“Good evening, I’m Saint Andrew Avenillo,” The tall wiry man in a long, white, robe and an aquiline nose spoke with a light Italian accent to the dozen ghosts sitting or hovering on folding chairs. “Welcome everyone, you may call me Andrew. You are among friends here,” he smiled warmly. “Would anyone care to share?”

A young man with bleach-blonde hair raised his hand.

“Signore Chad,” Saint Andrew called on him.

“My name is Chad.”

“Hello, Chad,” the group replied as one.

“Uh, it’s been two weeks since I scared anyone. But, man, it was hard this week. I was haunting the house I died in and the family there is so jumpy! The mom is always on edge. The dad is worse. The kids, oh man, they’re better than their parents, but if I so much as walk up the stairs they shriek.”

“Signore Chad, you did scare them for a while,” Saint Andrew reminded.

“I know, Andrew, and I acknowledge that wasn’t right of me. And I’ve been better. But with Halloween coming… Timmy, the boy, came down into the basement by himself. How tempting is that?”

Several people around the circle nodded in agreement.

“But… I didn’t. I didn’t.”

“Way to stay strong, man,” a man with dark skin and a bald head.

“Thank you, Signore Chad.”

A wrinkled old woman raised her hand.

“Signora Beatrice, please,” Saint Andrew acknowledged her.

“Hello everyone, my name is Beatrice.”

“Hello Beatrice,” the group said.

“It’s been a full month since I scared anyone. I haven’t even taunted Mr. Meow Meow, the residents’ cat. I heard the mother talking about how Mr. Meow Meow hasn’t had any anxiety furballs lately. But… it’s hard. My Abraham and I built that house and I just overheard the father talking about how they want to renovate the kitchen – ‘stainless steel’ this and ‘marble counter’ that. I fed my family of five in that kitchen. If it’s good enough for my family, it’s good enough for them. I was so mad, I wanted to throw all of their designer China out of the cabinets.”

“But you didn’t,” said a teenage girl sitting next to her.

“But I didn’t,” the old woman acknowledged.

“Good for you, Beatrice,” the girl pat Beatrice on the shoulder.

“Very good, Signora,” Saint Andrew said.

The ghost of a man wearing a wetsuit – just the top, though, as he was missing the lower half of his body due to a shark attack – raised his hand.

“Signore Splash,” Saint Andrew called on him.

“Thanks, bra,” Splash said. “My name is Splash.”

“Hello Splash.”

“Uh, I kinda fell off the no-scare wagon this week. Some of you might know the 15^th was the 25^th anniversary of that great white chomping me just before I caught the most perfect wave ever. I, uh, dude, it was bad this year. I went to Odie’s Grill right there on the beach and just started drinking. That right there scared them seeing the beer taps open and close on their own, but I got so hammered. I went full poltergeist on that joint. Throwing mugs everywhere, tossing bottles, knocking people off of chairs… It was ugly, yo.”

“That was you?!” A skinny Hispanic man said. “I was haunting the Beach Bumz tourist shop next door. They really thought it was a poltergeist.”

“No, man,” Splash hung his head in shame. “I was wasted.”

“Signore Splash, acknowledging your mistake is important. We move forward.”

“Yeah, bra. Yeah…”

A heavy-set balding man in business casual clothes and a furrowed brow raised his hand.

“Signore Alan, I believe.”

“How do you know my name?” Alan asked.

“Signore, I’m an angel. You cannot begin to understand the breadth of what I know. Please, Signore, introduce yourself.”

“Oh, yeah, fine. My name is Alan.”

“Hello Alan.”

“Yeah, thanks. Look, this is my first meeting. I only came because this lady friend of mine thought it might help me, you know, control my emotions. But, I gotta say,” he looked around, “I’m pretty disgusted with everyone here. I mean, we’re ghosts. We scare. That’s literally the only thing we can do. If you take that away from us then you take away our ghost-hood.”

“Man, I was where you were when I started here,” the black man started.

“Yeah, but now look at you. I bet you couldn’t scare your way out of a paper bag! You’re probably afraid of your own shadow. Look, I’m just saying…”

The black man moved in an instant and transformed from his button-down short-sleeve shirt and jeans into a towering hairy beast at least seven feet tall with bulging red eyes and fangs dripping with drool. Bent down to Alan’s level, the beast’s mouth could have swallowed Alan’s head whole. A deep, resonant voice spoke slowly, “Do not mistake my restraint for inability to scare.” Alan involuntarily squeaked and scooted back several feet knocking his chair over and falling on his butt.

