Twisted Threads

by Lea Wait

  “Come and have a glass of wine while it’s cooking,” said the reverend.

  I didn’t remember ever having been in the rectory before. But I was pretty sure no other minister who’d lived there had decorated like Reverend Tom.

  “What?” I spun around. “But . . . you’re a minister!”

  He and Gram both laughed. “You didn’t tell Angie about my collection, then,” he said.

  “I thought it would be more fun for her to discover it herself,” Gram answered.

  I walked slowly around the living room. The walls were covered with shelves too shallow for books, but the perfect size to display an amazing collection of Ouija boards. Most were rectangular and made of wood, but Reverend Tom also had circular boards (one labeled an Angel Guidance Board, with pictures of angels surrounding it) and one that was triangular. Many were plain, just listing the alphabet and numbers and yes or no in corners, and good-bye in English, French, or Spanish. Still, others, like the angel board, were decorated with stars or eyes, turbaned sorcerers or witches. There were boards large enough to cover a tabletop, and miniature boards complete with miniature planchettes, the moving pieces that would spell out users’ fortunes. Maybe the tiny boards were for New Age dolls? I was fascinated. “How many do you have?” I asked. “And why?”

  “I started collecting when I was in high school. One of my uncles had a board, and I was fascinated by the possibility that spirits could speak through it. I tried it out every time I visited him, and eventually my uncle gave it to me.” Tom pointed at the board over the mantel. “It’s one of my least valuable boards, but it was my first, so I put it in a place of honor. I have about a hundred boards now.”

  “Do many people collect things like this?” I’d never collected anything but sea glass. Maybe I didn’t fully appreciate the passion of a serious antique collector. But this wasn’t just an unusual collection. It was weird. And fascinating. Especially because it belonged to a minister.

  And Gram was going to move into this house? It gave me the willies.

  “Lots of people are collectors. Christmas collectibles have been popular for years, but today Halloween collectibles are catching up with them. Ouija boards aren’t only for Halloween, of course, but, like tarot cards, they’re categorized by collectors and dealers as related to Halloween because sometimes people use them at Halloween parties. They became more popular a few years back when ‘New Age’ people began collecting angels and crystals and scented candles, along with other ‘mystical’ decorations and jewelry.”

  I touched the angel pendant I was wearing under my sweater. “Do you believe people can contact spirits through the boards?”

  “No,” Reverend Tom answered. “But I still like to try once in a while, if someone is visiting and promises not to take any answers the spirits give us too seriously.”

  “I’ve never used one,” I admitted. “I don’t know much about them, but it sounds like fun.” I turned to Gram. “Can we? Can we try to contact spirits tonight?”

  “I don’t know if this is the right time,” she said. “Tom, we have another problem. When I talked to you yesterday, I told you Jacques Lattimore had collapsed at our house.”

  “Yes. You clearly did the right thing, getting him to the hospital. But from what you said, no one could have saved him.”

  “Turns out that was only the beginning,” said Gram. “Ethan Trask stopped in today. It appears there’s a possibility Jacques was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” said Tom. “But that’s impossible! He was right there in your house!”

  “That,” Gram answered, nodding, “is the problem. He might have been poisoned by something he ate while he was with us.”

  “I’m sure Ethan’s mistaken,” said Tom, handing us each a glass of burgundy. “Who was with you yesterday?”

  “Just the needlepointers. And Angie and me.”

  “And Ethan thinks one of you poisoned Lattimore?”

  “He said he wouldn’t know for sure until the final autopsy results are in, particularly the toxicology reports. But the doctor who treated Lattimore was suspicious.”

  “I’m surprised Ethan mentioned it to you if he doesn’t know for sure.”

  “I suspect he wanted to warn us,” I said. “To give us a chance to confess if we’d been involved, or to think through who else at the house might have done it.”

  Reverend Tom shook his head. “And I thought, after the service for your daughter, that your life might be simpler. Easier.”

