THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL Poco saw Walter Kew walking to his classroom. At least, she thought it was him whisking past in the shadows. Even in a bright-lit school corridor, he managed to make himself nearly invisible.
“Walter? Is that you?”
The figure stopped and glanced around. His baseball cap was pulled down so far that it looked as if the circulation was being cut off in his ears.
“I called you last night, remember?” Poco asked. “And you said …”
Walter placed a finger on his lips. With his head, he motioned her around a corner into an empty classroom. This was such weird behavior that Poco felt a small zing of alarm. But she followed him.
“For my Ouija board to operate, it needs privacy,” Walter said when he had inspected the room to be sure it was vacant. “How are things at your house?”
“Things are fine,” Poco said. “My mother works today so she won’t be home until dinner. All my brothers are older and away at school.”
“Good.” Walter’s eyes stared out from under his cap like two pale headlights. He looked twice as strange at school as he did outside.
“Would it be all right if my friend Georgina came, too?” Poco asked. “I already asked her actually, this morning before school. She doesn’t completely believe in Ouija boards yet, but she said she’d try.” This was a slight exaggeration. What Georgina had really said was, “I am not coming! No matter what! And don’t you ever dare hang up on me again!”
“If she tries, your friend will believe,” Walter said. “The Ouija works.”
“Will it really be able to tell us where Juliette is?” Poco asked. “We’re all so worried. My mother left some milk out on the porch last night, but Juliette never came.”
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Walter said, “but this Ouija sees a lot. The board is old. It’s got power to look into amazing places when you handle it right.”
“I thought Ouija boards only tell you who you’re going to marry or where you’re going to live when you grow up,” Poco said.
Walter Kew smiled. “That’s what everyone thinks. A real Ouija is interested in real life, though. A lot of things go on around us all the time that we can’t see. Bad stuff and good stuff. The Ouija finds it out. It sees and then it tells.”
Poco was so excited by this report that she tried to run immediately to Georgina’s classroom to tell her. Unfortunately the bell signaling the start of the school day rang at that moment, and she was forced to go back to her own room. This gave her time to think again, however. In the end, she decided not to pester Georgina anymore.
“George is like one of those old pack mules you see in the movies,” Poco said to herself. “They take up a position in the middle of the road and refuse to budge no matter how hard you push or pull them. But if you go away and leave them alone, they get restless. Then, with no fuss at all, they end up walking in the very direction you wanted in the first place.”
This, as it turned out, was exactly what happened. At three o’clock that afternoon, Georgina sauntered through the Lamberts’ back door with a mulish air of indifference.
“So where is this great Ouija board?” she asked, gazing first at Poco and then at Walter Kew. They were sitting at the kitchen table with that very item between them, as Georgina could plainly see.
“Oh, hello, George. We were wondering when you’d get here,” Poco said carelessly. But then, unable to contain her excitement, she jumped up. “Look at this Ouija board. Isn’t it amazing? Have you met Walter Kew? He’s amazing, too!”
Walter Kew’s Ouija wasn’t the ordinary kind—Georgina saw that in one glance. His board was made of wood, not the cardboard of the store-bought ones. The alphabet was painted across its glossy surface in two rows of dark red letters. Below the letters, the numerals one through ten were painted in blue. Odd symbols and designs filled the margins of the board.
Georgina walked across the kitchen and picked up the tear-shaped message wand that lay on the board. It was carved out of the same heavy wood. A clear circle of glass was embedded near the pointing end.
“This Ouija is from my family, way back in time,” Walter Kew explained before Georgina could even ask. “My grandmother said it came across the ocean.”
“Across the ocean!” Georgina looked at him suspiciously. “What ocean. From where?”
“I’m not sure. It’s real, though. See that open eye?”
Poco nodded. In the upper left-hand corner of the board, a large lidless eye had been painted. It was dark in its interior and seemed to gaze straight at them.
“That’s the Ouija’s seeing eye,” Walter said. “It can see anywhere you tell it to look.”
“Anywhere?” Georgina asked. “You mean anywhere in the world?”
“I mean anywhere,” Walter said, in such an ominous voice that an image of dark, unspeakable places leapt into Georgina’s mind and she shivered.
“Poco, look! There’s some sort of bird painted in the other corner,” she said to cover her fright.
“It’s a falcon,” Poco replied. “You can tell by its curved beak and talons.”
Walter Kew nodded at Poco. “That’s right,” he said. “It’s a falcon that lived in the old-time countries. People used to hunt with them. Falcons caught rabbits and small animals. Their eyesight is very keen. That’s why this one works for the Ouija.”
“What do you mean?” Georgina asked. “What does it do?”
“It carries the Ouija eye high into the air and helps it to hunt for the places it must see into.” Walter glanced down at the board again. “The other things you see painted here work for the Ouija, too. My grandmother told me about them. This is a sunbeam, for instance …”
He pointed to a bright streak of yellow and orange in the lower right-hand corner of the board. “It gives the Ouija’s eye light for looking into dark places. And this mountain goat is for walking up steep mountains and cliffs. That is a veil for showing when something is hidden behind something else. Here is a piece of rope, because you always end up needing rope wherever you go.”
“Rope! Oh, come on!” Georgina gave a snort. There was something about this Ouija she didn’t quite like.
“That’s what my grandmother told me.”
“And who is your grandmother?” Georgina folded her arms across her chest. “If you expect us to believe all this about the Ouija, you’d better start giving us a few more facts.”
“George!” cried Poco, but it was too late. Walter Kew was already on his feet. He picked up the wonderful board and tucked it under his arm. Then he stuffed the wooden pointer into his jacket pocket.
“Oh, please!” Poco wailed. “You can’t leave. We need to find Juliette before it’s too late.”
Walter looked angrily at Georgina. “The Ouija does not speak to people like her,” he said. “It does not speak to people who try to insult it.”
“Sorry!” said Georgina. “I didn’t mean to insult anything. I just wanted to get a little background.”
“Well, you used a very insulting voice,” Walter Kew said. “If you want the Ouija to work, you will have to apologize to it.”
“Apologize! To a Ouija board?” Georgina turned on him with battle-ready eyes. She was on the verge of opening her mouth to say a great deal more when Poco grabbed her and dragged her away into the living room.
“Georgina Rusk, if you don’t apologize to Walter’s Ouija board this minute, I will never speak to you again,” Poco hissed. “And neither will Juliette, if we ever find her, which we never will if you keep on this way.”
“Juliette never speaks to me, anyway,” Georgina snapped, and stamped to the other side of the room. But after a moment, Poco saw that, for some reason, she had decided to give in. Perhaps, after all, Walter’s board had impressed her.
“Oh, all right,” she said, walking back toward the kitchen.
A minute later she had apologized to the Ouija’s lidless eye and Walter Kew had settled into his chair. No sooner was he there than he placed his hands on the board and recited in a soft voice:
“Come together, all believers,
Let us turn this day to night
And surround the ancient Ouija
With the gloom it needs for sight.”
Poco was enchanted. “Oh!” she breathed. “How do we do that?”
Georgina gave another of her loud, impatient snorts. “I suppose by pulling down the shades in this kitchen and turning out all the lights,” she replied. “Is that right, Walter?”
He nodded, but kept his pale, spirit-seeing eyes well back under the brim of his cap. He and Georgina had taken a dislike to each other. If Poco had not sat between them, her tiny hands clenched together on her lap, there would have been no conversation with the Ouija that day.
“Please hurry,” she said, gazing at Walter with trusting eyes. “Juliette is not very far away. She is waiting for us. I can feel it.”