10. Billy
TEN
Billy
SUPAHNATURAL
So this is happening.
I was listening to my favorite Meat Loaf song last night and wondering if there was anything I won’t do for love, but it turns out I’ll do everything Donna asks me to do.
Including participating in a fucking séance.
I cross myself when Donna isn’t looking. Not in fear of ghosts or demons. In fear of my ma or Aunt Mamie finding out. If any of my older Catholic relatives hear about this I will be in so much trouble. But I’m doing it for Donna. And because part of me is thinking this is actually an elaborate role-play scene, like, taken to the next level. But if she’s serious about it being a real séance, I don’t want to ask. I’ll just play along, like I always do. And I’ll go to confession tomorrow to repent, just in case .
It is literally a dark and stormy night over here at the house. The night of a full moon, no less. It’s not too cold though, which is good because Donna didn’t think we should turn the heat on. She’s brought a Costco-size bag of salt, a bunch of candles, and a Ouija board up to the master bedroom. Because this is where she feels the spirit’s presence the strongest, she says. She has also brought a box of wine that her friend from work gave her. She calls it emergency trunk wine. Apparently trying to communicate with a spirit counts as an emergency. A pretty big one, judging by the number of glasses she’s knocking back.
“Should you be drinking this much while Ouija boarding, Madam Belladonna?”
She polishes off the glass of wine and then smacks her lips. “I don’t know how to do this without it. It’ll be fine.” She puts the glass down on a bedside table and claps her hands. “Wooo! Let’s do this. Let the spirit communications begin!” She pulls a piece of white chalk from her bag. “Okay. I have to do a cleansing ritual and create a protective circle first. By drawing a pentacle on the ground. Or a pentagram? I need to draw a five-pointed star thingy.”
Okay, this has to be RP. I roll up my sleeves. This is gonna be good. “You need any help with anything, Red?”
“No, I’m good. Piper texted me all the deets.” She gets on her hands and knees on the floor and draws a big five-pointed star thingy. She’s wearing a blouse, and I have a fantastic view of her cleavage. So far I have no complaints about this ritual. “Oh wait, can you turn off the light?”
I do. “Should I leave the door to the hallway open?”
“I think so?” She gets up and places four big white candles on the floor around the pentagram and then lights them. Then she lights a fifth candle, a tapered one, and holds on to it as she stands in the center of the pentagram. She waves the candle around. “I am clearing the air…” she chants, closing her eyes. “This is a safe space… I banish all negative entities… Only entities with good intentions may enter this space…” She opens her eyes. “Shit, I forgot the salt.”
“I’ll get it.” I grab the twenty-five-pound bag of table salt and rip it open like it’s one of Donna’s tank tops. “What do I do?”
“Pour it in a big circle around the pentagram. Outside the candles. I think.”
“You got it.” I do that. It’s not a perfect circle, but it’s a full circle and there’s still some leftover when I’m done. “Do I need to use all of it?”
“No, I think this is good,” she says. “I hereby acknowledge that this circle of salt represents the boundary wherein all those who enter shall not be harmed.” She closes her eyes again and hums something. I think it’s the theme song from Harry Potter . Then she opens her eyes, curtsies, and shrugs. “Okay, I think that’s it. Now we bring that table and the chairs inside the circle and set up the Ouija board.”
I carry a round table to the center of the chalk pentagram, and we each set a chair on either side of it. Donna places a brass candlestick near the edge of the table and puts the tapered candle in it. Then she unboxes the Ouija board and places it in the center of the table. I’ve seen these in movies and TV shows, of course. It’s just a beige-and-black rectangle with the words Yes and No in the top corners, Good Bye along the bottom, the alphabet, a line of numbers, and a drawing of a sun and a moon. She places a plastic triangle thing on top of the board.
“This is the message indicator,” she explains. “I will be the one communing with the spirit. It has to be only one of us so the spirit doesn’t get confused. I will ask the questions, and we will patiently await the answers. Take a seat,” she says. So serious, all of a sudden.
We take a seat in chairs opposite each other. “Do we hold hands?” I ask.
“No. We each place the fingertips of both our hands lightly upon the message indicator, which is otherwise known as a planchette.” The detail she’s going into for this scene is really chef’s kiss. “Please do not purposefully manipulate the message indicator. ”
“Got it.” I place my fingertips lightly upon the message indicator. “I shan’t.”
“Neither shall I,” she says. Then she takes a really deep, shaky breath, exhaling through her mouth. “Okay. You ready?”
“So ready.” Halfway to full mast ever since she lit the candles.
“Same. Okay. Here we go…” She closes her eyes. It is eerily quiet. The rain has stopped. The winds have cleared the sky of clouds. The full moon shines bright.
Donna clears her throat. “Good evening… We now invite friendly spirits to communicate with us… Is there a spirit here who wishes to communicate with us?” She opens one eye and glances down at the message indicator. We both wait. We hold our breath.
