by Mae Clair
“Hey, I’m six years younger than Caden,” Eve protested.
“But you weren’t a teenager when he came sniffing around. Lyle was experienced, in his mid-twenties. He probably knew exactly what to say. Didn’t he, Katie?”
“He did.” Scooting off the sofa, Katie plopped on the floor, crossing her legs beneath her. The alcohol had given her a slight buzz. Glass in one hand, she scooped up popcorn with the other. Sarah grabbed the bowl from the coffee table and nudged it between them.
“You know the only good thing about Lyle?” Katie asked.
Sarah gave an indelicate snort and took a gulp of wine. “You mean there is one?”
Katie swallowed popcorn. “He gave me Sam.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet.” Sarah’s face took on an expression of tenderness. “Your little boy is adorable. I hope I have kids someday.”
“There’s still plenty of time.”
“Sure.” Sarah finished the remainder of her drink. “All I have to do is find a decent guy. And no, that isn’t Darrell Mason,” she added when Eve looked ready to comment.
Eve laughed. “I wasn’t going to mention him.”
“Listen to you,” Sarah countered. “You’ve got Caden Flynn. He and Ryan are the best catches in town.”
Feeling heat rise to her face at the mention of Ryan, Katie dropped her gaze. Her telltale flush didn’t escape Sarah’s notice.
“I forgot.” Sarah’s smile was wicked. “Katie has a thing for Ryan.”
“I do not.” The protest was automatic.
Eve rolled her eyes. “He’s certainly got a thing for you.”
“You’re reading too much into our relationship. Just because we chat, and occasionally get together with you and Caden—as friends,” she was quick to stress. “Doesn’t mean there’s anything between us, or that there ever will be.”
“Let’s find out.” Sarah’s eyes danced with mischief.
Katie slanted a look sideways. “What?”
“Oh, this is perfect. Wait, I have to get more wine.” Clambering to her feet, Sarah looked ready to explode with excitement. “And we need candles. Eve, kill the lights.”
“What are you talking about?” Eve was clearly as puzzled as Katie.
“I stopped at the store today and picked up a Ouija board,” Sarah explained. “I thought it would be a kick. Remember how you, Maggie, and I always used to play whenever we had a sleepover?” Spying a shopping bag she’d carried in earlier, Sarah hustled through the opening between the dining room and living room. A smile bloomed on her face as she hefted a colorful box from the package. “Look. Brand new!”
Katie exchanged a glance with Eve. “A Ouija board? Isn’t that all a big hoax?”
“Well if it is, you shouldn’t mind playing.” Kneeling in front of the coffee table, Sarah moved the cheese tray to the floor, then eagerly placed the box on the bare surface. “This is going to be so much fun. Eve, you have candles, right?”
“Mm-hm.”
Katie thought Eve looked a little apprehensive.
“Do we really need them?” her friend asked.
“We always used candles when we were kids.” Sarah tore off the cellophane wrapping. “And you have to dim the lights. It would be better if you killed them altogether.”
“Okay,” Eve agreed. “But I’m going to need another drink for this.”
“Me too.” Katie stood, stretching her legs. She wondered if Eve remembered the presence they’d encountered in an abandoned weapons igloo at the TNT over the summer. The being had no form or substance, but had left them shivering in a deluge of cold. When it spoke, the entity’s voice had grated in their minds, heard only inside their heads. It offered no information, but answered yes or no questions that eventually led to the discovery of Wendy’s remains. To this day, Katie didn’t know what they’d encountered—ghost, alien, demon—only that the memory could still make gooseflesh spring alive on her arms.
Hopefully, the Ouija board wouldn’t do the same.
Chapter 3
“You should be the one who asks the questions, since it’s your house,” Sarah said to Eve, placing a quarter on the board.
With its sun and moon illustrations and carnival-style lettering, the board reminded Katie of something she’d see in a fortuneteller’s hut. “What’s the quarter for?”
