Patsy

It’s the middle of the night when I arrive. The door is a polished blush with peach accents forming swirls around the top, a portal into the world of cotton candy and pink lemonade that is Danielle Manorla’s hotel sleepover. 

Danielle and her friends have weekly sleepovers in her apartment at Patsy’s, a pink high-rise hotel in West Hollywood that her starlett grandmother owns. It’s normally just the four of them, except for a few elusively popular girls who slide their way in like the movie stars who came and went during the hotel’s prime. 

I had never been invited.

Until I opened my locker on Valentine’s Day and a champagne-colored envelope stamped with a red kiss tumbled to the ground. My heart leapt–could it be from James? I ripped the envelope across the top–no time to waste!--and read the curly-cue lettering. You’re Invited to Patsy’s! Love, Danielle, Jade, Meredith, and Sasha. Oh. Of course it wasn’t from James–it was from his girlfriend, Danielle, and her preppy posse ready to apply lip gloss at a moment’s notice. Their weekly gab sessions at Patsy’s were none of my concern.

And yet, here I was. Wet hair, too-small green pajama shorts, fresh out of my aunt’s 2003 Subaru. About to have a sleepover with Danielle and her friends.  

When I ring the bell, four pink pajama-clad girls with their hair wrapped in silk rollers answer the door. “Ellie! We’re so glad you’re here!” Danielle exclaims, taking my wrist in her dainty hand and dragging me inside. 

I stand in the foyer, two mirrors draped over the wall beside me and two flower pots along with lacy pink curtains marking the entrance to the sitting room. The other girls have already filled in among plush pillows, sprawled-out silk throw blankets, and bowls of snacks lining the glass coffee table in front of the TV. I take a seat at the edge of the couch, tweed cushions like potato sacks on the back of my thighs.

“So, Ellie, are you excited for your first Patsy?” Jade asks. Jade is Danielle’s first-in-command, yet she’s always scared me more than any of the others. She holds this power that even Danielle doesn’t, because if Jade didn’t listen to Danielle, then no one would. She’s an observant leader, one unsure of how to use this power but certain she has it, like a prince ready to seize the throne at the drop of a hat.

No, I think. I’m uncomfortable. Why did I even come? 

“Yes,” I say, and Meredith passes me a bowl of popcorn that looks like it’s made from clouds. I pop one in my mouth and savor the warmth before passing it along like it wasn’t delicious enough to eat the whole bowl.

Don’t be greedy. You already have their party–you don’t need Danielle’s food, too. Or her boyfriend.

“Shall we get started with Patsy?” Danielle asks, pulling five glasses from the marionette cabinet behind her and pouring us each a glass of fizzy orange juice in a cup that looks like a daffodil. 

“What’s this?” I ask.

“The potion,” Meredith explains, and she must be joking because the four of them begin to sip with their pinkies out. I copy, and pretty soon we’ve all drained our daffodil cups and are turning to Danielle for more. 

Instead, she reaches under the cabinet and pulls out a sheet of pink cardstock decorated with letters, words, and rose petals and places it in the center of a table along with a heavy gold key. “So,” she asks, “what should we ask Grandma today?” She pours herself a second drink, and the four of us line up our daffodil cups for more and begin to sip again.

“Oh, where’s your grandma?” I ask in between sips of the mango-honeysuckle fizz.

“There,” Sasha whispers, pointing to a lamp.

“And there.” Meredith points to a door behind me.

“And there.” Danielle points to herself.

“Um. Oh!” I sip the drink again, scanning for traces of alcohol that I can’t find. Why are they acting so weird?

“Danielle’s grandmother died in 2007,” Jade explains like this is common sense.

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

Danielle shrugs. “Don’t be. We still talk.”

With this, all four of them look down at the board.

“Ohh. So it’s like an Oujia board?” I ask. This seems more normal–teenage girls at a sleepover, playing with a Oujia board, trying to talk to a dead grandma. Totally normal stuff.

