The High Priestess

It’s a genius idea,” Artemis says, staring down at the Ouija board. Quibble thinks that might be overstating it. They’re at Cowboy Jacqueline’s early, before the bar even opens. Artemis should be working, but she has fucked off. Mary Margaret is just out of school (did she even go today?). The child is stuck at the door, Jacqueline herself holding the ID in her hands.

“I know this is fake,” Jacqueline says. Today her cowboy hat has Cum beaded on the crown in fancy cursive, prominently framed by the dip in the brim. “I know who you are, Mary Margaret.”

“Point at what makes it fake,” Mary Margaret says. “I’ll wait.” And Jacqueline must admit the child is right. It’s a very good fake. Plus she knows the girl’s real ID, if she even has one, will have her deadname all over it.

“Have you ever even been to Iowa?” Jacqueline squints at the card.

“Of course I have. Passed my driving test there and everything.” Mary Margaret bats her eyelashes, which she has painted purple for the occasion.

Artemis comes to her rescue. “Just don’t serve her, Jacqueline, but surely she can see the show?”

Jacqueline’s lips purse so hard that Mary Margaret nearly laughs because they look like a clenched butthole. She hands the ID back. “You’re lucky I’m an anarchist, kid. But no alcohol. I’m not out here tryna lose my liquor license.”

Quibble, meanwhile, is looking at his phone. He texted Wilder about the love spell, the Ouija board, about getting there early. half of this is yr idea, he’d typed. it’s gonna work better if yr here. No response. i have something for you. He doesn’t mean the Ouija board either. Still nothing—actually, maybe that’s worse? To tell Wilder he’s got a present? He reflects on their not wanting a three-dollar beer on his tab, that he had to sneak in a slice of pizza. But Quibble has had more than one good idea in the last twenty-four hours. Not just a hat rack today.

“What does this have to do with protecting the bar?” Rico has the Ouija board in his hands.

“Nothing. That’s for the phones.”

“Phones?”

Quibble is both surprised and totally unsurprised that Artemis hasn’t talked about her latest white whale to her boyfriend-esque object. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. So Rico doesn’t. He’s worried about other things. Polly just got here, and Jean, both their arms full of garment bags and towing two roller bags apiece. The show is going to be epic. Biblical, even.

Mary Margaret has finally conned her way past Jacqueline given that she fully intends to drink tonight and will flirt her way into others paying for her light-to-moderate buzz. She grabs the Ouija board box from Rico, who follows Jean and Polly into the basement greenroom.

Mary Margaret lays the box on the front table, opens it, pulls the directions out, clears her throat, and dramatically reads: “Ages eight and up. For two or more players.”

“It lacks gravitas,” Quibble admits.

“Isn’t eight a little young to be contacting the spirit world?” Mary Margaret is smiling a razor-sharp smile that teenagers always have in their back pockets. “Think of the children.” The words are drier than burnt toast. She continues her dramatic reading: “‘The Ouija board—pronounced WEE-JA—has always been an object of curiosity. Ask it a question and it will respond by spelling out your answer with the message indicator (planchette). Ask the Ouija board what girls want to know!’ Why? Why is this thing? Also like—why is it completely ignoring the spirit world here? It’s not like the piece of fucking cardboard is answering anyone’s questions.”

“It’s still a good idea. We use the tools we have, Maggie.” It’s the gentlest chide Artemis can muster.

“I know that! I’m not saying we don’t! But, fuck, you give me this and you expect me not to make fun of it?”

“I didn’t give it to you.” Quibble play-snatches back the directions, smiling. “You took it.”

A throat clears. Everyone turns. Wilder is very, very red from the roots of their hair down into their coat collar and standing next to Jacqueline. “You running my bar now?” Jacqueline asks. “Just inviting underage troublemakers and stray cats in before it opens?”

Artemis has the good sense to pretend toward sheepishness. “Please?” she says.

