My Soul To Keep

by Jackie Sonnenberg

  The next day marked the first day of our Thanksgiving retreat. It was the day that everyone was supposed to go home. Everyone, of course, except for us. Mitchell got away with it and got the school’s approval on the grounds that it was a sacred and spiritual reason. Nobody can say anything or ask any questions when it comes to faith. That “religious reason” card lets you get away will almost everything. That being said, the first day that we had the campus to ourselves so everyone was in unbelievably high spirits. Not to mention we got a break from wearing uniforms and could just wear jeans and our own sweatshirts all week. Everyone, of course, loved that, even though when we put on our special cloaks we were still in a different kind of uniform.

  “Good morning to you my Lights!” Mitchell greeted us as we came downstairs for breakfast. Carol was already whipping up batches of pancakes. I could smell them from the stairs. They were made with blueberries and strawberries and someone already opened the maple syrup. Everyone gathered in the mess hall. We weren’t fooling around, we were starting these festivities as soon as possible. Mitchell started us off with, of course, his usual great speech.

  “The campus is all gone,” he said with a big smile. “Everyone went home for Thanksgiving break, and we are home for Thanksgiving. We get to have our own break, together as a family. The world is ours and we get our time to ourselves.”

  Carol and some others brought out plates of pancakes, but that wasn’t the first thing I smelled. It was incense and it was incredibly strong.

  “I am so happy to have you, all of you, and you will not regret your decision as a member of this family.”

  I turned my head this way and that way to pick up all the different scents in the room, but there was something else that was different. Our numbers did grow, at one point. When did we get so many new members? Not to mention…new residents. The same kids that were here for the last meeting lived here as well. They were still in their pajamas. As I looked around the room I realized how much of this was true. The entire congregation now lived at The Manor. We were all here. Did we really have that many people? Did The Manor really have that much room? I never noticed that before, and I never noticed when we got all the GOL members out of the dorm houses. Even 7th and 8th grade. That last thought fluttered in my stomach. How could I have been so oblivious?

  Breakfast turned out to be no less than incredible. Warmth ran down my throat and mixed with my fluttering stomach. Our meal was so big we would be full until dinner, until the next grand feast. I felt like relaxing, but now was not the time to relax. Now was the time for games.

  Or, also called “team-building exercises,” such as a grown-up version of “the floor is lava.”

  Our floor cushions were strewn all over the lower lounge. We all lined up on the far end of the room and had to all “safely” cross the room without touching the floor, moving one row at a time and sharing cushion space and helping out friends. It was a fun-filled day; afterwards we relaxed on pillows and blankets while Mitchell rolled the projector and played movies.

  I finally carried myself up to my room, and it was only when I opened my door that all the fun energy suddenly drained out of me and sucked into the ground. I stared at the Ouija board under my desk, sitting there so patiently for the whole day. I leaned my elbow on the doorknob, not even wanting to go in. I couldn’t believe I forgot all about it. How was that possible? Something—or someone—wanted me to find that Ouija board and I did, and I hadn’t opened it yet. I flipped open my phone and browsed through my contacts. What better time than the present?

  I didn’t move from my room doorway, so I saw Damien once he came.

  “What’s up?” He asked, already thinking or knowing that something was going on.

  “Come in here,” I said and his eyes widened. I didn’t mean to sound so creepy, but I did.

  “Sky, you okay? What happened?”

  I shut the door.

  “Well, I found something last night during another little paranormal episode of mine and somehow, completely forgot about it all day until now.”

  I could tell Damien looked a little bit hesitant to be in my room so I sat on the bed, prompting him to do that same.

  “Like what?”

  “Okay,” I said bringing my voice down to a hush. “Remember when Becky and I were talking about hearing pounding in the walls? And then I found that storage closet with nothing in it?”

  “Yeah?”

  I walked over to my desk and picked it up.

  “I heard the same thing last night, and the pounding was coming from this.”

  Damien eyed it. “Ohhhhhhh. Oh, man.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. This…something was messing with it. I think something wants to talk.”

  Damien pulled at his hair and rubbed his cheeks as though they were clay.

  “Jesus Sky. Those things always freaked me out a little.”

  I pressed my lips. “I need your help.”

  He nodded, probably knowing all along he would do anything to figure out the mysteries of The Manor and to help me.

  “What—what do we do?”

  “Well,” I said still holding the box. “I guess there is only one way to find out.”

  We both decided on sitting on the floor, the navy blue carpet bringing us out to sea without any life preservers. We really didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.

  Damien and I sat across from each other with the board in between us. I placed the hand piece near the top of the letters, right over Ouija, then looked at him.

  “Okay, now we both have to touch it and ask it a question.”

  We placed our fingertips on the hand piece delicately.

  “Let’s move it around a little, so they know we’re here.”

  We led the hand piece around in a couple of circles, carefully positioning it back over the title name.

  “Are we looking for someone in particular?”

  “No. I don’t know. We should ask it something.”

