Back from the hiatus!

     “I’ll pick the movie!” said Perry. “I’ll pick a good one, don’t worry!”
     “Oh, I’m sure of that,” said Gali.
     “Can we make cookies again?” Sam asked Mr. Rhodes.
     “Yeah, sure, I think I have everything we need,” he said.
     “Yes, cookies!” said Anthony.
     “You guys are so easy to please,” said Mr. Rhodes, smiling.

     One week later, Sam and Ayu were walking down the stairs of their dormitory, heading toward the front gate of the school. After watching “Fellowship of the Ring” with the Paranormal Research Team, Ayu had eagerly said that she wanted to join them on their next ghost hunt, provided that she didn’t have to work. Luckily, this Saturday she had worked in the morning and early afternoon, instead of at night.
     “So wow, you guys have encountered two ghosts already,” said Ayu.
     “Yeah,” said Sam, who had just finished giving her condensed versions of the two fruitful ghost hunts that the Paranormal Research Team had had. “Here’s a list of the things we wrote down that we know for sure,” she said, brandishing a piece of paper. “Hopefully we can add more to it as time goes on. …I don’t know if all of this sounds weird to you, but I know you can talk to anybody in the club about it – we were all there. And everybody believes, I think…Well, Perry says he doesn’t. I guess I don’t know how he explains what’s happened so far.”
     “Well, I believe you,” said Ayu. Sam smiled at her. “Maybe Perry will have to change his mind if it happens again.”
     “Yeah,” Sam agreed, growing quiet as they reached the rest of the group at the front gate of the school. The gate was never closed, and was actually quite wide – cars could both enter and leave the school grounds at the same time. Due to the old stone fence that surrounded the school, it was necessary to walk through the gate when entering or leaving the grounds of High Glen.
     Darkness had fallen over five hours ago. Mr. Rhodes had suggested that everybody take a nap in the afternoon before going ghost hunting at 10:00, but he was the only member of the Club to take his own advice.
     “Yo,” said Anthony, greeting them.
     “We’re all here now,” said Gali. “Let’s go.” Everyone flicked their flashlights on as they walked away from the well-lit grounds of the school.
     “Hey,” said Perry, pointing at Ayu. “You already have a red lens for your flashlight – how did you know to get one?”
     “Well, we’re walking around in the dark, right? I don’t want to ruin my night vision, since I’m looking for ghosts.” Gali beamed at her, although no one was looking in her direction. Perry looked horrified.
     “How far away is this cemetery that we’re going to?” asked Samantha.
     “It’s about as far west as the other one was east,” said Anthony.
     “And why are there two cemeteries in such a small town?” asked Ayu.
     “It might be small,” said Mr. Rhodes, but this town has been around for a very long time. Also, there are often different cemeteries for different religions. Usually, Catholics didn’t used to want Protestants to be buried in their cemeteries. The cemetery we were at on our first ghost hunt is kept by the Lutheran church. The one we’re going to tonight is kept by the Catholic Church.”
     “Ahh, so even as their bodies are decomposing, the Protestants aren’t holy enough to decompose next to them?” asked Perry.
     “Well, it’s an old tradition, obviously,” said Mr. Rhodes. “It takes small towns a lot longer to change than it does cities.”
     “Let’s hope that the Catholics don’t linger around like the Protestants do,” said Anthony, not entirely joking.

     Fifteen minutes later, the Paranormal Research Team arrived at a larger cemetery than they had previous been to.
     “This one is huge!” said Sam.
     “Well, High Glen did used to be a monastery,” said Gali. “I guess a lot of residents died during the century they lived there.”
     “Yes,” said Mr. Rhodes, “and even before the monastery was built, they still lived in Finbell Winters, farming and doing missionary work.”
     “Well,” said Perry. “If we all stay together, it’s going to take all night to canvas the whole graveyard. We should split up.”
     “Okay,” said Gali, “but it isn’t okay to go alone. We should split into pairs.”
     Ayu walked over and stood next to Perry, who looked surprised, and then extremely pleased. Gali turned to Mr. Rhodes, who had already been standing next to her, so Sam shyly turned toward Anthony.
     “Well, that was easy!” said Perry.
     “Yeah, it certainly was,” said Anthony dryly, glancing at Ayumi.
     “All right!” said Gali. Everybody put the red lenses into your flashlights. Turn your cell phones on so that we can contact each other in case something happens, but please put them on vibrate.” The last sentence was directed at Perry, who pointedly knelt on the ground to retie the laces of his Puma tennis shoes, avoiding Gali’s eyes.
     “Meet back here in an hour,” said Mr. Rhodes. “We’ll decide then whether or not we need more time.” He followed Gali, who had already started walking, taking a path that led to the right, away from the center path.
     “Seeya later,” said Anthony to Perry and Ayu, taking off with Sam down the center path.
     “Bye!” said Ayu, waving. She turned to Perry and smiled. “Shall we go?”
     “Sure,” said Perry. “I guess we get the left path.” He followed her lead, walking beside her, a few inches back. They walked at a leisurely pace, observing the Virgin Mary statues above some headstones and bathing the path in front of their feet with the red light of their flashlights.

     Sam was walking next to Anthony, not looking for ghosts so much as she was agonizing over what she could possibly talk about with him. Luckily, Anthony took care of the problem for her.
     “You do have a cell phone, right?” he asked.
     “Yeah,” she said. “Why?”
     “Well, I’m one of the only two people who’ve gotten attacked so far. So maybe it’ll be me again, right? I just want to make sure that you’ll be able to call everyone if I do.”
     “Yeah, I can do that. We all exchanged numbers, remember?”
     “Yeah,” he said, frowning. “I guess we did.” Sam was quiet for a moment, seeming to be hesitating about something. She opened her mouth and then closed it, and then determinedly opened it again.
     “That reminds me,” she said, stopping and placing her flashlight between her knees. She reached both hands behind her head, working to unclasp her necklace. She offered the gold chain to him with a clenched hand, a cross swinging gently underneath it. “Wear this. You can give it back to me as soon as we’re done tonight. I just….want to try something.” Anthony looked at the golden cross, and then at Sam’s face, which looked embarrassed.
     “All right,” he said, swiping the necklace out of her hand, hoping to erase her uneasiness as soon as possible. “It’s just a necklace, right? Make sure you remind me to give it back to you. I might forget that it’s there.”
     “Okay!” she said. She started walking forward again. Her hand traveled unbidden to the hollow on her chest between her clavicles. Her fingertips touched bare skin, and she realized that she felt vulnerable without the cross there.
     “Are you really sure you want me to wear this?” asked Anthony. “It doesn’t make a difference to me.”
     “Yeah, I’m sure,” said Sam, dropping her hand to her leg. “It’s just a necklace, but I just want to try something.”
     “Okay,” said Anthony, deciding not to press her.