Jade looks grossed out. “Um, no. It’s a Vision Board.”

“Because we see visions when we play it,” Meredith explains.

“Jade can hear what my grandma whispers. She’s, like, psychic,” says Danielle.

I notice that the four of them have their pinkies on the key, staring at my own bare, chewed-up finger.

“We need five people to play,” Jade says with wide eyes, waiting for me to put two-and-two together.

“Oh! Of course.” I laugh nervously.

A click.

My pinkie bends back and forth, but as I try to lift it, nothing. I am locked in, like a key, to this board as the key begins rapidly shifting between words. I look up and there the four of them are, eyes shut, whispering silent wishes to themselves like fortune cookies.

Jade opens one eye. “Why aren’t you asking her stuff?”

“Oh! Um, right. Sorry.” Grandma Patsy, please let Danielle and her friends like me. Please don’t let me ruin Patsy. And then I add, and please let James break up with Danielle soon. This is weird. This is stupid. Why am I praying to the dead grandma of a girl that barely likes me? 

Jade lets out a breath, letting her daffodil cup fall to the plush cream carpet. “She’s speaking.”

The rest of us get silent and open our eyes. The handle on the door slowly begins to turn, the sound of twisting metal the only noise in the apartment.

“She’s here,” Jade says finally. 

On cue, the lights dim and the rose-shaped candles surrounding the board burn. Sasha’s fitness tracker lets out a beep telling her her heart rate is up.

I gasp. I don’t know whether to scream, cry, throw up, or run away. The fear that fills me is enough to do anything, overflowing from my guts into the air around me.

“W-what’s going on?”

Danielle puts her free hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, Ellie. This is normal. I promise nothing bad will happen. Just keep your pinkie on the key and let grandma answer everything.”

I nod slowly, hoping the others can’t feel my beating heart on the key. 

“Grandma Patsy, is Danielle going to be a superstar like you?” Jade begins

The key slides toward the curly-cued word Yes! and a burst of lavender butterflies flutter around her head. 

“Nice, Dani!” Meredith high-fives her with her free hand. “My turn: will I make cheerleading captain next week?” 

The key hovers, the circles the board twice before sliding to a curly-cued Uncertain. 

“Uh oh…”

“Jade? What now?” Danielle asks.

“We’ve never gotten uncertain before,” Sasha whispers to me, “only yes or no.”

With her free hand, Jade downs another daffodil drink. “Why don’t we ask Grandma Patsy if there’s something we can do about it.” 

Silence.

“Grandma?” Danielle’s feeble voice breaks. “Can you fix it for us?” 

One candle goes out. Sasha screams. I follow.

“It’s okay, guys. It’s probably just the wind,” Danielle says. Her face is a dusty shade of orange, rose candlelight casting an eerie shadow on the bottom of her features. “Grandma?”

The key flies to Yes!

The five of us gasp. How do I get out of this? All I want is to leave, but being alone in the night in a clearly haunted hotel would only make me more terrified.

“Grandma, what can we do? What can you do to give Meredith cheer captain?”

The key makes three circles, then begins spelling. 

“T–”

“A–”

“K–”

“E–”

Another circle.

“T–

“R–”

“A–”

“I–”

“T–”

“O–”

“R.”

Two more circles.

“Take traitor,” all five of us chant. 

“Who? Where’s the traitor?” Meredith asks.

Two more circles and the board begins spelling again.

“H–”

“E–”

“R–”

“E.” 

“Here?” Meredith repeats. “Guys, who is it?”

We all share nervous glances, too scared to let out a noise louder than a heartbeat.

“Grandma, who is it?” Danielle shouts. 

“WHO IS IT?’ Jade hollers. Two more candles go out, leaving only the one under Jade’s face aglow. The five of us scream, and Jade’s voice breaks it. “YOU GUYS!”

Silence.

A sniffle from Sasha.

A clink against Jade’s cup.

The whites of her eyes constrict, the irises getting bigger and smaller before the bloodshot white flashes a green haze. 

