IF WALTER KEW HAD BEEN strange and silent at school, now, in Poco’s kitchen, he became another person. Under his baseball cap, his shy eyes flashed with authority, and even Georgina soon found herself taking orders from him. He was clearly practiced in the Ouija’s peculiar ways. After the lights had been turned off and some curtains drawn as best they could be, he demanded that a single candle be lit and placed on the counter.
“Poco and I will work the wand,” he announced, pushing his chair back from the table. He grasped the heavy Ouija board in both hands and settled it on his knees. Poco pulled her chair opposite his and took the board partway into her lap, sharing its weight.
“Georgina, you will ask the questions,” Walter went on. “You must speak slowly so there is no mistake. Only one question at a time. And if you can’t be serious, you’d better go home because the Ouija does not like to talk to silly persons.”
“I will be serious,” Georgina said in such an obedient voice that Poco looked up in surprise.
“I usually start by asking some warm-up questions before the real ones,” Walter explained. “Then the Ouija has time to get its search system working. Watch the wand after that. It always tells the truth. It’s told me things about my family in the past, things I needed to know that no one else would tell me. Also, I’ve contacted people on it.”
“Who?” Poco asked.
Walter looked down. “I don’t think I should say.
“Why not?” Georgina demanded.
He shifted uneasily in his seat. “Well, all right, if you promise to keep it secret.”
“Of course we will,” Georgina said.
Walter Kew leaned toward them. “I’ve spoken to my parents,” he whispered. “They were killed when I was a baby.”
Neither Poco nor Georgina could think of what to say. Everyone in school knew that Walter Kew’s parents had been killed years ago. It was one of those dreadful facts that nobody ever mentioned. Now, the thought of Walter talking to his dead parents’ spirits made the friends glance around nervously.
“Well, that’s great you got through to them,” Poco finally managed to say. “They must’ve been really glad to hear from you!”
Walter nodded.
“How were they killed, anyway?” Georgina asked. “No one ever seemed to know.”
Walter sighed. “I don’t know, either,” he said. “I was too little to remember, and my grandparents would never tell me. I guess it was so awful they didn’t want to think about it. But I can’t help wondering. That’s why I got the Ouija to help. Do you know that I’ve never even seen a photograph of my parents?”
Georgina and Poco were astounded. “But why?” “Every family has pictures.” “What happened to yours?”
“I don’t know.” Walter shrugged. “They just disappeared, I guess. My grandmother told me they must have gotten lost.”
This was such a strange thing to have happened that the friends hardly knew what to think. They were about to ask Walter more when he reached up and pulled his cap down hard over his eyes. It was as if a curtain had dropped on a stage. Georgina and Poco knew not to say another word.
“Come on, let’s get this Ouija working,” Walter said from under his cap. “No more wasting time. The first thing we do is have sixty seconds of quiet. That’s to clear the airways. Then Georgina can begin asking questions. Do you have a watch? Okay, are we ready?”
Everyone nodded.
Walter placed his fingertips lightly on the edge of the wand. Poco did the same, in the traditional way. A deep silence came down over the room while the single candle flickered and shadows leapt on the walls. Slowly even the outside noises from the street seemed to fade, and a new, exotic air entered the space around their chairs. It was an air so different from the one in the kitchen before that Poco was nearly sure an unknown force had arrived. She thought of Walter’s parents. Had they come to watch? Looking across at Walter, she wondered how it would be to have two such powerful spirits hovering over one’s everyday life.
“The first question is … !” Georgina’s voice rang out rather sooner than expected. Patience was certainly not her strong point. “The first question is, What is Angela doing in Mexico right this minute?”
This was a respectable start. Under Poco’s fingertips, the wand sprang to life and went to perch on the sharp-eyed falcon. A moment later, it slid to the right and paused over the dark red S, then moved left until the letter L showed through its glass eye. Next it inched up toward the beginning of the alphabet and sat atop the letter E for what seemed like a long time. With a lurch, it headed toward the M, passed over it, and went on to pause at the P. Next it visited, in quick succession, the I, N, and G, and drifted off. It returned to the falcon and halted.
Walter Kew lifted his fingers off the wand and looked up.
“Did you understand the answer?” he asked. “It was pretty clear.”
Poco looked confused. “I know it started with the S, and then went to the L and E, and finally the P,” she said, “but I couldn’t tell what it was spelling. The last part was I-N-G, I think. I suppose Angela must be do-ING something. But what?”
Walter smiled. “Not bad,” he said. “The trick was the E. The wand stayed over it for a long time, which means it was double.
“I still don’t get it,” Poco said. Beside her, Georgina snapped her fingers.