“To keep evil spirits away.” Sarah’s lips tipped up in an impish smile. “In the old days, it would have been an offering of silver. Now it’s just a token, but the idea is the same.”
They’d moved the board to the dining room table, making it easier to hover around the game. Eve sat at the head, with Katie and Sarah to either side. Several candles burned at the opposite end of the table, splattering the board with halos of flickering light. Several more occupied the top of a buffet situated beneath a double window. The rest of the room, like the night outside, was dark.
Katie fidgeted in her seat, keeping her hands in her lap. “I’ve never played.” She eyed the planchette. A heart-shaped piece of plastic with a small, clear window, the object squatted in the center of the board. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answers the thing would divulge. Even as a kid she’d shied away from anything having to do with fortunetelling or palm reading, preferring practical answers over what-if possibilities. It was only within the last few years she’d started looking elsewhere, like the igloo at the TNT, desperate for any lead on her missing sister.
“It’s easy.” In the candlelight, Sarah’s coppery hair carried the wine-red tint of merlot. “Place your fingertips on the planchette. Lightly, like this.” Sarah demonstrated and Katie and Eve followed suit. “Eve will ask one question at a time, and we each concentrate on the answer. But first we have to invite a spirit to join us.” She looked expectantly at Eve.
“I remember now.” Eve inhaled deeply. The look on her face hinted they were no longer kids playing with a toy, but adults venturing into an unknown realm. When she spoke, her voice was whisper-soft. “Is there a spirit here who would like to join us?”
Katie bit the inside of her cheek and stared at the planchette. Part of her wanted to giggle and part feared they were messing with something better left alone. Seconds passed, stretching longer, funneling into a minute. She fidgeted.
“Sometimes it takes a while,” Sarah whispered.
Almost immediately, Katie felt movement beneath her hand. Her eyes widened as the game piece slid across the board, stopping so the word YES was displayed in the small circular window at its point. Sarah grinned, and even Eve smiled. For a moment, Katie wondered if they were toying with her, making the thing move between them, but their reactions seemed genuine.
“Okay, um…” Eve seemed to struggle to come up with the first question. After a few seconds, her grin turned playful. “Does Caden miss me?”
The planchette remained rooted to the spot, displaying the word YES.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “That’s obvious.”
“How about…” Eve sat straighter, speaking to the room at large. “Should Sarah go on a date with Darrell Mason?”
The heart-shaped object slid across the board. NO.
Sarah smiled broadly. “I told you.”
Katie enjoyed the silliness. It was fun asking frivolous questions, and it didn’t take much to concentrate on the answers. She didn’t believe in spirits so much as body and mind dynamics. Her negative opinion of Lyle had probably influenced the energy of the board. The being in the igloo had been real, but this felt like a carnival trick.
At the head of the table one of the candles flickered.
“Who should Sarah date?” Eve asked.
The planchette didn’t move.
“Great.” Sarah frowned. “So I’m destined to become an old maid?”
Katie knew the question was rhetorical, a muttering of complaint, but the plastic playing piece inched to the center of the board where it stopped.
Eve’s eyes grew wide. “I
think you took control of it with that last question.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know, but it doesn’t matter. Ask it something else.”
“This was all your idea, anyway.” Katie tossed in her two cents.
“Okay.” Sarah bit her lip as if bracing for something monumental. “Am I ever going to meet the perfect guy, fall in love, and get married?”
“That’s three questions in one,” Eve whispered.
The planchette didn’t seem to mind. It moved over the word YES.
“Who?” Sarah queried with a grin.
The last time they had prompted it to spell something, the “spirit” hadn’t cooperated, but this time the plastic heart moved to the letter Q. A second later it swept backward in the alphabet to M.
“QM.” Sarah was plainly stumped.
“Must be initials,” Katie said.
“But I don’t know anyone with those initials,” Sarah protested.
“Maybe not now,” Eve chimed in. “But who’s to say what the future will bring?”
