by Louise Beech
‘Me and Ryan tried it,’ Jess whispered, close to Chloe’s ear, breath tantalisingly warm.
‘Tried what?’ Chloe burned with acute jealousy.
‘The game,’ hissed Jess. ‘The Ouija board. We came back here the other night.’
Was that all they had done?
‘Nothing happened,’ said Jess as though answering the question. Chloe realised she was still referring to the Ouija board. ‘We really do need three of us. Ryan keeps saying three is more powerful than two. He’s right cos we tried for an hour. He brought a glass and some alphabet letters and the words “Goodbye”, “Hello”, “Yes”, and “No” on bits of card. But nothing happened.’ Jess nudged her playfully; Chloe loved the flirtatiousness of it. ‘How can you not want to join us? We need you. I need you.’
Chloe knew when Jess looked intensely at her through darkened eyelashes that she would join them. This might be the only way to see her over the summer. In that moment Chloe would have jumped into a churning whirlpool of hot acid for her.
‘I don’t know,’ she lied, enjoying Jess pleading with her.
‘Stay, tonight, after this. Go on. I really have a feeling that you’ll make the difference.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes. I can’t explain it, but when me and Ryan sat on the stage the other night, I just knew it wouldn’t happen. I kept thinking, we need Chloe; then it will.’ Jess paused and touched Chloe’s arm tenderly. ‘Remember Ryan said something about one person being the sort of magic one? Well, I feel like that’s you.’
The sort of magic one…
Grandma Rosa used to affectionately call her a magic girl. Used to talk to her in a way that was just between them. Chloe missed her acutely. It had only been a year since she’d died, and tears began to build at the thought of her. So Chloe lapped up Jess’s words, not caring if it was probably just a way of getting her on board. ‘OK then.’ She pretended to give in reluctantly.
Chloe didn’t say that she had done some research already. Not about Ouija boards. No. That she had decided to do another time. When she typed the two words into a search engine the other night, a bird suddenly hit her bedroom window, making her leap out of the chair with a shriek.
‘Are you OK, sweetie?’ her mum had called up the stairs.
‘Yes! Just a … a… spider.’
Chloe had deleted the two words. Waited for her heart to calm. Stared at the screen. Then typed in ‘power of three’. She found a website dedicated to the number three, which it turned out was powerful for many reasons. Bad luck was said to come in threes, and spells were also more potent when recited thrice. The page mentioned the third dimension, the Holy Trinity, and the three witches in Macbeth.
I’m one of them, Chloe thought.
She had remembered when Mr Hayes told them at an early rehearsal that the witches’ speeches were full of numbers. They often chanted things three times. When they concocted their famous spell, they began with two references to the number three.
For a moment Chloe had imagined herself, Ryan, and Jess dressed up as the three of them, cackling around a Ouija board. She shook her head at the image and read about how three wishes are always granted in fairy tales; how three is a complete cycle, with a beginning, a middle, and an end; eternal; forever; always. She leaned closer to read a passage about how using three in some way means great power.
Chloe had whispered aloud the next paragraph, alone in her room, ‘Those who form an eternal trio must understand its full potential and use it in the way it was intended. With this power, there is much responsibility. The power of three should only be used for good. If not, then the power of evil is tripled…’
Chloe had shut her laptop.
Shaken her head.
She preferred the idea of the power of two; her and Jess, no Ryan.
Now, Ryan joined Chloe and Jess in the front pew, velvet cloak gone, hair askew.
‘She’s going to do it,’ smiled Jess, and Chloe buried the feeling that she had somehow been tricked, that Ryan and Jess had planned this all along.
‘Ace. Let’s do it tonight. The stuff is here.’
‘Right,’ interrupted Mr Hayes, clapping his hands with gusto. He was the typical drama coach, dressed as though playing the part of one in a film, with a curled moustache, ruddy cheeks, and an ostentatious quilted jacket, just too tight. ‘I want to do the Lady Macbeth scene where she asks the supernatural spirits to give her the power of a man. Jess! You’re up!’
