his head and bounced back down onto the edge of my bed. “No, I figured we’d go for a while, make a show of being there and slip out around 10:30. There’ll be a lot of people there, so we won’t be missed, and we need to get to the cemetery and get things all set up so we can do everything just before midnight. The closer to midnight we do it, the better it will work.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “The better it will work? So, what? If we do it too early, only part of the dude comes back to life? His arms? His legs? One of each? Or will he just give a moan and turn over and go back to sleep?”

 

Jayce gave my arm a shove, knocking me sideways onto my pillow. “No, but his dick will be too soft to fuck you, and I figure the only way you are EVER going to get laid is if we get you someone who hasn’t had any in a decade or two.”

 

I grinned and pushed him back. “Yeah? Even if he hasn’t had any in a decade or two, he’s still had more than you.”

 

We ended up wrestling like two little kids, something we had always done. We were more like brothers than friends, really, and just about every argument or disagreement or any other moment of tension between us seemed to end up in a wrestling match. But as Jayce proceeded to roll me off the bed and onto the floor (he was on the team at school, one of their best wrestlers in his weight class), I thought about what he had said.

 

He was probably right. Guys weren’t exactly lining up at my bedroom door. Of course, that could be because no one really knew I liked guys. Just Jayce and Ritchie. Jayce knew because he was my best friend. We didn’t keep secrets from each other. Ever. When I told him two years ago, he punched my arm and told me he’d figured that out a long time ago. And he went on to tell me, with a wicked grin, that he knew I had been looking at his ass since 6^th grade—and I could look all I wanted, because he knew he had one damned fine ass, but I wasn’t getting any of it because his ass and his dick were for “ladies only.”

 

He did have “one damned fine ass.” And pretty much everything else about him was also “damned fine.” But even if I sometimes jacked off thinking about his ass or his mouth (which was about as kissable as a mouth could get), I wasn’t ever going to try anything with him. He was straight and I respected that. Just like he respected the fact that I was gay.

 

Ritchie was another story. Ritchie knew I was gay because he’d sniffed me out like a predator scenting his prey the very first time we’d met. He’d moved in next door to Jayce last summer, and the moment Jayce introduced us I could feel Ritchie’s eyes all over me. They felt like fingers, the way they ran up and down my body and then lingered on my face, as if they were caressing my cheek. I’d never been looked at like that in my life and every nerve in my body had fired at once. I made up an excuse to leave, but not before my flushed cheeks and the tent at the front of my shorts had told him all he needed to know. Even now, as Jayce had me pinned face down on my floor, I could feel my dick twitching just at the thought of Ritchie.

 

But other than that stare he would fix on me from time to time or the way he would sometimes brush past me much more slowly and more closely than necessary, he’d never made any move on me. And I knew he was gay, or at least bi. Jayce even said so—though I don’t really think they’d ever actually discussed it. So I figured he probably wasn’t interested in me.

 

“You give up too quickly,” Jayce released me and slapped my ass. “Good thing you never tried out for the team.”

 

Yeah, that and rolling around on the floor with muscular guys in gym shorts would have given me a permanent hard on. I groaned and rolled over onto my back. “You outweigh me by half a horse, you fat fuck,” I muttered. About 15 pounds, really. Jayce wasn’t big, just strong.

 

He laughed and reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet. “So we’re on for Halloween night then?”

 

I smiled and shook my head. “Yeah, we’re on. I still think it’s bogus, but hell, it’s Halloween.”

 

And worst come to worst, maybe the ritual and the proximity of all the headstones would arouse Ritchie’s Goth-ness and put him in a nice horny mood.

 

******************

 

The door creaked as it opened slowly. I blinked my eyes and actually took a step back as a dark figure emerged surrounded by a glowing mist.

 

“Wow, cool fucking costume!”

 

I laughed. “Thanks.” It was Jayce, of course, which shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, it was his doorbell I had just rung. “God, man, what’s with the fog bank? I half expected that Blake guy to come out swinging that fish hook thing at my head.”

 

Jayce came out onto the porch and shut the door behind him. The foggy mist seemed to follow him, clinging to his hooded black robe. “Mom’s idea. She was just going to get a fog machine from Party City. Dad decided to ‘do it right,’ though, and did this thing with dry ice. You can’t even see in there. Dad was going to open the windows and let some of it out, but Mom won’t let him. She figures someone would think the place was burning down and call the fire department. They have the fans all on now, trying to blow it around and thin it out.”

 

“So who are you supposed to be?” he asked, pushing his hood back and taking a closer look at me.

 

I took off the top hat and slipped the mask on. It was a skull with half of the face painted black. I always took time figuring out my costume, even though I usually let on that I was bored with the whole thing. But honestly, I loved dressing up. Usually I chose something that was significant to me in some way. Nothing “deep” or anything, just something that meant something to me.

 

Though once in a while I did something that came from a deeper place than just what I thought was cool at the moment. Like two years ago when I had dressed up as a half man/half woman. Everyone thought it was pretty funny and I had laughed right along with them. But what was behind that costume choice was my coming to terms with my sexuality. Not that I thought of myself as a guy who was “half woman” or anything like that, but I had accepted the part of me that made me different from a “normal” guy. I figured out that the combination of male and female, that x and y that all guys have, was balanced differently inside of me. That was the year I looked in the mirror and saw who I was—and was cool with it. Jayce was the only one who knew what my costume really meant.

