The Harrowing

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  “Oh fucking Christ,” Lisa muttered, with an agitation that was not feigned. She walked sharply, straight at the tall windows, staring out—and suddenly lunged. Robin flinched back, startled, as Lisa pounded her hands flat on the glass, shouting, “If this doesn’t stop, I’ll go out of my mind!”

  From the couch behind her, Robin heard the slim young man say under his breath, “Go?”

  But she felt a stab of sympathy for the girl, herself.

  Another crack of thunder made them all jump, then the room was plunged into blackness as the lights and television went dead.

  Lisa screamed shrilly. There was a heart-stopping beat—and then everyone broke up laughing. Even the young man on the couch and Martin were chuckling.

  Robin looked around at the faces, shadowed by firelight. There was a new, warm intimacy in the room, a palpable relaxing of guard. The tight knot that had been in Robin’s chest for as long as she could remember miraculously loosened.

  The laughter died down, and the five of them looked around at one another. The young man on the couch spoke. “See if the generator kicks in.”

  Firelight played on their faces as they waited. The room remained dark, the TV silent. Patrick groaned suddenly. “Oh man—Alabama third and goal…”

  “Out of luck, dude,” the slim young man informed him.

  Lisa turned, smiled wickedly. “Here we all are, ladies and gentlemen. What shall we do in the dark?”

  Patrick reached into a back pocket and pulled out a Baggie stuffed with pot. “Endure.” He removed a packet of Zig-Zag papers from the Baggie and got to work rolling.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The fire blazed in the old stone fireplace.

  Lisa, Patrick, and Robin lounged on the floor in front of the hearth, backs propped against the couch and armchair. They passed Robin’s bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a fat joint, all now quite comfortably stoned.

  Robin sat in a dreamy haze, melted against the back of an armchair. Flames from the fire burned warm on her face; her body was loose and pleasantly numb. It seemed almost impossible to believe that barely an hour ago she had been in the blackest despair—a step, a swallow away from darkness and oblivion.

  She looked around at her companions and felt a powerful affection for all of them. Lisa, with her amazing hair, oceans of curls, the archness now gone from her face. Patrick, sprawled on the floor beside a line of empty beer bottles, his muscular body as relaxed as a big cat’s. Robin felt warm all over from the heat that seemed to roll off him in waves.

  Her eyes drifted to the faux-leather couch. The slim young man, who had the interesting and vaguely titillating name of Cain, had not moved since the beginning of the evening, except to reach for the joint.

  Aesthetic, she thought. Such a fine face, regal, almost. And sensual, too, the way he was playing with the nap of the carpet with those hands, those hands…

  He looked up and met her eyes for a moment. She looked quickly away.

  In the back of the room, Martin continued to study, resolutely alone. Somewhere along the line, he’d left the room to find candles, and they flickered now on the table in front of him, washing his face in soft light. Robin was reminded again of a monk in his solitary cell. If he’d just loosen up…just come over and sit down with us….

  And then there was…

  She turned her head to look, then sat up slightly, frowning around the room. No, of course there were only five of them. Why had she thought there was a sixth?

  Across from her, Patrick casually leaned over and picked up Lisa’s wrist, held it provocatively as he examined the knotted red yarn. His husky voice sounded far away, barely awake.

  “What’s the string for, Marlowe? One knot for every guy you fucked last night?”

  Lisa snatched her hand away. “Kabbalah,” she said loftily. She caressed the string on her wrist.

  To Robin’s surprise, Martin snorted from the back table. “The Kabbalah of Madonna,” she heard him mutter.

  Lisa didn’t hear, or ignored him. “It’s protection from the evil eye,” she informed Patrick. “And horndog jocks.”

  “Damage’s been done, babe.” Patrick leaned back, grinned at her lazily. “Might as well take it off.”

  His tone was so suggestive, Robin was almost sick with jealousy.

  Lisa stretched languidly. Her raveled sweater rose to just below her breasts. “Keep dreaming, cowboy.”

