Fern patiently listens to me read these stories her. It’s a chance for me to find my typos (well, some of them anyway) and to get her feedback. For this, the closing half of the story I started a lot longer ago than I anticipated, she had some great points about where I could add detail. And I agreed with everything she said. But, look, it’s 11:30pm. I worked a long bar shift last night, and while I did sleep in this morning, I also changed the front brakes and roters on my car, so I’m a little tired – especially knowing my alarm will go off at 4:45. I’m not adding any more. But I do have a conclusion to the Ouija board story. If you haven’t read that first part, it’s here. Okay, here’s part 2.
“I think you’re going to love it,” Hector said, leading Terry through the tall aisles of drying slabs.
“I have no doubt.”
“It’s been a while, yeah?”
“Good things come to those who wait, right?”
“That’s my business, man,” Hector beamed. They came to the end of an aisle and Hector put his hand on a beautiful slab of dark brown and black striations nearly six feet across and twelve feet long. When I had seen it shortly after being milled it looked amazing. Now, though, that impression seemed muted; time had been kind to this milled slab. If only I could say the same for Sarah and her memories.
Once I got the slab back to my workshop I laid it on my work table and sat on a stool and stared at it for an hour. It’s stupid, but it felt alive. I know that’s just the story of Sarah’s son who killed himself on this tree playing into my imagination, but…
After being inside my cool workshop for nine hours the wood still felt warm like noon on an Indian summer day.
My imagination.
Nonetheless, I made a promise. I started on the short end of the slab. Cut down, I ran the wood through my planer until I reduced it to the thickness I wanted, then through the jointer. Then the real work began.
After I made that first Ouiji board to show Sarah it kind of became a Halloween signature at my gallery, so I’ve had a fair amount of practice transforming exotic hardwoods into Ouija boards, but even by my improving standards this example turned out really special. It seemed to gleam from within. I milled the planchette out of the same walnut and set a round glass piece into it to highlight the selected character.
When I showed it to Sarah she beamed. “It’s stunning,” she said, her eyes glassing over with emotion. I worried that after waiting so long she might be underwhelmed, but I was clearly wrong. Once she wiped the initial tears away I could see her staring at the board with something more…
“I made you something else from that wood,” I said.
“Terry? Really?”
“Well, I noticed that wall,” I nodded to an empty wall at the end of the living room, “looked a little bare.” I opened the front door and nodded to my guys who wheeled in a matching walnut credenza. Sarah gasped.
“Terry, you shouldn’t have!” she stared, a huge smile on her face.
I picked the Ouija board off the table, slotted the planchette into the space I carved on the bottom for it, then opened the two doors of the credenza to reveal empty shelves, the topmost just big enough to slide the Ouija board into. “You had to have somewhere to keep it,” I said, and closed the cabinet.
“Come here so I can hug you!” Sarah insisted.
We agreed to try out the board the next night, October 15th.
When I knocked on the door, Sarah’s daughter, Jenny, let me in. “My mom told me what you guys were up to,” she said without smiling. “For the record, I don’t approve. The cabinet is gorgeous, though. You do amazing work.”
Taking the compliment and the censure juxtaposed so closely together left me blinking a moment.
After a moment, Jenny smiled and said, “My mom’s in the living room. She’s lit candles,” she led me inside. “Let me ask, are you guys like twelve?”
“Are you going to make us popcorn tonight?”
She smiled, “I do not want you two keeping me up all night!”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I was going to take your mom out later in the wheel chair and we were going to TP the Peterson’s place.”
“I knew it!” We both laughed.
“Terry!” Sarah said as I came into the room. I bent down for her for a hug and a kiss on the cheek before I sat across the table, the board between us. The planchette sad innocuous on the polished brown surface. “Are you ready?” she said, a little spark in her eyes.
I nodded.
“I’ll leave you two kids to yourselves,” Jenny said. “Shall I get the lights?”
“Please, Jenny. Thank you!”
Jenny hit the lights and the flickering candles made the striations in the wood seem to dance and pulse.
“If you need me, I’ll be in my room watching TV. I have a proton pack in case things get out of hand,” she left and Sarah and I sat silent for some time just staring at the board.
“Well, let’s see what happens…” She put one of her hands on a corner of the planchette and I put one of mine on the opposite end…
Look, I’ve read a lot about Ouija boards. When the planchette moves it’s usually someone actively directing it. When it’s not, there’s theories that it’s the participants’ unconscious’s causing it to move. I’d read about an experiment where a group made up a character with a whole back story, then later with a Ouija board contacted him and he unsurprisingly confirmed their details and added new ones. So, when I saw the neighbors playing with the Ouija board at the neighborhood Halloween party three years ago, I brushed it off entirely. But in the three years of taking care of this wood and getting to know Sarah and her history…
The planchette positively flew around the board. I know I wasn’t actively moving it. I’d accuse Sarah of moving it, but like me she barely had three fingers on the edge – sure, maybe she pushed, but I could see she just didn’t have the physical ability to pull the planchette without upending it. And it coursed across the board from letter to letter before we even had a chance to ask a question. With my right fingers on the planchette, I had my left hand free to write down what the board dictated.
“H-E-L-L-O, it spelled hello!” Sarah said and then gasped. “M-o-m.” She snatched her fingers off the planchette which immediately died. “Terry, if that’s you moving it…” I could see sadness and anger in her accusation.