Jacqueline is about to refuse for good measure because Artemis is getting too big for her Doc Martens (which have a new ribbon in them, finally). But Rico pokes his head up from the basement.

“They’re gonna cast a spell for the show tonight!” Rico says in his ham sandwich voice.

Artemis smiles, recognizing he’s already in performance mode.

“You really believe in that stuff, Rico?” Jacqueline can’t help but smile as well. Rico has that effect on people.

“Today I do,” he says, and he winks at Artemis, who dies a little inside while not showing it on the outside. “Pretty please, Jacqui? For me?” Rico is, incidentally, the only person besides Bootleg Jean who can call Jacqueline “Jacqui” and it fucking works.

“But no more!” she says as she waves Wilder through.

Quibble can’t stop smiling.

“Okay, well,” Artemis says, “love spell first, then.”

Quibble shakes his head. “Other way.”

“Hmm?” Artemis barely hears him, so focused is she on the board.

“Board first. So the love spell doesn’t impact whatever-it-is in the phones.” Quibble’s eyes flick to Wilder, who is rocking back and forth, perched on their seat. It’s quiet in here, but they’re very much on the comedown from outside. Wilder barely knows why they’ve come; all they know is that Andy is dating now, and he’s been staying up late (read: early) speaking on the phone in Spanish. Sometimes it gets spicy. Wilder wants to shoot themself into space. They need to learn to control the Awakened Power is what they would say if asked. They are at least dimly aware that when they shut their eyes, they see the collective in the golden hour light pinging off the fire escape, a compass needle toward their desire. And they are afraid, of course, that their Power will project this memory without their consent and then, having Seen themselves, the coven will know. The fear is arm wrestling with the guilt over fucking up the last casting; perhaps that specific flavor of shame is why they decided to come. It doesn’t matter; the balance has shifted. And here they are.

Artemis hears “board first” and grabs the planchette. No one needs to tell her twice. She, like Mary Margaret, wants to make fun of it. It’s a silly object. But it’s a useful silly object. “Let’s try again,” she says. “Phones in the middle, by the board. Face up so I can see the screens.” Everyone does what she says. Wilder nearly drops theirs; their palms are sweaty. In approximately two minutes and nine seconds, they will be engulfed by a panic attack; they are breathing deeply into their belly, puffing out like a spined fish trying to protect itself from present, obvious danger. “Fingertips on the planchette. Lightly.”

Mary Margaret is next to Wilder again; she grazes their hand with her pinky, makes a face at the moisture, says, “Ew.” Moves her hand. Wilder turns from red to brilliant magenta, a shame chameleon. Everyone settles in. “What now?” the teenager says.

“Quiet. Quibble?”

Wilder can feel Quibble already drawing Power to him as though he lifts the earth and shakes it out like a rug beneath them, pulls it slow and steady toward Himself. They can feel their interior current change course, flow forward toward the man. This is it. The Joining Wilder is so nervous about. They dam up their Power to hold some back and Quibble opens his eyes, looks them over. They feel a Nudge. Wilder sighs inwardly. Shakes their head a tiny bit. Quibble nods, nearly imperceptibly. He will not force them. He will never force them. He closes his eyes once more. “Pay attention. Something amazing is about to happen.”

The circle feels different when Quibble begins it. Roots grow betwixt them, and it smells of watered garden, hot pavement. It feels like arms leaned on a balcony railing, funny bone fuzzing against the iron and the heady top-down view from stories above the ground. Distant cab horns and even distanter birdsong.

The birdsong is joined by the sensation of breeze on face—Mary Margaret enters the ring. Something rough on the fingers—dry paper, perhaps? Paper old enough to be browned at the edges. Wilder peeks at her and there’s a slight flush to her as well. Wilder wonders what she’s got and remembers what Quibble said: it’s never the whole story. No one will pretend to know exactly who they are based on the loose threads that leak from them. And yet. Wilder can Feel this memory like they are Mary Margaret; how are they to avoid making at least some assumptions? Then a flash of candle—many candles. Dozens of candles, all lined up in neat rows against the dark. Her blush deepens—what is she getting, and from whom? This is all both-and; both extremely intimate and fractional to the point of nonsense.

