Nothing happened.
Nothing.
Well, something did, Darla gave her hand a little squeeze and let her hand go, as if it were totally normal. But there was no information. No extra bits of data collected and stored, forced, into her mind. Just silence. Well, she did get a little, a faint trace of the story her shirt sleeve told for instance, about when it had been washed last, how it stayed in the huge closet in the main bedroom, but that was all.
Freaky.
Everyone she'd touched for years dumped info on her. It was her thing. Almost a rule or something and one of the reasons she avoided people. It had started when she was a kid, nine or ten, the exact date eluded her, because it was a gradual process, getting a bit stronger over time. But it had been everyone she'd come in contact with. Until now.
Until Darla Gibson.
For dessert they had ice-cream, the expensive kind, but store bought, though the whipped topping was real and handmade and the chocolate sauce for it, a fudge sauce, got made on the stove top. The cherries at least came from an honest to goodness store bought jar that was kept in the fridge. They ate that at the table too, soft music playing in the background. Classical.
Because of course, that was what all the kids listened to these days, wasn't it? Everyone rocked out to Vivaldi on Friday night didn't they? Bring on those bad Brahms tunes?
Keeley tried to keep her suspicion off her face. She didn't know anything after all. It was just all too odd to ignore. But everyone else did. They didn't even see it happening or chose to deny it for some reason. The information was all there. No one bothered with it, except Keeley.
“Alright everyone, I have the evening's entertainment ready...” Eve said, dramatically and a little darkly. Her look was strange, brown eyes slightly hooded, lips pursed.
It started to set Keeley's nerves on edge, so she scooted to the front of the dining room chair, an expensive wooden thing that had to weigh twice as much as it looked like it should. A good enough weapon if it came to it. Eve jumped up, a move so quick Keeley nearly did it herself, deciding that whatever was coming, it might be better to meet it on her feet. Not that she was a good fighter, she'd never actually been in a real fight in her life. A girl had pushed her once on the playground in the second grade, but then she apologized and helped her up. Still, she'd seen it done on television, it didn't look that hard.
Just get rid of all the stuff that obviously wouldn't work in real life, like most of the fancy kicks and make sure to hit people with heavy stuff. It was a plan at least and that lasted in her mind, ready to be called into play, right up until Eve ran back in, holding the game box in her hand.
“Ouija!” The girl cried, again going for dramatic, drawing the word out and making it sound like she wasn't holding a game from Milton-Bradley in her hand.
Darla sighed and gave Keeley a sidelong look that spoke of her long suffering and kind spirit. How she had to put up with things like this on occasion, and how, when you got down to it, that just wasn't fair. Then she smiled and nodded.
“Alright, if that's what you want to do. I guess we can retire to the living room and set up around the coffee table. I'll get some candles to help set the mood. Hally, will you be a dear and get some pillows from the sitting room?”
Keeley knew what a Ouija board was of course. They'd been reviled in church as a kid and occasionally caused problems on television, not that she bothered watching any more. It got a bit boring once she figured out that the shows only worked on fifteen different premises and rarely deviated from the norm. Everyone always knew what was going to happen, didn't they? There was no real point to it.
All she had to do was help Hally with the pillows, the girl having shifted her brilliant hair into a ponytail not that different from what Keeley wore herself. Her scrunchy was pink, not brown, but she'd taken off her make-up, which left her face a little pale. Scared looking now, instead of happy and light hearted.
As the nervous girl sat next to her, on matching over-sized blue pillows that really weren't that comfortable, she leaned over, closer than was needed and whispered.
“I hate this. It's like we're waking up things just to bother them or something. I don't think we should do it, but it's Eve's night to pick what we do. I guess this is better than her bringing over a bunch of guys we don't know... Maybe.” Hally leaned into her warmly, bumping shoulders, which passed to Keeley that she was only looking for comfort in the moment at least. That and she thought Keeley smelled nice.
Keeley shrugged and didn't bother to really whisper yet. Everyone could hear her and they didn't have the lights off.
“I don't really think it will be a problem. It's just a game. See, there on the box? People are smiling and having fun. A harmless activity for ages eight and up.” That was all, right?
Some people didn't seem to think so, Gary and Eve looked pretty serious, for instance, but Darla rolled her eyes, catching Keeley's first. It wasn't until Eve, brushing her short hair out of the way and setting the board up along with the little scooty thing they were supposed to touch, the planchette, whispered at them that Darla had a real problem with the events.
“OK, everyone, clear your minds and think only good thoughts, or we may summon a demon from the depths of hell, instead of a good helpful spirit. We should invoke the name of Jesus first and possibly a few others, like Buddha and that blue guy the Indians like...”
“You mean Krishna? Or possibly Papa Smurf?” Darla said, glaring just a little for some reason.
