13.
One would think that with the enormity and grandeur of the Blacker House, a chiming, grandiose doorbell would accompany. It did not.
When the tinny “ding-dong” chirped out at seven sharp, Kate ran for the front door. There stood Patrick, soaked. The short run from the curb and to the front porch had drenched him. His long hair, not in a pony-tail tonight, Kate noticed with interest, clung to his face and trench coat.
“Oh, you’re soaked!” Kate said as she turned toward the bathroom. “Let me get you a towel.”
“Thanks,” he said and then called after her, “do you have any coffee?”
“Freshly brewed,” she yelled back.
“Excellent.”
She threw a towel at him. “Hey, I didn’t work an entire summer at Doughnut World without learning a little something about you coffee junkies.”
“Oh yeah?” he said as he dried his face. “What do you know about us?”
“That it doesn’t matter what time of day, or how freakin’ hot it is outside, you always want your coffee. And you better get their coffee order right. Two creams, light sugar, extra cream, extra sugar, black with two sugars, blah, blah, blah. Am I right?”
“Right,” he said quietly and smiled at her. Kind of a nice smile actually, Kate thought.
“Are we ready to go?” Patrick asked, drying his hair.
“Yes, I think so. I thought we’d try using the Ouija Board in Lucy’s bedroom,” Kate said, hoping Patrick wouldn’t insist on concentrating on the basement. “I’ve got some pillows set on the floor. And some candles.”
“Good.”
“I’ll get that coffee. Black, right?”
“Yup,” Patrick said, flipping the locks of his briefcase. When Kate returned to the room, he was pulling an assortment of items from it, mostly books on the occult, but he also had more candles, a small skull of what looked like a rodent, a black light, and a tiny black box.
“What’s in the box?” she asked as she handed him his coffee. It was a hinged wooden box covered with rough carvings of skeletons.
“Uh, teeth.”
“Teeth?”
“Yes. Supposedly, the teeth of the good are charms that protect the innocent. Teeth of the evil are, well, the opposite.”
“As in…they attract evil?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“So, whose teeth are in that box?”
“Mine,” Patrick said sheepishly.
Kate burst out laughing. “I can’t believe we’re going to try to contact the spirits in this house with nothing more to protect us than a box of your teeth!”
Patrick laughed too. “Hey, it’s supposed to work. I just hope baby teeth work as well as adult teeth.”
As they laughed, the door-bell rang again. Chris was also soaking wet, but didn’t seem to mind. As soon as he entered the house, he shook his head, spraying water all over Kate.
She picked up Patrick’s wet towel and threw it at him. “You animal!”
“Where are your little sisters?”
“In there,” Kate said, pointing to the family room. “It’s movie night. I think they’re watching Shrek.”
“Cool. I love that movie,” he said and began walking toward the family room.
“Hey, get back here. You are not here to watch Shrek. We have work to do,” Kate said in a stern tone.
“Okay, Mom. I’m just going to go say hello to your sisters.”
Kate heard him throw open the door to the family room, startling the girls. She could hear screams, then Marie yelling at him. When she turned back to Patrick, he was staring at the cover of one of his books. Kate noticed with interest that as his hair began to dry, it curled into little ringlets.
“That’s cute!” Kate said, pulling on a curl.
“Thanks,” he said, clearly embarrassed and smoothing his hands over his hair. “So, did you get a chance to see if there was a flood line on the front of the house? I couldn’t tell out there with all that rain.”
“Yes, I did. It looks like the water came up to the level of the front porch. So, probably the inside of the house was safe, but the basement must have been flooded.”
“Hmm.”
Kate didn’t know what else to add, so she said nothing. There was a moment of awkward silence, until Patrick finally spoke.
“We should get started.” He nodded his head toward Chris in the family room, “That is, if we can get him to leave your sisters alone.” He gathered up his supplies and threw them back into his briefcase. “Lead the way,” he said.
“Okay. Let’s take the Scarlet O’Hara stairs, shall we?“ Kate said with a southern accent. Ace followed closely behind Kate, occasionally glancing suspiciously at Patrick.
“Chris, we’re going upstairs,” Kate yelled as they reached the landing, the beautiful stained-glass windows dark. She heard Chris stomping up the stairs as she and Patrick reached Lucy’s door.
Patrick looked around the room upon entering. Lucy had only a bed, dresser and small metal desk that had been in the family since Seth was a toddler. It had been painted so many times, Kate thought it had grown several inches just from the thick layers of paint. It was currently a strange dark orange color. Kate pushed Lucy’s bed to the side. The scratch marks were still there.