“Signore Paul, please,” Saint Andrew said calmly.

Paul blurred from his monster form back to his regular human form in button-down and jeans and said, palms up, “Yo, my bad. I’m sorry, I’m sorry… Alan?” he held out a hand to help Alan up. Alan skittered backwards away from the proffered hand. “That’s cool, man. I’m sorry,” Alan said moving backwards to his seat. “I’m sorry, everyone. I lost my cool. I shouldn’t have reacted that way.”

“It’s cool, Paul-dude,” Splash said, patting him on the back as he sat down. “We all fail. It’s all good, yo.”

Alan got to his feet shakily and failed once trying to right his folding chair before finally getting it upright and sitting in it heavily.

“Signore Alan, your criticism of Scaraholics Anonymous is natural. You are right in a sense – you are a ghost, and while you were alive you were taught ghosts scare people, no?

“Yeah, yeah,” Alan nodded.

“Saint Andrew?” a middle-aged Hispanic man asked. “May I?”

“Signore Javier, please.”

“As many of you know, I died five years ago in a car accident with my family. Big rig ran a light,” he clapped his hands, “Boom. Me, my wife,” he gestured just ahead of him in the circle and a faint image of a smiling woman appeared, “and my three kids,” the faint image of three children appeared next to their mother, “gone. And I’m here but, not them,” the images vanished. “I don’t know why. It makes me real angry. I lashed out a lot. I drove a man insane. Like certified, man. I have to live with that. Well, die with that? I don’t know. The point is I miss my Elena, my little Cristobal, Rosalina, and Javier Jr. and I know that if I go around scaring the living I won’t find the peace I need to move on to wherever they are. And I want that more than anything. I think you can understand that, yeah?”

Alan nodded. He said, sadly, “I understand that. I do.”

Javier stood, crossed the circle, and held out his hand to Alan. Alan took it and Javier pulled him into a hug. “You’re among friends, man.” The group clapped. Alan and Javier sat back down.

“Grazie, Signore Javier, grazie,” Saint Andrew said. “Signore Alan, perhaps you would like to start again?”

Alan looked around at the other ghosts of people of various colors, ages, historical dress, disfigurements, and saw the welcoming light in the eyes looking back at him. For the first time since his recent death, the hopelessness in his heart receded a little bit. “Uh…,” he stammered. “Uh, my name is Alan…”

“Hi Alan,” the group said in unison again.

“It’s, uh, been, a few days I guess since I last scared anyone…”

“Alright, let’s come up with a name…” Edward said, writing down “Name:” on the yellow notepad on the table.

“George…” Lizzie suggested.

“No, Clarence!” Mary countered.

“Oh, I like that better!” Lizzie said.

Edward wrote “Clarence” down then asked, “Middle name?”

“Spencer,” Dan suggested. “No, Clifford.”

“Clarence Clifford?” Mary asked quizzically.

“We’re looking for something that no one would actually name someone, aren’t we?” Dan said.

“Okay, Clarence Clifford what?” Edward said writing down the middle name. “Last name? Annie, you’re being quiet.”

“Because I think this is a bad idea,” Annie said, crossing her arms.

“You think we’re going to summon some demon or something, right?” Mary said.

“I just don’t think we should play around with this,” Annie said.

“I understand your concerns, Annie,” Edward said. “The whole point here is to prove that Ouija is just drawing on our collective subconscious.”

“I know what we’re doing, Ed,” Annie said. “I just don’t think we should play with Ouija.”

“O’Donnell!” Lizzie said. “Clarence Clifford O’Donnell!”

“I like it,” Mary agreed.

Edward finished the name on the notepad and underlined it. “Okay, where was Clarence born?”

Over the next 45 minutes they hashed out an entire history for Clarence Clifford O’Donnell: born in Cork, Ireland in 1820 and left Ireland for America in 1848 because of the great potato famine, though Mary thought that was a little cliché. Dan suggested that Clarence landed in New York harbor before making his way out west to look for gold.

“He’s a 49er?” Lizzie asked.”

“Why not?” Dan asked.