 

This year I had chosen something with a deeper significance, as well. I hadn’t decided on it until Jayce had told me about his plans to “bring back the dead.” I had started thinking of it pretty much right after Jayce had gone home. I wanted something that would be appropriate for such a “ceremony,” even if I thought the whole thing was made up. And what Jayce had said about Halloween being one of the “liminal” times had caught me a bit.

 

“I’m Baron Samedi.” I paused a moment, waiting to see if Jayce already knew who he was. It wasn’t out of the question. Jayce watched a lot of movies and read a lot of books, and he knew odd things, things you wouldn’t expect him to know. I watched as he looked over my costume. I was wearing a black tuxedo-type suit, a bit cinched in at the waist, and white gloves. I carried a cane which I had made by cutting the handle part off of an old cane I had found in my basement and gluing a skull on in its place. I could see him thinking, could see him running through everything he kept in his head, before he wrinkled his brow and tipped his head to one side.

 

“Some voodoo guy, right?”

 

I smiled behind my mask. Leave it to Jayce. “Yeah. He’s the god of death and also the god of love and resurrection. He stands at the crossroads between this world and the next and all the souls of the dead pass by him on their way to the other side.” Between this world and the next, like the “liminal state” was between one stage and the next. Between life and death. The connection had seemed right to me.

 

Jayce nodded. “Very cool. Will fit right in when we go to the cemetery.”

 

“You’ll fit right in, too,” I commented, reaching out and pulling his hood back over his head. “You look like you’re all ready to perform the Black Mass.”

 

Jayce laughed. “Yeah. I used Dad’s monk costume from last year. A bit ironic how the same costume can be a nice, devout monk and a Satanic priest.”

 

“It’s great, Jayce,” I grinned. “Anyone else here yet?” By “anyone else” I meant Tyler, Mark or Ritchie.

 

Jayce nodded, pushing his hood back just far enough so he could see. “Mark’s here. He’s Jason Voorhees.” He rolled his eyes a bit. “Ritchie is vamping it up with my sister. He and Lisa make a great pair. Not sure who’s going to bite whose neck first.”

 

My stomach did a strange thing: it flipped and it clenched at the same time. The flip was at the thought of Ritchie as a vampire—he would have to look incredibly hot as a vampire. The clench was at the thought of Ritchie with Lisa—and at the thought that he and Lisa made a “great pair.” I was glad I was wearing the mask. Jayce knew I reacted to Ritchie—he had seen the same thing Ritchie had when we had first met. But I had always downplayed it. Ritchie wasn’t interested in me and he was our friend. I really didn’t want anyone, not even Jayce, to know I STILL had thoughts about him. And I didn’t consider that “keeping a secret” from Jayce. I just considered it not making an ass of myself.

 

“Tyler’s not here yet?” I decided not to comment on Ritchie or Lisa.

 

Jayce shook his head. “No, he called a while ago. He has to take his cousins trick-or-treating. He’ll be late. May have to meet us at the cemetery.”

 

Jayce bounced a little. “You know, I can’t wait to do this. Ritchie brought candles—for the “circle of light”--and a really cool dagger with a silver blade and an ivory handle for the offering of blood.”

 

“Figures he would have something like that handy,” I said, trying to keep my voice expressionless. I must have managed because Jayce just laughed.

 

“Yeah, really,” he said turning back to his front door and opening it. The fog came pouring out, though it didn’t seem quite as thick as it had been when Jayce had first opened the door. “Looks like it’s thinning out a bit. We should go in for a while.”

 

I looked at my watch. It was 9:30. We had a full hour to wait. Not that it would just be “waiting.” Jayce’s family always threw a good party. There would be a lot of good things to eat and some music and games—though they usually ended up splitting off into the “little kid” games and the “adult” games (which meant games that only the “adults” thought were fun). Those of us “in the middle” usually ended up just hanging out or slipping out when the games began.

 

Though if I had to watch Ritchie and Lisa…well, doing anything, it would feel like waiting.

 

******************

 

It felt like waiting.

 

I followed Jayce inside. The fog seemed pretty thick to me, even though Jayce had said it had “thinned out a bit.” But it wasn’t thick enough to keep me from seeing Ritchie sitting on the couch with Lisa. And it wasn’t thick enough to keep me from seeing her lean close to him and say something in his ear. And it wasn’t thick enough to keep me from seeing him turn to her and brush his way-too-real-looking fangs against her neck.

 

Again, I was glad I was wearing a mask.

 

“Baron Samedi? What a wonderful idea!” It was Jayce’s mom. Mrs. Appleton was an older, female version of Jayce, right down to her taste in movies and books. In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised me all that much if the whole “bring back the dead” bit had been her idea. Though if it had been, I doubted she would have been wearing a Fairy Princess costume because I was sure she would have insisted on coming along. For the third time that night, I was glad I was wearing a mask.

 

“Evening, Mrs. Appleton,” I said, trying not to laugh outright. It wasn’t that she looked that funny or anything—the costume sort of suited her. It was just that she and Jayce looked enough alike that I immediately pictured Jayce in that same costume. It was enough to make me want to roll on the floor.

