By the time the next evening fell and the others were supposed to start arriving, even though there was roughly a 98% chance that they'd resorted to a life of crime for no reason at all, Henrietta couldn't help feeling somewhat anxious. Looking out the window at the night sky strewn with stars, she heard Dylan let himself in. He came up the stairs, ignoring Bradley's indignant comment from where he was doubtlessly lying around in the living room and playing stupid video games.
She met him at the door, and thankfully he looked just as nervous as she did.
"Ready?" she asked.
He just nodded wordlessly and dumped the contents of his backpack on the floor, busying himself with lighting all the candles and arranging them in an ovular shape like the website had said.
Henrietta had lit the sage and was waving it around the room by the time Georgie and Evan showed up, both doing at least a marginally better job at being calm. Georgie wrinkled his nose as he reached into the pocket of his coat for the carefully-wrapped skull, staring accusingly at the smoldering bundle of herbs in Henrietta's hand.
"Shut up," she said immediately, going over to a corner that looked a little bit less hazy with smoke than the others and waving it around. "Help us get things ready."
Georgie started to carefully arrange the items in a small pile at the center of their makeshift altar, like a sacrifice.
Evan just stood around looking skeptical, but he did that most of the time anyway, so it wasn't too big of a deal.
"Okay," said Henrietta, once everything looked as close the the website as it was going to get. "Dylan, you stand to the east. Evan's at the south, Georgie's at the west."
They moved to their respective positions, and Henrietta took her own place at the north. She wished she'd thought to write the incantation part down on a yellowed scroll of parchment or something else equally fitting, because holding up her laptop to read from definitely wasn't the most dramatic way to do things. But there was no helping it now, and so she lowered her eyes and began to read.
For a few lines, the words were unfamiliar on her tongue and she almost just wanted to stop and laugh at herself. Once she got past the first paragraph, though, the words suddenly became almost effortless to pronounce, even though they were in a different language and she still had no idea what she was actually saying.
As the incantation reached its end, the candles around them guttered and died.
"Focus your energy," said Henrietta, remembering a footnote at the end of the directions. "Try to call it up from the earth, or some shit like that."
She shut her eyes and concentrated, and it wasn't long before she almost thought she could feel it happening, feel the energy rising—but just as it reached its peak, the feeling died abruptly and was replaced by a profound sense of dread, settling deep in her stomach. Looking around at the expressions of the others, she could see that they were experiencing something similar.
"Is that it?" Evan finally ventured to ask, looking nauseous.
Henrietta shrugged. "I guess." She was just about to leave her northern position when a noise from Georgie stopped her.
He whipped his head around to stare at the elaborate chalk sigil they'd copied onto the carpet, pointing out a line through the chalk that hadn't been there before. "What's that?" he asked, sounding nervous.
Henrietta craned her neck to see. "Don't know," she shrugged. "Probably nothing," she said, shrugging. For a second there she thought it might have worked, but if everyone went around successfully completing rituals they found on the internet then there would probably be a lot more supernatural things going on in the world.
"No," Georgie insisted, "That definitely wasn't there before."
He had Dylan looking nervous now, too, and Evan rolled his eyes. "You guys are such pussies."
Dylan huffed, but said nothing more. Fighting down the growing apprehension she was feeling, Henrietta got to her feet in order to start cleaning up the mess they'd made before the wax started to drip.
"C'mon, help—"
Before she could say anything else, there was a fantastically loud bang, a searing flash of light, and she was thrown to the floor. "Fuck!" Dylan shouted from somewhere next to her. As her eyes struggled to readjust to the room's dim lighting, Henrietta could have sworn that she saw a mass of dim, twisting shapes emerge from the center of the sigil. Dylan, Evan, and Georgie seemed to fall away as she watched them, frantically attempting to force herself to focus on them. They were writhing and dancing around each other like dark flames, but the occasional glimpse of a spidery limb made them seem much more obvious.
Georgie sat up, rubbing his head where it had collided with her wooden desk. She glanced over at him instinctively, and when she looked back at where they had been, they were gone. Finally able to see properly again, she searched the sigil for a breach only to find that it was as whole as it had been when they made it. All of the candles were snuffed out, and in fact looked as though they had never been burnt in the first place.
