“A ghost?” Martin looked up, not at Lisa, but at Robin. “Surely you don’t believe that.”
Lisa looked offended. “What’s your supernormal explanation for the furniture?” She waved around at the shambled contents of the room.
Martin blinked at her in the grayish light. “It’s highly likely the furniture was a prank. We can’t discount the human element.”
It was a perfect deadpan delivery. Robin and Lisa burst into spontaneous laughter. Lisa reached out, tousled Martin’s hair with something like affection. “God, no—not the human element.”
As if on cue, Patrick sauntered in, marginally dressed in sweats and a jersey. He yawned, surveyed the room and the others lazily. “What, no food?”
Robin and Lisa looked at each other and collapsed into giggles again. Martin smiled shyly, enjoying the joke. Robin felt a rush of warmth and camaraderie, and found, surprised, that she was on the verge of tears.
Patrick looked around at all of them, then pulled a new bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the waistband of his sweats. “Lucky I came prepared.”
Lisa stooped to pick up the candles from the floor in the back. She arranged them on the table beside the board and fished in a pocket for a lighter.
Almost automatically, Robin turned and knelt beside the fireplace, reached for logs to make a fire. Patrick hefted the yearbook, flipped through it. “So that’s Zach, huh? My man don’t talk much like a 1920s ghost, though, do he?”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “What does a 1920s ghost talk like?”
Patrick layered a British accent over his Southern one. “I say, old sport. Ripping good.”
Lisa scoffed, “He didn’t say he was English.”
But as they bickered, Robin thought fleetingly that Patrick was right. There was something off about Zachary’s speech patterns. Inconsistent.
Martin spoke impatiently, as if reading her mind. “The point is, it’s not a ghost. The messages are coming from us.”
He glanced down at his legal pad, which Robin could see was covered in notes.
“The history of the Ouija board is fascinating, really. The game became quite the rage in the 1920s. The occult movement, with its various forms of mysticism—séances, tarot, ceremonial magic, Kabbalah”—he glanced at Lisa briefly—”had taken off in Europe, and then America, due to the unprecedented number of deaths in World War One. And it was a dark time in general—World War Two already on the horizon, and of course…” He trailed off, took his glasses off and wiped them.
Robin realized instantly what Martin wasn’t saying. Hitler. The Nazis. She remembered Martin’s reference to his rabbi father. We all have our ghosts, don’t we?
Martin replaced his glasses on his nose and continued. “Suddenly, a whole generation was desperate to contact deceased loved ones. In fact, this very board dates from 1920.”
He pointed to a cluster of Roman numerals beside the BALTIMORE TALKING BOARD imprint.
Robin thought, 1920 again. I wonder—
But the thought evaporated as Martin continued.
“The spirit board was a rather sophisticated technological innovation for the time. Before the advent of the board, participants in séances attempted to communicate with the ‘beyond’ through table tipping or tapping.” Robin could almost see the quotation marks in the air as he spoke.
“‘Spirits’ would supposedly rap through the tabletop”—he demonstrated by tapping his knuckles sharply on the table—”which restricted questions to those requiring yes or no answers, or forced querents to count knocks corresponding to numbers of the letters of the alphabet—A was one knock; Z was twenty-six.” He rapped a few times—four, five, six—then lifted his hands. “Well, one can only imagine how tedious it must have been, waiting.”
Lisa murmured, “Insufferable,” but everyone was riveted.
Martin passed his hands over the board like a magician. “But then one Georges Planchette invented the alphabet board and this little piece.” He picked up the wooden indicator. “The planchette eliminated the need to count knocks numerically; the board could simply spell out words, or indicate numbers. At the time, an innovation about as revolutionary as the telephone.”
Robin noticed that his voice held real admiration. But then Martin turned dismissive.
“Of course, what was really happening was automatism: the subconscious minds of the players guiding them to move the piece to spell out desired answers. Still, there are many accounts of unaccountably precognitive and extrasensory messages, just as we experienced last night.” He glanced shyly at Robin, spoke toward her. “Both Freud and Jung attended séances and studied the phenomenon. It’s as if the collective concentration on the board somehow heightens perception.”
Patrick was already busy rolling a joint on one of the coffee tables. “Well, let’s see if ol’ Zach can come up with some lottery numbers tonight.”
Lisa ignored Patrick, huffed at Martin. “This is all fascinating, Professor, but you’re completely ignoring the salient point, which is that we were talking to Zachary Prince.” She picked up the yearbook, open to Zachary’s picture, and shook it at Martin. “He was real. He died here mysteriously”—she mimicked Martin— “in 1920, in fact. And last night we got him on the telephone.” She tapped the Ouija board with a crimson nail, then leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms. “Now, tell me that was coming from my mind, or Robin’s.”
Martin pushed at his glasses. “I don’t recall any mention of a Prince—”
“Right, Zachary is just such a common name. Must be a coincidence,” Lisa shot back.
Martin frowned. “It wouldn’t be at all surprising if one of you had heard talk of a student dying—even read the yearbook. It’s been here under our noses. It’s hardly inconceivable.”
Robin suddenly realized Martin was right, and automatism might not have anything to do with it. She hadn’t read the yearbook, but Lisa certainly could have. She felt a wave of cold and heat at once, paranoia and humiliation. What if the whole evening really had been an elaborate prank? Plant a Ouija board in the game cabinet, pretend to summon a long-dead student, leave the yearbook to back up the story. For all Robin knew, they were all in on it but her….
Not Cain, though, her mind countered instantly.
And what about the game scores, the newspaper confirming them this morning? Surely that was proof—
Unless the newspaper had somehow been faked.
The thought sent another wave of paranoia through her, a feeling as shaky as nausea.
But why? Why would they do it?
Robin glanced to Patrick, studied him furtively. Though he was sprawled quite nonchalantly on the couch, he was watching Martin and Lisa intently.
He shifted his eyes toward Robin, caught her watching. The look he gave her was veiled, unreadable.
Martin was speaking loftily to Lisa. “At any rate, we have all night to test the theory and—”
He stopped mid-sentence, frowned around the room as if he’d misplaced something. “Where’s Jackson? We need to replicate the conditions.”
Lisa fished in a pocket for a cigarette, smiled secretly. “He’ll be down.”
Patrick lounged back on the couch and fired up the joint. Everyone looked toward him; he lifted his hands. “I’m replicating the conditions.”
Martin nodded. “By all means. The altered perception probably contributed to the overall experience.”
Patrick grinned, exhaled. “It sure as hell contributed to mine.” He extended the joint to Lisa, who took it, put it to her lips for an appreciative drag.
Martin continued. Almost manic, Robin thought. “Atmosphere is a huge factor in the efficacy of a séance. We had all the conditions aligned for us last night—the storm, the power outage, the fire…”