To say Arielle was so petrified she wobbled back to Stella wouldn't be enough to fully encompass her feelings. Her tongue tied, her insides bubbled and made her nauseous, and her fingers fumbled to wrap around her coffee mug.

"Dude... you okay?" Stella sat up straight, on alert. "You were gone for a second... are you sick?"

Arielle gulped as she clasped the mug hard, breathing in and out to steady her heart-beat. She couldn't nod or shake or head, because she had no idea if she'd imagined the whole thing or not. "I... might have had an encounter in the bathroom."

Stella's perfectly tweezed eyebrows inched up. "An encounter?" She blinked and turned to glance towards the restroom doors, then returned to Arielle with a smirk. "I didn't know they were shared bathrooms. You naughty girl, I didn't see anyone go in there with you! And whoever it was with got you all hot and bothered, so spill!"

"Oh my God, Stella, not that kind of encounter," Arielle rolled her eyes, "a ghostly one. I didn't have sex with someone in the bathroom stalls of a Starbucks Coffee at a college I'm not even attending! Jeez!"

She winced, because though she'd never do such a thing, Jade would. And that didn't lessen her tension in any way; if anything, it caused her heart-rate to speed up and her emotions to intensify.

"Oh." Stella almost looked disappointed, her smirk evaporating. "What happened, then?"

If she got into details here, with several students, campus staff, and baristas in earshot, Arielle would seem more insane than she felt. And anyway... she didn't know it happened and still wasn't sure of it. "I... uh, it might have been the suicide girl. Maybe I saw her, too, but... my eyes probably played tricks on me."

Moments before she'd been dissatisfied by Arielle's lack of sexual activity in a public restroom, but now Stella shot up from her seat and knocked into the table, making their mugs waver and spill coffee over the rim. "Holy shit, for real? What did you hear? What did you see?"

Telling Stella the come clean part would rouse her suspicion. She'd already been gaping at Arielle all morning as if trying to read through her, and saying a specter haunted her with words that affected her more than she wanted them to would only worsen the situation. "I... uh... didn't understand it. Whispers. And I was definitely alone in there—I checked. Several times. Then it made the lights flicker..." That wasn't a lie. "And the faucets turned on by themselves." Also not technically a lie. "And then it... vanished."

Phew... well, it's not like she'll ever find out the truth, right?

"Fuck." Stella lowered into her chair and downed the rest of her drink as she wiped up her mess with a napkin. "I should go investigate it. Maybe I'll feel something with my developing abilities—"

Arielle stood up and jammed a fist to the table. "No!"

The entire room silenced and peeked at them, shocked by her outburst.

Shit... I didn't mean to shout that.

Only the clinking of cups and utensils cleaned by baristas echoed into the area, but otherwise, everyone and everything had gone quiet.

"I... uh..." Arielle gulped. "Sorry... don't mind me... having a mental breakdown—"

Stella tugged on her sleeve, forcing her to sit down. "Girl, chill. Why can't I go check it out?"

Because you'll know, you'll ask questions.

Arielle slumped against the plastic cushions of her seat. "Because they're... uh... cleaning." She glimpsed the contents of her drink and sneered; there was no way any caffeine would settle the unease in her stomach right now. "The janitor came in... threw me out..." She shoved her cup away and braced to get to her feet again. "Maybe we should get moving, yeah? Finish this up and hit the road? We have to be in Charleston to check-in at the hotel..."

One brow arching, Stella acquiesced... but didn't seem convinced.

***

The girls zipped through the remainder of their tour. Arielle calmed down but couldn't erase what she'd experienced in that bathroom. Stella gathered oppressed energy in Albright Hall, they both listened to invisible children playing near Belk Hall, and spoke with some students who showed them pictures of the poltergeist that haunted Wallace Hall. But no actual apparitions came to them. At least... not to Stella.

Arielle concealed her troubles and worries, but couldn't shake the emotions caused by seeing the specter. Why her? Why so much blood? And why the bathroom, of all places? The creature hadn't given direct responses and the more Arielle thought of it, the more she feared she did imagine it all. Had she made it up because her conscious ate her on the inside? Because she wouldn't admit to Stella the truth of her feelings for Jade and she was punishing herself for it?

