Chapter
I
Erica Etheridge reveled in the power that surged
through her outstretched arms; her fingers gripped the hands of the students
sitting on either side of her. She was the leader of the circle as they sat
cross-legged on the floor of the darkened stage in the auditorium of Rose Hall.
The twelve students—she called them her disciples—had been told to hold hands
and close their eyes. Erica had prepared them for what was to come.
“No matter what happens you mustn’t break
the circle. If you’re scared, you need to leave before we begin!”
They had all been sworn to secrecy, and they
were ready to call up a messenger from the spirit world. There would be no
backing out now. No one moved and the circle remained unbroken.
Rose Hall was the ideal setting for a Séance. It was the oldest building on the Merryvale College campus, dating back
to before the Civil War, and was the preferred setting for the numerous ghost
stories that were told over the years to the incoming freshmen of the college.
It was late, an hour or so before curfew, as Rose Hall stood in all its
antebellum glory under a chilly autumn sky. It was the dark of the moon.
If Rose Hall was the ideal setting for a Séance,
Erica was the perfect medium. In fact, Hollywood couldn’t have done a better
job of casting. She was tall and painfully thin with a hawk-like face. Her eyes
were small and dark, deeply set; and her nose, although aquiline, was
reminiscent of a bird of prey. Her arms and legs were long and ungainly; her
hair, thin and wispy, a nondescript
shade of brown. Until her arrival at the college the year before, she had been
a loner, an outsider during her high school days; but at Merryvale, she had
finally found her niche.
No comments:
Post a Comment