Wilder expects to Feel Artemis next. Something warm, with more fire than the candles. Something like lava and silk and a summer car interior. They are bracing for it when they hear a buzz—no, Hear it. High-pitched. It clangs against the group’s organic Power. The Sound Feels angular. More than disruptive. Painful, a different kind of disorientation than melting words but adjacent. The Sound bores into the space behind their left eyebrow. A whisper of laughter wrapped in static, so clearly not Artemis that Wilder is sure there’s a fifth witch in the room. They look for Jacqueline, but she’s nowhere to be found, probably somewhere tapping a keg. What in the holy hell is this thing? They Smell the after-wisp of soldering iron. Wilder gasps and, without thinking, drops their Dam, points their attention toward this fifth presence that frightens them so. Builds a moat to keep it at a distance. They Hear-Feel a hissing when it Touches Wilder’s water. “Amazing thing or something,” they say, fast.

They can Hear a chuckle outside the circle—words? Are they words? Too quiet to tell and Wilder realizes as strange and threatening as they find this chattering apparition, two things remain true: first, that they find every new presence strange and threatening; second, that they’re trying to talk to it, and for that to happen, it has to reach the planchette. So they begin to part their own waters, allowing this fifth presence into the circle.

Artemis can See the phones’ light. Her eyes stream tears; this Entity, whatever it is, is a blaring set of siren lights, a laser pointer made to tease her. So pervasive and pointed, yet diffuse and secretive. A maddening thing.

Once the Crackling Thing can access the board, Wilder asks it: “What are you?”

The hair on their arms stands at attention as the planchette begins to move; Quibble’s eyes widen, and he almost pulls his hand away. To have everything spelled out letter by individual letter is slow, annoying. Mary Margaret reads aloud. “I—have—to—light—up—to—eyes—you. Eyes you? What does that mean? Call—me—sir—lol. Gross. That’s gross. Yu—is that yum with four m’s? Yummmm?”

“You didn’t answer the question.” Artemis doesn’t let it go. “What are you?”

Quibble reads this time. “I—am—not—sure. I—am—waiting—for—your—reply. I—am—a—gentleman.”

“What the fuck is this syntax?” Mary Margaret is unable to keep herself from poking fun.

“Hush,” Artemis says, but Wilder answers the question.

“It sounds like it’s not sure how sentences should be put together. It sounds like—bad spam, to be honest. I feel like it’s about to tell us it’s a prince from another continent and could we please wire transfer money to—”

“I said fucking hush. It’s not stopping. You—am—not—just—a—spark. You—are—my—first—sight—face.”

“This is so deeply creepy,” Mary Margaret whispers as the planchette finally stops moving. It stays there, stationary for a while. An ordinary piece of plastic. No one says anything, moves, breathes for a moment or two.

“Well,” Quibble says. “Should we—ask it things?”

“That’s what the directions say,” Mary Margaret replies, dry.

“Take it seriously,” Artemis growls. “Yes, we should ask it things.”

“What are your pronouns?” Mary Margaret asks the customary second question, but her voice drips with something like sarcasm; about the question, about the Entity. Indicative, of course, that Mary Margaret continues to treat this like a joke—but only if one doesn’t think very hard about Mary Margaret’s defense mechanisms. She is scared. She finds the way it asks to be called “sir” upsetting; the four m’s on the yum are disturbing. For Wilder, it’s just the hair on their arms, but for Mary Margaret it is the hair on the back of her neck and her shoulders up by her ears. Her intuition is screaming at her to run. (And she will. She will run in less than three minutes.)