“Well, that would probably play into his death, right?” Edward scribbled notes.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Mary said. “Killed in a squabble over a claim!”

“Not killed in a shootout!” Dan suggested.

“What about just like, I don’t know, he got run over by a horse or something?” Mary asked.

They finally decided on the squabble over a claim and filled in the rest of his life story – the wife and son he left behind in Angel’s Camp, California. Edward jotted down all the details about Clarence Clifford O’Donnell’s life and death.

Finally, he said, “Okay, I think we’ve got a good idea about who this fictitious person is. Ready to see if we can contact him?”

“Let’s do it,” Dan agreed. “Annie, are you going to help?”

Annie rolled her eyes, “I guess, yeah…”

They cleared the table and took the cardboard Ouija board and plastic planchet out of the box. Edward dimmed the lights, and everyone gathered close and made sure their hands were touching the planchette.

“Are there any spirits who would like to communicate with us?” Edward asked.

Nothing happened. Everyone exchanged glances.

“We would like to communicate with a spirit. Is there anyone out there who would like to communicate with us?”

The planchette moved slowly from the middle of the board up to the upper left and stopped on “Yes.”

“That’s a good sign,” Dan said.

“Shh,” Mary hissed.

“What is your name?” Edward asked.

The planchette moved smoothly to “C,” then “L,” “A,” “R,” “E,” “N,” “C,” and stopped on “E.”

Edward nodded smugly.

“Do you have a Last name?”

O-D-O-N-N-E-L-L.

Quietly, Annie took her hand from the planchette and moved away from the table.

“Annie, what’s up?” Dan asked quietly.

“I just don’t feel comfortable. I’m sorry.”

“Let’s keep going,” Mary said to Dan.

“Can we continue?” Edward asked. When everyone still around the table nodded, he asked, “Where were you born, Clarence?”

Annie went to the living room of Edward and Lizzie’s house and sat heavily on their couch. She pulled out her phone and decided to Google “Clarence Clifford O’Donnell” just out of curiosity. Her eyes widened as Google returned several mentions of a Clarence Clifford O’Donnell. One was a story in the San Francisco Morning Call with a byline by none other than Samuel Clemens. Preceding the images of micro-fiched stories was a description of the Call as an “inexpensive paper aimed at working-class Irish – the ‘washerwoman’s paper.” She scanned through the different images of Clemens’ clippings and finally found the piece mentioning O’Donnell. It was a colorful description of a shootout above Angel’s Camp in Calaveras County between “a scurrilous cur, and degenerate cheat, one Clarence Clifford O’Donnell” and an unknown miner. Clemens went into great detail about O’Donnell having immigrated from Cork, Ireland to escape the famine only to lie, cheat, and steal his way across the county. The last line in the article made Annie’s blood run cold: “While O’Donnell’s body lies cold, if his life has been any indication it’s certain his death will be not be peaceful and I wouldn’t be surprised if he lied and cheated from beyond the veil.”

Annie leapt from the couch and ran back to the other room.

“Do we invite you?” Edward read the question the planchette had just spelled out. “Yes, of course we invite you to communicate with–”

“Wait!” Annie yelled. “Clarence Clifford O’Donnell is real, he existed!”

“Annie,” Dan said, “We made him up. You were here!”

“Look!” she showed Dan the phone and everyone gathered around.

“Holy shit,” Lizzie said.

The room fell into heavy silence as they all strained to read the grainy story on the phone themselves.

“But we made him up?” Edward said.

A scraping of plastic on cardboard drew attention to the abandoned planchette on the Ouija board. With no one touching it, the planchette started spelling something out”

T-H-A-N-K-Y-O-U-F-O-R-T-H-E-I-N-V-I-T-A-T-I-O-N.

The planchette stopped on the final “N” and all the lights in the house went out.

“Janice, did you see the message on Facebook?”

“I did. I haven’t had a chance to call their help line yet.”

“I thought you shut down the account.”

“I did, Karen. They ‘memorialized’ it, which supposedly freezes it so no one can access it–“

“Except someone is accessing it.”

“Yes, apparently so. I’ll take care of it.”

—

“Dude, did you see the meme your grandmother tweeted?”

“My grandmother is dead but thank you for bringing that still-fresh pain up to the surface.”

“Jesus, who pissed in your Cornflakes? I don’t know, man, she may be dead, but that is a straight burn on Trump.”

