Everybody leaned over closer, Kevin included, though he was trying to see if he could spot who was actually moving the planchette. It looked to him like it could have been either one of them.
Slowly the planchette moved back and forth across the board, spelling out the name. Linda had a pencil and paper to keep track of the letters, but no one really needed the help. “s… t – “What’s it doing?” Jill asked as the planchette moved away from the numbers and letters to pause over nothing. “Oh, maybe it means a space.”
“ST?” Kevin asked.
“Hush,” Kat whispered in his ear.
“l… o… u… i… s… space… c… a… r… d… i… n… a… l… s.”
“St. Louis Cardinals?” Tim repeated. “I wonder who they play?”
The planchette slowly spelled out “|m… i… l… w… a… u… k… e… e… space… b… r… e… w… e… r… s.”
“Milwaukee Brewers?” Jill repeated. “Huh.” After a moment she sat back, baffled. “I wonder how that works.”
Gail looked unconvinced. “I think you guys are moving it, maybe without knowing it, but I don’t believe it.” Kevin opened his mouth to agree but Kat gave his arm a squeeze and broke in.
“Let’s try it, Kev. You can ask the questions.”
Her eyes continued to grin at him. For some reason, she was getting a vast amusement out of the whole thing that eluded Kevin. He finally shrugged and took Tim’s place.
“What’s a good question to ask,” he muttered. “Oh, how about this. Fred, will Kat fix the problem at my quad.”
The planchette moved quickly to ‘yes’.
Kevin felt a flash of frigid air on the back of his neck, just as if he were sitting directly in front of a new, switched on air conditioner. He hadn’t moved it. He knew he hadn’t. He hoped Kit had but he knew she hadn’t. For one thing, all four fingers she held to the planchette were sitting on top of his own. She couldn’t have moved it.
“Is this a fake?”
The planchette moved away from ‘yes’ and then stopped, halfway between ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ Kevin began to press down harder on the planchette, willing it to stop moving but it waffled back and forth between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ for at least fifteen second before it suddenly flew off the board on the side opposite Kevin. “I think Fred’s ticked off,” Linda observed dryly. “How about somebody else?”
They continued, changing partners here and there, asking inconsequential questions that may or may not have had a definite answer for another hour, but Kevin refused all invitations to try again. “Fred doesn’t like me,” he explained. “I wouldn’t want to get him so mad he’d quit playing.”
It was nearly eleven before they finally finished up with the Ouija board and Kevin accepted a beer form Kat. He drank it thoughtfully with Kat leaned up against him and before long, had to ask. “What’s the deal? Mandy tell you what she cooked up? You trying to get my goat?”
“Not really. I just know you and thought it would be fun to rattle your cage. I know you don’t believe in any of this stuff.”
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