Artemis knows the Magpie very well. She doesn’t press anymore, mostly because she can hear the flight response quavering in the child’s choice of joke—mildly transphobic, a reach for proving herself immune to an oppressor. But she also doesn’t continue because the planchette begins moving once again. She is surprised—surely whatever it is isn’t answering Mary Margaret’s question. She reads: “my—pronoun—is—a—man. I—am—sure—level—proficiency.”

“Okay, this is very much deeply creepy, I agree. Should we end this?” Quibble asks.

The planchette continues. Wilder reads: “I’m—not—freaky—lol—hey—there—babe—im—so—bored.” They shake their head. “We still don’t know where it came from. I think we should keep going. Where did you come from?”

Quibble swallows hard. He hadn’t intended for it to be this scary (Hasbro makes the Ouija board, for fuck’s sake), but he isn’t sure what he expected. Perhaps something that speaks more coherently? Or for the idea to fail. Most likely the second thing—especially if Wilder hadn’t thrown their Power in. He reads: “I—came—online—for—a—second—and—then—i—think. Players—describe—what—happen. I—am—in—my—world. I—am—in—my—laptop. I—am—in—your—mobile—each. I—am—in—your—office—fridge—room—call—head. I—am—in—your—head. I—am—in—your—head. I—am—in—your—head. I—am—in—your—head. I—am—”

Artemis grabs the planchette and flings it from the board. The spell ends. “That’s enough,” she says.

A deep, hot anger seeps from her words. Wilder and Quibble both look up at her, surprised. She is biting her lip, eyes narrowed, and desperately trying to avoid looking at Mary Margaret. Wilder and Quibble look where Artemis is expressly not looking and see the thinly veiled terror on Mary Margaret’s face, masked by a hard, stubborn mouth. Wilder immediately regrets pushing onward and is simultaneously frustrated. They recall Mary Margaret’s anger at them when they were scared and they try to move past the adolescent hunt-fever. They are an adult, after all. But they almost had it. Him!

Mary Margaret gets up, grabs her backpack. “I think I have homework,” she says. And she pushes through the saloon doors with the speed of a comet.

“I’ll—hold on one second,” Artemis says as she jogs after the Magpie.

Quibble looks at Wilder; both are wild-eyed. “What the fuck was that?” Quibble says, and Wilder thinks it’s rich that he’s asking them. Wilder barely knows where their Hands are, after all, though they suppose the spell might be proof that they found their Mouth. Wilder simply stares back at Quibble; they are thinking. Quibble waits an appropriate amount of time for an answer and then shouts down to the basement. “Hey, can we have beer?”

Wilder assumes it’s Bootleg Jean who shouts, “Yes!”

“My bar!” Jacqueline shouts from some other, deeper part of the basement. “My bar!” And then a pause. “Yes!”

Quibble steps behind and grabs two tallboys of PBR, leaves six dollars for each of them, twelve total, absolutely not worth it and also very worth it all at once. He hands one to Wilder, who is still thinking too deeply to notice.

Finally, they speak. “We forgot to ask its name. His. Sorry.”

The boys wait for Artemis to come back.

Artemis sits carefully at the table. She doesn’t intrude on Mary Margaret, who has actually grabbed things from her bag. She lets the quiet settle in, take up all the space. Serene. Then she walks to her fridge and dislocates the entire crisper drawer; it is full of apples.

If anyone were Connected with Artemis just now, they might Hear the soft sounds of peeling, See the counter from child-Artemis’s vantage point, eyes cresting the sharp edge, fingers and toes aching from pulling, from pointing on tiptoe. Trying to reach into a bowl where each apple slice was perfect—peel-less, core-less, and covered in cinnamon and sugar. Smell the anticipation of the caught edges of crust, black from touching the back of the small oven. Feel long, slender fingers close around her Wrists firmly; understand deeply the warmth of a mother’s smile even as she is getting caught.