“I think we should set up right next to the scratches. We’ll be next to the portal, but not on top of it,” Patrick said.
Kate silently grabbed the pillows she’d stacked there earlier and threw them on the floor next to the scratch marks. Chris, who until now had been nonchalant about the entire night, stared at the scratch marks in the floorboards.
“The scratches are real? I thought you were just trying to scare us,” Chris said.
“They’re real,” Kate said.
Patrick set out the Ouija Board. Kate glanced down at the board with a feeling of dread in her stomach. The letters of the alphabet lined the middle of the board, with numbers across the bottom. In one corner was the word “yes," in the other “no.”
Patrick pulled a lighter from his trench coat pocket and lit the candles one by one. He set the box of baby teeth to his right side and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. Kate noticed that Patrick’s hair, almost dry now, lay in long, dark curls on his shoulders.
“You have nicer hair than me!” she said, impressed and just the tiniest bit jealous. Patrick just smiled.
“Chris, get the lights,” he said.
Patrick sat at Kate’s left, next to the box of teeth. Chris cast the room into darkness and then sat at Kate’s right, so close that their knees touched. Ace slumped on the floor in the corner.
“Alright, now,” Patrick said, indicating that they should start. Kate took a deep breath, closed her eyes briefly, then put her fingertips on the plastic pointer piece. They all stared at the Ouija Board, listening only to the sound of falling rain.
Patrick whispered, “We come seeking knowledge about the spirits in this house. If there’s anybody out there who can help us, please answer.”
“Oooooooooooooooooh,” Chris moaned, giggling.
“Shut up, Chris. This is serious,” Kate said.
“Sorry.”
Patrick said again, “We are seeking knowledge. Please answer.”
The pointer jerked. Kate immediately pulled her fingers away in revulsion. The pointer stopped and tipped to one side.
“Kate!” Chris said, making a face.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, wiping her fingers on her jeans, trying to cast off the feeling there. She focused her attention, then placed her fingertips lightly on the pointer once again. Patrick repeated his request for knowledge and again, the pointer started to move. It didn’t go toward any letter, in fact it slowly made a figure eight. Kate gulped.
“Is somebody there?” Patrick asked. The pointer went to the word “Yes” and stopped, then resumed its figure eight.
“Are you a spirit that lives in this house?”
Yes.
“What is your name?”<
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The pointer slowly moved across the board. First it moved over the letter “A”, then it scratched its way over the “N”. Through the tiny plastic window, the teenagers read off the letters as it spelled. A-N-A-B-L-L
“Anabll?” Kate pronounced, questioningly.
“I bet she means Annabelle. They misspell words a lot and they abbreviate,” Patrick said. “Is your name Annabelle?” he said, looking back at the pointer.
Yes.
“Kate lives here. Do you know who she is?” Patrick started the questioning.
Yes.
Kate shuddered.
“We’re here to help her learn about the spirits in this house. Are there more spirits than just you?”
Yes.
“Who else lives here?”
M-A-N-Y
“Oh, great,” Kate whispered.
“Are you mad at Kate?” Patrick continued.
No.
“Are you mad at the Gilbert family?”
No.
“Are some of the other spirits mad at them?”
D-O-N-T-N-O.
“Who threw all the stones around in the basement?”
The pointer stopped for a moment, then the figure eight continued.
“Annabelle, who threw all the stones around in the basement a few weeks ago?”
Another pause. Then, D-O-N-T-N-O.
“Did you live in this house, Annabelle?” Patrick asked.
No.
“How did you die?” Chris asked.
D-O-N-T-N-O.
Suddenly, the pointer stopped its figure eight and started to dart across the board wildly.
“What’s going on?” Kate asked, trying her keep her fingertips on the pointer.
The pointer continued its sudden movements and then stopped on the letter “H.” It moved then to “E,” “L”, “L,” paused, and then to “O”. Hello. The pointer then began a jerky circle pattern across the board. Ace began to whimper in the corner.
“Hello, who is this?” Patrick said, as he tried to follow the erratic movements of the pointer.
A-N-N-A-B-E-L-L-E
“No, it’s not. Your pattern is different. Who is this really?”
C-O-N-N-O-R.
“Okay, Connor. Are you here to help us?”
Yes.
“Do you know who Kate is?”
Yes.
“Do you like her?”
Yes, yes, yes. The pointer jerked back and forth across the board. Kate, visibly shaken, looked at Patrick. Patrick looked back at her and shook his head, indicating that she was not to take this too seriously.
“Kate thinks that the spirits in this house might be mad at her or her family. Do you think this is true?”
