One Hundred Candles

The cemetery was a walled garden of stone, interrupted only by a few trees. It was a moonless night, and windless, so that the stars seemed to be holding their breath. The participants came through the old wooden gate by ones and twos along the loose gravel path, navigating toward the circle of candlelight in front of the shrine.

Candles rested in stone lamps, on flat stones. There were dozens of them, and the tiny flames flickered, motes of warmth and light.

Asenath sat on the step, a candle in her hand, a pale woman in a white dress that could have been a shroud. The others took their place in a circle. Anya, her arms covered with tattoos from shoulders to fingertips, in her dark robe. Jason, his dark dreads tied back, a stipple of scars on his cheeks. Roberta, in an Edwardian mass of skirts and corset, her red curls held back by a black ribbon. Leroy and Latoya, the twins, in their matching black suits, the strange pale patches of vitiligo on their faces the easiest way to tell them apart. Miu, in a hemp kimono of no particular color that seemed to blend with the grasses that poked up between the graves, a black mask covering her mouth.

Seven brave souls.

"I call this meeting of the Fright Society to order," Asenath said. "Tonight, we are going to play a game. A very old game. The one hundred candles."

"In Japan," Miu said, "we gather with only the candlelight. Each of us tells a tale. With each story told, a candle is put out. As the darkness grows, so do the stories grow darker. So do we huddle around the remaining sources of light and warmth. One hundred candles, one hundred stories...but it is not just a game. It is a ritual. A summoning. When a hundred tales are told, and the final candle extinguished, a spirit appears."

"What kind of spirit?" Roberta asked, her voice deep and strange.

"That depends on the stories being told," Asenath said with a grin. "Which is why we're not just telling horror stories—we're telling erotic horror stories. And if they're scary enough, and if they're sexy enough, maybe when we finish—well, we'll see what we call. Unless you're scared?"

There were grins at that. Seven smiles that reflected the candlelight.

"So," Asenath said. "Who wants to go first?"