Free Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss by Kyra Davis

“White symbolizes peace. Before I light them I will pass each candle around the table and when you hold it in your hands you must charge that candle. Visualize its power; visualize peaceful smoke curling from its wick, a warm peaceful glow emanating from it.”
    She passed the first two candles to the left and one to the right. I shot Scott a look, but for once he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I had a feeling that he was suppressing a laugh.
    Jason and Al looked equally skeptical. It was only Amelia, Lorna, Kane and Venus who appeared to be clearly enrapt. Zach’s expression remained unreadable under the white powder and Maria was still too angry to convey a different emotion. I let the first two candles pass from my hands without a second thought. But when my palms pressed against the third candle, thicker and heavier than its companions, I found myself wanting to follow Venus’s instructions. Not because I believed it would do any good, but because it was fun. I was hosting this damn thing so I might as well do it right. But the candle didn’t look like an instrument of peace. It was made of beeswax, for God’s sake. Bees are not peaceful. I passed the candle to Maria. Perhaps she would be able to charge it for both of us. Then again, when you consider her state of mind, I might have more luck finding peace in the Middle East.
    When all the candles had been “charged” Venus lit each of them. She left the table long enough to turn off the other lights in the living room then returned to her seat.
    “Join hands,” she instructed. “Now, breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Clear your mind of everything. Absorb the peace of the candles.”
    I did as Venus asked and watched the shadows cast by the flames alter the appearance of my guests. Zach’s powdered white face, which only moments ago had seemed humorously overdone, now looked preternatural and shocking. Lorna’s dark circles disappeared and the light reflected in her eyes seemed to illuminate an emotion that I hadn’t noted before. Determination? Desperation? It was impossible to say. Kane, on the other hand, was easy to read. His breaths were deep and resonating, but he was not calm. No, Kane’s excitement was mounting with each second.
    “Our beloved Andrea,” Venus began after several minutes had passed, “we ask that you commune with us and move among us.”
    None of us said a word as we waited for some kind of response. I didn’t know who Andrea was. I had thought that we were going to try to call Oscar back, but the surprise didn’t bother me. She could have tried to call Elvis back for all the good it was going to do us.
    Of course, Andrea didn’t make an appearance, so Venus repeated her request again and again. Eventually she rephrased the question, asking the spirit to rap once if she was among us. She was answered with silence. The wax from the candles dripped down in little molded teardrops, reminding all of us of the painfully slow movement of time. Kane’s mouth turned down with frustration. His eyes met mine and I realized that without speaking he was talking to me, trying to convey some kind of message that I could not decipher. An inexplicable chill ran up my spine and I felt an ache in my chest, dull and fleeting as it was. And then there was warmth, comfort and for a second I felt the peace that Venus had tried to get me to visualize.
    “Say goodbye.”
    My breath caught and I looked to Maria and then to Zach to see which of them had just spoken. But both of them were looking at the candles, distracted and oblivious to my change in mood.
    “This isn’t working,” Venus said with a sigh. “Someone blow out the candles.”
    “We’re giving up?” Lorna asked. “But we’ve only just begun! We could at least try to call Deb!”
    “If this was going to work there would have been some kind of sign by now. Time is not the problem.” Venus looked pointedly at me as if to silently say that the problem lay with me,