No.
“Do they want the Gilberts to leave?”
No.
“That’s good.” Kate whispered.
Then, the pointer started to spell out a word, without a question being asked. W-E-L-I-K-E-H-E-R. Kate said each letter aloud as the pointer stopped on it. “What’s he trying to spell?”
“We like her. That’s what he said,” Chris said, looking at Kate.
“Uh, who do you like?” Kate asked tentatively.
H-E-R.
“I think he means you,” Patrick said.
“Uh, I like you too,” Kate said. Chris snorted.
“Connor,” Patrick said in a businesslike tone, “who threw the stones in the basement?”
The pointer stopped briefly, then resumed its jerky darting.
“Connor, did you throw the stones around the basement?” Patrick asked again.
The pointer stopped, then ever so slowly moved to the word “No.”
“Who did?”
M-Y-W-I-F.
“My wife? Is that what you mean?” Kate asked.
Yes.
“What is your wife’s name?” Patrick asked.
N-O-B-O-D-Y.
Patrick frowned. “What do you mean “Nobody”? What is your wife’s name, Connor? Is she Annabelle?”
N-O-B-O-D-Y.
After the pointer moved away from the “Y”, it stopped dead.
“Connor?”
The pointer did not move. The teenagers removed their fingertips.
“Did he mean ‘Nobody,’ or ‘No Body?’” Kate whispered.
“I don’t know,” Chris said.
Patrick shrugged. “All I know is that Connor guy is blocking the channel. We’ll have to move to a different room to try to reestablish contact with someone else.”
Kate groaned. She knew where they were going.
“I think we need to try the basement,” Patrick said.
She sighed. “You’re probably right, but can we leave the lights on? I can’t bear that basement in the daytime with the lights on. I can’t imagine what it’s like in darkness at night.”
“Yeah, we can try it with the lights on,” Patrick said. He looked relieved too.
Chris stared at the Ouija Board. “That was amazing.”
After checking on her sisters, they moved down to the basement.
“Stay here, boy,” Kate told Ace as she closed the basement door. She could hear the dog whining on the other side of the door as they descended the stairs.
They moved into the laundry room and Kate flipped on the light. The single light bulb barely lit the room, but it was better than the dark. Chris looked at the window which led into the dirt room. He leaned his head through the window.
“That’s weird,” he said. “Dirt?”
Kate shrugged. “From the flood maybe? I think that’s where the rocks came flying from, from that room.”
“I think we should do it right here, under the window to the dirt room.” Patrick said, setting the candles down. They threw their pillows down on the cold rock floor. Patrick lit the candles again. Their light cast flickering shadows on the rock walls. Again, the three teenagers placed their fingertips lightly on the pointer piece.
“We are in need of guidance from a good spirit. Is there anybody here?” Patrick started. The piece didn’t move. “Is there anybody here?” he repeated.
The pointer began a smooth circle around the board. Patrick looked up and nodded. “Who is this?”
P-A-N-S-Y
Patrick and Kate both looked up, wide-eyed. “Pansy?” Kate said, astonished, remembering the conversation with Mrs. Entwhistle.
Yes.
“What, guys?” Chris asked, noticing Patrick and Kate’s reaction to the name.
“Pansy!. Mrs. Entwhistle told us about her. Pansy was, what, Mrs. Entwhistle’s aunt?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, she’s the one that was washed away in the flood. Never found.”
“Wow,” Chris said. The pointer continued its slow circle. The teenagers refocused their attention back on the Ouija Board.
“Pansy, you lived here, didn’t you?” Patrick resumed the questioning.
Yes.
“You died in the flood, right?
T-H-A-T-N-I-T-E.
“That night,” Kate clarified.
“You died that night? The night of the flood?” Patrick asked.
Yes.
“How did you die, Pansy?”
The pointer suddenly stopped.
“Pansy, how did you die?”
The pointer continued to lie still. Then, it jerked left, then right, then began racing around in circles so fast, the teenagers had a hard time keeping their fingers on the pointer.
A-L-L-D-O-N-E.
“All done? This isn’t Pansy anymore, is it?” Patrick asked.
D-O-N-E.
The pointer began moving in wide, jerky circles again, shooting around the board. Suddenly, the pointer flew out from under their fingers, shot across the room and hit the rock wall.
The teenagers looked at each other in shocked silence for a moment. Then, a sudden hurricane force wind blew through the basement, tossing their hair in all directions, knocking small objects off the shelves, throwing torrents of dust and cobwebs into the air. Kate jumped up
, covering her face and trying to find the door.
The Blacker House Page 14