I sucked in my lips, settled back in the recliner, refusing to look at Monday. The tension blazed as I felt Monday’s solemn stare on me. “I’m sorry about Benny,” she said low from across the room. “I had no idea what happened, and if I would’ve known … No one meant for that to happen, Fallon”
My eyes widened. “It wouldn’t have happened at all if Kane didn’t break into my house,” I shook my head, “You don’t get it, do you? We’re not talking about a ruined dress or a lost pair of earrings, Monday. My grandfather is dead.Dead!because of Kane’s stupid prank or whatever the hell that was. Mygrandfather, Monday! Kane should rot for what he did, but he won’t. Nothing will happen to him. He’s an asshole. Why are you even hanging out with them?”
Monday bit her lip, eyes watering. “You know why. I told you why. Sacred Sea is my only family. I thought you understood that.”
“Well, that stunt took the only family I had left, and you just expected me to forgive you?”
“No, I never expected you to forgive me, but I at least wanted you to hear me out.”
Fable’s voice drifted from the kitchen, interrupting us. “I found a bottle of tequila literally shaped like a heart. And not a Valentine’s heart, an organ heart.” When she stepped into the living room, she shook the bottle above her head with four plastic cups in her other hand. I flashed Monday a glare, not wanting to talk about it anymore. “Can I have the bottle when we’re done?”
“You don’t honestly expect us to finish that bottle in one night, do you?” I asked, perplexed with my brows pushed together.
It should have bothered me that they were all here, going through his house, drinking his liquor. It didn’t, though. This was all stuff. Insignificant things a person couldn’t take with them when they died. Not once had a spirit asked me to keep theirpursesafe, or a watch. None of those things mattered anymore.
“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Fable challenged, placing the bottle and cups over the coffee table. She began to pour when Kioni’s footfalls resounded off the stairs. “One for you, and one for … you.” She began passing around the plastic cups with Hobb’s Grocery printed on the sides.
When Kioni plopped back on the couch, she had a box in her hands and a hat on her head, a deep purple one with a peacock feather from something of the Gatsby era. Her palm smoothed the dust off the front of the box. “I haven’t worked with a Ouija board in a long time.”
“It’s like sex,” Monday mumbled. “Nothing in the game has changed.”
Fable took the last cup, returned to the couch. “I wouldn’t call it a game.”
“Are you sure a Ouija board is a good idea?” I didn’t mean for my voice to come out so nervous.
Kioni smiled. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The four of us took our first shot of tequila, pulled pillows and throw blankets off the couches and onto the floors, and sat around the Ouija board, the bottle of tequila between Fable and me. Monday sat across from me, and the candles flickered in the dark room, casting dancing shadows across the walls. Outside, the rain still hit hard in a calming and rhythmic sequence, and the storm whistled through the crack under the door.
“Okay, so how do we do this?” My eyes bounced between all three of them.
Monday nudged her head. “Kioni’s the psychic girl.”
Kioni stretched out her arms, cracked her knuckles. “Just because I come from a line of psychics doesn’t mean I know how.”
Monday quirked her brow. “So, you don’t know how to do this?”
“No, I know how to do this. I’m just saying…you shouldn’t assume.”
“That makes no sense,” Monday smiled, incredulous, “You’re psychic, and you’re saying I shouldn’t assume, even though I was right.”
Kioni closed her eyes, placed her fingers over the planchette. “Hush, you’re giving me a headache, and I need to concentrate.”
Monday groaned.
“Okay, okay, okay, let’s just do this,” I told them, and the rest of us laid our fingers over the planchette too.
We all went silent, and the only sounds remaining were the ones coming from outside the house. For a brief moment, nothing moved when someone asked, “Shouldn’t we get like paper and pen before we start?”
I peeked one eye open. “We’re not calling upon a ghostwriter, expecting a novel,” Kioni explained, her face deadpan, and a laugh slipped between my lips. “We’ll ask simple questions, and I’m sure we can remember the letters. Now everyone take another shot and close your eyes. And don’t force the planchette. The movements happen on impulse from the other side.”
“Okay,” we all agreed and swallowed down a shot.
I was last, making the mistake of holding the burning liquid in my mouth and drinking it down slowly, which was worse. It tasted like straight nail polish remover. Not that I’d ever tasted nail polish remover before, but it smelled like it.
“Are we ready?” Kioni asked one last time, all of our fingertips now on the planchette.
Fable and I said “yes” in unison.
