“I MISS last year’s Halloween party thrown by Alishba,” Seemal said with despair. “It was so much fun. But on this Halloween we are stuck here in our house with nothing to do.”

“Yes, it was such a nice open-air, costume party with bonfire. Alishba had also put in quite a few jack-o’-lanterns. And there were so many fun games,” Mehar, Seemal’s sister, explained everything in detail to her cousins Aaira and Ushna, who were spending the Halloween night at her home.

Ushna said with a smile, “But I am sure we can do something tonight to have some fun after all.”

“I have got an idea,” Seemal said with excitement. “I was reading an article about Halloween. It said that in some cultures it is believed that October 31 is the night when spirits of the dead return to our world from the spirit world. So why don’t we try contacting a spirit?”

“How do you call a spirit? This is all rubbish that people talk about. You can’t call spirits or anything of that sort!” said Aaira, the most serious and sensible of the lot.

“Come on, at least we can try,” Mehar urged. “I suggest using a round table for doing it. We would sit around it in a circle, while holding hands, and call any good soul with our eyes closed. If the table starts to move, it would mean that we have succeeded in establishing a contact with the spirit.”

“Yes! Let us do it! This sounds fun!” Ushna was smiling and clapping in excitement while her elder sister seemed unhappy with the idea.

“Look Aaira, you can choose not to be part of it. Nobody is forcing you,” Seemal was being observant of her cousin.

“Nah! I do not want to be the one spoiling the fun of you guys. So I am in.”

“Fine then, let’s get started.”

The girls put the table in the middle of the room. They turned off all the lights and lit candles so that the room was very dimly lit. Then they sat on the floor around the table in a circle and held each other’s hands.

“Remember that I will call the spirit and ask her the questions,” Mehar gave the instructions. “If the table moves clockwise, then the answer to any of our questions is ‘Yes’; and if it moves anti-clockwise, then the answer is ‘No’. But before I do that, let us establish some ground rules. Once we get started, there is no turning back. So under no circumstances, you should let go of each other’s hands. And whatever happens, you should feel no fear. Otherwise, this whole experiment can go horribly wrong in one way or the other as the rules of the process will be violated. The spirit might well get angry; or if it is a bad spirit it will try to take control of us or harm us.”

The girls nodded. Mehar observed all the girls and told them to close their eyes. She then started to chant something the others could not understand. She did this six times and then asked, “Are you here, good spirit?”

The round table started to rotate clockwise. Ushna shrieked a little. Mehar gave her a fiery glance.

“Would all of us pass our exams with good grades?” The table rotated anti-clockwise.

“Is Aaira really my best friend like she claims?” Mehar winked at girls. The table continued its trend of moving anti-clockwise.

Suddenly, Seemal seemed uneasy and asked, “Are you a good spirit?” The table movement indicated ‘No’ and the girls shook in fear. Ushna’s condition was the worst.

Mehar asked politely, “Would you please leave now?”

The table moved to indicate ‘No’ as the spirit’s answer.

“Would you ever leave us and this room?” Ushna asked in the most fearful of tones. This time the table started to spinning anti-clockwise continuously and picked up momentum until it was moving very fast. This was all Ushna could take as she started screaming and let go of the hands of both her sister and cousin to leave the room. As soon as she let go of the hands, a draught of cold air filled the room. The candles’ flames started to flicker and the table started to rise in the air and then it fell to a side as though some invisible force had thrown it away.

The candles’ flames also died and the room became totally dark. Ushna tried to run out of the door but just as she was about to, some force pulled her back and slammed the door shut. Ushna almost fainted!

Suddenly the electric lights of the room turned on. The table was also stationery. Aaira and Seemal got hold of Ushna as Mehar gave her a glass of water.

“Please take me out of here!” Mehar apologised. Her head was bowed in shame.

“Calm down! Actually, this was just a prank by Seemal and me,” Mehar confessed as Ushna came back to her senses.

“What?” Aaira and Ushna cried in unison.

“But the spirit seemed so real,” Aaira demanded an explanation.

“This is actually a coffee table that rotates by a remote-controlled device,” Seemal explained. “When Mehar and I were pretending to communicate with the spirit, we actually let go of each other’s hands beneath the table and used the remote controlled device to rotate the table at our will. We also used the remote-controlled devices of the air-conditioner and fan to create the air draught that extinguished the candles’ flames. We used our feet and legs to lift and throw the table on the side.”

“It was such a horrible prank!” Ushna had still not come out of the shock.

“Like Mehar said, we are really sorry,” Seemal was also being apologetic. “Please forgive us. We promise never to do it again.”

But Ushna was too shaken to say anything as the experience had really scared her. The others realised that a prank should be fun for those who play it and those it is meant to target, but to do something that can really harm or scare someone is not right. The girls hugged each other and made up, and promised that they would never talk or even joke about ghosts and spirits again.