Page 23 of Wildwood

“We’ve waited a very long time to get to this moment.” She pauses, eyes narrowed in concentration. “And I wouldn’t want anything to jeopardize that.”

Chapter 19

The Forest of the Dead is a strange place to sleep. Sometimes, I think I can hear the creak of branches inside the room. Topher tells me it’s just the settling of the house. Another time, as I stood in front of the floor-length mirror, I swear I could see the trees bending and swaying behind me. But when I whipped my head around, heart thudding, the trees were still, nothing more than faded paint on the wall. It must be an illusion, I told myself.

Today, I lie in bed, trying to read. It’s raining cats and dogs outside. But I’m having trouble focusing; my eyes keep leaping from the words on the page to the branches on the wall, feeling like the room is getting smaller. So I climb out of bed and wander down to the room I slept in when I was a child. The one with the twin wrought iron beds. I sit down by the bookshelf and again peruse the titles, remembering devouring them as a child. The bottom shelf has a stack of dusty board games, the corners of the boxes dented and soft. Monopoly, Scattergories, Sorry, and a Ouija board.

I pull out the Ouija board, smiling at the cover. Two children’s hands hover over a plastic planchette. Such a strange game. Parker Brothers selling a device to commune with the dead? I open the box and pull open the board, the familiar arcing spread of the alphabet in Gothic script. My fingers trace over the cool board, remembering now the thrill of playing this as a child.

Do you dare? Anna would ask, her eyes piercing mine, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.

Um, obviously, I would say, rolling my eyes, but feeling a lurch in my stomach.

I pull out the planchette now and place it on the board, my fingers lightly touching it, willing it to move. Move, I think. Go on. The planchette doesn’t budge.

I’m about to put it away, when I feel a slight tremble from the planchette. I instinctively pull my hands away, holding my breath. The planchette sits quietly on the board. I exhale, shaking my head, laughing at my jumpiness.

I place my fingertips back on the planchette. And then it comes again. A faint tremble. I pull back my hands, holding them up to my face. Am I cold? Did I shiver? But my hands are steady. This is just how the game works, I chide myself. Through minuscule movements by me.

I should put the stupid game away, but something draws my fingertips back to the planchette, as if pulled by their own accord. The tremble comes instantly, and this time, I feel like I can’t pull my hands back, and the trembling increases in intensity, the dull clack of plastic on the board growing louder.

What the fuck? I hold my breath. Is it me? Am I doing this? The thoughts rattle inside my brain and I’m frozen, unable to stand and run out of the room like I want to.

Topher! I want to yell, but I’m alone. Then, suddenly, I press my fingers down on the planchette and the plastic cracks in half and the trembling stops. I exhale a ragged breath, thinking this bizarre moment is over, but then there is a slight creak of wood, and I’m suddenly transported back over twenty-five years ago. Anna, Tom, and I were playing Ouija in this room, sitting on this same threadbare rug, the room dark except for a Yankee candle on the floor. Anna had just asked “Spirit, are you there?” The floor creaked. My eyes, which had been squinched shut, flew open. Tom’s and Anna’s eyes were wide, too, shining at me in the darkness.

“Was that you??” I’d hissed.

“NO!” Tom and Anna insisted together.

Then the planchette slowly moved, almost trembling. It felt different from the other times we’d done this, when it would move with a deliberate force, and then one of us would dissolve into giggles, admitting we were the one claiming to be Princess Diana. This time, it shivered its way slowly across the board.

“L,” we all whispered in unison.

Then the planchette moved again, still in that shivery motion, but a hair faster now.

“Y.”

My eyes jumped from Tom to Anna and back down to the planchette. Anna’s face was composed though her pupils were large and stunned. Tom’s eyes were trained on the planchette, his mouth hanging open.

“D.” Our voices had taken on a chant-like quality, like monks performing some ritual up in the mountains.

“I.”

Then it hovered on the last letter, our fingers just barely touching it now. “A.”

“Lydia,” said Anna, always the leader, “who are you?”

I wanted to run out of the room and my hands shook on the planchette, but it had stopped moving.

“Who are you?” Anna asked again and then the flickering flame disappeared in a tiny woosh, the faint smell of smoke in the air. And in the darkness, a voice had answered, soft as candle smoke. A witch.

We all screamed and ran out of the room. Mathilde, Vera, and Ezra had been sitting in the parlor, drinking gin and tonics, laughing and listening to Billie Holiday on the record player. When we bounded down the stairs, wild-eyed, claiming we’d connected with a spirit, a witch, Mathilde and Vera scolded us for being up still. We should have been asleep hours ago. They shooed us back upstairs and tucked us in. As I lay in the twin bed, with the cool sheets pulled tight under my chin, I remember hearing Mathilde and Vera whispering outside the doorway.

“He shouldn’t even have that game in a house like this,” Mathilde had said.

“Don’t be silly,” Vera had replied. “It’s just a game.” And the two of them tiptoed back downstairs to Ezra and Billie.

That night, I awoke with the sensation of something tightening around my neck. I couldn’t move. My body lay there paralyzed. I remember seeing Anna’s sleeping shape at the edge of my periphery. Wake up! I’d thought. Wake up! She didn’t, and eventually I slipped back into the depths of sleep. I never told anyone that happened. The next day, Tom, Anna, and I all refused to admit that we’d moved the planchette. And we stuck to our stories until I never saw them again.