“Wait, what? Here, let me see. Huh. I have so many questions…”

“Oh, see, the cat’s butthole…”

“No, not about the meme. My Nan never accessed her twitter account. I created that for her and tweeted on her behalf. I don’t think she even knew the password. And she wouldn’t even know what a meme is. But, I mean, she’s dead…”

“DM her. See if whoever it is responds.”

“Good call.”

—

“Andrew, two questions.”

“Taylor, go.”

“No, three questions…”

“Okay.”

“One, your grandmother is dead, right?”

“Yes.”

“Two, she had an Instagram account, right?”

“Yes, @sunlovinggranny. I created it for her so she could put up her pictures from her last trip to Hawaii. That was… Jesus, ten years ago? I don’t know. My sister had me shut it down when she died.”

“Huh… Three, is this sunset picture posted 54 minutes ago by @sunlovinggranny in Fiji? Isn’t that by where we honeymooned? Huh, she’s got 33 likes already…”

“Holy shit, I think it is. What the hell?”

—

“Janice, I thought you said you were going to contact Facebook?”

“Karen, I did…”

“Well, whoever is using mom’s account posted again – did you see this? The video of the woodchuck eating lettuce?”

“It was a beaver eating cabbage.”

“I don’t give a shit if it’s Sasquatch, Janice! I thought you said you were going to contact them? They clearly haven’t done anything…”

“As I was trying to say, Karen, I did contact them. They said the account is set to ‘memorialize’ and no one can log in–”

“How do you explain the goddamn woodchuck.”

“It’s a fucking beaver, Karen… ahem… I’ve already got a call into them. Clearly something is going on. We’ll figure it out.”

—

“Oh my God, she replied to my DM.”

“Dude! What’d she say? Did you ask her about the afterlife?”

“No, asshole. Let me read this… oh… wow… wow…”

“Dude, are you crying? What she say?”

“She said ‘Augie, it’s Nan. I can’t explain this, but I hope you go have a cream soda and think of me.’ That was our thing. Cream soda. Oh my God.”

—

“Taylor, I have a Direct Message from @sunlovinggranny.”

“What’s it say?”

“I haven’t looked at it.”

“Well… look at it.”

“…”

“Andrew?”

“It says, ‘I can see why you two honeymooned here. It’s amazing. Give Taylor my love, Nan.’”

“She died before we got married.”

“She did. Who the hell is doing this?”

“Crazy theory?”

“Yes?”

“What if it’s really her?”

—

“The asshole posted a video about voting, Janice. Doesn’t look like a memorial page to me? Can’t you handle this?”

“Karen, shut it.”

“What?! I thought you said you were handling this? You’re the executor, not me, in case you forgot.”

“I got a message from mom…”

“Like from a psychic?”

“A Facebook message, Karen.”

“You mean from the asshole using her account.”

“No, Karen. From mom. It was about Tiddly Whiskers. She wrote about when we had to put her down.”

“Your cat growing up?”

“Yeah. She mentioned things only mom and I talked about.”

“Social engineering, Janice. It’s probably general stuff and you’re reading into this. Jesus, this is exactly what these scammers  want.”

“Karen, stop. It’s not general. It’s word for fucking word. It’s mom.

—

“Dude, Augie, are you okay, man?”

“…Yeah, sorry.”

“What’d she say this time?”

“She had to go, but to keep an eye out from time to time. Heh… she called me muffin head.”

“Because of that time in fourth grade! Ha! Even your dead grandmother won’t let you live that down!”

“Yeah… damn I miss her. Again.”

“But it was good to hear from her, right?”

“Yeah.”

—

“New Direct Message, Taylor.”

“And?”

“I need your support.”

“Okay, let’s open it…. Oh my God. Oh my God. Andrew… that’s…”

“Yeah it is…”

“…our house. The sun set, what? Fifteen minutes ago? That was fifteen minutes ago? Andrew, that was fifteen minutes ago.”

“Did you see the message?”

“’I’ll always watch the sunsets with you, Pinkie. Love, Nan’? Who’s Pinkie?”

“I was a particularly hairless newborn. Apparently everyone referred to me as ‘Pinkie’ at least for the first couple of weeks. Nan always called me that – and only Nan.”

“It’s Nan?”

“It is… there’s still some light on the horizon.”

“Sure is.”