“YesNoGoodbye”

Kristi DeMeester

Cassandra found the Ouija board in her dad’s attic. Her mom had left a year ago, right after her thirteenth birthday, and her dad had packed everything up that might have her mother’s stain still on it.

“I’m not supposed to go up there,” she said and shook her head so her dark braids fell over her face. I wanted to reach out and touch her cheeks and her mouth every time she did that, but I kept my hands pinned against my thighs and reminded myself that she would probably think it was weird.

“Bet it’s not even real,” I said, but even as I spoke, I knew it was. The board was a dark, heavy wood and smelled of ancient dust and quiet places where things are put to be forgotten. Kind of like Cassandra’s mom. She wouldn’t talk about her, and I never asked because she was my best friend, and you don’t say things to make your best friend sad.

The letters were etched deep in the wood and were the color of something burnt. In the upper corners were two smiling skulls. Their teeth were sharp and pointed, and I forced myself to look at them even though there was something like fear coming awake and crawling in my belly.

“Jesus, Dee. I mean look at this thing. It’s creepy as fuck. It’s the real deal,” she said, and I marveled at how easily the curse word rolled off her tongue. Like it was nothing. Like she didn’t even think of it, and I watched her mouth, and then she saw me looking, and I pretended to be looking at the board.

“I guess so.”

“Whatever. You’re going to do it with me, right?”

“Yeah. Hell yeah,” I said, testing the word in my mouth, but it felt sour and awkward, and Cassandra twisted away from me to hide her smirk, and I wished I could have melted into the floor.

“Okay. We have to do this right, though. Be right back,” she said and dashed out of the room. My hands were damp, and I swiped them against my jeans and then smoothed my hair and tried to ignore the rabbit-quick beat of my heart inside my chest.

When Cassandra came back in, she carried a few candles and tucked under her arm was a glass bottle filled with a deep purple liquid. “To set the mood,” she said and placed the candles around the Ouija board and then lifted the bottle to her lips and swallowed. I watched her throat and all of my secret places went damp.

“Here.” She pushed the bottle at me, and I lifted it and took a sniff.

“This is wine, isn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a wuss. Just drink some.”

I tipped the bottle back and tried not to cough, and she nodded and grinned, and so I drank some more, and she grabbed me by the shoulders, and her breath smelled sweet, and I leaned into her and laughed.

“So, what do we ask it?” She lit the candles one by one with a lighter she’d pulled from her pocket and sank back on her heels.

I knew what it was I wanted to ask it, but I wouldn’t. “I don’t know. Something stupid. Just to see if it even works.”

Cassandra held her hands out and grasped the small triangle on the board between us. There was a hole through the middle so you could see the letters, and she placed her fingers on the edges.

“Well, come on,” she said, and I did the same, and my fingers were just barely touching hers. She giggled and cleared her throat. “Is anyone there?”

We watched the little triangle, but it didn’t move. “Hello?” she said and still nothing happened, and I opened my mouth to tell her it wasn’t working, to tell her this was stupid and couldn’t we just watch old movies the way we always did, and then our fingers were moving and the little hole went up and up until we looked through and saw.

Yes .

“You did that,” I said, but Cassandra shook her head, and she smelled like cinnamon, and it made my entire body hurt.

“Did you?” she said.

“No.” A grin split her lips, and she waggled her eyebrows.

“Told you it would work.”

“So ask it something else.”

“What’s my name?” she said, and we watched as the triangle traced over the C, the A, and S, and Cassandra laughed, high and clear.

“You’re pushing it. Of course you know how to spell your own name.”

“Then you ask it something. Something no one knows but you. A secret. That way, we’ll know it’s for real,” she said, and my neck went all warm, and I could feel the red creeping into my face. Because I had a secret. A secret that felt too heavy for my mouth. But I wouldn’t ask that question.

I tried to think of something Cassandra didn’t already know about me, but there wasn’t much. I never felt like I knew as much about her as she did about me. She’d listen to me go on and on and then get real quiet, and I didn’t want to make her mad, so I never asked that many questions.

Every Friday she’d ask me to come over and then on Saturdays she came home with me, and my mom didn’t care. Thought it was nice that I had a good friend, and her dad was never home to ask questions. Cassandra never really talked about him either. Sometimes, I wondered if he even existed. If she just lived in that big house all alone and pretended. But sometimes she’d have bruises on her arms or on her neck, and she’d stop talking for a few days, and I would let her be quiet. I never minded.

“Got it. And don’t move your hands,” she said. I looked away from the board. I didn’t want to see my fingers moving or Cassandra’s face when I asked my question.