At the end of the session, as the other students departed, the three teens hung around the back by the bins. Jess smoked and twirled her hair around her fingers. When he was sure the building was empty, Ryan led the way along the narrow alley and climbed in through the window.
Once inside the theatre, they filed along the aisle towards the stage, Ryan leading, as he always did, Jess next – neatly between the two of them – and Chloe last. Chloe felt for a brief moment like perhaps she was not last after all; that someone else had followed them into the room.
She turned. No one. The door was ajar though. Hadn’t she shut it after them? She was sure she had. Distracted, she crashed into Jess, who crashed into Ryan.
‘Fuck,’ he cried. ‘Watch where you’re going!’
‘Sorry,’ said Chloe. ‘I thought…’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
The three of them faced the stage. Costumes had been dumped on its edge; crowns and swords were scattered as though abandoned after battle. The velvet curtains hung askew, one a quarter across its rail, the other pulled back fully. Chloe wanted to straighten the loose one. The cheap LED floodlights were still on and the whole stage was coloured red. Like blood.
‘Where’s the stuff then?’ asked Jess.
Ryan climbed the steps and disappeared behind the open curtain. Chloe heard him rummaging around, and she and Jess joined him. He pulled a sturdy glass tumbler and a shoe box from the metal cabinet where scripts and props were kept.
‘Is it safe in there?’ asked Jess.
‘Where else should we keep it?’ demanded Ryan. ‘I’m not taking this shit home.’
‘Why not?’ asked Chloe.
‘You’re not supposed to.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re never ever supposed to do a Ouija board in your own home.’
That was what Chloe’s mum had said.
‘But we won’t be,’ said Jess.
‘I know.’ Ryan spoke to her like she was a little kid. ‘But I reckon that applies to where you keep anything you use. And if this really does work, well, I don’t want it in my house. Do you?’
‘No.’ Jess shook her head vigorously.
‘No,’ agreed Chloe, thinking of the bird hitting her window. ‘Why shouldn’t you do one in your own home though?’
‘If you get a negative spirit, it could haunt you forever.’
‘But it’s OK to do that here?’ Chloe murmured the words.
‘Better here than where I bloody live,’ cried Ryan. He sat down, cross-legged, in the middle of the stage. ‘Come on then. We need to sit in a circle. All of us.’
Jess joined him. He placed the glass upside-down, in between them. Then, from the shoe box, he took a stubby candle stuck to a white saucer and some matches. He lit the candle, and the flame flickered. Chloe looked back at the door, for the draught. But it was closed. She frowned.
‘Come on then,’ snapped Ryan.
She joined them.
‘I bet Daniel Locke and Harry Bond didn’t take it seriously,’ said Ryan. ‘I bet they broke the rules, and that’s why one of them ended up dead and the other in a psych ward.’
‘What are the rules?’ asked Jess at the same time as Chloe said, ‘Shit, I’m not sure we should do this.’
‘We’ll get to the rules,’ said Ryan, dismissing Jess and glaring at Chloe. ‘You don’t have to do it,’ he said to her. She wondered for a moment if he knew how she felt about Jess. ‘We can get someone else to make up our threesome.’
/> He does, thought Chloe. He knows it, and he knows Jess loves him.
‘Look,’ he said, more gently. ‘We can decide how we do this. All of us. It’s up to us. I’ll tell you the rules of how we’re supposed to do it, and then we can discuss what we do if something none of us likes happens. OK?’
Chloe shrugged.
Jess nodded.
Ryan smiled.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘This is just from what I’ve—’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Chloe, frowning. ‘You should know the rules. Didn’t you guys do it already?’
Jess avoided her eyes.
‘No,’ said Ryan, clearly confused.
‘But you told m—’
Jess interrupted her. ‘I’m sorry. I told you we had and that it failed so you’d do it with us. I really want you to be part of this.’