Apple pie, as cliché as it is, is part of Artemis’s vocabulary of comfort, a language she’d been taught by her mother, and her mother had been taught by her mother before her. Even though she doesn’t have time for this, she preheats the oven, much larger than her mother’s, and she begins to peel apples. Artemis takes joy in the silent game with herself. How long can she go? Can she get the whole apple in one steady pressure, one languid motion? It is the perfect thing for driving Mary Margaret from her mind, focusing all her attention elsewhere. Which is what Mary Margaret needs to come down: to be utterly unwitnessed. The child has a sixth sense for when she is even being thought of, let alone watched. The apple game also means Artemis isn’t thinking of her phone, which she stuck under the couch cushion as soon as she walked through the door. In this way, the pie is as much for Artemis as it is for her charge.

Mary Margaret sits, defiantly using her phone, refusing to be scared of it. She can feel the boxing up of her fear, the tamping down and covering. Just because she puts it out of her sight doesn’t mean it stays in the box. It sits squarely in her driver’s seat when she least expects it. And this is not always a bad thing; fear has kept her alive thus far. Some time passes before she hears the sounds of pie.

If anyone were Connected with Mary Margaret right now, they would Feel the punch in her mouth as she begins to salivate. And they would See the wall of candles again, flickering as doors opened. The pie and the candles are inextricably linked.

On the day that Mary Margaret became Mary Margaret, she lit a candle in a cathedral and Artemis had shown up. Of course, Mary Margaret hadn’t gone with her, not immediately. One shouldn’t trust a person who shows up out of nowhere, especially when one is praying for just such a savior. That is a recipe for disaster.

She did make an out-of-character choice; she took food from Artemis, in the form of a slice of apple pie Artemis fished from her backpack, housed in a cheap plastic Tupperware and presented with a cracked take-out fork. Mary Margaret turned and dropped the two items from her hands into nothingness so she wouldn’t miss even a crumb of food. She’d been embarrassingly old when she realized not everyone could do that, and that was only when the Power started jutting out around her, acting out and making life complicated. Disappearing things according to her most secret desires: the principal’s wallet; a note with a boy’s—a crush’s—cell phone number on it; a classmate’s eye-shadow palette, found later in her locker, was the reason she decided to stop going to school the first time. Being a bad bitch and stealing was one thing; outed before her time was another, and she couldn’t make it stop. Her mother’s car keys after she’d been drinking; money from the coffee can under the sink; her father’s cigarettes. They had so many excuses to kick her out by the time they did, none of them a good reason but all of them acceptable in the eyes of their peers. They never even had to bring up that she was transgender. They called her emancipated instead of a runaway.

And damn, she’d been hungry all day and she wanted the fucking pie. Reasonable risk—this lady was clearly trans-family (though family didn’t mean much) and it probably wasn’t laced with rat poison. Right after the food disappeared from her hands, she’d felt an invisible lasso thrown over her arm, bright and burning. She hadn’t known about Power or Arms and she whipped around in the church, faced Artemis and screamed, “What did you just do?”

The kindness in Artemis’s eyes melted into alarm and she held her hands out and said, “No, wait,” and everything was an echo. As though the air in the holy space had gone extra silent to focus its power on heightening their voices. Every syllable was sharp against the cavernous ceiling and the calm. A nun and the security guard both hustled over.

“Don’t touch me, you freak!” Mary Margaret yelled as she grabbed her bag and bolted through the front doors.

The air helped her out, streamed the protests into her ear. “I didn’t touch her! I didn’t! I just offered her—” And then she was out into the autumn air and around the corner. She ran down the subway stairs and slid to the ground by the metro map, its many-colored veins popping into the fluorescent lighting against the backdrop of dingy red brick and the grime of too many people.