 

“I should have figured it was you, Kyle.” She tapped me on my shoulder with her wand—and I nearly giggled out loud. “You always come up with something original and different. I swear if I see one more ‘Scream’ mask I’m going to…well…scream!” She laughed at her own joke, which wasn’t half bad. Mrs. Appleton was a cool mom. Jayce didn’t think so, but everyone else did. Pretty much everyone wished their mom was more like her.

 

“We can see in the kitchen again, Alice. The fog has lifted. I put the taquitos in the oven.” A tall figure in a white robe appeared out of the fog. His head was huge, about twice the size of a normal head, and bald.

 

“Who are you supposed to be, Mr. Appleton?” I asked.

 

Jayce’s dad was cool, too. Maybe not as cool as Jayce’s mom, and maybe everyone didn’t wish their dad was more like him, but I did. You could talk to him about anything. Jayce told me about some of the conversations they had about sex and shit—things I could NEVER talk about with my dad. My dad…well, he just wasn’t someone I could talk to. Not about anything, really.

 

“I’m a Talosian, from Talos 4,” he said like it should have explained everything.

 

“From Star Trek, Kyle,” The Fairy Princess explained, gesturing with her wand. “David thinks everyone is as big a Trekkie as he is.”

 

I grinned behind my mask. “Would that be the original series, Mr. Appleton?”

 

I knew it was. Not because I knew that the Talosians were in the original series—I just knew that as far as Mr. Appleton was concerned, Star Trek had ended with Captain Kirk and everything after that was blasphemy. Jayce and I were both Next Generation fans and had heard that lecture more than once when Mr. Appleton had walked in on us “watching that aberration.”

 

Mr. Appleton drew himself up to his full height, which was about 6’ (before the big head) and looked down at me (though with my top hat I was probably only a few inches shorter than he was with his big head). “It is from the only Star Trek series, Mr. Sanders.”

 

I laughed, as did Mrs. Appleton, who winked at me.

 

Mr. Appleton shook his big head. “Kids today just have no respect for the classic shows,” he muttered as he turned away. “I’m going to check on the taquitos.” He raised his chin and “hmphed” as he strode off into the kitchen.

 

I was tapped with the wand again. “Never mind him, dear,” Mrs. Appleton said with a smile.

 

I nodded, grinning behind my mask. I knew he wasn’t really annoyed or anything. Mr. Appleton never really got annoyed or angry. Not that I had ever seen. Before I could say anything, though, the Fairy Princess flitted off after her husband and I heard a quiet voice behind me.

 

“You look really cool. Jayce said you are supposed to be a baron or something.”

 

I turned around and waved my cane at Mark. “Not just a ‘baron or something.’ I’m Baron Samedi, voodoo god extraordinaire.”

 

Mark raised his Jason mask and grinned at me. “Baron Saturday?” Mark was the only one of “us” who took French. At least I knew that “Samedi” was French for “Saturday.”

 

I raised my mask and grinned back. “Yeah, no clue why the ‘Saturday’ bit. But the cemetery is pretty much his territory, so I figured it would fit…considering what we have planned.”

 

Mark’s eyes shifted. He looked a little nervous at the mention of the cemetery. “Uh…yeah. Hey, look, Kyle…do you really think—“

 

I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because at that very moment all I could hear was a somewhat squealing giggle from the couch—where Lisa was…with Ritchie. I flushed when I realized Mark was watching me stare at both of them.

 

He reached out his hand and laid it on my arm. “It’s ok. I know how you feel.”

 

I blanched. I knew I did. I must have gone as white as the white half of my skull mask. He knew how I felt? He couldn’t! Did he know? I felt a bit sick. Did anyone else know? Did everyone else know? What if my dad found out? “Y-you do?”

 

Mark pulled his hand away and blushed. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Lisa’s really pretty. I…uh…I used to have sort of a…crush…on her, um…a long time ago.”

 

I pulled the mask back down over my face. I didn’t really want the relief I felt to show. He thought I was interested in Lisa! When I looked back at Mark, I noticed he had pulled his mask back down also. Guess we both felt better hiding our feelings behind a mask.

 

Mark wandered off to talk to one of the other guys—Tom, someone we both knew but who wasn’t really part of our group—and I slipped off into the dining room, figuring I would find some munchies while I “waited” for whatever was coming next. I looked at my watch. Hopefully the next 45 minutes would pass more quickly than the first 15 had. Though Lisa’s giggle kept echoing in my head and I kept seeing Ritchie’s fangs flashing as they headed for her neck.

 

I knew I was being really stupid. For one thing, I had a thing for a guy who didn’t have a similar thing for me—obviously. And for another thing, this guy I had a thing for seemed to have a thing for my best friend’s sister. God! Things were just so fucked up!

 

“Figured I’d find you in here eating,” Jayce’s hand on my shoulder nearly made me jump out of my skin. He laughed. “Boo! Did I scare you?”

 

I hit him with my cane. “No, you startled me. Completely different thing.” I picked up the pretzels I had dropped when he had “startled” me.

 

“Yeah, sure,” Jayce grinned at me. He had his hood pushed back and his blonde hair was standing nearly straight up.

 

I laughed. “God, YOU are the one who looks like someone scared you! Your hair is standing on end.”

 

Jayce ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Yeah, static. Thought of using some of Lisa’s hair spray, but I think maybe I’ll leave it like this. Might not be a bad idea to look a bit scary if—I mean when we bring this guy back.”