  Patrick took a deep toke of the roach he held, then suddenly turned and put his hand on the back of Robin’s neck and drew her head to his. He put his lips over hers and slowly blew smoke into her mouth. The rush was unbelievably sexy. Robin dissolved, rode waves of dizziness and desire as the smoky kiss went on and on.

  Patrick turned her loose and stretched back down on the floor. Robin sat back against the armchair, sinking into the rose carpet again, floating into a daze. The floor beneath her seemed to rock like a boat. Lisa’s eyes gleamed in the dark.

  The six of them were silent again.

  Robin sat up in confusion, as if jolting awake.

  Six.

  There were only five of them. Why did she keep thinking six?

  She looked around the room, just to be sure.

  Five of them, and it seemed almost inevitable that they were here.

  As if reading her mind, Patrick suddenly spoke to the ceiling.

  “You know why we all are here? ‘Cause we all’ve figured it out. What’s Thanksgiving anyway? You kill a big bird and you stuff it and you eat it and you fight with the fam, and when the blood’s cleaned up and no one’s talkin’ to anyone anymore, you sit around and get wasted and watch the game. So I say, fuck the turkey, stuff the family, and cut to the game.”

  Robin gazed at him, riveted, and thought she had never felt so close to anyone in her life.

  Cain laughed from the couch. “You are so full of shit.” He took a toke of the joint Lisa had just passed him, gazed around at the rest of them. “We’re all here because it sucks at home.”

  A silence fell, thick and hot. All of them dropped their eyes, avoiding one another’s gaze. The fire seemed to roar behind them, flames crackling. Robin felt flushed all over with heat—and shame.

  And then Patrick laughed shortly, extended his bottle, and clinked with Cain’s. As their eyes held this time, there was no testing between them, only acknowledgment.

  Robin surprised herself by reaching in and touching her own bottle against theirs.

  And behind them, Lisa spoke softly. “Hear! Hear!”

  Hunched over the table in the back, Martin was still.

  Robin felt a sudden wild elation—at the knowing that for the first time in her life she was not alone. Patrick locked eyes with her, a raw, hungry look, almost purely sexual.

  Lisa reached across the carpet and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s, lifted it. “Pop quiz. ‘Why It Sucks At Home’—in twenty-five words or less.” She extended the bottle to Patrick with a dangerous smile.

  He handed it back to her, mockingly gallant. “Ladies first.”

  Lisa sat back on her heels, counted her words off on her fingers. “Bad girl from bad family does bad things with bad people…feels really…bad. Will try anything to feel good.”

  There was bright sarcasm in her voice, facetious and facile. But Robin understood she’d spoken the exact truth, and admired her for it.

  Lisa drank deeply from the bottle, wiped her mouth suggestively, and thrust the bottle toward Robin, bright manic eyes daring her.

  Robin slowly reached and took the bottle, felt the smooth square glass under her hand. Lisa watched her, waiting. Robin half-shrugged, tried to match Lisa’s light tone. “Mom is crazy… Home is crazy…” She stopped, looked down at the stained rose on the carpet. Then she spoke softly, hating the quaver in her voice. “So Dad threw us away and started over.”

  She forced her eyes up, looked at the others. “I feel like I’m broken. And I hate everyone who’s whole.”

  There was a silence, then Cain suddenl
y reached from the couch, touched her arm. “Who doesn’t?”

  She looked at him, felt tears push at her eyes and throat. She raised the bottle and drank, grateful for the sting of whiskey. Then she looked again at Cain and extended the bottle, meeting his eyes in the darkness.

  She could almost feel him pull back, though he didn’t move. Then he took the bottle, spoke flatly. “Mother— dead. Father—unknown.” His lips twisted. “In case you’re wondering, foster care in this country is truly for shit.”

  He drank without looking at anyone, then turned to Patrick, holding the bottle out.

  Patrick looked at the bottle, slumped deliberately back against the armchair. “Ha. No way, losers.”

  Cain and Lisa exploded at him simultaneously.

  “You pussy.” Lisa shoved his leg hard.

  “Cough it up, wuss.”

  Patrick’s eyes darted around, defensive. Robin looked at him with silent reproach.