“What do I keep under my pillow? While I sleep?”

Our fingers moved, and I could feel the warmth of her skin, and Cassandra spelled out the letters one by one, and by the fourth letter, I knew the board was real and jerked backward.

“It’s right, isn’t it?” Cassandra squealed, and I didn’t want to play that game anymore. “What do you keep under your pillow?”

“It’s nothing. A bracelet my grandma gave me before she died,” I said, but it was a lie. It was the friendship bracelet Cassandra gave me last summer. I’d never taken it off, not even to take a shower, and when it finally disintegrated, I tucked the pieces into a sandwich bag and stuck it under my pillow.

“My turn. Are you a boy or a girl?” Cassandra said, and I wanted to tell her not to ask it that, that it wasn’t smart to know anything about whatever was inside the board, but the triangle moved, and there was nothing I could do.

G-I-R-L.

“You ask it something,” Cassandra said, but I stayed quiet, and she rolled her eyes at me. “Fine. How old were you when you died?”

The triangle shifted to the line of numbers at the bottom of the board and hovered over the one and then the six.

“Sixteen,” Cassandra said, and the triangle moved to show us Yes . “Did you live here? In this house?” The triangle showed us No .

Cassandra fluttered her fingers against mine and smiled. “What’s your name?”

“Don’t ask what its name is!” My voice was hoarse, and I coughed.

“Why not?” Cassandra said. I wasn’t sure why I’d said that, but the triangle was finding the letters anyway.

M-A-R-I-A-N-N-E

“How did you die?” Cassandra said, and it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and I couldn’t breathe, and I wanted to run out of there and out of the house until my lungs went raw, but I sat and watched the triangle.

H-U-R-T-D-Y-O-

Cassandra frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, and the triangle moved again.

H-U-R-T-D-A-D-S-A-M-E-A-S-M-E

Cassandra lifted her hands off of the triangle and cracked her knuckles one by one. “Ask it something else,” I said. She put her hands back down.

“Okay, great spirits of the unknown beyond. Is someone in love with me?” The triangle slid up and to the left. Yes.

She laughed, and another part of me unraveled. There was a window behind Cassandra, and I focused on that. Looked out into the dark so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

“Who’s in love with me?” she said, and my guts turned to water. The triangle jerked under my hands, and I looked away.

No .

“No? What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. Underneath the little hole, the word looked large and accusatory. Cassandra took her hands off the triangle so she could tuck her braids behind her ear.

Under my fingers, the triangle jumped, and I started and pulled away. The triangle continued to move, and we both stared down at it.

D-O-N-T, the triangle spelled and then stopped for a second before it started up again.

D-O-N-T-D-A-D-D-Y-H-U-R-T . Again and again, the triangle spelled out the phrase. Don’tDaddyHurt. Don’tDaddyHurt.

Cassandra made a sound like the one our dog, Buster, made when he cut his leg on some barbed wire. She kicked the board so the triangle went flying and the board landed upside down next to her bed. Her face was wet, and she turned away.

“What was—”

“Nothing,” she said, and her voice was hard edges, and I forced my tongue to be still.

She blew out the candles and grabbed the bottle of wine, tipped it back, and drank until she spluttered. Her mouth was the color of blood.

“Come on. Let’s go watch a movie or something,” she said and left the room, and I watched the place where her body used to be. The window was still dark, and I thought I saw something move against it. A hand flexed against the glass or a mouth opening, but there was nothing there, and I stood and left the board and triangle on the floor and hurried out of the room.

We watched movies for the rest of the night. Every few minutes, Cassandra would take a pull off of the bottle and pretty soon she was giggling and poking at me, and I would slap her hand away even if what I really wanted to do was wrap my fingers around hers and never let go. Eventually, we fell asleep on the couch.

When I woke up, the house was dark, and the television was turned off. I rolled over and looked for Cassandra, but she wasn’t there. I held my breath.

The sound was soft at first. Like the very start of someone sighing before it catches in their throat. “Cass?” I called into all of that gathered dark, but nothing answered me, and I swung my legs over the couch.

It’s nothing , I told myself and forced myself to stand—my hands groping before me—and moved toward the hallway. “Cass?” I said again, and I could hear her then, her voice low and growling, as she mumbled, and I followed the sound to her bedroom. She faced away from me. She’d taken off her all of her clothes. Bare-backed with her thighs and calves clenched as she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to the window. Whispered to whatever lay behind the glass.