Their eyes found each other's, and Evan said what everyone was thinking. "What the shit just happened?"
"Dunno," said Dylan, squinting at the place the ghosts had been.
Henrietta turned to him. "Did you see them?" She wasn't quite sure if she wanted him to say yes or no.
"See what?"
"The gigantic throbbing mass of evil energy that was just in my bedroom, Dylan, what else?"
He paused for a moment, eyes widening. "Shit! I thought I imagined them."
"I saw, too," Georgie volunteered. "Kind of out of the corner of my eye, but they were there."
Evan folded his arms. "You guys are crazy. I didn't see anything."
"Nope," said Dylan immediately. "Overruled. We all saw it, we're not crazy."
"You were facing away when it happened," Henrietta reasoned. "By the bed."
"They were totally there," Georgie added simply.
Evan searched all of their faces for a moment before sighing and giving in, letting his arms fall to his sides.
"Alright," he said. "So what the fuck were they?"
"Dunno," Henrietta mused, bending over to pick up all the candles and relight some of her familiar ones. Not even a demon summoning or whatever the fuck had just happened would make her go back to fluorescent bulbs. "But I get the feeling it sure as hell wasn't what we wanted to happen."
"I knew this was shady," said Dylan, sitting shakily on the bed. "I totally told you guys. I said we should just practice and forget about it, I said—"
Evan sat down next to him and silenced him by covering his hand with his. Georgie mimed puking, but it at least shut Dylan up for a moment. Henrietta tried to think rationally, but it was kind of difficult when all she could think of was a twisting mass of black and gnarled faces rising from her carpet.
"Alright," she said finally. "We need to—"
Before she could finish however, Bradley flung open the door to her room, panting. The video game controller was still in his hand. Henrietta hurried up to the door frame to block his vision of the room.
"What the fuck happened up here?" he asked, craning his neck around her. "What's all this stuff? Is that a cat skull?"
-Varigo-
"No, Bradley," Henrietta snapped. "It was nothing, we're just hanging out. Now get out of my room."
Bradley looked at her incredulously. "Bullshit, it was nothing! I thought you guys were launching nuclear missiles at Stan's house, or something!"
"Ha," Evan muttered darkly. "I wish."
"So not the time," said Dylan, giving him a look.
To everyone's surprise, Georgie spoke up next. "Maybe we should tell him."
Henrietta shot him a quizzical look.
"I mean, he is a creepy alien or whatever. Maybe he knows something about shit like this."
Henrietta snorted. "Not hardly. He's way too uncool to be into the occult."
"Hey!" Bradley said indignantly. "I'm right here, you know."
Evan glared at him. "Your point being?"
"I totally know about the occult," Bradley said defensively. "How do you think that whole Cthulhu thing worked? I hardly expect you guys to have pulled something like that off, though."
"Yeah, well you expected wrong," said Henrietta indignantly. "We were trying to do a repelling spell, and then I guess we messed up something, and there was this huge bang, and—"
Bradley rolled his eyes. "Just let me see."
Henrietta stood aside reluctantly, allowing him into her room.
He walked into the room and surveyed it wordlessly, circling the scene several times. When he spoke next, all the mockery was gone from his voice. "This could be really dangerous. What happened after you finished?"
"There was this big flash of light," said Henrietta. "And we thought we saw, well. A black cloud, I guess, but all twisted around itself, with all these spindly arms and legs coming out."
Dylan cast a longing look at the notebook lying on Henrietta's desk, clearly aching to write something down about what had just happened. Henrietta had entertained the thought herself, admittedly, but again, so not the time.
Meanwhile, Bradley looked at the four of them with abject horror. "Oh, my God. I don't know how the hell you managed to do it, but you've summoned a host of malevolent spirits."
Evan scoffed. "Yeah, right. It wasn't anything. Trick of the light, maybe."
"It was definitely something," Bradley said sharply. "I can't believe this is happening."
"Can't you go all Mintberry Crunch on them and beat them with the powers of fagginess, or something?" Dylan asked. Henrietta could hear the anxiety in his voice. It matched her own, roiling in the pit of her stomach. This was definitely more than they had bargained for.