Jade’s eyes are changing colors. Jade’s EYES are changing COLORS.

I want to call my aunt.

“Someone wants James,” she says finally.

Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit. It’s me! I want James! It’s me. I’m the traitor. And I bet it is written all across my face. 

“Who?” Danielle exclaims. “Who, Grandma?”

The key begins circling again, so fast that my pinkie can barely keep up with its own crinoline cylinders. I imagine it snapping, a crackling sound breaking the deafening silence as the finger flies into Jade’s daffodil cup and we all become so afraid we finally end the game. 

Instead, the key begins spelling.

“E–”

“L–”

“L–”

“I–”

“E.”

“Ellie,” I whisper, the sound of my own name echoing across the board to Jade’s daffodil cup, across the apartment to Danielle’s grandma, across the city to James, across all of West Hollywood until everyone knows what I did.

“Ellie!” Danielle exclaims.

“I told you,” Jade smirks. 

“Told her what?” I exclaim. Everyone removes their pinkies from the board, but mine is stuck, a pressure so intense it must be magnetism itself. Meredith and Sasha take hold of each of my arms and lift me from my seat on the couch, and I begin to shout. “Told her what? JADE, TELL HER WHAT?” 

The two of them haul me across the apartment as I desperately flail my legs, kicking until the glass coffee table is stained with my footprints. I kick one last time before they pull me into the foyer with the lace curtains, and the table breaks with a victorious CRASH. Glass shatters and spreads across the plush carpet, and the board falls to the floor. All four of us scream, except for Jade, who is staring at me with deadly green eyes and she pries the key from my hand.

“YOU want JAMES!” She explains, punching the wall behind me so hard that it makes her knuckles go bloody and Meredith and Sasha release their grip. 

I lunge to get up but Jade pins me down with her knees, key in her hand as she thrusts it in the air.

“You’re a slut you’re a slut you’re a slut!” She screams triumphantly, picking the key up one last time as she stabs it deep into my abdomen.

“AHHHHH!” The scream that escapes me is beyond the Ouija board, beyond the candles going out, beyond even Meredith and Sasha grabbing me. It is guttural, something beyond my throat and stomach’s capability, spewing out blood from the gash Jade has cut as she goes back for a second slash. 

Blood and bile fly from my stomach as I continue shouting, hopeful that by some miracle one of these girls or a bellhop or even my own bare hands will come to my rescue.

“JADE! Jade, stop. Jade! We remove the traitor. REMOVE her! Jeeze, Jade, don’t kill her!” Danielle rushes to my side, arms tangled around Jade’s torso as she tries to pry her off, my own blood smearing across their silk pajamas and staining the carpet. 

“Jade! Stop it, Jade!” Meredith exclaims, rushing to our corner of the room. She begins waving the bloody key in the air, crimson juice trickling down her arm and onto my face. My vision grows blurred by Jade’s weight on me, the blood on her hands, the glass on the floor, and I let my head fall to the ground. 

Silence. My head droops against the floor, and I groan in pain in hopes that someone will come to their senses. I’m crying. I’m screaming. I’m dying. I’m–

“Jade, you bitch!”

She is finally dragged from my chest as Danielle pins her down, a shard of glass from the broken table in her hand as she slices Jade’s chest. This time Jade cries out, laid on the carpet beside me, our bloods mixing on the floor as I shut my eyes and let the violence of the room take me. The sound is deafening, but it is the sound of being saved. The sound of self-defense. The sound of Patsy herself dragging the girls apart, saying no boy is worth this much, saying to stop it. The sound of Danielle’s bubblegum pop voice finally putting an end to it, hovering above me and shaking me, asking me questions and pulling a phone from her pocket. 

I feel movement around me–legs walking, feet stomping. Then sirens. Then voices. A hand brushing across my forehead. An arm hoisting me up. A bed beneath my back. A car rolling under me. More voices. Eyes shut. Darkness. A hospital bed. Finally, light.