 

“You look more scared than scary,” I commented with a smirk. “So who are we ‘bringing back’?” I asked, grabbing another handful of pretzels.

 

“Well, I was just going to pick someone at random. You know, just find a spot where no one can see us too easily and pick the first headstone I saw.”

 

Really…how should something like that be decided? How DID a person pick who to bring back from the dead?

 

“But Ritchie said we should pick someone who might be ‘restless,’ someone who ‘lies in an uneasy sleep,’ as he put it.”

 

I rolled my eyes. Sure. Ritchie had the candles and the dagger—of course he would know who we should raise from the dead. “So how are we supposed to know that? It’s not like there are mini bios on the headstones.”

 

Jayce grinned. “There should be, though, don’t you think? I want mine like that when I die. I want people to know something about me, not just my name.”

 

Yeah, sure. I could see mine now: “Kyle James Sanders – Had a thing for a guy who had a thing for his best friend’s sister. Died a lonely old virgin.” Yeah. Right. I wanted future generations to know that.

 

“—suicides are always restless.”

 

What? I missed what Jayce had said, but I didn’t get a chance to ask him because just then a blaze of bright colors hit my eyes, accompanied by a bright and cheery, “Hey, guys!”

 

“What the fuck?” Jayce said it—I thought it. We were both staring at Tyler, who was dressed in a clown outfit—complete with big shoes, a white face with a big red nose and bushy red hair (which pretty much exactly matched the color of his real hair). And he was carrying a bunch of balloons.

 

It wasn’t quite the outfit I would have imagined suitable for a “bringing back the dead” ceremony in a cemetery.

 

Tyler stared back at us, the big red painted-on smile looking a bit creepy. Almost as creepy as the big red pompoms that went down the front of his big yellow pants. “What?”

 

“You’re a…clown,” Jayce said, his voice a mixture of disbelief and disgust.

 

“Well…yeah,” Tyler agreed. “What tipped you off to that? The clown shoes or the clown wig?”

 

Jayce threw up his hands. “God! Tyler! What were you thinking? We’re going to a cemetery, for fuck sake!” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’re going to be performing a SERIOUS…” he hissed the word ‘serious’ “ritual.”

 

“Well Jesus! It’s not like I’m fucking Bozo or something. I’m that evil clown from that Stephen King movie. You know, ‘It!’”

 

I covered my mouth with my hand, trying not to laugh out loud. It was brilliant! Completely outlandish and bizarre, but brilliant.

 

Jayce glared at me. “You aren’t taking this seriously either, are you?” he demanded, his blue eyes darkening as they did when he got angry.

 

I shook my head. “Jayce, yes I am. And I’m sure Tyler is, also. It’s not like you said we had to wear anything specific, you know. And I think it’s a great costume. That clown always freaked the hell out of me.”

 

“Yeah, Jayce,” Tyler nodded. “It scared the crap out of me when I was little. I figured maybe it might scare away any evil spirits or something.”

 

I was fairly sure Tyler hadn’t figured anything of the sort—probably just figured it would be funny, which it was. But for the sake of relative peace, I nodded my head. “Yeah, really, Jayce. The scarier we are, the better. Isn’t that why you aren’t using Lisa’s hair spray?”

 

Tyler gave us both a look that clearly said he had NO CLUE what hair spray had to do with anything, but no way was he going to ask.

 

Jayce nodded slowly. “Yeah, ok…I guess.” He glared at Tyler. “But if this doesn’t work, it will be because YOU aren’t in the proper spirit.”

 

“Hey, fucked up costume, man,” Ritchie’s voice was at my shoulder. I nearly dropped my pretzels again.

 

Tyler grinned at Ritchie. “Thanks. It’s the evil clown—“

 

“Yeah, from ‘It!’ I know. Saw the movie.” Ritchie said as he brushed by me, his shoulder rubbing against mine, and reached for a handful of chips.

 

“So,” he said, picking up a cup of punch and downing it in one gulp. “We going to get this show on the road?”

 

I looked around for Mark, who I saw standing with Tom but looking at Lisa, who was now talking to a girl I didn’t recognize.

 

“Yeah, let’s do it,” I heard myself say as I walked over to Mark and touched his arm. I gestured toward the others, who were slipping out through the French doors in the dining room. I saw Ritchie glance our way and I slipped the mask down over my face. Masks were useful things.

 

******************

 

“Hey, guys, over here!” I called out to the others.

 

We had split up when we had gotten to the cemetery. Ritchie had done some research and had come up with someone who had the potential to be “restless.” He had searched through the local newspaper archives for murder victims and suicides—figuring they were the most likely ones to “lie in an uneasy sleep.” Our town wasn’t exactly a hotbed of crime, so he came up short on “murder victims.” He had a bit more luck with “suicides,” though he only found two—and only one was buried in the local cemetery: James Michael Toller.

 

The catch was that it was a reasonably large cemetery and the graves weren’t exactly laid out in alphabetical order. Nor were they in any chronological order, though there was an “old” section of the cemetery and a “new” section (“new” being where people who died within the last hundred years or so were buried). That cut our search down a little, since the guy we were looking for had died in 1979; but it still left a few acres (or so I thought, I really didn’t have a great concept of what an “acre” actually was) to look through.

