He’s given me a purpose.Whereas it felt more like a punishment, for William’s actions which led to Archie’s death. The latter seemed most likely.
Edward winced at the name of William’s ex, but made no comment on him. “And how do you want to do that? If you’re sure you want this… burden, a plan is required.”
William’s mind was a live wire, sparking ideas without rhyme or reason. “What time is it?”
Edward reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone. “It’s almost three o’clock in the morning. Whatever ideas you have can wait until the morning. You need to sleep – and before you say otherwise, I will be next to you. I will barricade the door if I need to or stay up and watch.”
There was nothing tired about William’s mind. He couldn’t speak for Edward, who looked exhausted and worried, but he also knew that he wasn’t ready to even try to sleep yet. He didn’t trust himself when he closed his eyes.
“I want to do something first,” William said. “And I’m going to need your help.”
“Anything,” Edward answered almost too quickly. “Whatever you ask of me, I’ll do it.”
William’s mind drifted to the Ouija board, and he couldn’t believe he was about to speak his thoughts aloud. “I think it’s time we attempt to reach out to whatever is lingering in Hanbury. Find out what it wants from me.”
Edward read between the lines and knew what William was referring to.
“Are you sure you want that?” Edward questioned, shock clear from the widening of his eyes and the parting of his perfectly carved lips. “You said you didn’t–”
“I know what I said, but that was before I just sleepwalked – or whatever happened – outside, found a bloody grave, and began digging it up with my own hands. If that’s what will happen to me every time I try to sleep, I want to know why.”
“Maybe it’s just trying to scare you out of the manor,” Edward said. “Like you said.”
Deep down, William knew that wasn’t true. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have been taken to the attic or Robert’s grave.
A message was hidden beneath what was happening, and William was determined to find out what that was.
“Set up the Ouija board, Edward,” William commanded, a chillness lingering in his tone. “It either works and we get answers, or it doesn’t. Then we can move onto other options.”
William hoped it wasn’t the latter. Because it was easier to believe in ghosts than the very real possibility that William was simply losing his mind.
According to William’s phone, it was almost four o’clock in the morning. Edward had encouraged him to soak in the bath until he was no longer shaking. Then Edward dressed William. The action was intimate, and yet Edward never strayed over the invisible line between them. Warmed within a thick knitted jumper, pyjama bottoms, obnoxious dog-shaped slippers, William was finally warming up. All that was missing was a hat and a scarf, and William could’ve been that young boy in that film where he flies across the sky with a snowman.
“Have you ever done this before?” William asked as he sat cross-legged on one side of the Ouija board. Edward was kneeling on the other, staring intently down at it as if nothing else in the world mattered.
“Only once before, back in university,” Edward said. “Me and my housemates were drunk and bored, a catastrophic combination. It turned out one of my mates was a self-proclaimed medium in their spare time. I think he actually does it for a career now… last time I checked his socials.”
“I had chocolate wrappers and empty cans of beer beneath my bed at university,” William found himself admitting. “You had tools to commune with the dead.”
“What can I say, I’ve always been eclectic in my interests.”
Edward fussed around with the positioning, ensuring the board was straight. He’d just finished lighting candles across the bedroom, casting the dark room in an ominous glow of orange. From what William had discerned, Edward was the type of person who coped better when he was doing something.
“What did you do?” William asked, trying to divert the topic from the stupid thing they were both about to do.
“Excuse me?” Edward looked up from the board, leaving the overturned glass at the bottom of the board.
“At university, what did you study?”
“I get the impression you are trying to distract me,” Edward wasn’t wrong. “May I remind you that we don’t have to do this if you’ve changed your mind.”
William hadn’t changed his mind, not in the slightest. The more time passed, the more convinced he was that nothing would happen. Hanbury was oddly still, sleeping just as it should be.
“It doesn’t hurt to know a little bit more about the man with who I’m about to open the gates to hell with.”
“Someone really has watched one too many horror films,” Edward said, the whisper of a smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. “Ouija isn’t a gateway to hell. It’s a spirit board, a communication device of kinds to connect with those on the other side.”
“The other side ofhell.”