She swallowed it all and held it in as she drove them to Charleston, South Carolina. There, they'd take an evening tour of the Old City Jail; a place where former hotel owners and famous prisoners Lavinia and John Fisher had been incarcerated.

"They supposedly poisoned their guests," explained Stella at the small restaurant they stopped at, outside Charleston. They'd been in the car for almost four hours, and both needed a break. The blaring nineties tunes didn't ease Arielle's mind, and Stella spent most of the trip on her phone, between texting and researching.

"I vaguely remember the Ghost Adventures guys mentioning them once or twice." Arielle munched on a French-fry; crispy and delicious. "So this should be interesting."

She still had so many unanswered questions, so many things she needed closure for. Yet after the bathroom occurrence, the blood streaking down her cheeks, the girl torturing her mind, she wondered if she had the strength to endure any more apparitions that day.

I hope nothing shows up at the jail... I need time to process all this.

"Okay." Stella set her glass on the table a little too roughly and water splashed over. Arielle stilled; Stella wasn't usually so clumsy, at least not so often in one day. "Okay, I... have to come clean about something."

Come clean?

The words—so specific—startled Arielle so much she dropped her burger and it landed on top of her fries with a squelch. "C-come clean?" A wave of heat sprawled down her neck and something uncomfortable animated in her belly.

"Yeah... so, the secrets thing in the Cemetery, remember? The being that murmured to me when I was... convulsing?" She twirled her platinum locks, the shade shiny and silvery from the overhead lights. "I... I think I figured out what that was about."

Shit.

Arielle pushed her plate away, bracing to spew out excuses. To beg forgiveness. To inform her she wasn't one hundred percent sure she was in love with Jade, that's why she didn't tell her. That's why she couldn't come clean, and the suicide girl had perturbed her and she couldn't, she couldn't—

"It's me. It's... because of me." Stella shrugged. "The secrets are mine."

Arielle immobilized. Her heart skipped a beat and her nails dug into her palms as she gulped down all the apologies she had prepared. "Huh?"

"Yeah." Stella flinched, bit her lip, gaped at the ceiling, and released her hair. She placed her hands on either side of her plate and exhaled. "I have secrets. Not, like, thousands or anything, but... well, I've been thinking, and the secrets thing has been bothering me, and I... I can't lie to you, Ari. I can't hide things. Jade hid enough from the both of us, and we can't do that. We can't."

Arielle held her breath, afraid if she didn't, she'd spit out all her own secrets... and she wasn't ready to.

Not yet. I'll let her think the spirit meant her secrets, her lies...

"First off, I... I spoke to Mom."

Arielle snorted. "Yeah, you talk to her every day, text her the details of our trip, right?"

"N-no, I mean... we had a phone conversation... late at night... after the Penitentiary. I texted her about my stomach-ache, she called, and I... I thought you were sleeping and I snuck out onto the patio and I—"

"—I know, Stel." Arielle wouldn't hide that from her; not now that she'd finally admitted she'd been speaking to her mother about how nuts Arielle might have been.

Stella peered into her lap. "Oh. Well... crap."

"It's okay. I mean... I didn't expect you'd tell me, because that meant... admitting you sort of believed your mom and her junk. And... I figured you weren't willing to do that yet. So I didn't want to rush you." Arielle reached across the table, pushing napkins and salt and pepper shakers away, and beckoned for Stella's hand. "We're good. I'm not mad."

She had been angry at first; but other issues soon threw that anger aside to replace it with doubt, angst, concern for herself and her well-being.

Stella blew out a heavy breath of relief and smiled as she plopped her hand into Arielle's. "Right. Thanks, but..." her smile faded at once, her brows scrunched, her cheeks turned scarlet, "that's not all."

"Okay..." Arielle popped a few fries into her mouth, yearning for the salty, not-good-for-you taste that would ease her, if only for a few minutes. "Cough it up, then!"

"Since you mentioned admitting my mom's crap is legitimate... I... uh... I've been having hunches... for weeks." She retracted her hand and winced.

"Hunches?" Arielle slowed her chewing. "What do you mean?"

"As in visions. Sensations. Creepy stuff. The stuff my mom mentions all the time... energies and auras and that shit." Stella glanced at her colorful salad that she'd barely touched, preferring to salivate over Arielle's burger, instead, and pouted. "But I was in absolute denial. I didn't even tell Mom, but... the powers started. Something started, and I have no idea how or why... I kind of link it to Jade. Link it to losing her, not knowing the truth about her death... and it activated something in me, I think. Like it opened a window. And that tiny window allowed my abilities... my heritage... to seep through."

