Sorry. It was true. Sadie was indeed best friends with the evil queen of Beachwood Academy. Sadie had done things under the influence of Ingrid that haunted her thoughts and soured every dream into guilt laced nightmares. She had been an accomplice to so many acts of senseless cruelty and vicious bullying. Even when Sadie knew in her heart she was being untrue to her soul, she played accomplice to Ingrid anyway.

Sadie had tailed Ingrid wherever she went from the time they met in the 6th grade when Ingrid had asked Sadie to spread the lie that Mika Collins had lice. From then on Sadie never questioned, at least not out loud, Ingrid's nasty marching orders. Sadie could be counted on to obey. She forced herself to laugh at the venom Ingrid had spewed at others and therefore knew that she was no better than her. She was worse actually, because at least Ingrid's horribleness came honestly. Whether Ingrid was evil because her mother dropped her as a baby damaging the empathy part of the brain or she had slept with Satan, it didn't matter. Sadie knew better. For Sadie it was a struggle to be an accomplice to awful, but she witnessed, abetted, and participated in all of Ingrid's cruelty anyway because... she was never really sure why actually. She had never even liked Ingrid, in fact she had always despised her, but she also had a desperate desire to be close to her all the same. Maybe it was out fear that if she stood up for herself Ingrid would turn her sights on her. Maybe it was because Sadie liked the power that reflected off Ingrid onto herself.

After Ingrid had vanished, Sadie had a reckoning with herself and concluded that she was in fact a truly terrible person not deserving of anything. In the months after Ingrid disappeared she tried to apologize to those she had hurt over the years. This only resulted in stirring up painful memories and without the menacing threat of Ingrid, everyone's trauma bubbled up and their rage found a home in Sadie. There were a few that forgave her and a few others that had never been hurt by her, but for the most part she became anathema at Beachwood. No one would talk to her and she knew she deserved it, but she hadn't expected her three best friends to turn on her too. That she hadn't expected and that is why in the last year of high school Sadie paid for her past with total social isolation.

I had mentioned earlier that when Bianca Temple killed herself that Ingrid's spell over Beachwood was broken. That spell had broken for Sadie much earlier. I'd love to tell you that eventually Sadie had enough of Ingrid's toxic vapours that she finally stood up to the tyrant, but she never did. In fact it was Ingrid who turned on Sadie.

Sadie recalled the cataclysmic end of their relationship. Sophomore year at Beachwood was wrapping up and they had, like always, spent all their time together. Sadie played third wheel to Ingrid and Jordan's relationship and she didn't mind. They were the two people she needed. Back then Sadie was an entirely different Sadie Swyft than the one she is today. Younger, sure, but she even looked different. She stood up straight and wore flashy revealing tank tops and short shorts that revealed the bottom of her butt cheeks. Which just so happened to be the exact way Ingrid dressed.

Sadie hadn't known exactly when Ingrid had decided to stab her in the back and leave her for dead, but she remembered that afternoon in Ingrid's bedroom when she asked Sadie to call Marnie.

Ingrid was trying on sexy bras she had stolen from Autry. Sadie watched Ingrid admire herself in the mirror with total admiration and desire. Ingrid was a total eclipse. Impossible to look away and damaging the longer you looked. The uncanny beauty of radiant darkness.

"How do you always look so hot?" Fifteen year old Sadie asked from Ingrid's bed.

"I drink baby's blood." Ingrid said without a hint of humour. She adjusted another black lace bra and arched her back like a cobra ready to strike.

Sadie giggled, "You're sick."

Ingrid vipered towards her and clawed her hands over Sadie's knees, digging her nails in seductively, "You know what's sick?" Her gash red lips moistening, "I found out Marnie's dad is cheating on her mom." Ingrid pushed off Sadie, leaving little crescent moons of blood where her nails had dug in.

Sadie rubbed the wounds, pretending they didn't hurt, "How do you know?"

Ingrid pulled off her bra and searched for another, "I go through Harold's emails when I sleepover at Marns. You know what would be hilarious?"

Uh oh.

The six words Sadie most dreaded hearing from Ingrid because she knew it would only lead to her doing something the little voice of her conscience would never forgive.

"Call Marnie and tell her!" Ingrid said, shaping her mouth into a surprised 'o' as if she had just come up with the most clever thing ever thought of.