  “It will be in some ways. Angel’s decided to stay with me for a while. . . .”

  “Six months. A trial of six months,” I put in.

  “And be the director of Mainely Needlepoint. She’s going to get us straightened out and contact the customers. Do what Jacques Lattimore should have been doing.” Gram looked at me proudly. “She’s already had an idea of how we might expand the business. She suggested we learn about heritage needlepoint—the sort people buy in antique shops or at auctions or inherit. Learn how to conserve it, or perhaps do minor repairs, and be able to tell people a little about the history of their piece.”

  “Good for you, Angie. That sounds like a good sideline for the business. And you have Sarah Byrne already, who’s an antique dealer.”

  “She’s the one who got us thinking in that direction,” Gram admitted. “She showed us an old piece of embroidery and wanted to know what she should do about it.”

  “Angie, I’m glad you’re here and going to help with the business. Charlotte doesn’t realize how much a minister’s wife is expected to do. She’s a special woman, for sure”—he looked over at her and they both smiled—“but I was afraid she might be taking on too much with both the needlepoint business and what will be her new church responsibilities.”

  “I refused to close the business, even when that Lattimore was making it difficult,” said Gram. “I enjoy the work, and so do the others I’ve gotten involved.”

  “I hope I’ll be able to live up to everyone’s expectations,” I said, sipping my wine. “I’ve kept books before, but it was for a company that did private investigations. Not exactly needlepoint.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Reverend Tom said, adding a little to each of our glasses. “And dinner won’t be ready for an hour. How would you like to try out one of the Ouija boards now, Angie?”

  “Could we? I’m sure I don’t believe, either, but they look like fun!”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Tom? With everything else that’s been happening. Maybe this isn’t a week to disturb the spirits.”

  Gram was smiling, but I sensed real concern behind her words.

  “Don’t worry, Charlotte. It’ll be harmless. Which board, Angie, for your virgin attempt to contact the spirits?”

  I was game. “The older boards are intimidating. Why don’t we use your first board? The one your uncle gave you.”

  “Done,” he said, taking it down. “I’ll check the dinner and then we’ll begin.”

  I held the board. I’d never thought much about spiritualism. I’d visited Sedona a couple of times, and I once had my fortune told there. It had been fun, but the woman reading my cards said things that could have applied to any young woman. Definitely a waste of twenty-five dollars. Could a Ouija board be different?

  And yet people had consulted boards and cards for years. They must have delivered messages that meant something, or no one would be manufacturing them. From the modern look of the ones in this room, most had been made in the twentieth century. “It’s too bad the spirits can’t speak out in courts,” I said as Reverend Tom came back in the room. “We could forget forensics if departed souls could come back and tell us what happened.”

  “I’ve often imagined a prosecutor in court cross-examining a spirit through a Ouija board,” Reverend Tom agreed, nodding. “We’d have to come up with a whole new set of laws regarding the testimony of noncorporeal beings.”

  “Ghosts, you mean,” put in Gram. “This isn’t a goo
d idea, Angel. Spirits can’t come back and talk to us.” She shook her head. “The whole idea gives me shivers.”

  “You mean, with all these boards available, you’ve never tried to contact Mama?”

  “Never have. Never will.” She poured herself another half glass of wine from the bottle Reverend Tom had left on the coffee table. “When you’re dead, you’re dead. I don’t know if you’re in Heaven or just in the ground, but I don’t believe you can come back again.”

  “It’s a game,” said Reverend Tom. “Charlotte, if it upsets you, we don’t have to do this.”

  “I’m not going to do it myself,” she said. “But if Angel wants to try, you two go ahead. You need two people, don’t you?”

