LILY
We sat together on the small parlor love seat, waiting for the ghosts. Next to me, Gabe jotted down notes in a notebook that he had balanced on his leg. I listened for any thumps or creaks but heard nothing except the scratching of his mechanical pencil on the paper. I made a mental catalog of the mics on the various floors, and I was confident that if a mouse so much as licked his whiskers, we’d get it in full stereo. I took a tiny sip of my wine and turned my attention back to Gabe once again. He glanced up from his notebook as soon as I looked at him and paused writing midword. I felt a blush warm my cheeks and neck. “Hi,” I whispered. He inhaled, long and slow, growled a little when he glanced down at my cleavage, and then went back to his notes.
The tiny details about him really intrigued me. Surely he made a fortune, but the notebook was the kind they sold for fifty cents at any old drugstore. It was made of greenish paper with a spiral at the top and a line down the middle. Same as I used to use in school to learn my vocabulary words for beginning French. At his feet, leaning against the delicately carved love seat legs, was his backpack. It wasn’t some high-tech, newfangled thing like I’d seen at the chic outdoorsy shops on Broughton Street. Instead, it was a faded old rucksack that probably hadn’t been fancy even when it was brand new. On the top, above where the straps met the back, was a distinctive square orange patch with careful stitching all around the edges. “Is this your handiwork?” I asked and ran my fingertip over the tidy stitches.
He stopped writing and glanced up, then at his bag. “Yep. Had to teach myself. YouTube is super helpful,” he said with a wink and went back to writing.
I imagined him stitching it on, and it made my heart hurt a little. Him, all on his own, with nobody to even help mend his bag. I also felt a little envious; his stitching was fab.
As he jotted down his notes and sketched out what I thought must be storyboards, I thought about what his bag really meant in the bigger scheme of things. All the places he had traveled with it and what kind of life he must lead. My whole world, everything—from where I got my groceries to where I went for barbecue—was some version of home. But his home was right there on the floor: faded, patched, and portable. On the table sat his cell phone, in a waterproof case, and an old Swiss Army knife with his initials engraved in the handle. It seemed that the things he kept close to him were all slightly broken-in and well worn. If I’d had to live like he did, I supposed I’d have made a little home around me in the same way. But I couldn’t really imagine it. And I was glad I didn’t have to.
He quietly closed his notebook and placed it on the table. Then he gave my knee a gentle squeeze. From his bag he produced a small handheld video camera—bigger than what my sister had bought when Ivan was born, but still very compact. He switched it on, popped the viewfinder from its little slot, and flipped it around so he could see what he was filming. “This is Gabe Powers, coming at you from the house where I was earlier on Abercorn. I’m here with my audio tech. This is Lily.” He began to pan toward me. I tried to lean out of the frame, but he caught me, and I stared at myself on the screen.
That morning, I’d seen him talking to a river guide in Africa who waved him off with a “No camera! No camera!” before hurling himself headlong into a nearby stand of bushes. I suddenly understood the feeling. I was also feeling a whole new level of simpatico with deer caught in headlights. “Is this going on TV?” I whispered. And blinked.
He panned back to himself. “She’s a little camera shy, but we’re working on it. We’re going to see if we can summon up someone from the other side. Be right back.” He hit the record button again to stop the video. He placed his phone on the table and then unzipped the largest compartment of his backpack, from which he produced something black, white, and rectangular. A brand-spanking-new Ouija board. Still wrapped in shrink-wrap.
Oh no.
I’d never used a Ouija board, but I had a healthy fear of them, just like people who live in the bayous know to beware of alligators under the waterline. Everything I knew about Ouija could be summed up in what my grandma had taught me about them: “Stick to Monopoly, hon! Better safe than sorry.”
Rain lashed the windows and pinged off the old panes. Gabe snagged the edge of the plastic wrap with his fingertip and let the staticky film fall to the Oriental rug. I stared at the letters and the old-fashioned logo and fonts that were somehow both wholesome and sinister.
Gabe placed the board on the coffee table in front of us and scooted closer to me. Close enough to depress the cushions of the love seat and make me lean into him. “I have no idea what I’m doing. Do you?” He set the planchette on the letters, upside down.
I pressed my fingers into my lap. “I’ve never used one.”
“Want me to ask Google?” he asked.
“No,” I said, pushing down my worry. “I know how. They outsell Cards Against Humanity down here ten to one.” I righted the planchette and positioned the pointer end in front of the letter A.
Gabe leaned in close. “Attagirl.”
A sudden gust of wind made one of the old willow trees outside tap the window, and I gasped. Gabe put one arm around me. It did, I had to admit, have a rather marvelous calming effect. Like being doused in chamomile tea.
“All right,” Gabe said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
From his bag he grabbed a small tripod. With a few expert moves, adjusting the telescopic arms, he positioned the camera above the board. In the center of the frame was the planchette with my fingers on it. His hand joined mine, and I found myself a more than a little captivated by how our hands looked together. Next to his, mine was so delicate, even though I’d never thought so before.
