Liam clutched the sides of the countertop and rocked, very on edge for what Caleb had planned. He stared at the book wide-eyed as though it would eat him, as Caleb drew out a stick of chalk and waved it out like a magic wand. Apparently, he didn’t want a single speck of it loose on the tip should it smear the circle even just a tiny bit. If Liam didn’t know better, being the dead himself, he would think along with the rest of the world that he was watching a madman.

He swallowed. “Um, Caleb?” his voice shook.

“Yeah, get in middle,” Caleb waved in response.

He didn’t even sense that Liam was distressed. All he cared about was proving himself to Paul and maybe, the world. It made Liam feel like an object, alienated as he floated from the counter to sit cross-legged in his tiny prison of candles. In that moment, he wanted to cry, but he held it back and mustered up a grin when Caleb set the box down and he turned around with the chalk.

“Here you go.”

“You want me to curse it for you this time?” Liam said.

Caleb let out a gruff sound in reply. It fell and clattered to the floor, glowing with a soft yellow light that was barely perceptible in the morning glow of their kitchen.

“You know, there’s still something I don’t understand. Sometimes you can touch things and you can walk around just fine like that. But other times, you can’t. What’s stopping you from sinking through the floor right now?”

Definitely you aren’t.

Liam let out a loud laugh, then coughed into his hand. He had begun to suspect that they had some kind of telepathy, like ESP, except they were not twins. They were soul mates, pun intended. Even in times like this Liam knew that. He just wished that Caleb would relax. Liam hated to see him pushing himself so hard for something that wasn’t even all that important. In fact no; it didn’t matter at all whether they found his killer, or proved themselves to Paul that this was real.

It didn't even matter that Caleb needed validation for that (or thought that he did).

“Okay, just sit right there Liam. Paul will be over in a few minutes,” Caleb said.

Liam couldn’t help but to laugh. “Where else am I supposed to go? How are you going to prove any of this to Paul?”

Caleb turned with a grin, looking suddenly lighter. “We’ll figure that out when he gets here.”

Liam tilted his head. “Caleb, what exactly do you have planned?”

Surely he wasn’t actually planning on showing Liam to Paul, right? Caleb wasn’t that desperate, right?

Liam swallowed.

~

“I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

Paul stood in front of the double doors and slowly crossed into the kitchen. He had the look of a man who was being walked into a slaughterhouse. Paul looked at the pot of boiling rosehips as if he would find his answer in the rising steam, but this was not that kind of psychic meeting. Caleb was not here to read tea leaves, or predict the future through bones cracked over a fire, or show him his tarot card collection (as if he had one) .

No, Caleb was not that kind of person; but he knew a thing or two about bringing back the dead, and he was about to share it with the one (living) person that he just knew he could trust. Paul just had to believe him! Caleb shot Paul an eccentric smile, even though he himself was shaking a little bit. He hoped that Paul didn’t catch him swallowing a lump in his throat when he caught Liam flipping in circles in the corner of his eye.

“You said you wanted to help me, right? Stand back and watch what we can do,” Caleb said.

Liam stopped mid-spin as Caleb approached him.

We?

Liam looked down at the unlit candles, as if the realization had just struck him that Caleb fully intended to resurrect him right in front of Paul. It was the only way to prove beyond a doubt that what they had was real.

No shit, Liam. What did you think we were doing with all of these candles, throwing a birthday party?

“We have to show him,” Caleb told him softly. He felt a tinge of regret right then that he hadn’t talked more to Liam about his plan. Caleb cursed himself under his breath; he needed Liam to be on board with this if it were to work out. “Just follow my lead.”

“Dude, Caleb. What is going on in here? Is this what you have been doing?” Paul questioned.

Caleb turned to him with the most confident look that he could muster. He didn’t know in retrospect if it helped or hurt in his case, but he thought that if he felt sure enough in himself then it would increase his chances of them pulling this off. Caleb also had not planned much further ahead of what he would say to Paul that would work as an appropriate introduction. Would it even be possible to come up with one?

Not only was this something that was never brought up in casual conversation, no sane person would speak of this seriously at all.

“Yeah,” Caleb answered honestly. Might as well come right out with it.

“What’s up with the chalk?” Paul asked. To Caleb’s surprise, Paul seemed more curious than anything. He stared right where Liam sat, stiff as a statue. If anyone looked unsettled the most out of this scenario, it was Liam, frozen with a clenched look on his face. As Paul walked up to the ring of candles Liam pulled tighter, biting down on his lip as if Paul could hear if he made a sound.

