The Spirit Board

The normalcy of school was a relief after the chaos of the weekend. Joanna had homeroom with Father Neiman, a kindly if somewhat self-effacing priest.  Joanna had tried to talk through what had happened Saturday night with her parents, but they had just scolded her for not calling them to pick her up. But she needed to know what had really happened, so after Father had finished taking attendance, she had approached his desk and quietly told him about that night. He was comforting, but didn’t answer her fundamental question, leaving her feeling as unbalanced as before. 

When the bell rang, she went to her French class. She and her friend Melanie exchanged whispers before another bell meant class had started. They recited the Hail Mary in French and then Madam began conjugating verbs on the board. Joanna tried to pay attention, but her mind still wandered. It came to a screeching halt when Brother Burroughs opened the classroom door. He whispered a few words to Madam and then gestured for Joanna and Melanie to follow him. Father told him, Joanna inwardly groaned as they followed him silently as he stiffly led them to his empty classroom.

“You should have come to me,” was all he said while they waited for Nikki who was also being pulled from class. Joanna didn’t know why he expected her to talk to him. He wasn’t exactly the most approachable individual. And Joanna didn’t think Phoebe had been mentally unhinged. I mean, maybe, but that was why she had talked to Father Neiman. She wanted to know if it was possible Phoebe had been possessed. If it wasn’t possible, then maybe she was crazy, but if that were true, there were things that didn’t add up. Joanna looked up and tried to shake off the black cloud of confusion when the door opened. When Nikki entered the room she looked confused, but as soon as she saw who was there, her eyes hardened and she tossed her dark hair.

Brother Burroughs waited for Nikki to sit down and then a moment longer before he began. “I understand you three were at Phoebe’s birthday party this weekend.”

“Yeah, Joanna talked us into it. She knew no one else was going and she didn’t want her party to suck,” Nikki said. 

“Miss Blanco, you will use school appropriate language,” Brother Burroughs admonished, his tone sharp.

“Whatever,” Nikki said under her breath.

“So Joanna convinced you to go to her party,” Brother Burroughs prompted.

“I just thought it was the right thing to do,” Joanna said, rubbing her forehead. “Besides, it was a party. How bad could it be?”

“Pretty bad,” Melanie murmured. 

Brother Burroughs drummed his fingers impatiently. “So it was Phoebe and the three of you, that’s it?”

“No, Ryan came too, but he wasn’t invited to sleep over, so he left before . . .” Melanie trailed off, her eyes drifting to the window and seeking something in the hall.

“Before she started being a drama queen,” Nikki finished, leaning back and crossing her ankles. “Her weird neighbor was there too. I think her name was Darla.”

“Is Darla a student here?”

“No, she goes to public school,” Joanna answered.

“Father Neiman told me what you told him, Joanna, but I would like to hear it from you. What happened?”

“I told you not to talk to him,” Nikki shook her head. “This is a total waste of time.”

“You don’t know that,” Melanie intervened, twisting her diamond studs.”When Ryan left we were watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And then her neighbor suggested they take out the ouija board.”

“I had never seen one so I started paying attention, curious if they were real or not,” Joanna said, her green eyes wide, remembering. She had expected to see them moving the board, but that wasn’t what she had seen. Maybe it was just the light. It had been dim, just a candle and the light from television.

“And I was watching to catch them moving it. I wanted to prove it was a scam.”

“I don’t think they were though,” Joanna countered. “I swear I saw a sliver of the candlelight underneath it. It was hovering. And their fingers were barely touching it.”

Nikki scoffed, “Don’t be such a sucker; that sh- stuff isn’t real.”

“Don’t ever play with ouija boards,” Brother Burroughs admonished, his fingers clenching and unclenching.

“Trust me, I won’t,” Joanna promised. She tried to convince herself the spirit board held no power, but she had felt uneasy ever since. 

“It’s a fraud.”

“Nikki, I don’t think it was real either, but I don’t think any of us know what really happened,” Melanie quietly intervened. Turning her desk to face him more directly, she explained to Brother Burroughs, “She claimed she was using the ouija board to contact Anton Yelchin, you know the actor who played Chekov in the newer Star Trek movies? She said they were dating.”

“Yeah, that’s when I knew she was full of it,” Nikki sniffed. “As if a star like that would pay her any attention at all. And dating between dimensions-that’s nuts.”

“Well, I think she is crazy,” Melanie said. “That’s why you are talking to us, isn’t it, Brother Burroughs?”

“I need to know what, if anything I need to do,” the Brother nodded. So she was supposedly talking to some dead actor. Then what?”

The girls looked at each other, trying to figure out how to put into words their experience. Melanie collected her thoughts. “Well, the conversation with Chekhov was normal enough. But then something changed. The little wood piece started flying all over the board. It was hard to follow, but I think it was warning that she was in danger. 

“And then she went stiff. She didn’t look like herself at all, but bigger and a voice that wasn’t hers said that she was the next Guardian of the Gates of Heaven. And then something about how the bad Guardians always killed the good ones before their 16th birthdays,” Joanna added.

Melanie nodded and then clarified, “And her birthday is today.” 

“Complete bull.” Nikki rolled her eyes.

Melanie pat her friend’s shoulder and continued, “Then her voice changed again, became deeper, and started cursing and threatening her and anyone who helped her.”

“As if I was going to have anything to do with her after that night,” Nikki muttered.

“And then after that it seemed like different spirits possessed her, some friendly and some evil. It was rapidfire. Different voice, different postures. But the good ones all warned us that she was in danger and the bad ones were mostly threatening. Some of them I couldn’t understand. Maybe it was another language. I don’t know what it was.”

“It was a well-planned drama,” Nikki grumped, examining her nails.