 

So we had split up, with Jayce and Tyler taking the part by the highway, me and Mark looking through the part on the hill and Ritchie looking through the bit that was near the “old” section. He was the only one really comfortable with wandering through a dark cemetery alone at night. And that suited me fine. It was funny as hell to see Jayce and Tyler together—the Satanic priest and the clown, and Mark and I got along well. And no way was I going to be alone with Ritchie.

 

While Mark and I waited for the others, I looked at the headstone. The guy had been around our age when he had died—or killed himself. Seventeen. Jayce, Mark and I were all sixteen. Ritchie was seventeen. I knelt down in front of the headstone and brushed my fingers over the words.

 

James Michael Toller

December 4, 1961 – June 1, 1979

My chains have been broken

My soul is free

Let no words be spoken

Grieve not for me

 

I wondered about him. What chains had bound him? What had driven him to kill himself?

 

“Those are beautiful words,” Mark said quietly.

 

I nodded. They were. Sad words, too. His soul was free. How would he feel about being brought back? He had chosen to leave the world of the living. Would he want to be dragged back into it? I stood up and shook my head. Right. Like that was even going to happen.

 

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Mark spoke the words I had been feeling.

 

“It’s not real anyway, Mark. Just some made up shit in a phony book.” It couldn’t be anything else, really. If that sort of thing were true, the cemetery would be full of people on Halloween, people “bringing back” friends, relatives, lovers. But we were the only ones I could see. “Just humor Jayce.”

 

Mark nodded, but I could imagine his face behind the mask. He was a bit more sensitive than the rest of us. He genuinely cared about the feelings of others and was something of a poet. Disturbing the dead—especially someone whose “soul is free”—would feel wrong to him. I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s ok. It’s not real.”

 

“Do you two want a few minutes alone?” I started and quickly dropped my hand from Mark’s shoulder. I hadn’t heard Ritchie come up behind me.

 

“God, Ritchie, do you have to sneak up on people like that?” Really, it was starting to get irritating. Why did EVERYONE seem to enjoy making me jump out of my skin?

 

Ritchie laughed softly. “I made more noise than an elephant in the bushes. I can’t help it if you had your mind on other things.”

 

Again, I was glad I was wearing the mask—and started thinking I might make it a permanent thing.

 

“Hey, you found it. Great!” Jayce came running up the hill. Tyler was a ways behind him, moving as fast as his big clown shoes would let him, the balloons streaming out behind him.

 

Jayce set the bag he had brought with him down on the ground in front of the headstone and opened it.

 

“Hey, don’t start without me!” Tyler whined as he reached us, a little out of breath. He was smaller than the rest of us and wiry—but I guessed it wasn’t easy running in clown shoes.

 

“Don’t worry, bud,” Ritchie clapped him on the shoulder, “no party is complete without the clown.”

 

I snickered behind my mask and Jayce glared at both Tyler and Ritchie. “Come on, guys, this is serious stuff.”

 

Ritchie smirked a little and took a step closer to the headstone. “This guy must have been pretty popular. Got a big write up in the paper when he killed himself.” He knelt down and ran his fingers over the carved words, just as I had done. I shivered a little as I watched his long fingers seem to caress each letter. “Overdosed on sleeping pills, according to the article. They ruled it an ‘accidental overdose’ so he could be buried here.” His voice was soft and quiet. “But everyone seems to have known it was no accident.” He stood up and looked at each of us. “His obit was right next to an article on teen suicide. Not too subtle.”

 

No one spoke for a few moments and I wondered if everyone else was thinking what I had thought, wondering what had pushed him over that edge, what had made him take those pills.

 

Jayce broke the silence, reaching into the bag and pulling out the book. “Ok,” he said, opening to a bookmarked page, “it says to ‘form a circle of light around the one who sleeps in everdark.’ So we need to take the candles and place them in a circle around his grave.”

 

I reached down to take out the candles but Ritchie stopped me. “Let me,” he said, his fingers wrapping around my wrist. I jumped back like I had been burned—and caught a slightly startled look in his eyes as he let go of my wrist. It was gone in an instant, though, and he took out the candles and passed them around.

 

All but two of the candles were white. There were twelve in all. “Why twelve?” I asked. Why not thirteen? Thirteen would seem to be the natural number for Halloween rituals.

 

“Because twelve is a multiple of three,” Ritchie explained. “Three is a powerful number. Every culture has something of significance associated with the number three.”

 

He placed a black candle to his right and a yellow one two his left and gestured for us to use the rest to complete the circle around the grave. “The black candle doesn’t signify evil, like many people think. Among other things, it is used to banish evil, absorb negativity and destruction, and remove confusion. It also helps induce a deep state of meditation.”

 

He straightened up and took a step back away from the circle of candles that was now complete. “The yellow candle is often used to improve concentration and imagination. It also increases psychic awareness and aids in invoking spirits.”

 

“What are the white ones for then?” Tyler asked.

 

Ritchie shrugged. “They just balance things. They are neutral. They also can provide some protection because they symbolize purity and faith.”

 

I wondered whether Ritchie was making this all up or whether he actually knew what he was talking about. I was leaning toward his knowing what he was talking about, mostly because he wasn’t being flashy about it, wasn’t being all dramatic.

 

He removed the dagger from the bag and tossed the bag aside. “We should spread out around the grave, each one of us at the point of a star, since there are five of us.”

