The nightmares worsened that night. The same visions, but so much blood splattered every inch of every room she pictured. So many screams resonated in her cranium, ear-piercing and stomach-churning and desperate. And so many times Jade appeared, but she was blurred, replaced by someone Arielle didn't know. A pallid girl with long locks of greasy ebony hair, so reminiscent of the suicide girl at the Queen's University... but no, that couldn't be.
Can it? Why would I dream of her?
Upon waking, Arielle was so nauseous she considered canceling her ticket to the St. Augustine Lighthouse. But whenever her eyes closed, the frightening flashes of Jade and the unknown girl and blood and screams plagued her. So she heaved herself from bed and got dressed. Being outside would be better than locked inside with her terror.
She wished for Stella to be there. For her cheerful disposition in the morning, the bagels and cream cheese she scrounged up, her pep-talks and knowledge. Regret swirled into Arielle's belly and mingled with the already dreadful nausea. It became so bad she struggled to finish the coffee she'd bought on the road to the Lighthouse.
Breathe in, breathe out—it's only fear.
Stella's crystals were in her pocket, smooshed against her upper thigh. Reassured, protected, she inhaled the breezy, salty air as she exited her car and headed into the St. Augustine Lighthouse welcoming area.
"Wow," she muttered upon seeing the swirling white and black structure, towering over a forest, its red tip bright and intriguing. The pictures didn't do it justice.
She zipped up her jacket, remembering the warnings that it could get windy at the top. Shoving her dizziness aside, she admired the building and all its beauty. As a former history major, places like these always caught her attention. Facades draped in stories, walls covered in tales, halls decked with legends. One day, she'd travel to Europe and visit castles, monasteries, battle-sites—but for now, an old Florida Lighthouse would have to do.
She recalled what she read before they left for the trip—the details that repeated in her mind in an soothing way, over and over, like a chant, a prayer. One-hundred-and-sixty-five feet above the sea. Two-hundred-and-nineteen steps. Eight landings. A black, winding circular staircase.
She lidded her eyes and visualized it all; and when she opened them, there it was, up close, real. The St. Augustine Lighthouse.
There weren't many people—it was nine o'clock, opening time—so she sucked in a large gulp of the refreshing ocean oxygen and trudged forward.
This structure had always fascinated Jade. They never got a chance to visit it during their trip to Florida together, but Jade planned for it for years. That was why she kept this place last on their itinerary; she wanted to finish with a bang.
"It seems so blissful and cute, but it's super haunted, Ari," she had explained, a few months before her death. "Inexplicable cigar smells, visions at the top of the tower, a little girl laughing late at night, doors locking, chairs overturning, items moving, disappearing, then reappearing out of nowhere. Oh! And music boxes play on their own, too."
Chills slithered up Arielle's arms and turned them rigid, painful. She wished it were easier, wished she had the kind of courage Jade used to have. Even with all that had happened to Arielle and Stella since they started the trip, Jade wouldn't have given up. Fierce, brave... she would have pushed forward. Would have mocked them for freaking out turning tail. "Be like Zak!" she would have said, making both her friends cringe.
And so... I must be like Zak.
Beautiful as they were, the winding stairs were exhausting. Each step took its toll, seeping soreness into her calves and aches into her hips. Arielle wasn't in awful shape, but by the fourth landing, her breaths were wheezy and her vision blurred a bit. Her palm was so sweaty it slid from the railing when she sought to grip it. Teenagers ran past her, taking the steps two at a time; even an elderly couple passed her, smiling—almost in pity.
The dizziness she'd tried so hard to suppress resurfaced tenfold. Harsher, more difficult to control. It wasn't like earlier, when she wanted to hurl out her guts. This was a heavy, leaden sensation. Like something sitting on her shoulders and pressing down on her skull as if trying to shatter it and creep into her brain.
"F-fuck," she slurred, struggling to speak. Another group waltzed past her—when did they get here?—and she fanned herself, desperate for air, for relief, for clarity. But with each hefty, forceful step, she sensed herself slipping, spiraling, crumbling—
Her eyes shut. She fell. Tumbled backwards into a spiral of stairs, then through a tiny gap, then miles and miles downward, zooming into a giant black hole beneath her. Its jaws pried farther apart, eager to devour her, take her, keep her. Jade's face popped up beside her, and she smiled at first; then growled. Her teeth elongated to mimic those of a dog, blood caking the whites and morphing them into all shades of red. And then a little girl took her place, her gaze blackened, scarlet drizzles pouring from her lash-line.