Chloe didn’t know whether to be angry that Jess had deceived her – or thrilled at how much she wanted her to be with them.
‘You’re here now,’ said Ryan. ‘That’s all that matters. So – the rules. First of all, night is the best time to do it as there’s less interference in the atmosphere.’
‘By night, do you mean when it’s dark?’ asked Jess.
‘Don’t know.’ Ryan clearly didn’t like being interrupted. ‘But it’s dark in here, even if it isn’t outside, and technically it’s night.’
He took a pile of small squares of paper from the shoe box. As he spoke, he arranged them in a neat circle. They were the letters from A to Z, printed neatly in black capitals. Four large square papers came next and had the words ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Yes’, ‘and ‘No’ on them. These Ryan put in a square inside the circle; in the centre he placed the glass.
‘Candles create atmosphere,’ he continued. ‘TVs and radios should be off. It’s best to have the Ouija board in your lap, not on a table, but we can’t do that. One person should be the questioner – I’ll do that – though you can both ask me to ask stuff too. Another one of us should write stuff down, because apparently, it’s very easy to forget what happens. I read this one story online where the kids who did a Ouija board said that once it was over, unless they all met up and talked about it, none of them could quite remember it properly afterwards.’
‘How is that possible?’ asked Jess.
‘Dunno. But they swore down that it was like that. One of them said it was as though, when he saw the others, this curtain was lifted, and they could all remember.’
Chloe glanced at the velvet curtains.
‘So who’s gonna write?’ asked Ryan.
‘I will,’ offered Chloe.
Ryan reached into the shoebox and took out a notepad and pen. Chloe took it from him.
‘Who are we going to be speaking to?’ asked Jess.
‘What do you mean?’ Ryan frowned at her.
‘When you ask these questions – who do you ask?’
‘The spirits. The dead. Those on the other side.’
‘In heaven, you mean?’
‘No, not there,’ grinned Ryan.
Jess glanced at Chloe. The candle stilled.
‘Where then?’
‘Those who are just … like… in between… who never really went anywhere… and those in…’
‘Where?’ asked Jess.
‘Hell.’ Ryan grinned. ‘Your face! No, seriously, it’s mostly just poor souls who don’t know where they’ve gone after dying. But the reason we have to be careful is that, sometimes, dark entities can access us once we open this door – that’s what they call it when you open yourself up by doing a Ouija board.’
‘Shit.’ Jess shivered.
‘I don’t even know if I believe it anyway!’ laughed Ryan.
‘Why are we doing it then?’ asked Chloe.
‘In case it does work. Look, we’re following the rules to protect us. And if it does work and we don’t like the way it is going, and a spirit seems evil or something, then we close it down. We’re in control.’ Ryan spoke as though performing a soliloquy. Chloe had to admit that, in the sputtering light, he was utterly mesmerising. ‘If any spirits threaten us, we end it. This is all from what I read, OK? I’ll have to try and remember it all. Here goes … We should go into this with good intentions. We should be polite and respect the dead. We should know that the spirits can lie so not take everything seriously. We should avoid topics like asking when we might die – who wants to know that? – and we never use our own names. And we should never, ever, under any circumstances ask one of them to possess us.’
‘Why?’ whispered Jess, eyes wide.
Ryan laughed. ‘Why do you think?’
‘Oh.’
‘When it’s all over,’ continued Ryan, ‘we should never leave the board unless the spirit has said goodbye.’
‘Aloud?’ asked Jess, looking horrified.
‘No,’ laughed Ryan. ‘By them moving the glass here to “Goodbye”. If they don’t say goodbye, well, that means they’re still here … and we can’t just leave them like that…’
‘So what do we actually do?’ asked Chloe.
‘First, we all put a finger on the glass,’ said Ryan.
‘Which one?’ asked Jess.