 

A star…a pentagram? I felt a chill pass through me. I had watched enough movies to recognize the significance, though I knew the five pointed star was not always a symbol of the Devil. It was just as often a symbol of protection, of good—it just depended upon the intentions of those using it.

 

When we were in position, he handed the lighter to Mark. “Light each candle, starting with this one,” he pointed to the one just below the black one, “and ending with the black one.

 

Mark made his way around the circle, his hand shaking just a little, making the flame bounce as he touched it to the wick of each candle. When all the candles were lit, Ritchie nodded to Jayce, who spoke the words from the book:

 

“You who through the veil have passed

Now sleep within the shadows’ grasp

Hear our voices, see our light

We summon you to us this night”

 

He repeated the words, saying them three times in all. When he had finished, he took the dagger from Ritchie. “Each of you need to do what I do,” he said as he pricked the end of his finger with the point of the dagger. He let a drop of blood fall to the ground inside the circle of candles then touched his finger to his lips. He passed the dagger to Ritchie.

 

Ritchie ran the edge of the blade over the palm of his hand, leaving a small red line behind. He turned his hand over and waited until a drop of blood fell, then he pressed his lips against his palm. It looked like a kiss, a very sensual kiss. I felt a familiar—and decidedly unwanted at the moment—feeling in my crotch. I quickly took the dagger from him and stuck the point of it into my thumb, grateful for the sharp pain, hoping it would distract my body. I glanced at Ritchie as I squeezed a drop of blood from my thumb and let it fall to the ground. His lips twitched just slightly and I turned my face away and raised my mask—just long enough to touch my thumb to my lips. I passed the dagger to Mark.

 

His hands were shaking but he quickly did the same as I had done and passed the dagger to Tyler. Tyler held the dagger in his hand and looked around. I could see something in his eyes I didn’t really expect—fear. “Um…guys…I c-can’t.” He looked at me and Mark, avoiding Ritchie and Jayce. “C-can one of you do it for me?”

 

“You have to do it yourself, Tyler. What’s the problem, you only have to prick your finger. Not like you have to slice it off.” I could hear the impatience in Jayce’s voice.

 

“Nothing says he has to do it himself, Jayce,” I put in. Before Jayce could say anything else, Mark reached over and took the dagger from Tyler and then took hold of his hand. Tyler closed his eyes and winced as Mark pricked his thumb.

 

“It’s ok. It’s just a little drop and you don’t have to look.” He held Tyler’s hand and pressed out a small drop of blood. “Just wipe it over your lips. It’s already stopped bleeding.”

 

Tyler nodded and wiped his thumb over his lips—his eyes still closed. I hadn’t known that Tyler was afraid of blood. It seemed Mark had known. But then, that was Mark. He paid attention. He noticed things, noticed how people felt. He had known how I had felt—even if he had linked the feelings to the wrong person.

 

Mark handed the dagger back to Jayce.

 

“Now we need to say his name three times, all together.”

 

“James Michael Toller. James Michael Toller. James Michael Toller,” we said in unison.

 

******************

 

“I still can’t believe you came in a fucking CLOWN suit!” Jayce bitched at Tyler as we left the cemetery.

 

“Come on, Jayce, you didn’t really think anything was going to happen, did you?” I had taken off my mask and was leaning against the cemetery gates, swinging the mask around on my finger, waiting for everyone to catch up to me.

 

“Well not with an idiot in a clown suit and a nonbeliever present!” he snapped.

 

Tyler was looking nothing like his usual bubbly self and Mark was walking close to him, his hand resting on Tyler’s shoulder. Ritchie was walking behind everyone, hanging back, which had me wondering why—even though I was actually glad he was further away from me than everyone else.

 

After we had finished the ceremony, we had all just stood there in silence, waiting. I could tell Jayce was excited. He had pushed back his hood from his face and his eyes were bright and his expression expectant. Tyler just looked fidgety, as if he just wanted to leave, to be anywhere but there. Mark had sighed, too softly for anyone not standing next to him to hear. Whether he believed anything would happen or not, I could tell he wasn’t happy about what they had done—or tried to do.

 

But it was Ritchie I ended up watching from behind my mask. I couldn’t really tell whether he expected anything to happen or not. His dark eyes seemed to be just staring at some point in the center of the candles and his face might have been a mask for all the expression it was showing. But he looked…good. I hadn’t ever really looked at him, not for any length of time, not without him looking back. It gave me time to notice things, like the way his nose was just a little longer than it should have been and how it seemed to curve just slightly to the right, as if it had been pushed out of alignment, just a little. And his ears, they were maybe a little smaller than they should have been, with the lobes attached. And his chin was strong, the jaw line well defined, as were his cheekbones. And he was a little thinner than I had noticed before. His shoulders were narrow and he was all angles and planes, not lines and curves. Except when he smiled. When he smiled, his features softened and his lips looked every bit as kissable as Jayce’s.

 

It took me a moment to realize he had moved his eyes away from the center of the circle and was now looking at me—and smiling. When I did realize, I realized something else—I was getting hard, which was something Ritchie had probably noticed. Which was why I broke the silence.

”Nothing’s happening.” Except in my pants. “This is stupid. I’m going.”

 

I hadn’t waited for anyone’s response. I had just turned and started down the hill. I hadn’t precisely run down the hill to the cemetery gates, but I hadn’t wasted any time. By the time everyone else reached me, I had at least managed to get my body back under control.