“It isn’t a ghost. What we let out of the board. It’s something else. How many times do you think it tried to get in? Before we opened the door?” she said, and I could smell her then. Like urine and sweat, and I brought my hand over my mouth. “I think it was like him. Like Daddy. It was always going to find a way. Didn’t matter if you locked the door or not. It never fucking mattered.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, and she turned to me then, her eyes glittering, and stepped forward.

“Come and see.”

“There’s nothing out there. It’s just a window.”

“Only if you don’t know where to look.” She held out her hand, and I couldn’t help it. There was still the need to touch her lying underneath all of my hot, damp fear, and I let her wrap her fingers over mine and pull me beside her.

“See?” she said and pressed her face and her mouth against the glass.

I closed my eyes. Cassandra pushed her hip against mine, and I remembered her skin was bare, and my entire body shuddered. “He doesn’t come home when you’re here. With me.”

Behind me, something clattered. The sound of wood grating against wood, and I wondered if the board had somehow righted itself. If it was spelling out dead secrets. I opened my eyes and squinted into the dark at the shape taking form there.

“I taught myself how to disappear. How to make it so it’s like I’m not even there. So I won’t lose myself inside of him. He always calls me his girl when he’s done, but I’m not. I’m not his girl,” she said, and together we watched the darkness shift into something that looked like teeth. “I’ve thought about how to kill him. Over and over until it’s almost like I’ve already done it. But they’d send me away because I’d mess it up, and they would know I’d done it. They’d send me away from you. And if you weren’t there anymore, I think I’d forget how to breathe.”

I wondered if she could hear my heart. If she knew all the beautiful words I’d left to die on my tongue. Because she carried them inside of her, too. Delicate, breakable things hidden in our tightly clutched fists.

“Do you see it? There?” She lifted a finger and traced it over the glass, and I looked. I saw. Mouth and teeth and tongue all locked together. A great maw opened wide, and I wondered if we screamed, if it would swallow the sound down and then give it back to us as something better. Something lovely.

“We let it out of the board. We won’t ever be able to put it back. I don’t think I want to,” she said and turned so that her breath fell warm over my cheeks and then pressed her lips to my neck. “Don’t tell anyone. About him. About what he does. They’ll take me away,” she said, and my cheeks were wet with her tears, and I nodded my head.

“I won’t,” I said, and the words were like ground glass in my mouth.

Again, the board rattled behind us, and we went to it, watched as the triangle passed over the letters.

Don’tDaddyHurt.

Cassandra’s breath came hard, and she bent down and placed her fingers against the triangle and spoke to the board. “Could you do it? If I asked you to? Could you make it look like an accident, and then maybe my mom would come back, and I wouldn’t have to leave?” She licked her lips and fidgeted, and I knew what it was she was asking. I didn’t stop her. I wanted him dead, too.

Her desperation hung over her like something heavy, and she looked up at me, and I’d never wanted something so bad in my entire life. I wanted it for her. Wanted it to pull him inside out and leave him a smeared pile of stinking guts.

I couldn’t see the triangle, but I heard it moving over the board. When it stopped, I heard Cassandra’s breath as it whooshed out of her. She slumped forward.

“It can’t help us. Can it?” I asked. Fingers appeared against the glass, a swirl of hair, and then there was the sound of someone crying or laughing. I couldn’t tell which.

“No.” She picked the board up and threw it against the far wall where it clattered to the floor. “Goddammit. Godammit!” Before I could move, she was at the window again, her fist drawn back, and then she brought it shuddering down, and I heard the sound of bone cracking, and there was blood on her fingers.

“Why won’t you help me? Why come out of the board if you can’t help?” she screamed and there was nothing to answer her.

My face was wet when I crawled to her and pulled her down so that her head rested on my shoulder. Whatever it was inside of the board, I hated it. Hated it for hurting her, hated it for the things it wouldn’t give her. Hated myself because I couldn’t give them to her either.

She traced her mouth along my jaw and then pressed her lips against mine. She tasted of cherries and wine, and everything inside of me came roaring awake. The entire world lit up in shades of crimson and violet.

I kissed her back. Curved my body to hers and cupped her chin with my hands and then locked what she’d told me about her father away. Pushed it into the parts of myself that would one day become a ghost. I fell into her and opened my mouth to all of the darkness gathering outside of her window.

“It’s like drowning,” she said and breathed into me, and I filled myself full of her and prayed to whatever was outside of the window. Asked that if it could do nothing else, that it would help me keep her there, hidden away inside of me.

“When we’re older, I’ll take you away,” I said, and I could feel her smile. She wrapped her fingers in my hair.

“Yes,” she said.