"Of course," said Bradley, puffing out his chest and putting his hands on his hips in a way that he probably thought looked heroic and not like basically the lamest thing ever. "Piece of cake."
"Awesome," said Georgie. "We'll just let you get on that, then."
But Bradley just shook his head.
"Oh my God," said Henrietta. "Is this really the time to pull the whole pissy younger brother thing, because I don't think—"
"It's not that!" said Bradley, looking offended. "Jesus. Mintberry Crunch never jokes about justice!"
"Then what the fuck is it?" Evan asked impatiently.
"My hands are tied," said Bradley. "All four of you participated in the ritual, right?"
They all nodded.
"Then you're the only ones who can undo it. You're going to have to send them all back down yourselves."
The four of them considered this for a moment. Finally, Georgie spoke up. "What if we just don't?"
Evan nodded, Dylan looked considering, and Henrietta bit her lip in thought. It really was kind of an appealing notion. They could probably die or get grounded or something if they actually tried to do something about this. The spirits were gone, after all, probably out to wreak havoc on tons of conformists, and it was a lot easier not thinking about them when they weren't writhing in an ectoplasmic mass on her carpet.
It just seemed like way too much effort in the long run to try and banish them or kill them or whatever, when all they'd really be doing would be saving the lives of a bunch of lame assholes who could probably benefit from a hospital trip or two. Bradley looked from face to face, aghast. "Oh my God," he said. "Are you guys kidding?"
Georgie shrugged. "It makes sense, right?"
Evan, Dylan, and Henrietta nodded.
"Yeah, we're fine with this plan," said Dylan.
"I can't believe this is happening. Innocent people's lives are in danger."
Henrietta checked her nails. "Innocent people are lame."
Bradley threw his hands in the air. "There has to be a way around this. I gotta call Mysterion." With that, he turned on his heel and slammed out of the room, muttering to himself.
"Tell McCormick I said whaddup," Georgie called after his retreating back, which was disturbing in and of itself, but not something Henrietta felt the need to dwell on at the moment.
The four of them sat in silence for a little while longer, wondering where to go from there. With every minute that they weren't being attacked by swooping, shadowy ghosts, their plan seemed more and more solid.
Finally, Dylan broke the silence. "Wanna go practice a little more?"
Henrietta shrugged. "My parents won't be home for a while."
Evan and Georgie nodded in agreement, and the four of them trooped downstairs to the garage. As they passed the kitchen, snatches of Bradley's agitated phone conversation made its way to their ears.
"—Totally didn't even care, I can't believe we're even related. Hey, how do you think malevolent spirits feel about the refreshing crunch of mint and berries?"
Once in the garage setting up their equipment, Henrietta put the incident out of her mind. It was freezing cold, but they all managed to work up a sweat after a few plays through their most recent set, a pretty good one thought up by Georgie. They'd been playing a lot more shows lately, and Henrietta felt like they were slowly but surely making the switch from unintelligible clamoring noise to genuinely terrible music, which was definitely a step up.
"We're the Manic Episodes," Evan growled into his shitty mic. "And this one's called Minuet in Fuck You."
The next morning, Henrietta woke up groggily. Evan, Dylan, and Georgie had ended up sleeping over. They'd more or less stopped doing that once Georgie hit puberty, because Henrietta didn't much like to start off her day in the same room as three sets of morning wood, but last night's events had thrown them all for a loop.
Everyone else was still sleeping; Georgie had sprawled himself out across the foot of her bed, still small enough to fit comfortably. Evan and Dylan were on the floor, more or less on top of each other amidst an impressively tangled nest of sheets and comforters.
They looked sort of peaceful, really. Henrietta allowed herself a moment to regard them with something like fondness but less gross, and then headed downstairs to make some coffee. Pouring the beans into their compartment, she noticed the microwave clock showed it was only nine in the morning. Her parents were both at work by now, and normally her and Bradley would be asleep until late into the afternoon. This ghost thing must have really screwed with her subconscious, to get her up this early.
As the coffee brewed, she searched for everyone's favorite mugs; Dylan's, with an ironic picture of a weeping Jesus on it, Evan's plain black one, Georgie's, that read "#1 Grandpa," and hers, a flea market find emblazoned with a drawing of a black widow. But as she was reaching up to get the her own, it slipped out of her hands with a crash and shattered on the floor.