The fries turned sour in Arielle's mouth. "So... for weeks, you've been pretending to hate everything about your mom's gifts? And pretending to not sense your own?"

Stella's breaths sped up, her chocolate eyes watering. "I know, I know, it's bad and Jade would have murdered me for not confessing this to you." She fanned herself, her cheeks switching from scarlet to a dark magenta. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to admit it. Not after years of being so reluctant, of denying my blood-line, of refusing to take part in Mom's activities. I was... embarrassed."

Though her nerves twitched and she imagined herself screaming at Stella... Arielle bit down her irritation and concealed her frustration.

Am I any better with what I'm keeping from her?

Everyone had secrets; sometimes they poured out, sometimes they didn't. Stella confessed hers because she was ready, but Arielle wasn't. And she couldn't be a hypocrite.

"Stel... please, don't hide this stuff from me, okay?" She relaxed her expression—she'd been frowning—and flashed her friend a weak grin. "Jade and I... we wanted you to accept your gifts, remember? There was no shame in telling us you had, at last. I'm happy you're letting it all in... and Jade would have been too. Or she is, wherever she's lurking... or whatever."

"Well... that part I can help with, now that I've, uh... come clean." Stella's hand shook as she seized her cup and downed a few swigs of water. "Please don't hate me, but... I have one more thing to reveal."

Her appetite returning, Arielle stuffed a few more fries into her mouth. They no longer tasted gross, thank goodness. "Go for it."

Whatever this confession was, it affected Stella more than the other two. Her once colored cheeks lost their hue and paled. Her confident posture and raised shoulders deflated. And she couldn't maintain Arielle's gaze for more than a second before flipping away. "I... I want to try to communicate with her. With Jade."

"Hasn't your mom tried that, already?" Arielle recalled Mrs. Sullivan warning them she'd attempted to find Jade. To ask her questions and understand her passing, but... she was unsuccessful. "And failed?" She crossed her arms.

The trip—hunting ghosts on the east coast—took on more significance for Arielle after Mrs. Sullivan's failure. She wanted to chase Jade down or chase other spirits and interrogate them. Wanted replies, real ones; news from those she loved, news from Jade, reassurance that something else waited after death.

"Okay, but... hear me out." Stella sighed. "What if we can talk to someone who can communicate with her? The prime reason we might not have found Jade is... she may not be a ghost. She might have crossed over into some other dimension, Heaven, or Hell or whatever happens after life. But... if we encounter someone, a spirit, with access to her, with ways of getting questions to her... they can chat with us."

"They can tell us how she died..." Arielle's eyes widened.

Stella smirked. "Exactly."

"Fine," said Arielle, letting her arms droop at her sides as she slouched in the booth. "So... another seance like at the Cemetery? We can't do that at the Old City Jail, they won't allow it. I read their rules on the website."

Stella's fingertips drummed on the table in an uneven, nervous rhythm. "No, you're right, we can't. This would have to wait until tomorrow. And... we'll use something more legitimate. A Ouija board."

If Arielle had been standing, she would have crumbled; and if she'd been holding anything, it would have shattered to the ground. "A what?"

The thing that had terrified her and Jade years ago. The device that skeptics insisted was fake, that professionals assured was real. Thick black letters on a weathered board that formed the plot-point of many a scary teenage movie.

"Yes, you heard me—a Ouija board. Mom's old one, she never uses it anymore—"

"—what the fuck, Stel? I thought you hated Ouija boards? And your mom's is in Ohio! We're in South Carolina, might take a few days to ship it here." Arielle huffed. "No."

All the memories of Jade's experience, of her experience, fluttered to life in her mind, squeezing her lungs, rendering her dizzy. She'd hated that night, Freshman year, when the slumber party got out of control. No matter the secrets she and Jade shared, no matter their proximity and deepening affection; the experiment with Jade's Ouija board went sour so fast, they refused to talk about it again.

That chick named Penny... the threats towards Jade... the noises... no.

Stella's lips spread in a wide, fake smile as she scrunched her nose. "We don't have to ship it, because it's in your trunk. I... stashed it in there before we left."