“Please, Hattie,” Helen said. “Let us know you’re here.”

Prove I’m not crazy.

Prove I didn’t imagine you.

Come back.

    The planchette twitched to life under her fingers.

Helen had found a section in one of the library books—Communicating with the Spirit World—about Ouija boards. The book warned to be very careful—that using a board was like opening a door and you could never be sure what might come through.

“Be clear of your intentions,” the book had said.

But what were her intentions?

To make contact. To learn about Hattie. About this place. It was more than intentions: it was a need, a compulsion that she felt pulling her along, begging her to work harder, to find out all she could by whatever means necessary, even if it meant talking to ghosts with a Ouija board.

“Is that you?” Helen asked Riley as the plastic zigzagged around the board. “Are you moving it?”

“No,” Riley whispered. She was studying the little clear window on the planchette, noting which letters it rested on for a moment before swooping off to the next.

“B-C-A-W…,” Riley read out. The planchette slid almost off the corner of the board closest to Riley, Helen having to stretch to keep her right hand on it. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. The planchette looped back to the alphabet and continued to spell. Now Riley and Helen read in unison.

“O…F…U.” The planchette sketched out a final large circle and then settled on the image of the moon in the upper right corner and was still. There was a damp, rotten smell in the air that clung to the back of Helen’s throat.

“That doesn’t spell anything,” Helen whispered.

Riley repeated the letters again, trying to pick words out. “B caws…of u,” she said. “Holy shit, Helen, she means ‘because of you’!”

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be real, could it?

The damp rotten smell intensified.

“Be wary when using a spirit board,” the library book had warned. “Remember that spirits, like the living, can easily lead you astray.”

Riley spoke again.

“Because of who, Hattie? Because of Helen?”

The planchette slid swiftly left, stopping at the word Yes.

“What’s because of Helen?” Riley asked.

The planchette moved quickly now and they read the letters together: C-O-M-B-A-K.

    “?‘Come back,’?” Helen said quietly. Her mouth was bone-dry and her voice sounded creaky to herself. “You came back because of me?”

Yes.

The thrill of it hit Helen like a jolt, making all the hairs on her arms stand on end. And it wasn’t just that Hattie was speaking directly to her; it was the change in the air—the coldness, the crackling hum like the whole room was full of strange electricity.

She was talking to a ghost. The spirit of a woman who had lived and died here, on these lands.

“The spirit board is one of the most effective methods for communicating with the spirit world,” the book had told her, but she hadn’t dared to believe it would actually work. Not like this.

“Was it because we put up the beam?” Helen asked. “The wood from the hanging tree?”

Yes.

The planchette moved again, making Helen’s fingertips tingle. P-L-E-E-Z.

“Please?” Helen said. “Please what? Is there something you need? Something you want me to do?”

What would Hattie ask? More important, what was Helen willing to do for her? Anything, she thought right now. I’d do anything she asked me to.

Riley was watching her with a mix of awe and worry. “Helen, I’m not sure…,” she started to say, then the planchette moved beneath their fingers, gliding smoothly around the board. Helen watched as it stopped with the little window over letters, Riley reading each one out loud.

“G-O-T-O-D-O-N-O-V-O-N-A-N-D-S-U-N-S.”

Then the planchette moved to GOODBYE.

“Does that mean anything to you?” Helen asked Riley.

“Not sure,” Riley said.

“?‘Got odono von and suns…,’?” Helen said.

“?‘Go to,’?” Riley said. “It could be ‘go to.’?”

“?‘Go to donovon and suns’?”

“Oh my god! Donovan and Sons!” Riley said. “Maybe it’s the old mill. Is that what you mean, Hattie? The old mill in Lewisburg?”

The planchette did not move.

“I don’t think she’s here anymore,” Helen said.

    “Hattie?” Riley said again. “Are you with us?”

No. The planchette held still, no longer full of the thrum of energy Helen had felt, just a piece of lifeless plastic. The damp rotten smell had dissipated. The air felt warm and thick. Used up.

Hattie was gone.

CHAPTER 18

Olive

AUGUST 3, 2015

“Mr. Barns,” Olive said.

“That’s me,” he said, squaring his broad shoulders. “But who the hell are you and what are you doing up here?”

“I was looking for you,” she said.