And there we sat, staring at the unmoving planchette. There were no knocks or thumps. There were no sudden and unexplained drafts. Everything was A-OK. With each passing minute, I felt more and more relieved. As I’d suspected, this place was no more haunted than my own house. Gabe didn’t seem ready to throw in the towel just yet, though, and he opened the booklet that came with the board. He read over it and then put it aside. He cleared his throat. “We’re here to get in touch with the residents of 19 Abercorn Street.”
Eeeek! Again, the rain lashed the windows, suddenly louder and with more force. I didn’t like this. Not one little bitty bit. Desperate not to let Gabe see that I was probably shaking, I gripped the sofa cushion like a life preserver.
After a moment, I made myself look at Gabe in an effort to try to calm my nerves. It worked marvelously. When I stared at him, all other thoughts seemed to drain out of my mind like soapy water from the sink. I admired his scruff. I flashed back to the way his mouth had felt on mine, the way my skin had stung afterward. And I imagined how good he’d look, naked, in those high-thread-count sheets one floor above.
But before I could even think about making a move of my own, the planchette started to move.
I repeat. The planchette. Started. To move.
“Holy shit,” said Gabe.
I was so astonished, I couldn’t even talk. I could barely even think. My hand glided along with the pointer as it slid across the shiny surface of the board. It landed on I and paused.
Gabe and I sat there, frozen. “Did you do that?” I asked him. Now I wasn’t just hanging on to the sofa—I was squeezing it so hard that feathers had begun to poke out of the upholstery.
“Fuck no,” he said.
It began moving again, and it slid over to W. And then A. And then N. And finally T.
“I want,” Gabe said.
God and Elvis help us, we had opened the gates of Ouija and I had no idea how we were supposed to close them. “Gabe!”
“I want,” he repeated.
I pressed my free hand to my mouth. I held my breath and glanced at Gabe. He didn’t seem the least bit freaked out. But of course he didn’t. He’d spent his career chasing things like frogmen and dogmen and abominable snowmen. But me? The scariest thing I’d gotten involved in lately was a homemade curry recipe with sixty-seven spices, with each measurement written in grams! I didn’t know how to deal with urban legends, I didn’t know how to deal with haunted houses, I didn’t know how to deal with . . .
“Y,” Gabe said as the planchette skidded wildly around the board. It didn’t even feel like gravity was holding it down; it felt like an air-hockey puck on the move.
Goose bumps gave me prickles all over. Gabe turned to me without taking his fingers off the planchette as it shuttled around the board, like it couldn’t find the right letter. “Are you moving it? Tell me you’re moving it.”
“I’m not!” I gasped. “I swear!”
The planchette skidded to a stop, and he looked at me for a long second, like he was trying to find a lie on my face. He was so dead serious that I burst out with a little giggle and then clapped my hand over my mouth so that it didn’t mess up the audio. “I’m not!” I whispered. “Promise!” I grabbed Gabe’s notebook off the coffee table and flipped it over to write on the cardboard back. IWANTY, I wrote out.
“Lily, it’s moving again,” Gabe said as it moved from the O to the U. I placed my fingers next to his and felt it move along beneath our hands. Then it landed on S, and then O. With my other hand I scribbled down the message. My hand was shaking so hard that my writing was squiggly and enormous.
For one second, it stayed in the middle of the board. Monopoly from now on, I promise! But it wasn’t over. It was on the move again, and moving fast. It darted over to B. Then to A. Then to D. And finally it slid down to Goodbye on the bottom of the board. There it stayed. Gabe inhaled and drew back from the board, blowing a long breath into his massive fist. “What the fuck was that?”
An absolutely terrible idea! With my hands shaking, I quickly jotted down the rest of the letters. And realized I’d been had. I WANT YOU SO BAD. “Oh, you stinker!” I swatted him with his notebook. “You terrible man!”
He roared with laughter, a sexy and deep baritone laugh that filled the room. He grabbed my hands first and my hips second, rolling back onto the sofa and pulling me on top of him. He tossed his head back, laughing silently now as the thick columns of his neck muscles pulled tight. “You really thought it was moving? Really?”
I hooked my legs around him and scissored him as tight as I could. I planted my hands on his chest and tried to give him a shove. “Of course I did! If your middle name is Adventure, then mine is Total Sucker.”
He wrapped his arms around me, sliding one hand up along the back of my neck to keep me close. Running his thumb down my cheek, he held my hair back from my face. The laughter and playfulness were gone. Now he was back where I’d seen him in the bedroom. Greedy and serious. His palm grasped my tush in a delightfully possessive way. “Ouija speaks the truth. I do want you. So bad.”
“Me too,” I whispered back, but then I realized how confusing that sounded. “I mean, I want you. Not I want—”
He kissed me to shut me up. His hands gripped my body, and his tongue swept mine aside. Straddling him on my knees on the sofa, I felt him hard underneath me. I tipped my hips into him, with nothing but my panties and his chinos between us. This kiss was different than the one in the bedroom earlier. This was like a slow drizzle of caramel all through me. Just as the room began to spin, and just as I started to reach for his belt, he broke us apart, pulling my head back slightly with his fingers knotted into my hair. He nudged my cheek with his nose and said, “I’m gonna take you upstairs, Lily. And rock your fucking world.”