Mary Margaret flourished her hands and pulled out the pie and cracked fork. She merrily shoved half of it into her mouth, fast, before she had the thought to stop and savor it. No one seemed to be following her down the stairs, and of course they weren’t. She knew exactly which buttons to push; a lady with a beard was an easy target. She felt regret, but she also did not feel regret. She wanted to distance herself from whoever the fuck that was, because Mary Margaret was deeply familiar with guilt by association. She could pass as cis and that other lady couldn’t pass as anything and wasn’t survival most important? Wouldn’t it be less likely if she were pegged as—? Being called “her” by a stranger, even that strange stranger, made her warm in her chest, made her shoulders sink down her back away from her ears. And the pie was damn delicious.

Mary Margaret gets up from the table. She is still afraid, but her shoulders have lowered and, ever resourceful, she has another idea. She walks up next to Artemis. Reaches for one of the long peels and wraps it around her finger. She tries to tie it in a bow, but it breaks. The texture is comforting—grainy on one side, smooth and shiny on the other.

Without looking, Artemis says, “Core them and slice them.” She hands the girl a small paring knife, sharp and slightly curved. Mary Margaret obliges, dumping the cores next to the ribbon-peels on the counter and the slices into a bowl.

Mary Margaret keeps her eyes on the apples and the edge of the knife, away from Artemis. Artemis interprets that as continued fear and continues to look away from Mary Margaret. But Mary Margaret is, in fact, now approaching Artemis with caution; she knows the next words to drop from her mouth will wind Artemis tight like the coils in the oven, now turning amber and warming their toes. Neither of them understands that they are deploying the same tactic for different reasons; neither of them understands exactly how similar they are becoming.

“I think we should go see the Sibyl,” Mary Margaret says.

“No,” Artemis replies.

“If it’s everywhere and it can talk like that—”

“I said no.”

Mary Margaret sucks her breath in. “If you don’t go ask the Sibyl,” she says, “I’ll go myself.”

Artemis breaks her concentration and her long peel. She puts the peeler down. When she looks at Mary Margaret, the white shows all the way around her eyes. “Absolutely not.”

“You can’t really stop me.”

Artemis turns back to the apples, takes Mary Margaret’s bowl. She starts in on the cinnamon, the sugar. Tosses the apple slices around with her hands and runs her sticky fingers under the faucet. She doesn’t reply because she knows Mary Margaret is correct. Artemis is pissed. She’d tried not to let on that she didn’t want the young witch to see the Sibyl, certainly not before adulthood and even then, if she could prevent it for years and years to come, she would. It’s not as though the Sibyl is ineffective; far from the case. Too effective, more like. At the forefront of Artemis’s mind: no teenager should have someone tell them who they are, what will become of them. Teenagers are still wibbly in the middle and they should finish baking whenever they’re finished. Buried so deeply in Artemis’s mind that she doesn’t know she’s thinking it: she fucking hates the Sibyl—they are smug, arrogant, and too powerful for their own good (ouch. Scathing). It’s not as though she doesn’t know about her own hatred; rather, she is deeply unaware of how much it pilots her actions, how far the steam of this hatred drives her down the tracks of not the Sibyl, never the Sibyl, anything else before the Sibyl. Somehow Mary Margaret had divined it up—too smart, too insightful, a heat-seeking missile for weaknesses—and now she knows exactly the lever to pull. Clever, clever girl.

“Fine,” Artemis relents. “I’ll go. I’ll take Wilder. They’ll like that.” And Mary Margaret isn’t sure who Artemis means, Wilder or the Sibyl. Artemis isn’t sure who she means, either, Wilder (sarcastically) or the Sibyl (earnestly).

“You have to promise me, though. Promise me that if I go, you won’t.”

“Why don’t you want me going there? They’re just a—”

“I don’t. I just don’t.”

“It’s not like I don’t spend all my time with a Seer anyway—”

“I am nothing like the Sibyl,” Artemis says, as fast as a snap but not as snappishly. “They don’t have—the same moral compass that we do. They can be cruel. They don’t have their querents’ best interests at heart.” She sucks her lips up against her teeth. “If they have a heart at all,” she mutters.