  “Two people,” he agreed. “People who feel extraordinarily attuned to the spirit world do it alone, but usually it requires two people. We’ll try it once.” He glanced over at Gram. I had the feeling he was sorry he’d suggested we use the board, if only because she was upset. “People have been trying to contact spirits for thousands of years. The Ouija board was invented in the late nineteenth century when spiritualism was popular in the United States. Today scientists say there may be truth in them . . . perhaps a way of contacting the users’ subconscious. Not spirits. Angie, you sit on that side of the card table.” He sat on the other side.

  I put the board in the middle of the table. He added the planchette.

  “When we start,” Tom explained seriously, “you and I will put the tips of our fingers on the planchette, very lightly, on different sides. We’ll concentrate. If you don’t believe, then the spirits won’t come. Sometimes even then, they don’t. If a spirit wants to communicate with us, he or she will move the planchette to answer our questions.”

  “Do you do this often?” I asked.

  “I assure you, not as often as I read my Bible,” he replied.

  That wasn’t a direct answer.

  “I’ll start, and then, if we get an answer, you ask the second question,” he said. “We’ll alternate.”

  I nodded. We were silent for a minute or two, and then Reverend Tom put his fingers on the planchette. I followed his lead.

  He spoke softly. “Is there a spirit nearby tonight who would like to speak with us?”

  I focused on the planchette and on my fingers. It all felt a little scary, and a little stupid. Not a good combination. I forced myself to focus on the planchette. Might as well give the spirits a chance.

  Then, without warning, the planchette started moving. It circled for a few seconds, and then went directly to yes.

  Reverend Tom nodded at me. It was my turn. “Will you answer our questions?”

  More circles, and then the planchette quickly went to yes again. And then to no. And then back again.

  “Do you mean that maybe you’ll answer our questions?” asked Reverend Tom.

  Incredibly, the board answered. Yes.

  I asked what I’d been worrying about all day. “Did someone kill Jacques Lattimore?”

  The board answered. Yes.

  I shivered. This was too easy. I looked at Reverend Tom. He was pale. I suspected he didn’t usually ask the spirits questions like that.

  He asked, “Why was Lattimore killed?”

  The planchette spelled out, C-H-A-N-C-E.

  Whoa. What does that mean?

  My turn. “Who killed Jacques Lattimore?”

  The planchette circled for what seemed a long time before it speeded up. And went to good-bye.

  Maybe Reverend Tom’s collection illustrated one answer to the larger questions of life. Like prayer, Ouija boards offered ways to express desire, hopes, needs . . . whether for forgiveness or love or, eventually, eternal life in another world. They offered hope that there was a place, an abyss, where souls drifted until they were called back to aid someone still on earth. Called back by a memory. Or by a simple board.

  I was certain I hadn’t moved the planchette. Why had the board been so sure Lattimore had been murdered?

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Catherine, meanwhile, in the parlour, picking up her morsel of fancy work, had seated herself with it again—for life, as it were.

  —Henry James (1843–1916),

  Washington Square, 1880

  The rest of the evening in the rectory was considerably less exciting than the first hour. Reverend Tom’s interest in the occult seemed the most unusual thing about him. I would have liked to have asked him more questions about his boards, but Gram was clearly not comfortable heading off into the unknowns of spiritualism.

  She and I went home early.

  Gram went to bed. I was restless.

  First, I called my old friend Clem. Of all the people I’d seen since I’d returned to Haven Harbor, she was the one I most wanted to see again. Except, of course, for Ethan Trask. But seeing him wasn’t a good thing, for an increasing number of reasons.

  Not only was he married and a father, but every time I saw him, he was questioning me about a murder. Not exactly the conversations my fantasies had dreamed up on a regular basis since I was twelve. I didn’t need a Ouija board to tell me I needed a new fantasy.

  I left Clem a message suggesting we meet for lunch tomorrow if she could get away from her job. I even volunteered to drive to Portland. I loved being with Gram, but what I really needed—I decided after an inch of cognac—was a little distance from Haven Harbor.