Sarah shook her head. “No one names their kid anything that starts with a Q. Whoever, he is, he must be a winner.”
The planchette jerked a little.
“You’re ticking off the spirit,” Eve said, suppressing a giggle.
“Enough about me.” Sarah sat straighter. “Let’s find out about Katie and Ryan.”
Katie shook her head vehemently. “No names.”
“All right. I can do that.” Sarah’s smile bordered on elfin. “Spirit,” she addressed the board. “Will Katie become entangled with a man in Point Pleasant?”
Katie tried to make her mind blank. She was attracted to Ryan, but didn’t want the others to know. He thought of her as a friend, nothing more. Few men would want to become involved with a single mother who had an eight-year-old. And yet the more she thought of Ryan, the more she influenced the “spirit.”
The planchette slid across the board to YES.
Sarah beamed a triumphant smile. “What is his name?”
Warmth flooded Katie’s cheeks as the plastic heart moved to the alphabet. She braced herself, waiting to see an R in the clear plastic window. But the heart-shaped diviner skimmed away to the opposite end of the board.
“C.” Sarah read the letter aloud, clearly befuddled by the results. Other letters followed before the planchette was still. O-L-D. Sarah looked directly at Katie. “C-O-L-D. Cold? What does that mean?”
A draft of air scuttled through the room, sending the candle flames flickering.
Katie shivered. “I don’t know.” The frivolity she’d felt moments before was replaced by a sensation of dread. “I suddenly have a bad feeling.”
Sarah wet her lips. “Spirit, who is Deputy Brown?”
Katie flinched, unprepared for the question. A bubble of anxiety mushroomed in her stomach. “We shouldn’t ask—” Before she could finish, the planchette slid to the bottom of the board, stopping abruptly on GOODBYE. Katie jerked her hands back as if stung. “What happened?”
Sarah gave a little laugh, but her face had paled. “It ended the session on its own.”
“Is this where we whistle the theme song for the Twilight Zone?” Eve asked, obviously trying to lighten the tone.
Katie scuffed her hands against her arms. “It’s cold in here, isn’t it? That’s what Jerome kept mumbling the night I found him…about being cold.”
“Well, it is October.” Eve walked quickly to the wall switch and flipped on the light.
Katie glanced at Sarah. The other woman nibbled on her thumbnail, her gaze glued to the Ouija board. “Did you ever have that happen before?” Katie asked. “The thing signing off like that?”
“Maybe. I can’t remember.” Sarah offered a smile, but it seemed false. “I haven’t played since we were kids.” She moved to the end of the table and blew out the candles. “It’s just a bunch of creepy fun, Katie.”
“What does it mean when the planchette goes to good-bye?” Katie persisted.
“That’s how you end the session with a spirit.” Sarah waved a hand over the smoke spiraling up from the candle wicks, dispersing the streams into the air.
“If you believe that stuff,” Eve added quickly. “Like Sarah said, it’s just a bunch of silly, creepy fun.”
“If you want to know more about it, ask your mom.” Sarah removed the game piece from the board and looked around for the box.
“Sarah.” Eve sounded annoyed.
“My mom?” Katie looked between the two, perplexed. “What would she know about a Ouija board?”
“Um…” As if realizing she’d blundered, Sarah bit her lip. “It’s just what I heard when I was a kid. I remember my mom talking about Doreen Sue and how she was into all that stuff about spirits and UFOs.”
Katie stiffened. She’d purposefully shut her mind off to the time her mother tried everything and anything—including talking to mediums and using Ouija boards—to learn Wendy’s whereabouts.
“That was a long time ago,” Eve said.
“You’re right.” Sarah folded up the board and placed it into the box. Before she could say another word, the phone rang. All three women jumped in response.
Eve laughed nervously. “See what talking to spirits does?”
As she stepped into the kitchen to grab the phone, Katie blew out the remaining candles.