“I really don't think that we have to worry about demons, do you? Even if we did, why would a bunch of fake religious figures help us at all? Jesus is just a storybook character. I don't want to be mean about it, but we might as well summon the ghost of Snoopy and Spider-man to protect us.”
Eve rolled her eyes in return.
“Seriously miss buzz-kill, can't you let me set the mood at all? I'm just saying we need to be focused on good things. Now, everyone close your eyes for a moment and try to envision a white light, filled with the spirit of Christ's love surrounding us...”
Keeley did close her eyes for a second, but a hand touched her arm, getting her to open them. Darla had reached across the table and shook her head emphatically for some reason. Then she mouthed a single word.
“No.” The word got matched with a single, sharp, shake of the head.
Keeley got that she shouldn't shut her eyes, but the rest of the meaning went past her. Which was annoying, since she normally understood what was going on pretty well. She felt like it at least. The others had their eyes closed, so they waited for the black hair and slightly dark complicated girl to speak again, her loose white t-shirt almost seeming to glow in the near dark, showing the flickering candle light clearly.
“Now,” she intoned, an actual “intoning” lilt to her voice, like in a bad movie when the gypsy woman is about to tell a made up fortune to an unsuspecting mark in a brightly colored tent.
“I call upon the spirits of good, of light! Part the veil and work through this humble board to send us messages from beyond. We seek only the kind, the gentle spirits from the other side, no others need visit. When you are ready, please move our hands to guide us to the truth.”
Then, carefully, she placed one finger on the little tan triangle, and looked at the others until, one by one they did the same, just touching it ever so gently with their right index fingers. Darla moved before she did, sitting almost across from her, smiling, but she shook her head just ever so slightly a second time. A move that was pointed and directed at Keeley, who pushed her thick glasses up before moving, taking a moment to watch and see. Something most people didn't really bother with, even though they thought they did.
Darla wasn't actually touching the device at all.
Her finger hovered above the plastic, barely noticeable in the dim room, the flickering orange and yellow making it hard to tell who did what. Quickly, before anyone would think she was just too chicken to try something new, Keeley followed suit, holding her finger just out of contact with the device. Darla's mouth moved silently.
“Good.”
OK... Keeley didn't get the reason, but it was clear that Darla didn't really want her to play the game with the others. No big. It didn't make sense, but then, the whole night had huge holes in it that way, didn't it? They just followed the board around closely as the others moved it, tiny muscle movements directing it over the letters and numbers in a figure eight pattern.
“Is anyone there?” Eve said, her voice awed.
The little slider moved until it went to the word yes on the side that Keeley sat on. Everyone worked together, but Hally, sitting furthest away from the word had to strain a little to reach that far, which clearly pulled the little object off center. No one else seemed to realize it. When the thing stopped, Hally looked uncomfortable, her slightly odd position being construed as tension, Keeley guessed. The girl gasped.
Really? What did she expect? The little thing moved to yes... because they'd pushed it into place. It wasn't magic or anything. They sat there and could see it happening if they bothered to look. No one seemed to, except her though. Even Darla got more into it. Or pretended to. She still didn't touch anything.
The next half hour was like that, Hally getting more and more worked up, actually frightened at times and the other two pushing the thing around the board playing into it. Starting out nice, but eventually giving more and more dark and evil sounding answers as the night went on, as if trying to work the tiny red-head up. Maybe they were. They seemed to be getting pretty anxious themselves, Keeley noticed.
Suddenly one of the candles flickered. It wasn't a big thing, it could have been random, but then it happened again.
“Um, a breeze...” Gary said, not sounding sure at all.
Only there wasn't a breeze at all and Darla shook her head slowly, staring at Keeley, as if trying to tell her not to freak out. Then the candle went out. Everyone yelped, though Keeley got in late, a step behind the others, taken by surprise. Not by the yelling or the candle going out, but by the fact that a skeletal shape in pale blue stood next to the candle when it happened. See through, wispy. A faint shimmering in the air.
The eyes looked like pits, empty sockets, and the skin like ice or maybe an electric curtain in the air. It wore robes, also blue, but she could tell they were supposed to be another color. Brown maybe, or black. Or a deep blood red. There was a thick hood in the back, like a monks simple robe from the dark ages, meant to actually keep them warm and protect from the weather. The haircut seemed right too. Very, “Friar Tuck”, the top being gone and the sides straight and short. He wore a heavy wooden cross around the neck, the grain of the rough piece visible, which added to the effect.
The thing's thin and bony hand stuck out, a cold chill running from it as the arm moved. Sending goose bumps down her spine, as it pointed first at Eve, then Gary, and then at the last, almost as an afterthought, at Hally, who pulled her hand from the planchette and hugged herself, shivering.