About ten seconds of nothing later, Donna sighs and says, “Is there a spirit here?”
A few more seconds of nothing.
And then something.
The dim light above the stairwell flickers.
The candlelight dances.
All of a sudden, I feel a cool breeze, the door to the bedroom slams shut, and all of the candles in the room go out.
Which is certainly not unheard of in a drafty old house at night.
But I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
Because I’m cold.
The room is now lit by moonlight.
The message indicator moves to the word Yes .
“Holy shit,” Donna whispers. “Did you do that?”
“No.”
She shivers so hard I can hear it. “Okay…I’m gonna move it back to the center now.” She doesn’t say that she didn’t move it. She slides the planchette away from the word Yes . “Hello. Thank you for joining us. Are you willing to communicate with us?” The planchette immediately slides back to the word Yes , like the spirit is impatient. “Okay. Thank you. Can you spell out your first name for us?”
After a few seconds, the message indicator slides to the L .
Then to the A .
Then to the R .
Then there’s a long pause.
“Lars?” Donna asks. “Is it you?”
Then the message indicator slides jerkily to the A again.
“Lara? Are you Lara Olander? Lars’s wife?”
The indicator slides to Yes .
Donna inhales sharply. “Okay. Hello, Lara. Do you know who I am?”
The indicator jerks away from Yes to No .
“My name is Donna. This is Billy. Is Lars with you, Lara? ”
Hard No .
“Okay. We’re here to help you, Lara. Is there something you need?”
Yes .
“Please tell us what you want.”
The message indicator slides to F .
I .
N .
D .
“‘Find’?” Donna says. “You want us to find something? What do you want us to find?”
Nothing.
No movement.
No sound.
And then all of a sudden—Donna’s entire body tenses up. She leans back in the chair, almost like she’s been shoved. Her head drops back. She trembles. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s already having an orgasm.
“Here we go…” I mutter.
Donna’s eyes are shut. Slowly, her chin tilts back down and her eyelids snap open. Her gaze is blurry. She isn’t looking at me so much as in front of me.
“Donna? You okay?”
She gasps. “It’s you!”
“Hey. What’s up?”
She looks around, stares down at her hands, places her hands on her tits, widens her eyes like she’s never felt her own amazing tits before, and slides her hands down her waist to her hips and ass. “Oh, my heavens, my word, oh golly, oh gosh!” It’s Donna’s voice but also different. Younger. Naive. Still weirdly hot. “Oh, to feel my body again! After all this time! Or has it been no time at all?! Why, I can hardly remember time passing anymore and yet I still remember waiting an eternity for you to come back to me!”
“I know what you mean. That’s kind of how it feels when I see you too.”
Her eyes are so glassy. Like she’s stoned. I guess it’s from the trunk wine. “Oh, Lars. My love! Love of my life!”
Okay. Okay. This is weird, but I’m into it. “Hey, Lara. How ya been?”
Donna slaps my face. Not super hard, but it’s a surprise and again—kinda hot. “How have I been? How have I been?! How dare you ask me that when I’ve been here waiting for you forever and ever?! You just left me all alone here!” She looks confused. She touches her lips. “Oh, but am I wrong? Were you only gone for a night? A day? An hour?”
She stands up, knocking her chair back. It falls to the floor. “Oh, Lars! You’re here! That’s what matters, isn’t it? Oh, how foolish of me to be angry at you!” She reaches across the table and places her hands on either side of my face. Her hands are ice cold. “Oh, my darling, my dear, please, please forgive me! Say you will, my darling, say you forgive me!”
“I forgive you.”
“Oh, Lars! How I’ve longed for your touch!”
“I, too, have longed for your touch.”
“I will cook for you, my dear husband, but first—but first!”
“Yeah?”
She pushes everything off the table. The Ouija board and planchette and candlestick go flying. She grabs my face and plants an urgent kiss on my lips. “Take me now, Lars! You must make love to me now, oh, please!”
She rips apart her blouse and lies back across the table.
“You got it.” I stand up over her and start to undress. “Is this what you wanted me to find, baby? Your pussy?”
“My what?!” And then she puts her hand out to push me away. “Wait.” She sits up. “Wait! We must find the letters.”
“The letters?”
“Yes! Yes, now I remember! I’ve been looking for them everywhere. You must help me find the letters, you see?!”
“The letters u and c ?”
“Nooooo! The letters you wrote to me, you fool! Where are they? Did you get rid of them?! I told you never to get rid of them! Why do you never listen to me?!” She screams and then covers her own ears, holds her head like she has a headache. A little melodramatic, but she’s really into it. “What’s happening? Oh no. I’m going away again.”
“Just take a deep breath.”