"No. No. No, no, no!"
Thump.
"Miss?"
Arielle's eyes wrenched open. "H-huh?" She was sprawled on her back, her head resting on the cold, hard floor, and throbbing.
Did I... knock myself out?
"Are you okay? You lost your footing, and I caught you, but then you... you fainted." The voice was foreign but sweet, small and child-like.
Arielle lifted herself and rubbed the rear of her skull as she peered around the area. She had no clue where she'd landed, but a crowd of people had stopped to watch; young, old, somewhere in between.
The girl who spoke sat on her knees a foot or so away, her large eyes filling with concern. "Miss?" She appeared concerned and talked again, but Arielle's ears had clogged.
"Huh?"
She winced and squeezed her jaw and filled her cheeks with air, hoping to unpop her ears. When she did, the girl's features flickered, hazed over. Her tone distorted as she opened her mouth, and her skin turned gray, gaunt, growing worse by the second. "It's me, Penny—Pennyyyy..."
Arielle's heart had stopped beating. "Huh? P-Penny? The Penny?" She found it difficult to concentrate, to comprehend anything. Her surroundings fogged and fizzled in and out of focus, like a TV receptor struggling to find a channel.
The girl's face drooped and enlarged in slow motion. Her chin seemed to melt, expanding, pulling on her lips and prying her mouth open. Inside, Arielle saw not teeth, but fangs. Black and white fangs stained in red. And her hair, once pulled into a ponytail, unleashed itself; dark, greasy, flying in the wind. A stench of death and dread seeped into Arielle's nostrils and reanimated her nausea, and she wished to mold into the ground, to fall, to disappear. She wanted to scream, but no sound came from her dry mouth, from behind her chapped lips. And when she pried her arms from the ground where they'd been stuck, she found blood on and under her nails, trickling down her fingers.
"What... the..."
Thump.
"Miss? Miss? Should we call an ambulance?" The voice was distant and yet so close; soft and warm, enticing...
Arielle's eyes really opened this time. The same scene—the onlookers, the little girl, the white brick walls surrounding her, gyrating, wobbling. "Oh... oh boy."
"Young lady, are you all right?" A different tone—a man's—helped her regain full consciousness. He extended his hand to help her up, and she took it. She couldn't help but glare at the girl, waiting for her to transform again—but she didn't.
Her eyes weren't marbles, they were big and blue and bright. And her curls were blonde, not even close to the raven strings and strands Arielle thought she saw. "Did I... hit my head? And is your... is your name Penny?"
Saying it out loud froze her to the bone, turned her core to ice. Was Penny there, in that Lighthouse, haunting her? Somehow twisting reality to make her see something that wasn't there?
Did she follow me here?
The girl grimaced. "No, I'm Patty... and I never gave you my name," she said, brows scrunching as she got to her feet. She wore bright pink leggings and a sweater-dress and brushed herself off. "Are you okay, though? You scared me."
Arielle forced her lips into a weak smile as she steadied herself and shook her throbbing head. "I'm... I'm okay. I've been feeling sick all morning, I guess I thought I could attempt this..."
The girl named Patty chuckled; and for the briefest of moments, the sound almost came out as a cackle, a contorted roar, a deep growl. But Arielle blinked and clenched her jaw and soon heard the girl's light giggle. "That's why older people shouldn't get ahead of themselves and try to climb up lots of stairs, sheesh!"
Arielle scoffed. "Hey, I'm only twenty-two!" Patty hurried upward, uncaring for her retaliation.
"Look, honey," said the man who'd helped her up, "you should... go downstairs. It is a bit brisk up there today, but it's open every day of the week, so... if you explain it to the employees, they might exchange your ticket? It's worth asking."
She thanked him for the suggestion... but she wouldn't be returning.
Not if Penny is here, too.