“You were worried about her too,” Joanna countered. Nikki acted tough, but that night she had been as confused and concerned as the rest of them.

“Yeah, lot of good that did. I told her mom and she didn’t listen at all. Might as well have patted me on the head.”

“Wait, you told her mom what happened?” Brother Burroughs asked.

“We talked to her twice - once after she locked us out of the house and then again before we left the next morning,” Joanna affirmed. She locked eyes with Nikki, sharing her frustration. That mom might have been crazy. She hadn’t listened at all.

“You are going out of order,” Melanie interrupted “The ouija board conversation went on for a while.”

“And a couple of different guardians, both good and bad warned us about what was going to happen to Phoebe. How many were there?” Joanna asked her friends. “I didn’t know what to think. If that wasn’t real, how did she do all of those voices? And her weird spidery movements. And her glazed eyes. But, I mean, is there really a Guardian of Heaven? And if there were, what are the odds that he would communicate with us? But then again, miracles happen, right? Uncommon, but not impossible.”

“You are such an idiot,” Nikki shook her head. “She was just fooling us to get some attention. None of that was real.”

“I’m not so sure,” Melanie stared pensively out the window. “I don’t think she is that good of an actress. She really believed what she was saying. I think she snapped.”

“I’m afraid it’s possible,” Brother Burroughs agreed. “That is why we are talking. So what happened next?”

“Well, after that,” Melanie paused, trying to figure out how to explain it.”Suddenly it went pitch black. We had the lights out and the room was lit by the TV and the candle next to the ouija board. Out of nowhere, Phoebe huffed it out.”

“And it was a dark scene in the movie,” Nikki added. “The part where Meatloaf falls out of the freezer. It was a well-timed dramatic choice. Anyway I got up to find the lights.”

“I did too, but when Nikki turned them on, Phoebe was standing right in front of me, brandishing a huge knife, the one her mother had used to cut her birthday cake.” Joanna was back in the moment, seeing the classmate she could barely recognize and remembering the shock and terror. She looked at her friends, her eyes tearing. “Thank you for tackling her before she could hurt me. I froze. I don’t know what might have happened if you hadn’t intervened.”

Melanie remembered the deer-in-headlights look of her friend in that moment, “You would have done the same thing for us.”

“She wouldn’t have done anything anyway,” Nikki shrugged.

“When I unfroze, I helped them pin and disarm her,” Joanna continued, trying to ignore the sudden chill that had seized her. “But that’s one of the things I don’t understand. If she wasn’t possessed, how did she get so strong? I don’t want to judge her, but she isn’t exactly athletic. And yet, it took the three of us to subdue her.”

“While her neighbor did absolutely nothing,” Nikki said bitterly. “After that, I needed to get out of that house.”

“And we weren’t staying without you,” Joanna said thinking of how oppressive the basement had felt.

“So the three of us went outside to get some air.” Nikki said looking at her friends meaningfully. None of them mentioned that she had been using the break to vape.

 “We tried to be safe,” Melanie said. “We had made sure she was herself before we let her up and we took the knife with us. Besides Darla stayed with her so we figured Phoebe was safe enough.”

“Yeah, right. Like Darla was any help at all.” Nikki could barely contain her disgust. “If you ask me, that girl was in on it. Anyway, we talked outside for a while. I told these two it was a scam and we should just go home, but they were worried. Joanna was convinced by the whole possessed thing and Melanie was worried she might hurt herself, so we decided to stay just to make sure. But then, when we tried to get back in, we discovered she had locked us out. So we knocked. Her mom answered the door. That was the first time we told her that something was wrong with Phoebe.”

“And she said something like, ‘That’s nice. I’m sure she’s just having a little fun.’” Melanie remembered disbelievingly.

“So we knew she wasn’t going to help. When we went back downstairs, we discovered she had cut up her arms. They were covered with blood,” Joanna said, repressing a shudder.

“It wasn’t as bad as it looked. I cleaned her up. The cuts weren’t deep,” Nikki’s mom was a nurse who had taught her the basics so she had tended to the wounds.

“Anyway, she got possessed a few more times as the night went on, but we found a couple of crucifixes and a rosary in the basement and discovered that the demons or whatever they were went away when they saw those.” Joanna looked at the crucifix hanging in the front of the room. “So we spent the rest of the night taking turns trying to sleep and keeping an eye on her, always with one of those in our hands.”

“When the morning came, we tried talking to her mother again, but she wasn’t taking us seriously.” Melanie said. She wondered if mental illness ran in the family. What was wrong with that mom? Couldn’t she see her daughter needed help?

“I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to leave so badly, but should I have stayed?” Joanna wondered.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Nikki shook her head. “She’s here today isn’t she?”

“But what if something happens to her? I know it is unlikely, but what if all that was real and something happens?” Joanna voiced her fears.

“I don’t think she was possessed,” Melanie said. She hadn’t been sure what to think before, but after going over it again, she was more convinced than ever that Phoebe was suffering a mental illness. Multiple personality disorder? Schizophrenia? “What worried me is that if she really believes it, she could hurt herself. Couldn’t she?” 

“I won’t let that happen.” The Brother said in his most reassuring tone. “ I’m going to pull her from class and talk to her. If anything else happens, let me know. You may go back to class.”

The girls filed out, talking to each other. Joanna felt relieved. Brother would take care of it. He would know what to do and Phoebe would get the help she needed whether it was an exorcism or medical treatment. There wasn’t anything else they could do. With a little smile she mentally closed that chapter of her adolescence. 

Brother Burroughs summoned Phoebe from class, but after a short conversation with her and a phone call to her mother, there didn’t appear to be any reason for concern, so the Brother returned to his normal school schedule. 

But the board was not cleared and the plaplanchette had not finished its story.