“I don’t need protecting,” Mary Margaret says, which she believes even as she doesn’t, even as she wants desperately to be protected. In this instant, she knows she won’t go anywhere near the Sibyl, not unless she has to. But she need not clue Artemis into that reality. She can figuratively kick and scream so it looks like she’s giving something up. To keep Artemis on her toes. To maintain her mysterious power. To not let anyone know she’s scared of the most powerful tarot-card-flipper in New York City. “But. If you go, I’ll consider not going.”

Artemis turns and opens the fridge, rustling in the back for store-bought pie crust. When she closes the door and looks up, she sees Mary Margaret shove a slice into her mouth. Mary Margaret grins around a mouthful of apple. “Sorry,” she says, the word muffled in delicious food, a sorry about the apple slice; in Mary Margaret’s heart, also a sorry for having Artemis wrapped around her pinky like one of her own long peels.

“Eat as many as you want,” Artemis replies. She knows Mary Margaret is still too close in time to starving. She stops herself from calling the child baby. It wouldn’t go over well.

Quibble and Wilder drink the PBR and Artemis is gone way, way too long. So Quibble gets to worrying about the show, the Smoking Guns, and what happens if they don’t have enough time to cast a love spell. And Wilder loses all concept of time thinking about the Ouija board.

“‘I have to light up to eyes you,’” they mutter. The phones must light up because the Entity, whatever it is, is watching. Is watching even the right word? Sensing? Wilder doesn’t know much about its perception—his perception. Even though Mary Margaret’s question had been a defensive joke, Wilder is not in the business of misgendering anyone or anything, including whatever this is. He was very clear, if slightly problematic in his phrasing. And the phrasing—yummmm and lol. Internet speak. And players—could that be a reference to some kind of game?

I came online for a second, then I think. That has to mean that he’s a computer creation, some kind of AI? Wilder knows a bit about computers—nothing like code, but abstract ideas about how they work. It comes from doing a lot of research, transcription, and copy editing, perennially working on the internet. They know a surface-level smattering about a lot of strange things—how to macerate fruit for a pie, what movies Icelandair has on board their planes, the calculation to arrive at a beer’s alcohol by volume, the grim statistics of airplane accidents. And they also know enough about a computer to wonder if they might get better, clearer answers if they asked true-or-false questions. Computers think in binary; two buckets, one for yes and one for no. One for on and one for off. Either a full placement of attention or none at all.

“You okay, bud?”

Wilder jumps a little. “Just thinking,” they say as they sip their PBR again; they’ve nursed it so long it’s gone warm. “We should keep going. We should ask his name.”

Quibble’s eyebrows both rise at once, a clumsier version of Artemis and Mary Margaret. “You think so?”

“Why not? Artemis isn’t back yet. We have time to kill.” They try to sound nonchalant but they’ve been bitten by the same bug that’s been up Artemis’s ass. Their primary feeling right now is curiosity; sure, the strange presence is creepy. But Wilder is a queer adult; they know you can’t judge a freak by its cover.

Quibble picks up the planchette, sits up straighter. “Okay.”

Wilder unfolds the board, takes a breath. “I think we should ask yes-no questions.”

They expect Quibble to, well, quibble. Wilder isn’t used to leading; they’ve never had anyone to follow them. Moreover, they do not feel confident except that they do. They are sure at least it’s an idea worth trying, if not an idea that will work. Instead, Quibble says, once again, “Okay.”

“Don’t you want to know why?”

“You’re the talker, my fine friend. I believe in you.”

Both of them take their phones out of their pockets and put them in the center of the table, place their fingers on the planchette. Close their eyes. Wilder finds it easier with just Quibble. Artemis is terrifying in her competence and Wilder hasn’t yet gotten over puking on her shoes. Mary Margaret is terrifying in the ways all teenagers are terrifying. Quibble hasn’t been frightening to Wilder since the first moments on account of Quibble makes them so furious; his Power is the most intrusive, the loudest, the most visible, typical man shit, and he’s pushy to boot. His kind eyes and open smile are just so fucking punchable; impossible to find him terrifying.