  Patrick grabbed the bottle from Cain. He took a deep toke from his joint, spoke through held breath. “Prominent surgeon Dad commits Mom to mental hospital to get custody of son. Pumps son full of steroids to create ultimate football machine.”

  He exhaled smoke, stared at the three of them truculently. There was a stunned silence as the words sunk in.

  Cain spoke softly into the void. “And you hate football.”

  Patrick smiled thinly. “Got that right, Coach. But it’s all I know.” He chugged whiskey. Behind him, logs snapped and popped in the fireplace.

  Martin coughed in the back. They all turned, surprised, as he began to speak, the flickering light from the candles playing over his face. “Orthodox rabbi father’s only wish is for only son to take over rabbinate. Only—son doesn’t believe in God.”

  He started to laugh, then stopped abruptly. A silence fell again, a speechless intimacy. Smoke from the joint drifted in the air, burned harsh in Robin’s throat.

  Lisa spoke dryly. “Well, that was fun. What the hell do we do next?” She pushed herself up and stood, stretching languidly as she meandered toward the built-in walnut cabinets.

  Robin looked at Cain and Patrick, then leaned over for the bottle of whiskey and stood. She walked over to Martin’s table and stopped beside him, extended the bottle.

  He looked up at her, startled, blushing. Robin pushed the bottle closer, insistent. Martin reached hesitantly to take it.

  In the room behind them, Lisa screamed.

  Everyone jumped, twisting toward her. She was half inside the built-in game cupboard by the fireplace, tugging at something.

  She pulled back, freeing a long box from beneath a stack of old board games, and turned into the room to display her find.

  “Looky looky.”

  The rectangular box was brown with age and frayed at the edges, but Robin recognized the graphic on the front instantly. A Ouija board.

  Lisa’s face was glowing, energized. She carried the box over to a round table and dragged the table across the carpet, positioned it in front of the fire. “I bet there’re plenty of spirits in this old place.”

  Robin got a brief glance of faded handwriting on the inside cover of the box as Lisa took the board out and set it up on the table’s surface.

  Robin watched her with a dreamlike sense of unreality. A séance? It was too weird. She’d just been reading about Jung and séances the night before.

  On the floor in front of the hearth, Patrick pulled out the Zig-Zag papers and started to roll another joint. “Then we can play Spin the Bottle, and sing ‘Kumbaya’ around the fire.”

  Lisa flipped him off and darted back to the study tables in the dark end of the room. She sidestepped Robin and smiled sweetly down at Martin as she snagged one of his candles. She crossed back to the round table, shielding the flame with a cupped hand, and set the candle down, then sat in front of the board and looked around expectantly. “Who’s going to do it with me?”

  None of the guys moved.

  Lisa looked back at Robin. “Come on, you look sensitive to me.” Her eyes held Robin’s across the long room. There was a challenge in the air, and a charge that was almost erotic. Robin was very aware of all three guys watching them with heightened interest, and she envied Lisa her brash narcissism. She knew how to play a room; it was impossible to ignore her.

  Lisa half-smiled, as if reading Robin’s mind. Her eyes flicked to Patrick knowingly. “They really want us to, you know. Guys love to watch.” Her gaze locked back on Robin’s.

  All right, then, Robin thought suddenly. I can play, too.

  She walked across the room to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down opposite Lisa.

  Lisa’s smile broadened. “I’ll be gentle.” She reached to put her fingers, tipped in polish the color of dried blood, on the heart-shaped wooden planchette. After a moment, Robin did, too. It was a familiar feeling, an instant sense memory of childhood. I guess just about everyone’s done it, on a rainy night like this.

  Sprawled on the floor, Patrick laughed to himself as he licked the edges of the joint.

  “ ‘Double, double, toil and trouble…’ ”

  “Shut up,” Lisa ordered. She looked across the table at Robin in the firelight, daring her. “Let’s get someone good.” Robin had to admit she made a convincing Gypsy, with her wild hair, lace camisole peeking out of a torn sweater, rings glinting on her slender fingers.

  Robin stared down at the board. It was old—yellowed with age, not the faux finish of a modern mass-production. Antiquated letters at the bottom spelled out BALTIMORE TALKING BOARD. The wood was blackened around the edges, almost as if it had been—

  Burned.