  Damien leaned forward, aware of the “no” and “yes” on the board.

  “Is there a spirit present?” he asked.

  We steadied our hands, arranged in triangles with fingertips barely touching. Suddenly the hand piece began to move. I exhaled extremely carefully, afraid that a stray puff of air would interfere.

  Yes.

  “Are you here because you…need something?” I tried.

  The piece moved again. Yes.

  “Do you want to tell us something?”

  Yes.

  Damien and I looked to each other.

  The hand piece moved down the board to the alphabet. I stayed as steady as possible. We never took our eyes off the board as it moved around, stopping on a letter for a few seconds before moving on.

  J

  O

  I

  N

  U

  S

  We looked up. “Join us?”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Where?” I asked them. “What do you mean?”

  The piece moved down the alphabet again.

  Get

  Out

  Of

  The

  Dark

  The piece stayed at the letter “k.” Damien and I looked at each other, our hands shaking.

  “What the hell does that mean?” He asked me.

  “I don’t know.”

  We took our hands away, clasping them together.

  After a minute, Damien reached out and took my hands and put them on the piece.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  Look

  In

  The

  Woods

  “The woods?”

  The hand piece moved all the way down to the board.

  Goodbye.

  Chapter 25

  Damien and I stayed up for a while and talked, obviously in no mood to curl up in the dark and try to go to sleep. The Ouija board was safely tucked away in its box under the desk. We left it alone as we tried to come up with a plan. Our
little retreat schedule had some allotted free time in the afternoon in between meals and activities, so we knew that would be the best time to explore the woods area to see whatever we could find. It could be tricky, as we didn’t know what we should say or do if anyone asked us.

  Eventually, we called it a night, Damien sluggishly pulling himself out of my room and myself hiding under my covers The Ouija board itself didn’t scare me, really. I guess you could say it made me more alert.

  We were encouraged to journal or be in groups during our free time. Damien and I had cups of tea after breakfast and pretended to watch a card game, then once our cups were empty we were up. We got our coats and bundled up, no one really paying attention to us. I wrapped my scarf around my head and stepped out.

  “Okay, so…”

  Damien and I looked out into the vast, never-ending scene of trees. Obviously our spirit friend last night didn’t specify anything. We walked around The Manor around the bushes with the solar lamps, and past the tree that had a homemade bird feeder with frozen peanut butter. We both looked in the backyard area of The Manor, the path of trees that did not lead to campus.

  “That might be the best bet,” I said, a little uneasy.

  “Right,” Damien said stepping over some rocks.

  We set out, mostly looking at nothing. Every once in a while I turned to look at The Manor behind us to make sure that we never lost sight of it, and our way back. I turned back around to see Damien staring at something.

  “Um, Sky?”

  “What?” I asked, looking.

  It was a circle of trees, literally, as though someone planted them using a compass. We walked in it and saw these trees had something else in common. A big white “x” was painted on each one of them, or maybe it was supposed to be a cross. I could not tell. We moved some branches and thorns out of the way to get a better look. Smack dab in the middle was an arrangement of stones. They almost looked like kitchen tile, diagonal lines connecting each tree trunk. Damien and I stopped right there, the wind blowing through our coats, somehow knowing we were not to step foot inside this circle.

  “Woa,” was all I could say.

  “What the hell is this?” Damien asked.

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is, we found it.”

  We leaned on other trees, not the marked ones. We didn’t touch them. We didn’t dare.

  “This is sacred ground,” I observed. “Obviously, something happened here. A ritual of some sort.”

  “Do you think anyone knows about it?”

  I faced him. “I don’t think we should tell anyone.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s obviously private. Maybe it belongs to the spirits and they don’t want their space invaded?”

  “Then how come the spirit from the Ouija board told us to come out here in the first place?”

  We paused, looking at the tree markings and the stones. Nothing about the scene revealed anything other than it had not been touched for years.

  “Well, they obviously wanted us to see it. Maybe we should ask it.”

  Damien was freaked out. I was freaked out. But we agreed.

  We headed back to The Manor, the wind whistling in our ears. It could have been whistling words in particular, but I couldn’t make it out.

  ***

  “Game time in the lower lounge! Come, my children!”

  Damien and I were just putting our coats away, the outside cold disappearing from our bodies except for the very tips of our noses. Everybody was going downstairs in anticipation for the next game, and we found ourselves swimming with the current. We couldn’t go missing.

  “This is the game of truths,” Mitchell announced to the congregation. “This is where we will learn more about ourselves by admitting things that are true. They can be good truths, and they can be bad truths. What we are going to do is line up all the way to the wall. I will make a statement, and you will move accordingly. If it is a positive truth, you step forward. If it is a negative truth, you step backwards. This exercise is important in our retreat for the weeks to come.”

  Mitchell motioned to the back wall on the other side of the lounge, where we all herded like cattle. From here, he looked so small. He looked really far away. For a moment, I was scared I wouldn’t make it so far. I told myself that I had to get to the other wall in this game. I had to.