Henrietta stared down at it, attempting to fight down the initial rush of fear. It was just a coincidence, she hadn't been concentrating hard enough, anything except for the one solution that her mind really did want to jump to.
It took a few seconds of staring silently at the mess of broken ceramic shards before she was able to shake herself out of her reverie and get the broom out of the pantry, picking up the big pieces and sweeping up the rest of it. As the coffee finished brewing, she picked out the stupid bright orange Garfield mug her brother always used and poured herself a cup, trying not to think about the tremble in her hands.
A few minutes later, Georgie padded downstairs, still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, makeup smeared and hair all scruffy. "You break something?"
She just nodded, gesturing over to the coffeepot and three mugs lined up on the counter. He shuffled over to pick his up without further comment, filling it up three-fourths of the way with coffee and then choking it with generous splashes of milk and sugar.
He moved to sit in the chair across from hers, taking a sip of the coffee even though it was still probably scalding. He seemed to wake up a little bit afterward, surveying the tiny pieces of mug on the floor that Henrietta hadn't managed to get to.
"You think it was," he said, pausing to slurp down another sip, "you know?"
Henrietta blew on her own black coffee and shrugged, glad that she wasn't the one to have to bring it up. She'd thought it would seem insane to assume that the reason behind her dropping a mug on the floor was due to a bunch of evil ghosts, but apparently everyone else was just as on edge as she was. She shrugged. "I dunno. I thought maybe, but. It didn't seem like anyone was knocking it out of my hands, or anything."
Georgie nodded, looking considering.
"Evan and Dylan up yet?" she asked, mostly just to change the subject.
Georgie shook his head. "Still playing cuddle party or whatever up there. I left a post-it on Dylan's forehead telling them to get a room that isn't yours, but it's not like they'll care."
-Varigo-
Henrietta had to snicker. Their weird quasi-boyfriends thing was kind of amusing to watch, but it did seem like it was getting out of hand occasionally. Taking another sip of her coffee and picking her way over to the couch in front of the TV, she dug out the remote and switched it to the news channel. She never watched the news unless Georgie was around to heckle all of the anchors' weird hairdos and all the stupid things they chose to report on. It seemed like it would be a good way to ease them all back into normalcy, anyway.
"I would like to personally congratulate the person who does his hair," Georgie said, squinting at the TV. "That right there is an abomination of science."
Henrietta snickered, but a minute later she too was squinting at the screen. The anchor had just shown a picture of Fetal Libido. It was unmistakable; the same one that was on the tape the singer had given her, the three of them posturing moodily next to a Dumpster. She shushed Georgie and leaned forward to listen, wondering what in the hell a band like Fetal Libido was doing on the local news.
"Members of local band Fetal Libido were assaulted last night while playing a show," the anchor said in her weird news-voice. "All three members were hospitalized. Witness descriptions of the assailant varied wildly, and police are still attempting to determine what exactly happened at the scene of the crime. Now, Tom is standing by in the studio with Liam Darcy, here to tell us a little bit about his prizewinning crocheted potholders—"
Henrietta paused the TV and looked over at Georgie, seeing her own shocked expression reflected in his face.
"You don't think—" she started, even though they were both obviously thinking it.
"It could just be a coincidence," he reasoned, sounding unconvinced. Henrietta nodded uneasily, sipping her coffee and watching Liam Darcy display his potholders without so much as a single remark. They watched TV in silence for a little while longer. Henrietta's mind was racing. Just like with the mug, she couldn't work out whether or not the entire thing was just going on in her head, or if whatever they'd pulled off last night had something to do.
Just as Henrietta was about to go back upstairs and wake them up, Dylan and Evan came shambling down the stairs. They both headed straight for their coffee mugs without so much as a word to anyone, coming over to flop down on the couch in tandem.
"Look what just came up on the news," Georgie said, making a grab for the remote.
Evan groaned. "I hate the news."
"Who watches the news?" Dylan agreed, snatching it out of Georgie's reach. "Who even watches TV," he mumbled to himself, pulling up the guide and idly channel-surfing.
