The Witch's Brew

“IT’S MOVING, IT’S MOVING” shouted one of the teenagers.

I… A… M…

Suddenly the lights turned on.

“Does anybody want some coffee? I know it’s late but I had some decaf.” Mom, always thoughtful, had brought the nightly brew. Sadly, with the lights on, what had been a proper seance room was now a regular, teenage bedroom and a messy one at that. Dark sheets were haphazardly draped over the two eastward windows, although the work of a weeklong winter storm didn’t give them much to look at. Three candles, forming an equilateral triangle around the teenagers, gave the normal anxiety-inducing disorganization of the teenage bedroom a spooky, moody twist befitting the weather. Well, at least it did when the lights were off.

“MOM, I told you to knock when you come in. What if I’m doing something here?” complained the teenager, although the sting was softened by the speed in which he jumped up to grab his coffee. His mom, after all, made the best coffee. His friends had tasted mom’s coffee before, and quickly grabbed their cups.

Peering past the scrambling teenagers, mom spotted a raggedy piece of cardboard inscribed with what appeared to be chicken scratch, along with a broken pair of glasses, hastily pushed aside and poking out from the corner of the bed frame.

“Is that… an ouija board?”

The teenagers, having gotten their coffee (and several having already burnt their tongues), froze.

“Um, no that's… just our… our… “

Sadly the teenagers’ frontal lobes, specifically the area that involves quick thinking, were not fully developed. Luckily, it didn’t matter to Mom.

“Ahhh that explains why the lights were out then… oh and the three candles too. That’s a nice touch. Ok well, if you get spooked, feel free to come sleep downstairs in my bedroom. You will always be my little boy” She reached out and grabbed her son’s check and gave it a loving tug.

“MOM stop it. I’m a MAN now” said the boy.

The mom gave him a knowing look.

“Of course of course” The knowing look turned mischievous. “You know, I’ve done a seance sessions or two myself. Have I ever told you that story?”

The teens looked at each other incredulously, before shaking their heads. Mom chuckled, then continued.

“It was on a night much like tonight, back when the winter storms were more common. The winds were howling, and we were so bored that we decided to try and contact the spirits. We set up a ouija board, and spent hours trying to hear what they might say. I don’t think we contacted much of anything, but I do remember that we scared ourselves silly to the point that we could barely sleep. Every rush of wind, every groan of the house, every noise that we heard, we thought was the spirit. In some way, trying to sleep afterwards was more exciting and scary than the actual seance session.

Mom stopped, lost in thought for a moment. The teens, captivated, hung on her every word.

“Now what was it that scared us so badly?” Mom wondered out loud.

“Oh that’s right. After hours of getting gibberish, (and various people clearly biasing the message) we got a clear one: ‘I AM HERE, AND I AM ANGRY’. I think the door might have shut from the wind too? Either way we were frightened out of our minds.”

Mom was so lost in thought, she didn’t see the horrified looks on the teens’ faces. She continued.

“It’s funny the things that will scare you when you are young.”

Mom turned to leave, and the paused.

“Just make sure not to stay up too late. The snow stops tonight and the roads will be clear by tomorrow. That means school”, said the mom, and slowly closed the door.

For a moment the teens stared at each other, then quickly set their now almost empty coffee cups on the dresser, and pulled out their makeshift ouija board.

“Do you think that story your mom told is true? Did she actually hear a spirit?”

“Oh my God, SHUT UP. I need to be QUIET to focus and channel the spirits, remember?”

“Wait, I thought the spirit is supposed to move our hands? Why do we need to be quiet again?

“PLEASE SHUT UP”

The teens sat down around the ouija board.

“Oh wait, we forgot the lights.”

As one knows, a seance cannot be conducted with overhead lighting. As one of the teens got up to turn off the lights, the other three situated themselves over the ouija board in a semi-circle, their hearts pounding with excitement at the thought of finally hearing what the spirit had to say to them.

But, in the space of a breath, the flights flickered. Once, twice. The three teens (who already had their sweaty palms on the ouija board in anticipation) turned to chastise their friend, but saw that he had frozen, a step and a half away from the light switch. After what felt like an eternity, but must have been only a couple of moments, with an audible *click*, the lights went out.

“Um… guys? That wasn’t me.”

“Maybe the power went out?”

But the light from the hallway was still streaming under the bedroom door, somehow simultaneously lengthening and darkening the shadows already present in the room, until it seemed to swallow the timid light from the candles. Outside, the wind stopped blowing, and all grew quiet, both inside and outside. A sense of dread slowly filled each of the teens, and before any of them could acknowledge their shared despair, a single noise filled the room. A slow, scraping noise.

“The spirit!!! It’s moving again!!!” stammered one of the teens.

With their eyes and hands glued to the glass, they interpret the message from another realm.

I… A… M… B… A… C… K…

The teens look at each other with confusion, their hands quivering out of fear. But the spirit wasn’t done.

I… A… M… A… N… G… R… Y…

A sudden breeze sent a shiver down the spine of each of the teens, with what felt like a jolt of electricity rising from their bowels to the base of their necks. One by one, the three candles went out, and the light coming underneath the door turned off. Immersed in darkness, pandemonium ensues. The teens screamed, and without hesitation ran to their sleeping bags, tripping over items in the dark, and knocking over several books on the bookshelf. One ran into the wall by accident before reaching his sleeping bag. Another tried the light, clicking it back and forth to no avail, before diving into the covers on the bed. After a brief moment, the breeze died down, and all that can be heard is their shallow breaths, and the sound of blood pumping in their ears. Too terrified to speak, the teens contemplated what had just occurred in silence. Finally one had the courage to speak.

“Um, guys… was that… your mom’s… spirit?”

And with the final word, “spirit”, four sequential loud crashes rang through the room. The coffee cups, flung to the ground by the vengeful spirit. To the four teens rattled nervous systems, this could mean only one thing. The spirit was watching, and apparently hated teenage banter. As they sat in silence, their sense of dread and anxiety festered. Why did the spirit want us to sleep? Why did it dislike talking? What made mom’s coffee so good? These were all questions that drifted through the teens minds, as they tried, desperately to sleep off the night's events. But slowly, as the wind howled and the house creaked, they came to realize that sleep wasn’t coming.

****

“Oh, to be young” the mother mused, closing the door, and walking back down the stairs.

“Boredom and hormones have a way of attracting trouble, both real and imagined. God knows the trouble I got into when I was that age… I got a lot of use out of that ouija board, telling ghost stories, and scaring ourselves silly in the dead of night.

Exiting the base of the stairs, she entered a darkened living room with a single reading light on. As she walked to the sink, to drop off the tray and remaining dishes, she heard loud screaming coming from the bedroom, before quieting down as she had hoped. Bemused, the mother shook her head, equally amused at the shenanigans her son and his friends were up to, and grateful that the end of the winter storm was finally in sight.

After putting her dishes in the sink (dishes are a tomorrow task), she grabbed the instant coffee supplies she had used earlier. As she opened the cabinet, she looked up and saw the decaf coffee.

With a barely audible groan, she glanced down and saw in her hand the label “Extra Strength Triple Shot Instant Coffee”, which she knew contained 300mg of caffeine per serving.

Oops.