Page 11 of We Live Here Now

“No, it’s in that outhouse we got the book boxes from,” Russell says. “I saw it.”

“Come on then.” Mark is on his feet. “Let’s go get it, Freddie. Brave the rain, then brave the afterlife.”

He makes abwah ha hasound and that’s that decided. We’re going to try to speak to the spirits.

14

Emily

Freddie’s face was like thunder when he came in, soaked from the dash to the outhouse in the heavy freezing rain, but he didn’t say anything as he dumped the battered old box down in front of me, as if it was my suggestion we’d play it.

“Gosh,” Iso breathes quietly as I lift off the tatty cardboard lid and Cat lights the candles now in each corner of the room and turns off the Christmas tree lights. “How long has it been since we used this? Got to be more than ten years?”

“Maybe twelve.” I’d picked it up in a bric-a-brac shop when we’d gone to Blackpool of all places for a cheap weekend away, and Iso and I had shrieked and laughed till we cried with this board but we never made any contact. We’d mainly just messed around after too many vodka shots.

In the candlelight Iso’s sharp cheekbones are deep shadows and she looks almost cadaverous. We all do, really, black circles around our nervous eyes making them appear sunken. Russell looks like he’s about to burst into laughter again, but Freddie is still stone-faced, and a hush has fallen across the table in anticipation. Both Iso and Cat are sitting up straight in their chairs, eyes glistening. My hands are clammy. I look at the midnight-blue wood with the capital letters printed in white, curving across the middle, and the numbers in a straight line underneath. Above, at the top, on either side of theOUIJAare a smallYesandNo, and the borders are decorated with skulls and moons and suns.

Where have you been?the board calls silently.We used to have such fun together.

I take a sip of wine and Iso grins. “You and me, Emily. Like the old days.”

I feel a rush of love for her, the years of our friendship a kaleidoscope of sudden memories, placing my fingers alongside hers on the planchette, the point facing inward, the hole in it uncovered.

With my eyes closed, I take long breaths deep into my lungs and then blow them out in loud exhales.This is natural. There is nothing terrible here. The dead can’t harm you. I open my eyes again. The fire has burned down, and Mark and Freddie have brought a chill back in with them from the storm outside, and the air is cooler.

“Is there a spirit present?” Iso takes the lead, and I glance at the shadows dancing behind each flickering candle. Nothing. The seconds tick by but the planchette remains still under our fingers and the flames remain steady. Someone shuffles in a chair.

“Only Jack Daniel’s,” Russell mutters, amused, and Freddie snorts a cynical laugh before Cat and Iso glare them back into silence.

“Ignore them,” Iso says, nodding at me to speak.

“Please answer if you’re here.” The words feel stupid said out loud, and I wish it were just me and Iso without the others here, like the old days. I concentrate harder.

“Is there anybody here with us?” I glance nervously upward, but there’s no sense of that oppressive presence I felt in the darkness of the room upstairs or theothernessin the study. I almost repeat the question, and I’m starting to feel slightly foolish, and then I feel it. The slightest tremble under my fingers.

My skin prickles. That wasn’t me. I glance at Iso, but her face is tight with concentration and she doesn’t look at me.

“Please.” My voice is a rasp. “Is someone here?”

“What is it?” Cat’s eyes widen, a little afraid. “Did you feel something?”

Again a pause, but then there’s definitely movement. I fight the instinct to pull my hand away as the planchette drags under my light touch, like a magnet on metal, to the top left corner.

Yes.

“Holy shit.” Iso’s mouth falls open, shocked, and we all stare at the pointer. “That wasn’t me.”

“Emily did it.” Even Freddie’s paying attention now.

“Emily?” Iso asks.

“It wasn’t me either.” Air is stuck in my throat like food, a bubble I can’t shift. I look at the planchette, still placed over theYes, and think,I was right. We’re not alone.I don’t know if the temperature has really dropped or whether my fear has chilled me, but every sinew and fiber of my body tenses.

“Has to be Iso,” Mark mutters, but we ignore him.

“Thank you for answering.” Sandpaper words, my throat so dry, but there’s also the slightest fizz of excitement in my belly. I am communicating with the dead.Fuck you, Freddie.

“Let’s get it back to the middle.” Iso’s eyes are wide as we slide the planchette backward away from theYes. It’s a different kind of pressure when we move it together, not like what we just felt. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Iso either, I’m sure of it. My heart skips faster.

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