me a gentle Let’s just stay friends speech, he’d created this elaborate Halloween-themed, high-asshole-factor prank, meant to dissuade me of ever thinking about him romantically again.
And stupid, stupid me. Instead of thinking, Jesus, Mal’s a shithead, my fucked-up brain had dreamt that he’d kissed me. Tenderly. Gently. Lovingly.
He’d kissed me and…
Smiled. He’d smiled at me and said… Yes, it is a very stupid dream, but let’s see how much you remember when you wake up, okay?
“The orb!” I exclaimed. In my dream, Mal had said something about the orb being… red…? I leapt out of bed, grabbing my phone from its charger as I raced into the living room.
“Where the hell is that thing?” I asked aloud as I looked around, trying to remember where Gina had put it… On the bookshelf!
There it was.
And—holy shit—dream-Malcolm had been right.
It was glowing brightly red.
“Oh, my God…” I quickly scrolled through the recent calls on my phone, and found Pat’s number and dialed.
It went straight to her voicemail: “You’ve reached Pat Bergeron, leave a message! Peace!”
“Pat?” I said, my voice cracking. “It’s Henry—Collins. You were right and I apologize. I’m really, really sorry. Malcolm and I need you. Badly. So if you can fit me in before next Thursday, please do, and if not, I’ll see you then.”
I ended the call and rushed over to my computer, opening the laptop and Googling Pat Bergeron, Spirit Guide.
Her website came up right away—complete with obnoxious auto-play new-age music, all Tibetan drums and ocarinas and chimes. I swiftly muted it and said—aloud, in hopes that Mal’s wind-noise speakers had mics that picked up everything, “This is where, if this is a prank…? You’ll jump out and mock me for the rest of my life.”
There, on Pat’s oddly normal-looking, blue-sky-themed home page was a link for the book she’d mentioned: the Crimson Book. I hit the link for the e-book edition, and leaned in closer to read the page…
“Because this is where I spend—holy fuck! Seven hundred dollars…? On an e-book…?” My voice went up an octave. “Are you fucking kidding me…?” I took a deep breath. “Okay, but see, I’m doing it. See?” I spoke loudly and clearly for anyone listening in. “Visa card, name: Henry Collins. I’m typing in the card number, expiration date, January… And I am now hitting enter, and my credit card is being charged seven fucking hundred dollars because you’ve convinced me that you’re dead and you’re haunting me and I will live—gladly—with your mockage til my own dying day. Just please jump out at me now, Mal, please…”
Malcolm
I could not jump out at Henry—at least not in any way that he could see.
“I wish I could,” I whispered as the clock ticked.
He’d come running out of his bedroom, surprising me—and not just because he was stark naked again. He’d remembered at least some of what I’d told him while he’d been asleep. So things were sort of looking up.
“Okay,” Henry said, after he’d waited long enough and nothing had happened. “I just bought a seven-hundred-dollar e-book. Let’s see what it can tell us.”
I leaned in to look at the e-book he’d opened on his computer screen. “Oh, my God, it has infinity pages?” How could a book with infinity pages have a table of contents—and yet it did. “Ooh, you can input search words…” I pointed to the screen.
Henry was already over there, narrating as he typed, “Spirit… communication…” He hit search, then leaned in to look. “Uh-oh.”
I read aloud: “Seventeen million four hundred and thirty thousand pages of info for spirit communication.” This might take some time…
Henry scrolled down the list, stopping on “Spirit communication, comma, spells. Whoa, really…? This book has spells…? Like, spells?”
He clicked that link, a new page opened, and something that looked like a recipe with an attached poem appeared.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Henry said. He raised his voice slightly. “Malcolm, stand in the middle of the room.”
I did as he asked, uncertain as to what we were doing, but whatever it was, maybe he wanted to put on pants first…?
But no, apparently, pants could wait. Henry clapped his hands three times and spun in a circle as he chanted, “Though the night is dark and the sun is bright, I bid you to dance unto my sight.”
I was standing there, thinking, You certainly are a dancing sight, spinning like that, Mr. Naked, when all at once, I started moving. It was the weirdest freaking thing—as if my legs suddenly had a life of their