  Time to get my bearings . . . and a friend. Someone who remembered me as a decent person. Possibly misguided. Possibly unfocused. But, still, someone who could be trusted to keep your secrets and might share a few of her own. A female friend, so there wouldn’t be romantic complications or misunderstandings.

  In the meantime I wandered through the house. It didn’t take long before I decided to deal with Mama’s bedroom. At lunch Gram had mentioned that maybe it was time to dispose of her clothes. I’d volunteered to go through them, and Gram had looked relieved.

  I gathered boxes and bags from the cellar and tackled Mama’s closet.

  She may have been my age, but she’d been smaller than I was. I sorted her clothes either into garbage bags to throw away or boxes for Goodwill. Decisions were easy: stained blouses, out-of-date or wild patterns, went into the garbage bags. A couple of sweaters I held out. I might be able to wear those, and I could use extra sweaters. I hesitated when I came to the dress Mama had always worn when Gram shamed her into going to church. I held it for a few minutes before letting it go. Someone else could wear it now.

  Dresses that would be too short for me, and too young for Gram; shoes, leather now cracked; T-shirts advertising places and events in the past—all gone.

  I held up a pair of black wool slacks that looked practically new. Had moths gotten to them? They were too short for my legs in any case. I was about to drop them in the “donate” pile when I heard paper crackling. I looked again. This time I checked the pockets.

  A folded scrap of paper was tucked deep inside one. On it was a scribbled telephone number, in Mama’s handwriting.

  It probably meant nothing. But right then, after the evening with the Ouija board and my second glass of brandy, it felt like a message from her grave.

  Whose telephone number was it? It had the same first three digits as numbers in Haven Harbor. A local number.

  I put the note on Mama’s bedside table as I quickly checked through the piles of clothes I’d already sorted. Nothing was in any other pocket.

  Mama would have worn wool pants in the winter and as late as April or early May. And she hadn’t had these cleaned for the summer. Chances were she’d worn them in the month before she’d died.

  I finished going through the closet, ending up with two cartons for Goodwill and several sweaters I could try on. Everything else I threw away.

  I still had the bureau to go through, but suddenly I was exhausted.

  I took the scrap of paper I’d found and went to my room. It was close to midnight. Too late to call anyone.

  Clem hadn’t called bac
k.

  The rest of the night my head swirled with numbers and faces. I didn’t recognize any of them.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  How frail is life! It is like a fading flow’r,

  That flourishes and withers in an hour.

  Now we’re in health but ere the day is fled,

  We may be numbered with the silent dead.

  —Words on a sampler, “wrought by Hannah G. Sevey,” at age thirteen, Machias, Maine, 1818

  The next morning I dialed the number Mama’d written down. The woman who answered had never heard of Mama. “Excuse me, but can you tell me how long you’ve had this number?” I asked.

  “About six years now,” she answered.

  I thanked her, then tucked the paper in my jeans pocket. I’d borrow Gram’s computer and run a search on it later.

  A few minutes later, Clem returned my last night’s call. She’d love to have lunch, but she wasn’t free until Monday. And why didn’t we include Cindy (Titicomb, now Bowers)? They’d been planning to get together, and it would be fun for the three of us to see each other. I agreed. Cindy and I had had our issues back in school, but that was a long time ago. She’d left Haven Harbor to attend a private high school. I hadn’t seen her since elementary school. And Cindy’s mom was a needlepointer. If Clem liked Cindy, maybe I could too.

  Clem hesitated a bit before asking, “And what about including Lauren? She’s still in Haven Harbor.”

  I thought for a moment. No, there were too many issues between Lauren and me. “Maybe after a little more time has passed. Right now, I’d like the three of us to have a relaxed lunch.”

  “Monday, then? And is meeting in Bath okay? I’ve been longing for Beale Street Barbeque.”

  I smiled to myself. Barbeque wasn’t exactly typical Maine, but Clem was right. Beale’s had always done a great job with it. It was one of the places we’d loved when we were teenagers and one of us could get a car. And some cash.