I don’t want any of this to happen, but it looks like I’m not going to be the tiniest bit successful at stopping it. Having smart, successful friends with “perseverance” and “follow-through” means they also have a lot of “bullheaded stubbornness.”
Maybe I will escape upstairs so I don’t have to think about this anymore. “I guess I’ll be in your room, then,” I say, and I shuffle toward the door.
“Aw, and miss all the fun?” Mason’s voice. I whip around. He’s sitting on the last empty cushion, the one that was supposed to be for me.
“Did you change your mind?” asks Lucia, seeing me turn.
“Yeah, you can sit on my lap if you want,” says Mason helpfully. No one else bats an eyelash.
I open my mouth and close it. It seems fake to pretend Mason isn’t here, but what would my friends do if I started talking to thin air? Would Asha think I was mocking her? I sit on the arm of the couch, a couple of feet back from the coffee table. I don’t want to leave Mason here without me.
“Actually, maybe I’ll just watch,” I say. Asha shoots me a look. “With positive energy.”
Nodding, Asha takes Lucia’s hand on one side and Nolan’s hand on the other. Then Lucia grabs Jeff’s hand. After a beat of chortling about it to show how masculine they are, Nolan and Jeff grab hands, closing Mason out of the circle. He pouts at me.
Asha closes her eyes. The rest of the circle does the same, and suddenly, all the smirking is gone. “Tonight we are here to contact a friend on the other side. We call upon Mason Leary to come and talk with us.” Mason touches his own chest in faux shock as if they’ve just announced he won an Oscar. Asha seems to be thinking of what to say next. She tilts her head slightly. “You are welcome here. Cross over and keep us company.”
Mason scans the circle, eyebrows raised, as if he is just as curious as everyone else about what will happen next.
“Are you with us, Mason?” Asha asks, opening her eyes. “We need some sort of sign.” She drops Lucia’s and Nolan’s hands and rests two fingers on top of the Ouija board indicator, and the others do the same. It starts to wiggle.
I look at Mason, and he holds his hands out innocently. “I’mnot doing anything, I swear. It must be Elvis. Or Marie Antoinette. Or Jack the Ripper.”
The indicator slides toYESand Lucia gasps.
I find that I have abandoned the arm of the couch and have come to hover directly behind Lucia out of sheer nervousness. Now, since Mason doesn’t seem to be suffering under any Ouija-related magic, I finally relent and sit on the cushion next to him. I put my fingers lightly on the indicator and so does he. Even though our bodies and hands are close, there’s no warmth coming from him. If anything, it feels cooler on his side.
“Mason, can you tell us if you are okay?” Asha asks.
Mason laughs. “Huh, where is the ‘that’s always been debatable’ option?” The indicator wanders the board for a moment, then slides back toYES. “Still not doing it,” Mason says to me. I wonder who is. Is it Asha? Or just the collective subconsciousness of the whole group wanting to make things nice and peachy?
“How can we see you?” Asha asks now.
This is not a yes-or-no question. The indicator seems to get that immediately and careens into the alphabet. After roaming for a few seconds, it stops onA. Asha takes her hand away and writes the letter on a small pad she’s placed on the table.Scomes up next. ThenK.
“Ask! That’s a whole word!” Lucia says, amazed. “But ask what?”
As if to answer her, the piece shifts again.H, a shudder, thenAagain.
Suddenly, I know what the Ouija board is going to say. I look at Mason. He looks like he’s enjoying himself far too much. He’s clearly stifling a laugh. No, don’t turn this on me, Mason! Don’t put my name down in black and white!
I feel the pointer moving toward theTso I try to steer it to theRinstead. Maybe I can make it spellASK HARDERwithout the rest of the Beaver Bunch noticing that I’m influencing it.
But a stronger force is pushing back against me. The indicator seems to be quivering with pressure. I’m losing ground. I give it one more hard push, and at the same time the resistance disappears, so the pointer goes flying off the table and skitters across the floor, coming to rest somewhere under a large armoire.
“Oops,” Mason says.
“Whoa,” Jeff and Nolan say simultaneously, then immediately start cracking up. Nolan grabs a throw blanket off the couch, puts it over his head, and starts staggering around making a series of ghostlyooooohs.
But Asha is not amused. “Hattie! What the hell?” She picks up her pad and slams it back down on the table in frustration.
“I didn’t do anything. I mean, I didn’t mean to do anything,” I say, glancing around for support. But Jeff and Nolan are too busy horsing around. Jeff is holding the blanket over Nolan’s head so he can’t get out, and Lucia looks like she’s trying to decide whether to intervene and scold her boyfriend or let him wallow in his immaturity.
“Yeah, Hattie doesn’t know her own strength. Her defaultsetting is beast mode,” Mason offers, as if Asha can hear him.
“I said you could sit out. You didn’t have to go and ruin everything!” Asha says, like I’m a toddler.
This pisses me off. “Give me fucking break, Ash,” I say, standing up. “You can’t convince me that a smart girl like you actually thought this would be productive. It’s a dumb gimmick that screams trashy reality show. Which is why I told you it was a bad idea. Mason would never—”