Their nerves probably had a lot to do with the setting—candlelit darkness and a séance-like atmosphere. It had to be coincidence that the very word Jerome kept mumbling when she’d found him was also the word the board had spelled tonight. As Eve pointed out, it was October. Naturally, it was cold.
“Katie.” Eve returned from the kitchen, her face white and taut. “Your mom’s on the phone for you. She’s at the hospital with Sam.”
“Hospital?” Alarm sent Katie racing for the kitchen. Clasping the phone to her ear, she spoke in a breathless rush. “Mom, what happened? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t panic. It’s nothing serious.” Her mother attempted to sound calm, but a jittery edge made her voice wobble. “We’re in the ER. Sam’s eyes are swollen shut.”
“Oh dear God.”
“He’s going to be all right, honey. I’m sure of it. But you need to come as soon as you can.”
Katie closed her eyes. Cold did not begin to describe the icy fear clutching her heart.
* * * *
Katie cupped her forehead in her hand. The stiff vinyl chair in the ER was anything but comfortable. The nurses had allowed her to see Sam briefly before ushering her to the waiting room, saying they needed space to work.
“Nothing to be alarmed about.” The doctor, a young man who barely looked past college age, had done his best to assure her Sam would be fine. “A bad case of conjunctivitis. We’ve actually had several turn up lately. Your mother did the right thing in bringing your son here.”
Pinkeye. Sam was in the hospital with an acute case of pinkeye.
“You should have called me sooner.” Katie didn’t bother to hide her displeasure when she raised her head to speak to her mother. Eve and Sarah had wanted to come to the hospital with her, but she’d overridden their pleas, promising to call when she had news. Something she’d done a few minutes ago. There was no sense in three semi-drunk women camping out in the ER.
Her mother paced a few feet away, jelly flats squeaking softly against the floor.
The waiting room was fairly busy. An older man with thinning hair sat in the far corner, flipping through a battered copy of Newsweek. At his side, a teenage boy concentrated on a handheld video game. Katie had seen them arrive, carrying in a young girl who’d sprained her ankle while doing cartwheels in the backyard. The girl’s mother had followed her from the ER when called, leaving the man and teen to play the waiting game. A man with a bandaged hand, a middle-aged couple who’d brought in an elderly grandparent, and an obese woman complaining of back pain occupied the other chairs.
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“I called as soon as we got here.” Katie’s mom folded her arms across her chest in a posture that said she was ready for battle.
No wonder. They were often at odds, their relationship a bumpy rollercoaster of highs and lows. It had been that way since Katie was a child. It was bad enough her mother had spent most of Katie’s youth smoking, drinking, and carousing with men who treated her like garbage, but worse knowing she’d favored Wendy. As much as Katie loved her sister, she’d never measured up to Wendy’s potential. There was something about a missing child that erased all faults and elevated that sibling to make-believe perfection.
“Sam was in his room drawing, and I was watching TV,” her mom persisted. “It was only when he came out to tell me his eyes hurt that I saw how swollen they were. On a Friday night with no doctors available, I brought him straight here.”
Her mother had done the right thing. She was the one who’d screwed up going to Eve’s house when she’d seen how pink Sam’s eyes were. She never should have left. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m just worried about him.”
“Oh, honey, of course you are. But he’s going to be fine.” Doreen Sue sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Kids get pinkeye all the time. It’s nothing serious.”
“The doctor said they had a bunch of cases.”
“Then it must be going around. A little medication, some drops, and he’ll be as good as new.” Hugging Katie closer, she kissed her temple. “You saw Sam in the exam room. He was far from scared, asking the nurses all kinds of questions.”
She nodded, sniffling a little. “I wish they’d let me stay with him.”
“They’re doing an eye bath. You would’ve been in the way. And Sam’s at that age when he’s got to prove how brave he is to everyone around him.”
Her stomach fluttered. He was growing up too fast. “How do you know all that?”
“I may have raised girls, but I dated plenty of men who had boys.”