"That's a homemade witchboard," said Hannah. "Nothing like the one you and Josh used to play with. As I recall, that one glowed in the dark."
"And you burned it."
On the videotape, the players' fingers were touching the small wooden heart as it moved in wide circles around the board, faster and faster. Then it stopped. Alice Friday led the chant as they all looked through the hole in the heart and called out the letter S. The planchette moved again to settle over another letter.
"They're always talking to your brother-the spirit guide, always asking him how he died. It was like that from the beginning. No one ever asked if he ran away." Hannah pointed to shelves of cassettes lining the back wall of the crawl space. "There's lots of tapes with nothing but gibberish. Some nights the board spells out real words and whole sentences. Depends on who's playing."
Oren focused on one of the players. All he could see from this camera angle was the pale crown of blond hair. He turned to the second screen and identified her in this ground-level shot of the table. "Is Mrs. Winston a regular?"
Hannah nodded. "She's on quite a few tapes."
The wall of shelves held a daunting array of cassettes. How long would it take to view all of them? "Just tell me the highlights. Give me the-"
"Maybe this was a mistake," she said. "My interference always comes to a bad end, and I should know that by now."
He could hear the muffled sound of engines and car doors closing outside. And now, overhead, feet were walking on the cabin floor. "We stayed too long."
"The hell you say. We're going to the séance tonight."
"I don't think Mrs. Straub would like that."
"No one's ever turned away-except Cable Babitt. Evelyn never minded when he'd send a deputy out here now and then-so long as it wasn't somebody in uniform. But then, Cable started driving his jeep up the fire road every damn night. Well, that road only leads to this cabin."
And, farther on, a hole full of bones.
"So Evelyn figured he was spying on her full-time. These days he can't legally come within two hundred yards of this place." Hannah rose from her chair. "Stay here if you like. I'm going to the séance."
He followed her outside and up the back stairs to the kitchen door. "I'll just watch."
"You should play," said Hannah. "It's only scary for true believers." She looked up at him and smiled-a clear invitation to a dare.
They passed through the kitchen and walked into the small front room. The chairs around the card table were filled, and other people waited their turn in the dark. Hannah spoke in whispers. "You remember why I took that old witchboard away from you and Josh? I bet you still remember your nightmares."
He did. And he also remembered Josh's bad dreams, the screaming in the night that had always followed visits from their good-deed lady, the old woman who once lived on Paulson Lane. The dead Mrs. Underwood had spelled out vile curses on a witchboard that two small boys had purchased at the dry-goods store.
"Will Mrs. Winston be here tonight?"
"Maybe," said Hannah. "It's catch as catch can with her. Addison likes to think that he knows where his wife is every minute of the day and night. He also thinks Sarah stopped driving when she lost her license. But, I'll tell you, the lady gets around."
"You think Josh could've photographed a secret of hers?"
"I don't see her killing the boy, if that's what you're asking." She lightly poked him in the ribs with her elbow. "Watch the game. Listen."
The small piece of wood moved around the board, making a slow circle over the characters of the alphabet, and then it picked up speed. Each time it stopped, the players called out the letter framed in the planchette's circle.
Hannah whispered, "I tried to explain this when you were a boy, but I don't think you were listening-not then. The players don't decide to make the planchette stop and start. There's no decisions being made. The hands have brains of their own. And the mind of a true believer calls it magic."
"Or somebody's cheating."
"No one cheats," she said. "And it's not magical."
Ferris Monty, who believed in nothing, sat with his back to the shadow side of the room. Oh, the things he did for his art.
He drank in the details of candlelight and a magic act, making mental notes about the abundance of spiderwebs and a tree limb growing through a broken window. This was his first séance, and he had been unprepared for the movement of the planchette. Though it was in contact with so many hands, he would swear the small wooden heart moved around the board of its own volition. This was no manipulation by the psychic. Her hands never touched it. According to his research among the citizens of Coventry, Alice Friday was the only constant presence; the others were replaced with new players for every session. And so he could also rule out a confederate in this mix of townspeople and tourists.
The planchette circled the Ouija board, moving faster and faster, and he felt inexplicable exhilaration. He looked up at the psychic. Her eyes were closed, and she trembled-and so did the heart-shaped piece of wood beneath the tips of his fingers.
A player asked, "Does it ever go in a straight line?"
And then it did-back and forth across the board.
A voice to his right complained, "When will it ever stop?"
It stopped over the letter Y that stood for yes. Yes, the dead boy was among them tonight. A man on the other side of the table asked the next question. "Do bears shit in the woods?"
Alice Friday's eyes snapped open. "Goddamn tourists!" With a dramatic wave of her hand in the direction of the door, the offended psychic dismissed the man from the table.
She was backed up by another woman, probably the wife, who yelled, "Harry, you idiot! Go wait outside in the hotel van!" And he did.
And now they were five.
Ferris leaned toward Alice Friday. "Could you ask if the boy has a message for one of us?"
She nodded and closed her eyes once more as she posed this question for her spirit guide, Joshua Hobbs.
Ferris was grinning, hoping that this would be a good quote for his book a dead child speaking from beyond the grave. The wooden planchette shot across the board to stop over the first letter, and then the second, shooting, stopping, and all around him players chanted the letters in unison.
"D-O-Y-"
He sensed that the wooden heart had come alive to emanate its own energy, a palpable beat.
o, that's insane.
"O-U-S-T-I-"
The planchette jumped like a spider from letter to letter.
"L-L-L-O-"
Logic and sanity flew out the window. Ferris was a passenger on a runaway train, helpless, waiting for the rest, hanging on each letter, and only hanging by fingertips to the speeding piece of wood.
"V-E-M-E-"
He drew back his hands, as if the planchette had wounded him. He sat very still-still as death, no blinking. He held his breath-digesting the message from a murdered boy.
Alice Friday opened her eyes and looked beyond him to the people gathered at the back of the room. "Won't you join us? There's an empty chair." Heads were turning all around the table in the manner of a celebrity sighting.
Ferris looked back to see Oren Hobbs walk out of the shadows and into the circle of candlelight. An adrenaline chill filled his veins as he imagined that the older brother was accusing him with Joshua's eyes-the same blue eyes.
But no, Hobbs only showed interest in the retired pharmacist, who sat in the next chair. He and the elderly Mr. McCaully exchanged "Sir, you're looking well" for "About time you came home, young man." After a few more pleasantries, the old man invited the younger one to his house for a nightcap after the séance.