Taking her time, she descended the winding steps, breathing in and out profusely, desperate to reach the bottom and escape. She had no inkling what all that was—hallucination from her worsening angst? Sickness from something she ate the night before? Or a real, raw haunting? Something in the Lighthouse caught fed on her panic and used it; something sensed her concern, her doubts, and latched onto her.
If only Stella were here...
It might have been what Stella endured at the prison, but she'd never know, because she wasn't around to confirm it, justify it, debunk it.
The second she reached her car, Arielle fetched her phone and texted Stella.
"Dude—Lighthouse made me faint. WTF?"
She put the phone on the passenger seat and without another glance at the place she'd found so appealing only moments before, she drove off.
***
After a brief stroll by the beach, passing the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest and largest masonry fort of continental US, Arielle retired to the hotel. They'd booked it for two nights, in case they needed extra time to enjoy the ocean, so she figured a nap would do her well. Hopefully, she wouldn't have her usual nightmares during the day.
Once in the room, she shut the door and set her back against it. "Fuck. What am I doing? Who am I kidding?"
She had little knowledge of the occult and no medium genes. And no bravery, no matter how hard she worked to convince herself she did. Jade wasn't there to impress, and Stella, the adventurous and crazy one, had already given up and flown home.
Why the hell am I still here?
"Jade... Jade, are you here? Do you hear me?" She slid down the door and sat, setting her chin on her knees. "If you are, I... I need a sign, or something. Something to tell me this is what you wanted. I'll go to the Lighthouse again tomorrow if you want me to, I'll buy a new ticket. But I... I don't know what to do. Jade, I need you." Only when something tickled down her cheek did she realize she was crying. "Jade, why... w-why did you die? Where did you g-go?"
A thump on the ground by her bed instantly roused her from her sobs. She sat up straight, brows arching, hands pressed to the floor. "Hello?"
She rose, her knees weak, her legs shaking. Why was she so afraid? This was her hotel room, no one was there, surely something fell from the bedside table—
But she'd closed the window when she left. There were no breezes in the room, the air-conditioning was off, and the only thing on the nightstand was a customary hotel alarm-clock.
A few strides closer, she peeked at the nightstand, then at the floor. Lying there were several small square tiles, which, from where she stood, looked like Scrabble pieces.
"Huh... that's odd." She approached and kneeled before them—and stilled as she squinted. They weren't Scrabble parts. They were letters, but in old and scratched off ink, in fancy lettering. Familiar fancy lettering, with a shiny wooden background—
"No." She toppled onto her behind. "No, no fucking way. Nope. Not possible."
The Ouija board letters... chopped up into squares on the floor of my hotel room? How?
Gulping, she leaned forward. "P... E... N... Y," she read, turning them upright. "That's weird, like Penny, but missing a letter. Coincidence?" She swallowed. "And S... C... R... T. Okay, what the fuck? This must be some sick joke." She shot up. "Is the cleaning staff playing a trick? They must know why I came... chasing ghosts..."
Something jammed against her foot. She held her breath and gaped down; the tiles were moving, thrusting against her shoe.
She jumped back and gasped. "Huh? What the absolute fuck?" She kneeled again—though not on purpose, because her knees buckled at the sight of the tiles elevating an inch above ground, as if picked up by someone invisible. "What the..."
Try as she might to scamper off, to hurdle out the door, she couldn't move. Frozen in awe or in fear, she had no choice but to watch as the tiles lifted in a sort of rhythm. The P once, the E once, the N twice, the Y once.
"P... E... N... N... Y... holy shit." Her throat constricted, her lungs deflated. "N-no. Not you. You can't..." The tiles jingled back and forth, as if asking for her attention. "It's... it's spelling something. She is... she's here. She's fucking here?" Again she tried to lunge backward, but her feet were glued to the spot. The tiles moved once more. "S... E... C... R... E... oh stop, stop that!" She groaned, still unable to pry away. "Secrets? For real? Stella and I discussed this, there are no secrets, what do you—"
The tiles soared up, as if glaring at Arielle, wriggling and twitching and floating.
"Stop. Whoever the fuck you are, stop!" She couldn't yelp; her esophagus tightened and closed up. "Stop!"
She could have sworn she heard a low, otherworldly moan as the tiles shot into her face and chest with such brute force, they knocked her over.