  The realization gave her a shiver of unease.

  Lisa raised her voice, addressed the darkness beyond the glowing circle of the fire. “Is there anyone there?” Her eyes shone across the table, knowing as a cat’s.

  “Did Alabama score?” Patrick said through an exhalation of green-smelling smoke.

  Lisa kicked at him from beneath the table. She spoke to the board and the ceiling at the same time. “Does anyone want to speak to us?”

  Robin kept her gaze on the black letters on the board, the wooden indicator beneath her hands. Rain gusted outside, pounding into the pavement. There was no movement at all.

  Lisa winked at Robin. “We’d like someone dark…and mysterious…and sexy as hell.”

  Cain’s head was tipped back against the armrest of the couch. Smoke drifted toward the ceiling from his cigarette. “There are 900 numbers you can call for this.”

  Lisa spoke over him, ignoring him. “Is anyone there?’

  They listened to the silence. The logs crackled. The planchette was motionless under their fingers.

  Robin felt drowsy from the pot and from the comfortable darkness. The heat from the fire shimmered in the room. She gazed into the shimmering, and again felt the presence that she had noticed before from the house, a sense of curious waiting, of leaning forward

  Violent longing stabbed through her—a wish that something would happen, that someone would hear, move, respond, that a door would open and everything, everything, would change.

  There was a sort of electric tingling under her fingers….

  The planchette suddenly moved to

  YES

  Robin jumped.

  Across the table, Lisa gasped slightly, then looked sharply at Robin. Her green gaze narrowed. “Way to go.”

  Robin stared back at her. So that’s the way it’s going to be, she thought. The Lisa show.

  Patrick rolled over on the floor, raised himself up on an elbow to make a circular motion with his hand. “Ladies, ladies—momentum.”

  Robin jumped again—and saw Lisa flinch, too—as the planchette began to move under their hands, slow, sweeping circles. Robin looked at Lisa. Lisa’s eyes sparkled back at her.

  The pointer suddenly took off, racing across the board Robin watched the letters appear under the cutout circle in the middle of the planchette. The pointer spelled quickly
, continuously, with slight stops in the neutral center between each word.

  I AM

  Lisa read aloud for the others with exaggerated import. “I…am…”

  HERE

  Patrick made spooky sounds on the floor. Martin glanced over in spite of himself. On the couch, Cain shook his head, flicked his Zippo to light another cigarette. But Robin saw he was smiling.

  Lisa’s good, she thought. The movement of the planchette was smooth, credible—no obvious pushing. The pointer felt like it had a life of its own.

  Lisa smiled into the darkness flirtatiously. “Well, hello.” She swept her hair back from her face with a ringed hand before she put her fingers back on the planchette.

  The pointer instantly moved to

  HELLO

  And then it spelled quickly

  LISA

  Lisa read out with the moving indicator and turned away from the table with childlike delight. “Guys, he knows my name.”

  Patrick put his hands to his mouth, mock-shuddered. “It must be real.” He was grinning, clearly enjoying himself. He’d stripped down to a tank and now basked bare-armed in the heat of the fire, leaning back on a sofa cushion, watching the girls as if they were his private show. Robin’s eyes traveled up his thighs to the juncture of his legs, remembering the soft thrill of his

  lips on hers, his breath hot in her mouth…. Her face flushed, and she was glad for the darkness.

  Lisa shook her hair out of her face and raised her voice, addressing the board. “Do you have a name?”

  The pointer jerked to life. Lisa read out with it.

  CALL ME

  The wooden piece hesitated. Robin and Lisa watched it circle aimlessly over the board, as if unsure how to answer.

  Patrick chuckled from the floor. “Make it good, Marlowe.”

  Then, as if inspired, the pointer spelled out quickly

  ZACHARY

  Robin felt a tingle up her neck, like fingers brushing her hairline. The candlelight flickered, making the black letters seem to pulse.

  Lisa’s eyes jumped to Robin’s, a quick, probing look. Then she shrugged, spoke lightly. “Nice to meet you, Zachary.”