‘The one on your hand,’ laughed Ryan, and she shoved him. ‘Like this,’ he said, putting an index finger on top of the glass.
Jess followed, putting hers next to his.
Chloe paused. She felt sure someone had inhaled next to her. She looked around. Had the curtain moved? Was that what she had felt? This was the moment when she should decide not to follow. To get up and leave.
But she didn’t.
Chloe put her finger on the glass.
But she couldn’t get the dead bird out of her head.
10
Chloe’s Room
January 2019
Chloe lies on her bed and holds up the knife, moving it slowly so the lamplight slides along its sharp edge like a sunrise on an ocean horizon. The haunting lyrics from Dust die out. She puts the CD back in the wooden box, turns the radio on, and lies down again; not long until the cast for the new show will be announced.
In her hands, the knife is a danger.
It’s absolute temptation.
The want is still there; the need. The desire to drag the blade across puckered skin, to sever flesh until blood flows, is still there. But she won’t surrender. No; she has resisted for six months now and she can resist again tonight. Still, the silver shimmer as she holds the knife to the light and gets lost in its tease whispers words of warm willing – calls out to her, offers release.
Just like with the blackouts, Chloe can’t remember exactly when the cutting started. Was she a teen? Yes. Maybe sixteen. She sees herself in a flash – hiding away in her bedroom, posters of The Pussycat Dolls and Kelly Clarkson plastered all over her walls, their albums playing on repeat, knife in her hand, drawing blood from her own thigh with a sharp gasp. Was that the first time? What had made her do it? How sad she is for that girl. Who was the young woman who did that? Not the happy, smiley kid she had been before.
Before what?
Before what?
That, Chloe can’t recall.
The bleeding that randomly started the other night in the theatre had stopped by the time she got home. She had soaked her damp trousers, hoping to save them. She has never bled without cutting before. She was addicted to the sharp pleasure – the exquisite release – that self-harming gave for a long time; for years. When she was overwhelmed with feelings – that she wasn’t good enough, didn’t quite fit in, wasn’t a success – that nick of pain, followed by a trickle of blood, released the emotion. Somehow, once the blood was freed, she felt better – euphoric even. But she had to do it again within days. When her thighs were a criss-cross of red, she cut her upper arms, and when they were a mess too, she cut her stomach.
The brain can’t feel the two types of pain at once, so the physical hurt cancels out the emotional. After a while, though, she got used to the pain. The euphoria died. B
ut by then, Chloe was addicted to the act.
She was never sure if she was trying to face her feelings – or obliterate them.
But it meant she could smile.
She could outwardly be the smiley, happy Chloe she had once truthfully been.
Now, she has gone from cutting every day to every other, from twice a week to once a week, from once to hardly ever, to never. With the help of an online support group, she has weaned herself off the bloody addiction. But she still needs to hold the knife occasionally; to squeeze it like a grieving mother might the bootie of a lost child. But there’s always immense danger in doing so. The chance she might give in again.
The radio presenter – Stephen Sainty on WLCR – interrupts Chloe’s thoughts:
‘Let’s get another song and then the big news of the day, including the latest from the Dean Wilson Theatre. You don’t want to miss this…’
She puts the knife back in the wooden box, beneath her mementoes. Her mum and dad have never known about the cutting. When she was younger, she refused to go to the beach on holidays, letting them believe it was typical teen angst – thinking she was fat. Now, in summer, when everyone else is wearing short or sleeveless tops, Chloe thinks she sees her mum staring at her long sleeves and trousers with sad eyes.
The shame is intense; it’s as heavy as a cheap, itchy coat and can’t be easily shrugged off. Some people at her online support group have reached a point of acceptance and display their limbs proudly, but Chloe isn’t there yet. The ugly zig-zag of scars – some just white lines, others 3-D and less easy to conceal – are why Chloe has never had a long-term relationship. Who could possibly love her with skin like this? Who would understand, when she herself doesn’t fully?