Sadie had been well practiced at not letting Ingrid see when she was uncomfortable with something asked of her, but now her mind scrambled to find anyway to change the subject, but she came up with nothing.

Ingrid pulled out her phone and started recording Sadie, "Okay, were on. This is going to be soooo funny."

"You do it." Sadie said.

Ingrid stopped recording and her corpse blue eyes locked on Sadie, "Don't be a pussy. Just call her and say 'Hey Marnie, your dad was munching another woman's box. His email password in Marn1234! See for yourself,'" Ingrid's smirk returned and she started recording again, "Just say that."

Sadie had always liked Marnie. She had nothing against her and this 'prank' seemed unnecessarily cruel, "Isn't this a little fucked up?"

"Call her." Ingrid whispered.

Sadie didn't move, finding this a bridge too far to cross. Ingrid, with a wicked ferocity stopped recording again and loomed over Sadie, bare breasted and barbaric, "Do it, Sadie. Do it or I'll rat out your dad."

"What does that mean?" Sadie asked, unable to conceal her fear and confusion.

"Are you playing dumb or are you stupid? Your dad's a crook."

Sadie was about to defend her father, when she realized in that very moment that what Ingrid had just said must be true, although she had never realized it, or wanted to realize it, until now.

She had heard weird snippets from heated business phone calls in the past. Or sometimes someone would come to their door demanding their money back. But Sadie had never really thought about what her father did for a living other than the fact the his pay checks must be big because she wanted for nothing in her big beautiful mansion by the beach.

Ingrid said, "You think Marn's dad is the only password I know? How about this Sade? I leave an anonymous tip to the I.R.S about your dad or you can call Marnie and tell her about her dad and his dirty dick. You choose."

*

Sadie drank back her s'more-tini in one gulp and pressed her fingers into her tear ducts to prevent leakage. She hung her head, marinating in her own self-hatred.

"And you did call Marnie in the end," Christophe said sympathetically, "And Marnie moved to Connecticut with her mom. And an anonymous call to the I.R.S took down your dad the next week anyway. She destroyed your entire life and made sure no one ever forgot your dad stole money from old people."

"Jesus Christophe, is this really necessary?" Jordan said.

"Yes. Strong psychic emotional connections. It's key to summoning Ingrid."

Jordan put a consoling hand on Sadie's back. Sadie appreciated the gesture. His warm palm comforted her. It gave her courage not to run off in shameful tears.

"Well, what about you, Christophe? What's your connection with Ingrid?" Jordan asked.

"Me? What Ingrid did to me was the worst of all."

It was now Christophe who hung his head in indignity. While the other traumas Ingrid inflicted on the present company were all very public, no one at this counter had any idea what she ever could have done to Christophe.

"This is hard to talk about," he dry swallowed, "About a month before she disappeared I had pitched Ingrid that we should combine our social media presences and start an empire. We'd be closing in on 20 million followers if we joined. Together we could have taken over the world, but..." Christophe bit his trembling lip and looked up to the ceiling to quell this painful memory, "...but she didn't recognize my vision. She robbed me of an easier route to total world domination."

"That's it?! Are you fucking kidding me?!" Gigi choked.

"Look at us," Christophe said, moving right past the other's indignation at his less than dramatic story. "Really, look at ourselves," And they did take a good look at each other, all simmering in their own shame puddles, "She's been gone for a year and she still makes us feel like poo. I don't want to be haunted by her anymore. I know you don't either. I've learned that ol Ingy's spirit is stuck between worlds. Between the world of death and the world of life. And tonight we can bring her fully forward into our world so we can send her fully down."

"Down where?" Autry asked.

"Down," Christophe said ominously, "And then gone from our minds and hearts forever."

A sound check from the freshly erected stage in the other room broke the cemetery quiet.

"I don't want to mess around with this stuff." Autry said, frightened.

"Yeah, I don't want to mess around with nonsense either." Gigi concurred.

"But we can agree Christophe is a piece of shit, right?" Moss offered.

Christophe took a step back, flabbergasted that his great idea was met with such resistance.

Jordan pushed his U.FO glass across the counter towards Christophe, rejecting his offer, "Sorry Chris, even for you this is a waste of -"

"I say we do it."

They all turned to Sadie, surprised that of all people she was ready to participate in Christophe's little game. Her eyes were swollen and red, but they still held a determined steel, "We're doing it."