Before he could change it, however, Henrietta nabbed the remote back from him.
"Seriously," she said, rewinding back to the anchor's report.
As the picture of Fetal Libido came up onscreen, Dylan's eyebrows raised above his coffee mug. "Is that—"
"Yeah," said Henrietta. Evan leaned forward to hear the rest of the story, eyes narrowed. Watching, the four of them sat in silence for a few seconds, considering.
"Maybe we should go see them and ask," Georgie finally said.
Dylan looked considering, but Evan just shook his head.
"Nah," he said. "We're just being paranoid. Give it a couple days, it'll turn out that some crazy hobo attacked them or something."
Georgie shot him an annoyed look. "You fucker, you're just saying that because you didn't see—"
"No," Henrietta interrupted. "We should wait. It won't hurt to wait."
Georgie scowled, but didn't argue further. Dylan just shrugged, and no one objected when he turned off the TV.
The rest of the weekend was more or less uneventful. Nothing else even remotely questionable happened, and the four of them were able to squeeze another practice in on Sunday night.
Monday morning, Henrietta pulled up in front of Dylan's house. He came outside a few seconds later, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, purple Creepers crunching through the snow. He climbed into the backseat next to Evan, grumbling incoherently about the cold.
She pulled away and headed for school. No one said anything about the events of the weekend, but no one ever said much of anything in the morning. Henrietta played Fetal Libido's tape into the silence, as a tribute to their fallen comrades.
She'd gotten there early enough to find a pretty good spot, and the four of them huddled around the flagpole for a pre-class smoke. Just after the first bell rang, Georgie's Canadian boyfriend Ike came hurrying up to them, nose bright red behind his scarf.
"Hey," he said, pushing his glasses further up his nose and coughing pointedly at all the secondhand smoke. The four of them gave a collective eye roll, but stopped their puffing for the time being.
"Sup," said Georgie, trying to sound cool. It would never not be hilarious to Henrietta that he did that, but she knew by this point not to show it.
"Not much," said Ike, in a voice that suggested to Henrietta that he found it just as hilarious as she did. "I'm getting ready to look at this abandoned theater next week, it should be interesting. You?"
"Some pretty crazy shit," said Georgie truthfully. "I'll tell you later, alright?"
"It's sort of a long story," Dylan added. Evan nodded his assent.
Ike looked at them each in turn, skeptical. "Did you have another bad trip, or something? Georgie, I've told you a million times, research states—"
"No," said Georgie, regarding Ike in a way that was sort of scarily affectionate. "It wasn't a bad trip. Get to class, I don't want to mess up your perfect gold star attendance or whatever."
Ike rolled his eyes, giving Georgie a quick kiss on the cheek before he walked away.
-Varigo-
"Don't say anything," Georgie ordered immediately, staring straight ahead with an impressive poker-face. "Don't say anything don't say anything don't—"
"How adorable," Evan snickered, and then winced as Georgie socked him hard on the arm.
That afternoon, Henrietta was the last to arrive at lunch, due to hold-ups from her dried-up old Nazi of a math teacher. As she approached their spot, she noticed that the three of them looked thoroughly unnerved. Heart sinking, she wondered what could have happened now.
"What's up?" she asked, dropping her stuff on the floor and then sitting down next to Evan.
Georgie turned to her. "Heidi Turner's cousin is in the hospital, too. Same deal as Fetal Libido."
Henrietta took a moment to process the information, shocked. Heidi Turner's cousin played in a reasonably well-known punk band, and was pretty much the only success story to come out of South Park ever, as far as good music went. It was hard to imagine that it was a coincidence, with all that had happened.
It was Dylan who gave voice to her concerns. "We gotta do something," he said anxiously, picking at a hole in his jeans. "These ghosts or what the fuck ever aren't just scaring all the lame kids at our school, they're going after people who are actually hardcore."
"It could still just be a coincidence," Evan offered weakly, but Dylan leveled him with a glare, and he caved almost immediately.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. So what do we do now?"
What they did now, as it turned out, was to finish out the school day and then go back to their respective houses, because Evan's mom had been threatening to ground him if he didn't come home for dinner at least one night a week.