She wails and reaches out for me like she’s being dragged away, and I grab her hand, but she drops back and lies on the table, staring up at the ceiling. Then Donna’s eyes snap shut. She trembles and jitters and shakes. It’s scary and weird and hot, and I have so many feelings about what’s happening right now and I’m gonna have to tell my priest about all of them tomorrow.
Donna starts chanting, and it echoes all over the house. The hallway light flickers. The chandelier shakes. Donna’s body jerks. The bedroom door opens on its own. Another door slams downstairs.
And then silence.
Donna lies on the table, totally limp, like after she’s had a massive orgasm.
Which maybe she has?
Everything happened so fast, and I have no idea what’s going on.
For a second it seems like she’s not breathing.
“Donna?”
I touch her arm.
Her eyes open. She gasps. “Billy. ”
“Donna?”
“What am I doing on the table?” She slowly tries to get up, and I help her. “Why is my blouse ripped?” Her voice is hoarse.
“You don’t remember?”
She touches her forehead. “Oh my God, how much did I drink? I feel so foggy.” She looks around, then remembers I just said something. “Remember what? What happened?”
I help her off the table. “I mean, I already knew you were a good actress, but this was really something. You okay?”
She rubs her temples. “I think so?”
“Did you bring any water or just wine?” I look through her bag and find a bottle of water to give to her. “Drink this.”
She gulps it down. “Oh my God. I’ve never been so thirsty.”
“Yeah. Well. Lara was pretty thirsty too, lemme tell ya. Should we continue this on the bed, or…?”
“Lara…” She looks around and sees the Ouija board and planchette on the floor. “We have to close the session,” she says. She hands me the empty water bottle, picks up the Ouija board and planchette, and places them back on the table. “Sit down and put your hands on the thingy again,” she orders.
“Yes, ma’am.”
With both our hands touching the thingy, Donna says, “We now close this session. Thank you for communicating with us, Lara. Goodbye.” Then she slides the planchette over to the words Good Bye on the board. She flicks my fingers away and places the planchette upside down on the table, away from the board. Then she flips the board over. “We now break the connection with the spirit world.” She gets up to grab her purse and pulls out a sage wand, picks up one of the candles from the floor, lights it, and uses it to light the sage. Then she waves the wand around the circle and the room. “I clear the air, I clear the air, I clear the air… Okay, seriously, what happened? How do I not remember getting on the table?”
I can’t tell if she’s still acting or not, but I recount what happened. I tell her what she said. Or what Lara said. What she said as Lara. I tell her what Lara wanted. About the letters. And the making love.
“Wow. That’s intense. I don’t remember it. I mean, I remember contacting her and her moving the planchette… That was her, right? You didn’t move it?”
“No. It wasn’t me. But I mean, it was you, right?”
“No. It wasn’t me either.”
“ Oh-kaaayyy. ”
Donna disappears into her thoughts for a few minutes, and I let her.
I move the table and chairs back to the corner and use the broom and dustpan she had brought up to clean up the salt .
“I can’t believe I forgot about the letters,” Donna finally says.
“What letters?”
“Before Lars died, he gave me a box full of letters he’d written to his wife. He said he wanted me to have them. He told me never to destroy them. But I didn’t read them because I could tell they were personal. So I put them in my closet because it made me sad. I guess I should bring them to the house.”
“Wait, so there are letters? You’re saying this as you? As Donna?”
“What? Yeah. It’s me. Lars gave me a box of letters he’d written to his wife.”
“Okay…” It doesn’t feel like we’re gonna fuck anymore…
She sighs. “Well. Thanks for doing this with me. This was interesting.”
“’Course,” I say. “It was definitely interesting.”
She smiles. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I wouldn’t have let you do it without me.” I lean against the broom, and we just stare at each other smiling for a few magical seconds.
Finally she breaks the spell. “I think I need some fresh air. Come outside with me for a bit?”
“’Course.” She could have asked me if I’d go to Mongolia with her for a bit and I would have said of course.
I help her put on her coat before we leave the room. It’s so cold in this house. The lights don’t flicker as we walk down the stairs. It was probably just weather related. It’s fine outside now. We stand on the front porch, both of us with our hands shoved into our coat pockets, looking up at the full moon. The sky’s clear all around it, and it’s so bright. There’s a light breeze rustling the trees, but other than that it’s incredibly quiet.
Donna laughs quietly. “I didn’t want to be here after dark, and I come here with a Ouija board on the night of a full moon.” She shakes her head. “I really do appreciate you doing this with me.”
“It’s really no problem. You know how to keep things interesting.”
That really makes her laugh, and her laugh echoes around the property. “Well, I guess we better get on with the date training, huh? Get out and do something normal next? What’s an activity you enjoy that you’d want to share with a girl you’re dating?”
I stroke my chin, pretending to think about this, as if I haven’t been thinking about it for days. “Well, I mean. I enjoy an awful lot of activities, Red. I am a very well-rounded fellow.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah. But there is something…”