 

“So we going back to the party or what?” Ritchie had his car keys in his hand. We had all ridden over in Ritchie’s car, even though the cemetery was only about a mile from Jayce’s house. We had thought it would be less conspicuous than the five of us all marching toward the cemetery.

 

“I just want to go home,” Tyler spoke up.

 

Mark nodded. “Yeah, me, too.”

 

I wasn’t sure what I wanted. To not be around Ritchie, that was what I wanted. That much I knew.

 

“I think I’m going to walk home, guys.” I didn’t offer any explanation of why.

 

Jayce shrugged. I could tell he was pissed at me. Probably more pissed at me than he was at Tyler. After all, I was his best friend and I was a nonbeliever and I had just walked away from everything before anything could happen. I was sure he was blaming me for what had happened—or not happened—more than he was blaming Tyler.

 

Ritchie looked at me for a moment, his expression unreadable, then turned away and got into his car. The others followed. I stood there, still leaning against the gate. “Sure you don’t want a ride?” Ritchie called out the window.

 

“I’m sure, thanks.”

 

He nodded and a moment later I was watching the tail lights disappearing around the corner.

 

“Did your friends leave you?”

 

The voice came from behind me, from inside the cemetery gates, and for at least the fourth time that night, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned quickly, dropping my mask.

 

He walked toward me and reached down and picked it up and handed it to me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

 

I looked up at him. He was tall, even taller than Ritchie, and the first thing I noticed about him was his eyes. They were blue, but a different blue, like the color of the turquoise they used in the Native American jewelry.

 

“Davey?” he whispered the name so softly that in that moment I really wished I were this Davey he thought I was. Then his eyes narrowed a little and he ran his hand through his hair, which was blonde and hung loose to his shoulders. “No. I’m sorry. You just look so much like him.”

 

“It’s ok. I guess I have a fairly common look.” I didn’t. I had dark brown hair and tanned skin—which I was told made me look Italian. Except I had green eyes and freckles, which didn’t go with the Italian look at all. The only one I had ever met that looked even remotely like me was my dad—but his eyes were brown and if he’d ever had freckles, they must have fallen off.

 

He smiled. “So what happened to your friends? They all get pissed off and leave you here alone?”

 

I laughed. “Well, Jayce was pissed, that’s for sure. But no, I just wanted to walk home. I just wanted some air.” Which was partly true.

 

He looked at me for a long moment and nodded. “Yeah, guess I know how that is.”

 

“You from around here? Don’t think I’ve seen you at school.” He looked to be about my age.

 

Again he looked at me for a long moment before responding. “I used to live here. A long time ago. I’m just back for a visit.”

 

“Do you have family here or friends?” I was just making conversation. That’s what I told myself. Making conversation with a stranger in a cemetery on Halloween. But it was more than that. I felt something strange. There was something about this guy that almost felt familiar. Not like I knew him or anything; I knew I didn’t. But there was something tugging at my head—and I wanted to know more about him.

 

“Some of both.”

 

I’d been hoping for something more like, “I have an aunt that lives on Division St. and I grew up with Tom Martin, we used to be in the same class in elementary school.” Obviously he wasn’t going to just spill his life history on me.

 

“So who do you know? Maybe we know some of the same people.” It was worth another try.

 

He smiled and shook his head. “I doubt it. Like I said, I haven’t been here in a long time. What’s your name?”

 

“Kyle. Kyle Sanders.” I held out my hand to him.

 

He looked at me for another one of those long moments then took my hand and shook it. “My name’s Jimmy.”

 

Ok, maybe he had a reason why he wasn’t telling me his last name.

 

“So what were you and your friends up to? I saw you all standing on the hill with some candles or something.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “We were bringing back the dead—or so my friend Jayce thought. It was stupid, really. He got this book that had this ‘spell thing’ thing that was supposed to bring someone back, or at least his spirit. And Halloween is supposed to be one of the times when the boundaries between this world and the next are easily crossed. So he figured tonight would be the night.”

 

“And did it work?” He had this little half smile on his face that made me smile in return.

 

“No. Nothing at all happened. We stood around like idiots waiting for this guy to come rising out of his grave and the only thing that ended up rising up was my dick—“

 

GOD! Why the hell did I say that? I wished I still had my mask on because I KNEW I must have turned as bright red as Tyler’s hair.

 

Jimmy threw back his head and laughed. “God! You poor thing! Did he notice?”

 

I stared at him. “Who?”

 

“The guy who made you hot.” He was grinning, a grin that seemed to stretch from ear to ear.

 

I groaned and rubbed my fingers between my eyes. “Yeah, I think he did.” It didn’t occur to me to lie to him. He had figured things out pretty quickly—though I had no idea HOW he had done so. But he didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Maybe he was gay, too?

 

He took a step closer and put his arm around my shoulders. “So this guy, is he straight then? Which one was he?”

 

I sighed. “I don’t know if he is or not. I didn’t think so. But he was practically making out with Jayce’s sister tonight at the party, brushing his stupid fangs against her neck…”

 

He nodded. “Oh, ok, the vampire dude. Yeah, can see why. He looks pretty awesome.”

 

I nodded and sighed again. “Yeah. But it doesn’t matter if he’s straight or not. He’s definitely NOT interested in me.”

