We didn't speak during the car ride. Not that there wasn't anything left to say, but neither of us wanted to point out the obvious; going to the farmstead was a mistake. It was a mistake every year, and sooner or later it was going to catch up with us. I clenched my teeth and balled my fists. The closer we went, the sooner I might know more, but we were serving ourselves up on a platter. It would be a buffet if the kidnapper showed up. The ride out there was about half an hour, the last part on an unpaved trail through the woods that rocked Alicia's little Saturn. Nausea threatened to make me sick.

"Do you have the necklace?" Alicia asked, rolling into the clearing.

"Yeah." The river rock necklace she gave me at lunch was in my pocket.

She parked near the dilapidated house. It had been lived in up until the 1970's, the roof and walls continuously propped up with lean-to sheds and ply wood by various tenants. The building was collapsing now, though. The porch sagged and was pitted with broken boards, the windows were half shuttered with bits of old glass sparkling beneath them, and the door gaped wide open to show its black, rotting innards. The well had been filled in and covered by a metal plate ages ago.

Of course there were all sorts of macabre stories about the house and the well. That the place was haunted, that the first farmer here murdered his wife and unborn baby a 150 years ago, that strange noises had come from the well before it was filled in.

And this is where we would come to explore the lake front and play Blind Man's Blood after Alicia invented it. We would streak down the trail on our bikes, yelling and laughing. We were disgustingly oblivious to the pain and death right below the surface. We were naive. Maybe I still was.

Trespassing on a murderer's property, attracting attention with our regular visits, and throwing stones on the metal lid that surely covered evil secrets as much as it covered the dirt thrown in the well. Anyone or anything that wanted to hurt us knew where to find us. Before my friends disappeared, we mocked evil. We thought it couldn't touch us and that we were invincible.

God, we were so wrong.

Later, the stories of the hauntings made me wonder if there were others in the town who saw things that couldn't exist. I didn't think I saw dead things, at least not ghosts. But I didn't know what it was – my mind playing tricks, or picking up echoes from the past, or something else. And more than ever, I believed that Alicia was hiding too much from me.

The sun was already behind the trees but there was light. It wouldn't last long this time of year, and the forest was growing dark. We opened the car doors to the shrill buzzing of insects and moist lake-side air.

"Where is the cave you found?" I asked.

Alicia pointed vaguely towards the lake as she walked to the house. There were bluffs near the lake; the whole area had caves.

"Did you take Sean and Levi there before you guys came here?" She had always said the brothers were near the house when the kidnapper showed up, but police couldn't find evidence one way or the other about the location.

She wasn't listening. Standing at the crooked porch steps, she curled and uncurled her fists.

"What you said about finding a way to Sean and Levi, opening paths," I said, then paused. The two worlds at the diner filled my mind. "We are the same, you and me. Aren't we?"

"Hardly," she scoffed. "We are opposites. That's why we are perfect together."

"Admit you see the things I see. Tell me the truth about what happened, who took them."

"Anything else?" she asked. She began a slow march back to the car to get something from the trunk.

Reflexes made me scan the ground for a rock or branch I could use as a weapon. Just in case.

The lid slammed shut with a crack. A long black ribbon hung from Alicia's hand.

"Say it," I said.

"Wrong. I don't see anything you see. Certainly not the dead donkey or soldiers, or – what was it last year? Fungus in your locker. That was funny. A fungal infection in your box." She pulled the ribbon tight in both hands, pensive. "I forgot the rope."

"Alicia, I can't play this game."

She reopened the trunk to rummage around. "But it's the only way."

"Way to what, to make you remember? But I think you already do." I noticed a rock nearby and grabbed it. It was partly hidden in my hand.

The lid went down. Crack! "I can't do it alone. Help me," she whispered. "I'm tired of being weak, of feeling like I'm always being watched or that something is creeping up on me. Together, we are strong. We are a match for anything."

"Who are you planning on fighting?"

She came closer, holding my gaze with her teary eyes. "I want to open the way to Sean and Levi. A sort of séance to speak with them. The game was the last thing we did together, and if they can come, I think they will."

I hesitated. Angels in heaven, help me, I was tempted. The crushing in my heart told me they were alive, but all the messages I thought I was getting from Levi, the note in his workbook, the scratches in my closet. If Alicia knew a way, be it witchcraft, voodoo, clairvoyant babble, or just a shot in the dark, I was a hair's breadth away from getting out the Ouija board.

"You think they're dead?" I asked, stalling.

"They have gone beyond, and no one comes home from the beyond," she said. She was closer than I'd realized. Could I play her game? So many things she said were turning out to be lies.

