Free One Hundred Candles [2] by Mara Purnhagen Page B

motives, but she also recognized that I was good at what I did, which in turn made her look good.
    Matthew was practically pulling Bliss to one of the computer stations. “You have to see this!”
    My curiosity piqued, I followed them. So did Noah. Feeling him right behind me reminded me of the way he’d kept his hand placed on my lower back during the party. Again, I had to remind myself that we never had a romantic relationship. Besides, if his mom and Shane kept things going, Noah and I would essentially be family one day. We wouldn’t be related by blood, but still. If things went wrong with us, it would be too awkward. It wasn’t worth the risk.
    Matthew was going through the video he loaded onto the monitor.
    “Explain to me why you were filming the empty cafeteria when I clearly told you to tape the hallways in between classes,” Bliss said.
    “I did the hallway stuff earlier,” Matthew explained. “I thought I’d get a few shots of those new vending machines.”
    Bliss was slightly placated. “Oh. Well, I guess that shows initiative.”
    “There! Do you see it? Right there!” Matthew paused the screen and was pointing to an object on the cafeteria floor.
    “What is that?” Bliss asked. “It looks like a—”
    Matthew hit a button and the object began to move slowly across the back wall of the cafeteria. “See? At first, I didn’t even notice it. But it kept, you know, gliding.”
    It was exactly like the security tape, showing a transparent white dog moving without feet. A quick glance at Noah told me he was thinking the same thing I was: this was no coincidence.
    Bliss frowned. “That’s a poodle.”
    “A ghost poodle!” Matthew turned to me. “You know all about ghosts, right, Charlotte?” His excited voice was attracting looks from the other boys in the class.
    “Shh,” I warned him. “We don’t know if it’s real.”
    “But I was there. It is real. I saw it!” He seemed thrilled. “We have documentation of a ghost poodle. This is awesome!”
    Bliss looked like she was trying to remember something. “The party.” She turned to me and Noah, dropping her voice a little. “Didn’t one of the guys tell a story about his grandmother’s poodle? About how after it died, it came back to scratch him from under the table?”
    “It was Harris,” I said. “Harris told the story.”
    “Do you think that his story is somehow connected to this?” Noah asked.
    “No.” Bliss looked over her shoulder at the image on the screen. “I think the story is this.” She twisted a ring on her finger nervously. “Gwyn said freaky things would start happening after all one hundred candles had been lit. What if this is the beginning?”
    “She said we would be joined by a hundred spirits,” Noah said softly.
    Matthew had already drawn quite a crowd around his workstation. Soon the entire school would know about the afternoon apparition in the cafeteria. I wished Avery was here. She had a knack for damage control, whereas I tended to freeze.
    “We can’t let this get out,” I told Noah and Bliss. “Once this story starts, it’s going to be impossible to rein it back in.”
    Most of the boys in class were absolutely giddy as they watched the video over and over again. Some of them had pulled out their phones and were texting.
    “I think it’s too late,” Noah said. “The ghost has escaped.”

seven
    It didn’t take long for news of the “ghost poodle” to spread throughout the school. The cafeteria footage was discovered Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday morning, everyone had seen a copy, thanks to the AV freshmen posting it on a blog and calling it the Demon Dog of Lincoln High. The video fueled rumors about the New Year’s Eve party, which produced fantastic—and false—stories about what had happened during our peculiar game. The latest version involved more than fifty seniors wearing black cloaks, chanting in Latin and passing around a goblet filled with goat’s blood. Harris,