 

I shook my head and leaned back against the stone pillar next to the gate. He sat down on the grass and I slid down the pillar and sat next to him, my knees drawn up in front of me, my chin resting on my knees.

 

“What makes you so sure?”

 

There was something about his voice, something in it that made me feel like I could tell him anything—and everything, which I did. I told him about when Ritchie and I had first met and how he would sometimes give me a “look” and how he would brush against me. I told him how he seemed to give me all these signals but never once even made a pass at me, nothing, nada. And I told him about the party and how Ritchie had acted. And how he had caught me looking at him tonight—with a hard on.

 

And I went on from there. It seemed like once I started talking I couldn’t stop. I told him about how only Jayce and Ritchie knew I was gay, how I couldn’t tell anyone else because I didn’t want my parents—my dad—to know. He wouldn’t understand. He didn’t understand anything. I couldn’t talk to him about anything. He didn’t even know me and I didn’t know him. It was like we were strangers living in the same house.

 

“God! I can’t believe I just told you all that!” I exclaimed, shaking my head and pressing my face against my knees.

 

He rubbed the back of my neck. “Hey, we all need someone to talk to sometimes. I never had anyone I could talk to either. Except Davey. Davey was always a good listener. I could tell him anything.” His voice got very quiet. “Except good-bye.”

 

I turned to look at him and caught him wiping his hand across his eyes. He stood up suddenly and looked at the sky. It was starting to get light out. I hadn’t realized we had been talking that long.

 

“I have to go,” he said and I could hear the sadness in his voice.

 

I stood up, too. “Does he live around here? Maybe you could visit him.” I laid my hand on his arm.

 

He shook his head. “I can’t.” He stood there for a moment, looking at me but not looking at me—as if he saw me but maybe didn’t see me, or saw someone else, maybe Davey. He raised his hand and touched my face, his fingers brushing along the curve of my cheek, his thumb brushing over my lips. “You’re so like him.” I heard the slight break in his voice.

 

Without thinking I leaned forward and touched my lips to his. It was a tentative touch, at first, but as I felt his fingers slip around to the back of my neck, felt his other hand slide around my waist, pulling me closer to him, I gave myself over to the kiss. My lips parted and I felt his tongue slip between them, not in a probing, hungry way, but in a soft, slow, sensual way. And I knew, I really knew it was Davey he was kissing, not me.

 

Then he pulled away and I felt him slip something into my hand. “Give this to Davey. Tell him I’ll always remember.” He brushed his lips against mine once more, softly, tenderly. “And talk to him. He’s a good listener and he’ll understand.”

 

“I was worried about you when I didn’t see you go by my house.”

 

I opened my eyes to see Ritchie standing there. The vampire costume was gone, as were the fangs. And his eyes were…different. He noticed I was staring at his eyes and he blushed. “Yeah, right…I usually wear contacts.” He laughed a little self-consciously. “I have freakish eyes.”

 

They weren’t freakish, but they were different. One was blue and the other half blue and half brown. I had never seen them anything but brown. “No, they’re not. They’re kind of cool.”

 

Then I suddenly remembered Jimmy. “Hey, where did he go?” I asked, looking around.

 

“Where did who go?” Ritchie asked, looking confused.

 

“The guy that was just here. His name was Jimmy…”

 

Ritchie looked at me strangely and shook his head. “There was no guy here when I came. Just you standing there all alone with your eyes closed. Was wondering what you were up to.”

 

I frowned. “Sure there was. I was talking to him and…and…” I didn’t want to tell him about the kiss, my very first kiss, the one I had imagined would belong to Ritchie. Then I realized I held something in my hand. “He gave me this…” I opened my hand and looked. It was a ring, a class ring.

 

Ritchie took it from me and looked at it closely. “Hey, it’s from our school, class of 1979.”

 

I felt a chill pass through me. 1979.

 

“And there’s an inscription in it. God, it’s hard to read but it looks like, ‘To JMT from DAS’ and there’s something else. It looks like ‘remember.’”

 

JMT. James Michael Toller. And DAS? Davey…David. It hit me suddenly and I felt a jolt, hard enough that Ritchie must have noticed because he reached out and grabbed my arms.

 

“What’s wrong? You ok?” When I didn’t answer right away, he pulled me closer to him, his arms wrapping around me.

 

DAS. David Allen Sanders. My dad.

 

I couldn’t really explain it to Ritchie. Not right then anyway. Partly because I couldn’t really explain it…period. All I knew was that apparently something HAD happened when we did that ritual. Even though it was impossible. And I could have convinced myself that none of it had been real, that it had all been my imagination, Jimmy, the kiss, everything—if it hadn’t been for the ring. Which just left me confused and shaken—and shaking.

 

“Come on, let me take you home,” Ritchie was leading me toward his car, which was difficult because I was clinging to him like I was drowning and he was my life preserver. When we reached the car he stopped and looked at me, his eyes searching mine. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me now, because I can tell you’re really upset. But later, when you’re feeling better…we can talk, ok? I think we really need to do that.”

 

I nodded and let go of him and got into the car. We did need to talk. Ritchie and I. And my dad and I, also. About a lot of things. About Jimmy. About me.

 

“And talk to him. He’s a good listener and he’ll understand.”

 

Maybe he would.

 

 

© 2006 Luc

 

 

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