The house had been chilly all afternoon, but as night fell it got colder and even the central heating on full blast didn’t seem to warm it. Elise procrastinated with dinner, the washing up afterwards and coffee whilst Val sat and waited, impatiently tapping the box and looking at the clock. Eventually Elise followed her up to the lounge and sat on the sofa.
She cleared her throat and said, nervously, “How are we going to do this?”
Val placed the wooden board on the table and grinned. “One of us needs to write things down and the other one can touch the planchette. What do you want to do?”
“I’ll do the writing,” Elise replied, quietly.
“I knew you’d say that,” Val said, chuckling. She sipped her wine and tilted her head to listen to the constant steady creak of the rocking horse in the attic that had been going on all the way through their dinner, although it had grown more frantic since they’d got the Ouija board out. “Do you think he’ll stop playing and speak to us?”
“He’s not playing,” Elise whispered and shivered. “He’s trying to escape from whatever else is here.”
Val smiled and her blue eyes sparkled, mischievously. “It’s just as well I’m not scared.” She handed the pad and pen to Elise and placed the planchette on the board. She reached out to place her fingers on it then paused and looked at Elise, seriously. “Do you trust me not to push this around the board myself?”
Elise nodded. “Of course I do.” She glanced at the clock and waved her hand for Val to hurry up. “Come on, I’ve put this off for long enough; let’s get this show on the road…James could walk in at any moment.”
Val touched her fingers to the planchette and pushed it around the board a few times before taking it back to the middle.
“We want to speak to the spirits that inhabit this house with us,” she said, loudly. “Will you come and talk to us?”
Nothing happened and Elise couldn’t help letting out the breath she’d been holding in. Val wiggled the planchette and repeated the question. They sat for a few minutes waiting, but the pointer remained, stubbornly, still.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” Elise whispered after ten minutes had passed.
Val glanced at her and up at the ceiling. “The horse has stopped rocking.”
An icy shiver prickled down Elise’s neck at the sudden silence that blanketed the house. She shuffled closer to Val and said, “Ask it again.”
Val nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but she was cut off by a loud bang as the attic door slammed shut, emphatically. A few seconds later the temperature plummeted and one of the lamps began to flicker, intermittently. Slowly, the planchette edged towards the word, yes.
Val smiled and said, “Hello and thank you for talking to me. Can you tell me your name?”
It slid, jerkily, to ‘No’.
“Are you in the house with us?”
‘YES’.
The hairs on Elise’s neck stood on end and she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was standing right behind her. She glanced around, even though she knew there was no one there…and in the corner the lamp kept flickering on and off.
Val nudged her to pay attention and said, “What do you want?”
With laboured dragging movements the planchette began to move around the letters.
‘E…L…I…S…E…T…A…L…K’.
Val glanced at Elise who shook her head, vehemently. “Elise is writing the letters down for us. She can hear you; you’re talking to both of us. Please, tell us who you are. Are you Oliver?”
The planchette didn’t move and Val sighed. “If you’re Oliver we want to help you. We know you’re lonely so talk to us, please.”
N....O...T...O...L...I...V...E...R...H…E…L…P...J…A…M…E….S…D…A…N…G…E…R’.
Elise gasped and the planchette’s shuddering movements around the board stopped…as if it was waiting for her to say something.
“Ask it what it means,” she whispered. “Is James in danger?”
The planchette drifted towards the word, yes.
Louder, Elise said, “Am I?”
It stayed still and Val took her fingers from it. “Do not ask questions like that, for fuck’s sake, Elise.”
Elise thrust the pen and paper at Val. “Here, you write and I’ll do that. It wants to talk to me anyway and it might work better if I do it.”
For a few seconds she thought Val was going to refuse, but she took the pad and pen and passed the board to Elise.
“Am I in danger?”
She had barely touched the planchette with her fingertips before it shot towards the ‘YES’.
“Is James in danger?”
It moved so quickly around the board, darting towards each letter, that Elise could hardly keep her fingers on it.
‘J…A…M…E…S….D…A…N…G…E…R…H…E…L…P’.
“Help who?”
‘YOU’.
Elise’s voice was shaky when she said, “Is there someone else in the house with us; perhaps, someone that scares you and might hurt me and James?”
The planchette wobbled a little, but it didn’t move. Elise wiggled it and said, “Did you live here, when you were alive?” It whizzed towards the ‘YES’ and she said, “Did you die here?”
It moved away from the ‘YES’ to the 'NO'.
“What do you want?”
‘W…A…N…T…L…I…F…E…T…R…A…P…P…E…D…E...S…C…A…P…E’.
“What do you mean?”
