I slam the door closed and turn to look at my friends, Constance and Sarah. “Maybe jokingly summoning Bloody Mary wasn’t the best idea,” I mutter.

“Is she in there?” Sarah tries to open the door, but I push her away. “Maybe she’s friendly.”

“With a name like Bloody Mary?” Constance squeaks.

“Okay, screw it,” Sarah says, “I’m going in.” She opens the door and steps into my bedroom. On the paisley bed spread a teen girl with cherry red hair and ripped skinny jeans sits cross-legged staring at the phone in her hand. She looks up.

“Oh, hey guys!” Bloody Mary says cheerfully. “I was just wondering where the kitchen was.”

“She wants to eat us,” Constance whispers in my ear.

Sarah steps forward. “What are you?” she asks. “And why the heck are you a teenager? I was kind of expecting… someone scarier.”

Mary tosses her hair over her shoulder and smiles. “Why would I be scary?” She gets up and we jump back as she walks past us into the hall. We follow her down into the kitchen where she opens the pantry and pulls out a box of crackers, immediately opening them and tossing a handful into her mouth. She chews loudly, watching us.

I clear my throat. “You can’t stay here.”

Mary shrugs. “That’s your problem.”

“Hey, Constance,” Sarah says. “Why don’t you go fetch Rose and we’ll stay here with Mary?”

Constance nods gratefully and sprints out the front door. After ten minutes of watching Mary ransack our kitchen for snacks, Constance comes back with Rose, our friend and a paranormal expert trailing behind her. 

“Bloody Mary?!” Rose exclaims as she runs into the kitchen, “Omg. I’ve been waiting for this day for my entire–“

“Cut to the chase, Rose,” I snap, my patience fraying. “Can you get rid of her?”

Rose nods and ushers us to the upstairs bathroom with Mary trailing behind us aimlessly eating an ice cream bar. Rose turns the tub on and sets her bag down, pulling out a variety of shimmering crystals and salts which she then dumps into the water. Steam fills the air, and she stirs the mixture with the handle of a toilet plunger. “I’ve been preparing for something like this!” Rose rambles, “Exorcisms aren’t too complicated if you know what you’re doing. Get her in the tub, and she should evaporate.”

Mary shrugs and jumps into the bathtub fully clothed, one hand clasped around her ice cream bar and melted ice cream running down her fingers. Nothing happens.

“It didn’t work,” I sigh, “not in the slightest.”

“Hey, look.” Constance points toward the bathroom mirror, the very same mirror we summoned Mary from the night before. The steam from the room has revealed a message on it.

“Inverse the curse; she will disperse,” Sarah reads aloud.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“Well,” Constance mutters, “we used a curse to summon her.”

“So we just reverse it,” I say slowly, catching on. I turn to the mirror and take a deep breath. “Mary Bloody. Mary Bloody. Mary Bloody.” I look over at where Mary still sits in the tub.

“Thanks for the wifi, at least,” she says, licking some chocolate from her fingers, “Hard to get any connection in the spirit realm.” 

Then she fades into the steam, leaving a half-finished ice cream bar floating in the water.