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was still packed with cars, Harris gave us only a few details. “It’s Gwyn’s house,” he explained. “Her family is away, too.”
    I knew the name—Gwyn was also a senior—but couldn’t quite picture her face. I wasn’t sure how I felt about entering someone’s house when they weren’t there, but Avery didn’t say anything, so neither did I. Still, I felt edgy. I had no idea what we were walking into.
    From the outside, the brick colonial house was completely dark. Not even the porch light glowed. Harris knocked on the front door twice before slowly turning the handle.
    “Follow me,” he whispered.
    It was difficult to see inside the pitch-black entryway, but my eyes quickly adjusted and I could make out a fuzzy, flickering light at the end of the hallway. Harris walked confidently toward the light while the rest of us followed more slowly. The light became brighter and I could hear a girl’s voice. It was low and steady, like she was telling a story. Finally, Harris stepped through a rounded archway into a den.
    “I thought you might need some more,” he said to the group of people sitting on the floor. I realized that the light was coming from dozens of white votive candles arranged in a circle.
    A girl I knew vaguely from my history class smiled. “Thank you, Harris.” She looked at Avery, Noah and myself. “You’re right. We could use some fresh victims.”

four
    Everyone knows a ghost story. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who has seen or heard or felt something that just didn’t make sense, something unexplainable. For some reason, these stories tend to take place at night, in dark and isolated spots. Those stories never scared me. I understood that nine times out of ten there was a rational explanation behind the occurrences that tended to freak other people out. I knew that you could walk away, and leave the supernatural behind you.
    For the most part.
    But the things that could follow you home, the things that weren’t looking for a home but rather a living person to reside with—well, those stories were creepier. Thankfully, most of the tales being told around the flickering candles were garden variety ghost stories: something white and hazy descending a staircase at midnight, the outline of an old woman gliding through a wall and more than a few about footsteps heard pacing around empty attics.
    Everyone knew a ghost story. And, according to the rules of the game, everyone had to share their most terrifying tale.
    Or else.
    After the initial uneasy feeling of coming across a group of our classmates sitting in a candlelit circle had worn off, I was able to focus on Gwyn, the girl from my history class. She was long and lean and wore her dark brown hair cut in a sharp bob that framed her face. I don’t think we’d ever spoken to one another. She played on the girls’ basketball team and had always seemed kind of serious in class, but that was all I knew about her. Harris had said her family was away. I wondered why she had chosen to stay behind in the huge house.
    “The rules are simple,” Gwyn told us. The group of about a dozen people made room for us, and I sat in between Harris and Avery, with Noah sitting on the other side of Avery. “You have to describe, in as much detail as possible, an unexplained or paranormal experience that you or someone very close to you has experienced. After you finish your story, light a candle in front of you.” Gwyn waved a hand over the twenty or so candles still unlit. “Our goal is to tell a hundred stories and light a hundred candles. After all the candles have been lit, we will have a hundred spirits in the room with us.”
    “And then what?” Noah asked. I detected a note of skepticism in his voice.
    Gwyn sat in a lotus position and folded her hands. “And then we watch what happens.”
    We’ll be watching for a long time, I thought. Nothing is going to happen. I wished Harris hadn’t brought me here. Not only was it a waste of