‘G…E…T…O…U…T’
A loud bang went off behind them as the light bulb in the flickering lamp exploded. Val screamed and Elise jumped, violently. The planchette began whizzing around the board so speedily that Elise could hardly keep up with it, and the familiar oppressive maudlin feeling started to weigh her down. Her head was pounding and she began to feel faint and nauseous.
“I don’t like this,” Val whispered, her earlier bravado gone now. “Elise, say goodbye and stop it now.”
Elise ignored her and said, “If you’re not Oliver then who are we talking to?”
“Stop it now, Elise,” Val said, urgently. “Say goodbye and take your fingers off the bloody thing.”
Elise shook her head and carried on. “Why don’t you show yourself to us?”
Suddenly Val’s head jerked back and she yelped in pain. Elise pulled her fingers from the planchette and its frenetic movements ceased abruptly. Val sat forward, clutching the back of her head, grimacing.
Elise touched her arm and her friend flinched. “What’s the matter, Val?”
“Something pulled my hair,” she moaned. “It felt as if someone twisted their hand in my hair and yanked my head back.”
The attic door slammed again, echoing throughout the house, making them both jump. Elise stood up and, with trembling hands, put the Ouija board back in its box. She hid it in the back of a cupboard and turned to Val.
“I need a drink; something stronger than wine. Do you want some whisky?”
Val nodded, stood up, shakily, and followed Elise downstairs. As they walked through the dining room every light in the house began madly flickering before they all went out, instantaneously, plunging the whole place into pitch darkness. Elise yelped when something grabbed her shoulder.
“It’s me,” Val whispered through the blackness. “I didn’t want to bump into you and knock you flying.”
Upstairs the horse began rocking, wildly. Its old weathered joints shrieking with displeasure at its violent frenzied rider. Anger and adrenaline surged through Elise, filling her with bravery.
“Stop it,” she screamed, furiously. “This is my house and you’re not welcome here. Just get out; get out of my fucking house now!”
Deep silence enveloped the white house and the lights suddenly blazed back on leaving Val and Elise blinking owlishly in the unexpected brightness. Elise sagged with relief and Val giggled, nervously, breaking the tense quietude.
“Well, this will be a new story to tell on my travels,” she murmured, letting go of Elise and glancing at the clock. “Jesus wept; it’s only 8:15. It feels later than that.”
Elise walked into the kitchen and found James’ bottle of whisky at the back of one of the cupboards. Silently, she poured them both a large glass and neither of them mentioned that her hands were still shaking. They sat at the dining room table, drinking the scotch, both of them loath to mention what had happened and neither in the mood to make small talk.
Eventually, Val said, “I should go to bed, really. I have an early start tomorrow; Keith wants his car back by 5pm.”
“No chance you can stay any longer then,” Elise said, sadly.
“Not this time,” Val replied, quietly. “But I’ll come back before I go to South America, I promise. I’m not swanning off to leave you to deal with this on your own, Lise. I’ll take his car back and hire one or get a train. I’ll be back sometime at the end of the week.” She reached out and squeezed Elise’s hand, tenderly, before standing up, unsteadily. “Don’t stay down here alone for too long, Lise. James is a big boy and he can get himself home alright.”
Elise smiled wearily and said nothing about the night her father hadn’t come home and two police officers had knocked on the door instead.
******
James pushed his bike up the driveway and left it next to Keith’s car. He wondered how many years Keith would wait for Val to come back and settle down, or if eventually the poor sap would wake up and decide it was time to move on. Would it creep up on him, or would it be a blinding realisation one day that he was wasting his life waiting for Val to be someone she would never be? Had James been doing the same thing, waiting for Elise to realise they could have a happy life together even if they never had a baby?
Deep down he knew Elise would only ever settle for a life with him and no children. She would never really be happy though and neither would he when he knew that she looked at him and wished for something else…something more than what he had given her.
He let himself into the white house and walked upstairs to the lounge. The telly was playing to itself for Elise was curled up on the sofa, fast asleep. She had waited up for him and guilt shafted through him at the sight of her lying there. Her face was peaceful in slumber and he sat, gingerly, on the other settee and studied her. Her eyeballs moved behind her lids and he wondered what she was dreaming about. It certainly wasn’t the nightmares that haunted him every night, he thought, testily.
He should wake her and lead her up to bed, but he didn’t want to look in her eyes and answer questions about where he had been and what he’d been doing. He didn’t want to take the risk that she’d take one look at his face and know exactly what he’d done that evening. And he definitely didn’t want to talk to her when the sound of Amy Collins moaning his name with pleasure was still so fresh in his memories.
Gently, he placed the fleece throw over Elise, switched the telly off and went to bed. However, he lay awake for a long time; remembering the touch of Amy’s lips all over his body, his hands on her and the way she had gasped and cried out when she had come for him. When he finally fell asleep it was with Amy’s face in his mind.