Chapter 200

Ava

I blinked in surprise at Chris’s suggestion, my eyebrows shooting up. “A seance? Since when are you into that kind of stuff?”

Chris rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit sheepish. “I just think it could be helpful in figuring out whatever’s going on here.”

There was a brief silence, during which all three of us stared incredulously at Chris. Finally, Fabian was the first to speak.

“I mean, if it wouldn’t just make things worse…”

“There are ways to do it that are safe,” Chris said. “It should be fine.”

“How do you know all this, anyway?” I asked. “Have you done a seance before or something?”

Chris just gave me another sheepish look, and I felt my jaw drop. “Chris, when—”

“I tried a few in college, okay?” he admitted, throwing his hands up in the air. “Not just seances, but ouija boards and… other things, too. My friend group back then was really into the paranormal, and you know how humans can be.”

“It’s true,” Betty said with a nod. “Humans are really fascinated by spirits. They tend to be less superstitious than we are, so things like ‘ghost hunting’ are more popular.”

I didn’t know what to say. Chris had never told me about this before; and while it was intriguing, I wasn’t sure if it would be very helpful in a situation like this.

“I don’t think this is a good idea. It’ll just scare Betty even more. We should be trying to calm everyone down, not rile them up with ghost stories.”

To my surprise, Betty spoke up. “Actually, I don’t mind the idea. As long as I get to be beside Fabian and hold his hand, I think I’ll be okay.” She turned to Fabian, who nodded encouragingly.

“And maybe... maybe we could finally take matters into our own hands,” Fabian added quietly, wrapping his arm around Betty’s shoulders. “I think it’s about time I stop tucking my tail between my legs and finally start getting to the bottom of whatever’s happening here.”

Chris turned to me. “Fabian is right. He’s Moonshine’s Alpha, after all. If he thinks that this would help his pack, then…”

I looked around at their hopeful faces and sighed. The logical part of my brain was screaming that this was ridiculous, but I couldn’t deny the small spark of… something that had ignited inside of me when I had seen that white flash while hiding in the wardrobe.

“Fine,” I said with a nod.

“Alright, let’s set up,” Chris said, looking around. “We’ll need candles and some open space on the floor. Fabian, do you have any white candles?”

Fabian nodded. “In the kitchen, I believe. I’ll go get them.”

“And salt, too,” Chris added.

As Fabian left to fetch the candles and the salt, I turned to Chris. “So, what exactly are we trying to accomplish here? Are we just hoping some ghost shows up and explains everything?”

Chris shook his head as he helped me move the coffee table out of the center of the room so we could have some space. “It’s not that simple, Ava. A seance is more about… opening a channel of communication. We might not get clear answers, but we might get something. A sign, a feeling, anything that might give us a clue about what’s going on.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And you learned all this from your friend group in college?”

He laughed. “Well, that certainly lit the spark for me. But I’ve done my own research over the years, too. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure of mine.”

I stared at Chris bemusedly as he set up the room for the seance, dimming the lights and ensuring that the curtains and windows were all tightly shut. And to think that I assumed I had already learned everything there was to know about him… I supposed I still had a long way to go.

Fabian returned with the candles and salt a few moments later, and we set about arranging everything in a circle in the middle of the floor. The flickering light cast eerie shadows on the walls, and even though the logical part of my brain didn’t want to believe in any of this, I couldn’t help but feel my heart begin to race at the thought of what we were about to do.

As we sat down in the circle, Chris spoke softly, the candles casting moving shadows on one side of his face.

“Okay, everyone join hands and close your eyes,” he said. “Try to clear your minds and focus on the energy around us. It’s important to stay calm and open, not scared. If you show fear, you could invite something negative in.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes but complied, mostly for Chris’s sake, taking his hand on one side and Betty’s on the other. Soon, the room had fallen silent except for the soft crackling of the fire and our breathing.

After a few moments, Chris’s soft voice cut through the silence.

“We call out to any spirits in this house,” he murmured. “If you’re here, please give us a sign. We mean you no harm. We just want to understand what is happening in this town.”

Nothing happened for what felt like an eternity—the fire simply continued crackling and the house remained utterly silent. In fact, I was just about to suggest we call it quits. But then, something changed in the air.

I heard a soft sizzling sound and the creak of a floorboard. Snapping my eyes open, I saw that one of the candles had suddenly gone out.

“Did you see that?” Betty whispered, her voice trembling.

Before anyone could respond, another floorboard creaked somewhere by the doorway. I whipped my head around, searching for the source of the noise.

That was when I saw it—another flash of white disappearing around a corner, and…

A pale white foot.

My breath caught in my throat, and I felt a chill run down my spine. Even my wolf stirred restlessly inside of me, her hackles raised. This couldn’t be real, could it? I had always prided myself on being rational, on finding logical explanations for things like this.

But in that moment, I couldn’t come up with a single explanation for what I had just seen.

“Chris,” I whispered, squeezing his hand tightly. “I saw it again. The white figure.”

He nodded, his face pale despite the orange glow of the candlelight. “I saw it too. It was just there, for a second.”

Fabian and Betty exchanged worried glances. “What do we do now?” Betty asked, her voice barely audible.

Chris took a deep breath, his grip on my hand tightening slightly. “We keep going. This is what we wanted, right? A sign?” He raised his voice a little. “Spirit, if you’re here, please give us another sign. We want to help you. We want to understand what’s happening in Moonshine.”

The room fell silent again. I found myself holding my breath, straining to hear any sound, to see any movement. Part of me hoped that nothing would happen, that it had all been our imagination. But another part, a part that I hadn’t acknowledged since I was a little girl, wanted proof that what we had seen was real.

Seconds ticked by, feeling like hours. The candles flickered, casting dancing shadows on the walls. I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, and I was acutely aware of every small sound in the house—the settling of the old wood, the faint whistle of wind outside.

Just as I was about to suggest we end the seance, thinking it had all been a coincidence after all, something changed. The air in the room seemed to grow colder, and I felt a strange pressure, as if the very atmosphere of the house was thickening around us.

“Do you feel that?” I whispered.

The others nodded, their eyes wide. Slowly, slowly I turned my head toward the corner, where I swore I felt…

Suddenly, a loud knock on the front door caused us all to jump.