“Sarah, no, I wouldn’t ever do something like that!” I held up my hands defensively.
She stared at me long and hard before she appeared to make up her mind and placed her hand back on the planchette, as did I. The heart-shaped planchette started dancing immediately. “d-o-n-t-b-e-a-f-r-a-i-d-m-o-m.”
“To late for that,” she muttered under her breath. “Who is this?” she asked coldly.
“Y-o-u-k-n-o-w.”
“Say your name,” she demanded.
“J-o-e-y.”
This time I took my hand off the planchette, killing its momentum. “Sarah, you know if there is something communicating with us, it might not be… It could be an entity trying to trick you, pretending to be who you want it to be.”
She nodded. We both placed our hands on the board. “If you are really who you say you are, prove it. Tell me something only he would know.”
The planchette darted around the board. “I-c-e-c-r-e-a-m-s-t-a-i-n-o-n-r-u-g-b-y-b-e-d”
Sarah gasped and pulled her hand back. “Joey spilled strawberry ice cream on the floor by his bed,” she nodded to the second floor. “Stain is still up there on the carpet.”
I arched an eyebrow and we put our hands back on the planchette. “I-m-i-s-s-y-o-u-m-o-m” it spelled.
“I miss you too, Joey,” she replied. She started to ask another question but before the sound came out of her mouth the planchette started moving. “I-m-s-o-r-r-y-m-o-m-i-w-a-s-h-u-r-t-i-n-g.”
“I know you were hurting, Joey,” she replied, then added, “Well, I know now. You didn’t tell us. You didn’t let us in.”
“C-o-u-l-d-n-t-m-o-m-t-o-o-s-a-d”
“Yeah, well, you broke my heart,” her voice cracked as she spoke. Tears ran unabated down her cheeks.
“S-o-r-r-y-d-a-d-i-s-h-e-r-e-n-o-w-n-o-t-l-o-n-e-l-y.”
“You tell him I miss him. And I love him.”
“H-e-s-a-y-s-h-e-k-n-o-w-s-m-o-u-s-e-k-i-n.”
“Mousekin,” she said pulling hand back and covering her face with both hands. “That was Roger’s name for me.”
“Look, Sarah, we don’t have to go on–“
“Let’s go,” she said.
I picked up the pencil and placed my right fingers on the planchette.
“A-r-e-y-o-u-c-o-m-i-n-g-s-o-o-n-m-o-m”
“No, honey, I’ve still got some living to do. And your sister, too. We’ve been spending time together.”
“I-k-n-o-w-w-e-m-i-s-s-h-e-r-t-o-o-y-o-u-b-o-t-h-c-a-n-c-o-m-e.”
“Honey, no. Jenny’s got a husband now. They’re talking about kids.”
“W-e-m-i-s-s-y-o-u” it repeated. And then, “A-r-e-y-o-u-c-o-m-i-n-g-s-o-o-n-m-o-m.”
“It just asked that,” I said.
“I know,” Sarah said nervously.
“Y-o-u-b-o-t-h-n-e-e-d-t-o-c-o-m-e-t-o-u-s” and then again, “W-e-m-i-s-s-y-o-u.” Then “C-o-m-e-s-o-o-n.”
“We’re done,” Sarah took her hand off the planchette and I pulled my hand off as well.
The planchette slid of its own accord smoothly across the board to the upper right where the word “No” shone through the window of the planchette.
“Put it away, Terry,” Sara said, fear evident. “Please.”
I nodded and picked up the planchette quickly, lest it move somewhere on its own again. I stowed it on the underside of the board. I opened both doors of the credenza, placed the Ouija board onto its shallow shelf and closed the credenza again. I turned around and started to say, “Sarah” but behind me the doors of the credenza flew open wide and the Ouija board rattled angrily on its shelf.
Sarah blew out the candles, plunging the room into darkness. The rattling of the board stopped. The room felt expectantly quiet. In the dark I turned around and felt for the doors of the credenza and closed them.
“Is everyone okay?” Jenny said, flipping the light switch on. “The whole house was shaking. Was that an earthquake?”
“I don’t think so,” Sarah said sadly.
“I’m, uh, I’m going to head out for the night.” I didn’t know what to say to Sarah, so I just said, “Good night,” and hurriedly saw myself out, the cold autumn air a welcome shock.
I woke to the sirens before I saw the orange glow through the curtain. By the time I got to the front door, Sarah’s house roared fully engulfed in raging fire. The first two fire trucks were rolling up and I looked around the yard and didn’t see Sarah or Jenny. I ran towards the front door I had just left hours earlier. The knob seared the skin on my hand. I kicked it in, but tongues of flame blew outward knocking me backwards. A fireman grabbed me and started pulling me away from the burning structure.
“There’s people in there!” I yelled. “An old woman, Sarah, and her daughter, Jenny.”
“We’ll do what we can, sir. Stay back.”
But there was nothing they could do except keep the fire from spreading to my house and the Peterson’s on the other side. They managed to get the blaze under control just after dawn. Once everything cooled down, investigators found Jenny’s body with Sarah’s. Smoke inhalation, they said, got them in all likelihood before the fire did. Arson investigators sorted through the ashes and traced the ignition point to the living room, where the credenza once stood. In the ashes, they found the Ouija board dirtied but unmarred from the flames.