"They aren't dead."

"Let's ask them ourselves," she whispered in my ear. "Come with me closer to the lake."

I trailed slowly behind her to the line of trees near the shore, nerves bundling in my chest.

"Isn't it beautiful at night? So quiet and peaceful," she remarked. "I tie the blindfold, like this." She placed the black ribbon around my eyes and made a knot. "And I bind your feet but just a little, like this."

I felt her wrap a cord around my ankles and I nearly hit her head with the rock in fear. Nothing was worth leaving myself vulnerable in this place. I resisted, though, digging the rock's point into my thigh. Getting answers, any answers at all about Levi or Sean was worth ropes and blindfolds.

She stood back to back with me, holding my hands. She began to whisper:

Tangled lines, hobbled feet, through the needle's eye

I joined her by the second line:

Music fell, shadows deep, no oats, salt or rye

Hidden in the woodland fold

My hand, your hand, his hand hold

"Spin around and try to stop me," she said, beginning the game.

I began to spin in one place, arms outstretched. I listened for the crackle of leaves, the crunch of dry twigs or the swish of cloth to betray her movement. I had to stop her with my hand before she could prick me with the pin. She continued the poem as she walked in a circle around me:

The deaf will hear, the lame will spin

And then the blind will see again

"Such a small sacrifice, don't you think?" she asked on the left. I shot out a knife hand block, but met only empty air.

There was rustling behind me, and I turned slowly so the twisted cord wouldn't make me fall. More rustling, but far away.

I kept turning. Where was she now? She loved to play this game, but especially as the hunter. She was the best of all four of us.

"Who was the Blind Man that day?" I asked.

Her answer came from in front of me, a sad whisper. "They both were. Otherwise it was too easy for me."

I kept my hands outstretched. If I could catch her, any part of her before she pricked me, then I would win. It's surprising how the ears can be trained to find the source of noise, particularly in the forest where every little movement brushes the dead leaves and bushes.

Noise behind me. How did she move so fast?

I turned.

The pin stuck my right shoulder. I hissed with surprise.

"A drop of blood is all it takes. The Blind Man is bleeding. I win," Alicia called, laughing. She was further off than seemed possible.

Water washed over my feet. I hadn't been that close to the lake, there shouldn't be waves here. I pulled the blindfold down. My feet were sinking in the mud. Cold mud. I spun to find Alicia, tripping on the cord around my ankles.

She held the pin in her fingertips, a crooked smile on her lips.

The Blind Man's blood the tithe fill

When on the ground a drop does spill

"No, wait!" I yelled.

She flicked it away like a tiny cigarette. The moment it hit the bushes, a baby began to cry. The soft mewling and whimpering of a newborn.

Shit.

I kicked the cord off and, slipping in the mud, made my way towards the clearing. I was hit with the memory of cold mud covering me. Panic seized my chest. "We have to get out of here."

"We didn't come tonight to run away!"

"Do you hear it? Can you hear a baby?" I asked her. The baby's cries wrung me through and through. I had to fight every instinct in me to go find it and save it.

It was growing dark now and her blond hair and pale skin showed up clearer than the surrounding trees. She shook her head. Then glancing down, she shifted her feet on the marshy ground, but she wasn't sinking the same as me.

And I understood. Real or not, if I stayed any longer this mud would pull me under, but I wouldn't wake up again at school. I had to get to the car and Alicia had the keys. I stuck my hand in her pocket for them. "We played your game and you won. Time to go."

The baby wailed from the clearing. I paused, but only for a moment. Every step was a struggle to free my feet and I bit down on my lip to keep from yelling at Alicia.

"The cave, Brooklyn, he came for us after we went to the cave. That's where we have to go. It has to be tonight and you have to tell me if you see—"

A branch broke in the forest near the house. Even I heard it over the heart-rending cries.

"Come on," I whispered, forcing my feet to move faster towards the car.

Alicia caught up with me, taking my arm. "It's not who you think. He can't come this far. Let's go in the house to talk."

Go into that crumbling house? Had she never seen a single horror film in her life? I pulled free and went for the car, believing she would have the sense to follow me. The ground was firmer near the well, but the baby's snuffling and sobs were sounding choked, as though in water. I was too close to the well.

"Brooklyn!"

At the warning in her voice, I glanced up. A man was standing behind the metal plate at the well, features hidden by shadows.

**** Alicia and her games! What is that girl up to, really? I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter!!! Thanks so much as always!!! This one is dedicated to thebirdsmelody. If you think my story is stressful, check out hers! *****