“I do!” she cried. “The answer is SLEEPING. That’s what Angela’s doing right now.”
“Sleeping!” said Poco. “Why would Angela be sleeping in the middle of the day. Is she sick?”
Walter Kew pushed his baseball cap back on his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I couldn’t figure it out, either, for a second. Mexico is a couple of hours behind us in time, so it must be about two o’clock in the afternoon there. Then I remembered: in Mexico, it’s hot in the middle of the day, even in winter. So people take siestas after lunch. You know, naps.”
“Angela is taking a nap?” Poco exclaimed. “But that’s terrible! I imagined her doing exciting things down there, like learning Spanish or hunting for vampires.”
“Well, I suppose she can’t always be doing exciting things just because she’s in Mexico,” Walter said. “In fact, I suppose life down there isn’t all that different from life up here. It has its adventures, and then it has its naps.”
This was such an obvious point that Poco felt ridiculous. She looked at Walter with even more respect.
Georgina was tapping her foot and gazing at the ceiling, though. She wanted to go on.
“Question number two!” she announced. Poco and Walter put their fingers back quickly on the wand.
“What is Miss Bone doing at Angela’s house right now?” Georgina intoned.
This was a rather boring question, but Poco leaned forward and waited for the answer to begin. “Knitting,” she imagined the board replying. Or “writing letters.” Maybe the Ouija was bored, too. The wand didn’t move.
“Who is this person, Miss Bone?” Walter asked when another motionless minute had dragged by.
“She’s the old lady the Harralls hired to live in their garage apartment. To look after their house,” Poco explained. “I guess she’s not home now or something.”
“Ask the question again,” Walter said.
Georgina cleared her throat. “What is Miss Bone, the woman who is living at Angela Harrall’s house, doing right now?” she said slowly.
The wand wobbled after this, but then its energy seemed to drain away and it sat still again. After about a minute, it began an awkward crablike creep toward the board’s bottom edge, where it would have fallen off if Walter hadn’t stopped it.
“That’s strange,” he said. “The Ouija has never done that before.” He picked up the wand and looked at it. “There’s been some mix-up, probably. Let’s not worry about it. Just go ahead and ask about Juliette. We’re beginning to run out of time.”
“Here we go, then,” Georgina said, and, with a little shiver of expectation, she asked in a loud voice,
“Oh, wonderful Ouija, please tell us where Juliette is hiding! Find Juliette now with your magic eye so we can bring her home tonight!”
There was another period of stillness. For a while, it seemed that the Ouija might have forgotten them completely and gone off on some cosmic errand. But then, with a burst, the wand came to life.
It moved first to the bright sunbeam in the corner, then slipped down to linger over the wide, elegant H at the board’s center. From there it slid left and covered the O, backed around and visited the M. It zipped up again and over to the E. After this, it went back to the sunbeam in the corner, perhaps to rest itself in that figure’s rosy glow. There seemed to be nothing further coming, so Walter Kew raised his fingers from the wand and looked up.
“H-O-M-E,” Poco said. “Home. Does that mean Juliette has already come back? Is she somewhere around here?”
“It could be,” Walter said.
Poco sprang to her feet. “I’m going to look.”
“Me, too!” Georgina cried.
They put on their coats and tore out into the yard. There, for the next ten minutes, they searched high and low—under bushes and up trees, around the front yard and on the porch roof. Nowhere did they see anything resembling a gray Siamese cat. They were thinking of going back inside when Walter came out with his coat on. He was carrying the Ouija in a box under his arm.
“Are you sure the Ouija was telling us the truth?” Georgina called to him across the yard. “We can’t find Juliette anywhere!”
Walter didn’t answer. He walked up the driveway toward the sidewalk out front.
“Wait!” Georgina shouted. She caught him as he was about to slink through the Lamberts’ front gate. No sooner had he come outside than his old nervous habits had returned. Even as he walked, he was pulling down his baseball cap, glancing fearfully over his shoulder.
“Walter Kew! Has this all been some kind of trick?” Georgina demanded with hard eyes.
“Of course not.” He kept walking.
“Well, what should we do now?” she asked, jogging along beside him. “Poco is very upset. She was depending on the Ouija to find Juliette.”
They both glanced back at Poco’s tiny figure rushing frantically around the yard. She couldn’t believe the old cat wasn’t there.
“Has Poco thought that the Ouija might have meant something else?” Walter asked Georgina.
“What else?”
Walter shrugged. “Home is where you start from, not where you happen to be,” he said. Before Georgina could ask him anything else, his short, wiry legs shot out, and he disappeared up the sidewalk.