Caleb furrowed his brows. Did he have time to give an excuse to Paul so that he could shove him out of the room and explain to Liam why they needed to do this, and that everything would be okay? No, no. He needed to do this now. The longer they waited, the more questions Paul would have, and the more he would fill in his mind with what he thought was going on, Caleb reasoned.

Caleb plucked a single tea light off of the floor and the new lighter that he hadn’t used, flicking it twice to get it to light. “Alright, let’s do this.” He looked Liam right in the eyes as he said this, doing his best to give him reassurance somehow. They had a connection that ran deep, this much he was aware of. 

Meanwhile, Paul let out a sudden, loud noise.“Caleb! What is a rat doing in this shoe box?” he yelled.

Caleb nearly dropped the first candle, then his heart settled. He set it down carefully and picked up the next, working quickly to just get this over with. This was going on for longer than he had planned already. “I will explain that to you but first, wait until after.”

“After what? What the hell are you doing?” Paul demanded. He paced around before walking over to the pot and peered inside through the steam at the rosehips.

“Perfect, hand me the natron salt,” Caleb said. He was in a sort of hypnotized state as he focused everything that he had into performing this ritual. Liam wasn’t having any of it. He gave Caleb a steely cold look of both anger and fear, giving Paul worried glances all the while. It seemed that the walls were pushing around Caleb as he worked, but he blocked out all of Paul’s questions and Liam’s irrational resistance to being seen all to bring his love back.

That’s what he would tell Paul when he asked why he was doing this, after Liam was back in the flesh. Paul did not hand him the salt. He took the bottle in his hand, turning it to the front and reading the label.

“This is a spice blend, Caleb.”

Liam laughed behind his hand, then coughed as Caleb looked back at him.

Caleb shrugged. They would only need that later. For now all he needed was to read the incantation. He picked up the book and began to read the spell, but as he was on the third repeated verse, the sprinklers went off and doused the candles.

“Ah, fuck!” Paul shielded himself with his arms, then squinted up at the system.

Caleb stared up open-mouthed as it stopped as soon as it started. He looked down at Liam, who was much more relaxed than moments before. He held up his hands innocently. Caleb peered into his eyes for a long moment. Was it even possible for him to do such a thing? Liam’s eyes shifted around.

It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me…it was me.

Caleb scowled. Then he began to panic.

This was our only chance.

Liam looked down sadly.

Paul sputtered. “What the-”

“I can explain, Paul! It’s all in the spellbook,” Caleb said tightly.

He locked back onto Liam, disappointment and hurt heavy in his chest. He made a fool out of him! Liam pouted, looking suddenly very defeated and tired. Whatever he had done had sapped his power as he sunk through the floor. Caleb turned to Paul, who stared at him in shock and disbelief. 

“Spellbook?” he gwaffed. His voice trembled as if he were afraid. “Caleb, what…I…”

“Look, it’s right here! It’s a resurrection spell that I have used to bring Liam back.”

“Dude, Caleb.”

“No, just look at it.” Caleb pointed at the Fòdil, though he wasn’t confident that it would solidify all of this being real.

Paul’s face and neck had gone red. He wiped his palms on his already wet pants as his eyes flicked up and down the page. Caleb was somehow reminded of a pissed off cat that had just gotten out of the tub, his back up against the wall. Caleb in his hazed state almost could have laughed. Paul breathed heavily as he looked up at him, barely making any eye contact. He reminded Caleb a little bit of Liam in that moment, especially whenever he had enough of him. “Caleb, that is a blank page.”

“What?” Caleb looked at it again. Surely he hadn’t been on the wrong one. He had held the page under his thumb and sure enough, it was the one. “No man look, the spell is right there.” Caleb pointed again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, this is some kind of twisted joke,” Paul said. “Is this a dream?”

“No Paul, you’re awake right now. The sprinklers going off just now?” Caleb pointed to the ceiling. He had no other option but to lay his cards all on the table. “That was Liam making the system malfunction. He’s trying not to come back, and when I tried to summon him he made the candles go out and it ruined the ritual.”

His friend looked at him with roughly the same expression that Liam had made, frozen in space and time.

“But I’ll do it again, and when he comes home, we need to figure out who the people in the black cars were that were chasing me. Didn’t I tell you about them?” Caleb’s own voice seemed to disappear into a tunnel as Paul became more distant, the walls pushed out now rather than crowding in. “I came over last night to get away from them. Someone is after both of us, Paul. We need your help to figure out what happened.”

Caleb strained to speak now, as if it were a chore to push his voice from his lungs.

Paul didn’t call him crazy. He didn’t look at him with a stony, serious expression to say that Caleb needed to get help. Paul screamed. He flailed for the doors as he ran out of the room. The bell dinged harshly seconds later, their only hope of help gone.