  “First statement is an easy one to get you all off the wall. After all, you are well past that first step. I am a Guardian of Light.”

  Like soldiers, we all took one step forward.

  “I believe my spirit is strong.”

  Step forward.

  “I believe in the afterlife, and after time is done on Earth I will be in a better place.”

  Step forward.

  “Now, if any of these statements are true, step backwards. I am afraid of dying.”

  Some stepped back. I thought of it, but I was not.

  “I wish l could live on Earth forever.”

  A few stepped back.

  “Positive. I am happy with the time I spent on Earth.”

  Some stepped forward, some did not. This bothered me because it seemed like a trick question. Was I happy with life so far? What about my future? It wasn’t over yet. At least…I didn’t believe so. But I knew Mitchell did. I kept my eyes down, one foot shuffling in front of me. Did I take a half-step?

  More statements, more steps. At one point, I was surprised to see that I was far ahead of Damien. What had he said no to? I didn’t understand.

  “I believe in the spirits of The Manor.”

  Step forward, definitely. Most did as well, and that made me happy.

  “I believe the spirits of The Manor are here to support us and will be our guides as we pass to the Next Life.”

  Step forward. I knew they were. They had to be. I just didn’t understand the mysteries of it all…What exactly was on our side?

  “I believe my Light will move on…move on to the Next Life where I will be one of the strongest beings in the new world because of the generous prep time I was given on Earth.”

  Everyone stepped forward. Mitchell’s enormous grin could be seen by everyone in the room.

  “Very good,” he cooed. “I am so proud of all of you.”

  Several people reached the wall. I got pretty far. Holly, Kimberly, Becky, and Seth with a little help, all touched the wall and looked at the rest of the members who still lingered in the middle of the lounge. Becky’s face was glowing it was like a different version of herself, like she was born again. Damien, however, remained a few spaces back. I couldn’t shake that small sting of annoyance.

  “Our upperclassmen proved themselves worthy of their rank,” Mitchell indicated them standing at the wall. “And some of our younger brothers and sisters… they have certainly come a long way.” Seth kept one hand on the wall and waved a dumb queen wave, where Iris smiled at everyone like a spider would smile at flies. I avoided her glance.

  “Why don’t we all have a short meditation session? After dinner tonight, we’ll have a fun movie marathon!”

  So, of course, Damien and I couldn’t consult the Ouija board until much later. I did not want anyone to see us using it or know that we were trying to communicate with the spirits of the house. I was not sure what the reaction would be and I did not want to find out. We both knew this somehow, but still managed to forgot about it and enjoy the evening.

  At one point during some free time upstairs, Iris sat next to Damien and talked with him privately. I was with Holly and Becky, Becky’s never-ending sunshine contagious to everyone and making me a combination of curious and suspicious, but this made me feel worse. Iris kept leaning in to Damien’s ear and whispering. I saw him mumble something and she petted him up and down his arm. I saw red, and I could almost feel my eyes burn.

  She didn’t sit with him during dinner, as he was with me and the others.

  “What was Iris talking to you about?” I blurted out.

  “Nothing,” he answere
d scooping a mouthful of potatoes. He caught my look.

  “She was just telling me she could be my spiritual mentor, or something.”

  I shrugged.

  It still bothered me all night, but I didn’t bring it up again. Students filtered in and out of the movie sessions in the lower lounge, the fireplace flickering warmth in the room. Informal setting, it seemed like a good time.

  Now? I texted him.

  My phone jingled. Yeah.

  We went upstairs and shut the bedroom door.

  “Okay, let’s see what we can find out…”

  I opened the Ouija board from its case, unclasping the top and brushing the deeply carved designs in the wood.

  We sat down and pushed the hand piece in gentle circles around the board.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” I said trying to concentrate. “Those trees in the woods…with the stones and markings, is that what we were supposed to find?”

  The hand piece started to move, practically gliding.

  Yes.

  “What exactly is it?” I asked again.

  The hand piece went down to the alphabet.

  “D.”

  “E.”

  “A.”

  “T.”

  “H.”

  Damien and I almost took our hands off the piece. They were barely touching and shaking.

  We heard people talking in the hallway and froze, both afraid someone would knock or come in and interrupt our session. The voices came closer and stopped a few feet from my door. Damien and I stayed quiet, but then the hand piece started to take us around the board.

  “How can we know what happened?” I managed to say.

  “The.”

  “Office.”

  “Office…” Damien’s brow crossed.

  “Does that mean Mitchell’s office?”

  Just then a knock sounded on my door, prompting Damien and I to jerk our hands back and look up.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  The door opened and Kimberly stuck her head in.

  “Hey,” she said. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I…didn’t realize you were having a private, spiritual moment. I’m so sorry. It’s just that we made hot chocolate again! And we’re going to start a Harry Potter marathon. Anyway, uh, so sorry again.” That time, Kimberly looked to the ceiling when she apologized.