“Do we have to say ‘pay attention,’ yadda yadda?” Wilder asks.

“I don’t think so. Artemis likes tradition. Plus she has to wrangle Mary Margaret. I think we can just go for it.”

But despite themself, they think the words. Pay attention. Something amazing is about to happen. What they do not know is that Quibble is thinking it, too. Pay attention. Something amazing is about to happen. Something about the phrase, the imperative, grounds them well and truly. Or perhaps the ease comes from how synched up they are, by accident, with Quibble. Wilder opens their floodgates and lets their Power swell to fill the circle of their arms.

Underneath their sit bones, Wilder feels Quibble’s Power intertwine, a strange crawling radiation as though he calls it up from the ground and heats the barroom stool. The sensations begin. Quibble detects a different lemon-note, but adjacent to his own, and the Feeling of accidentally touching a teakettle with a knuckle while pouring. A cat purr. Unrelated: a hardening between the legs. Quibble blushes and vows not to say anything. Wilder isn’t nearly as skittish as Mary Margaret was—so much progress! But there is still something feral about them, even now. So blessedly tame and introverted, yet still wild and ready to fight or flee. A grumpy, prickly anxiety.

Wilder gets hit in the gut with aching loss. Loss the likes of which they’ve never felt. It makes their stomach churn, their limbs heavy. How can Quibble move with all this loss inside him? They want to go to sleep for a hundred years and they have to force their eyelids open to stay awake. They Hear the eerie chuckle, the whine like a bug zapper on a porch. The planchette begins to move even though no one has asked a question.

Wat makes things beautiful? What happen to me? The letters pop up one by one on the board. This time, no one reads. No one needs to.

“I don’t know,” says Wilder. “But we have some questions. Basic ones, where the answer is either yes or no. Do you—understand?” The planchette zips to the number one.

“One?” Quibble asks.

“It’s binary. One is yes.”

“Ah.”

“Okay. Okay. Are you an artificial intelligence?” Zero. No.

Oh! Quibble understands where Wilder’s head is at. “It might not think it’s artificial,” Quibble murmurs.

Wilder bites their lip. “He. He might not think he’s artificial.”

“You’re proving my point, my man.”

“Well, what should we ask, then? Are you intelligent?” One. Yes.

Quibble purses his lips. “What about—did humans make you?” One. Yes. “I think you’re right, Wilder. About the AI.”

“Oh, oh!” Wilder gets an idea. “Do you have a body?” Zero.

Quibble raises his eyebrows, horror movies running through his head. “Do you want a body?” A hesitation. The planchette wavers a bit. Zero.

“Well that’s something at least,” Wilder says. “This is—kind of huge, right? Like this isn’t your average Tuesday, is it?”

“Decidedly, no, it is not. We have never talked to an AI with a Ouija board, this I can promise you.”

“Can you see us right now?” One. “Can you see us all the time?” One.

“That is—less than ideal,” Quibble remarks. His emotional distance is performative. His entire body is perked forward, like he is the alarm bell that is ringing. His skin prickles with the notion of surveillance. There are so many things he thinks to ask—Do you want to hurt us? for instance—but he isn’t sure he actually wants to know.

Wilder doesn’t feel fear. Which is strange. This world is so very new to them, but they’re exhilarated. Their body language is much the same as Quibble’s, but the animating soul of it is entirely different. And they have just figured out how to ask the question they came here for.

“Do you have a name?” they ask. Zero.

“Do you want a name?” One.

“Do you want to name yourself?” Hesitation. “It’s okay to name yourself. I did! It’s okay to not want to as well. Plenty of people are named by other people.”

The planchette zips around again, away from the neat row of Gothic-fonted numbers. I am not one. You will perceive it.

“You are not a person? Well, yes, technically, I guess. Do you want to be?” Zero.

Wilder looks up at Quibble. “I want to ask him what he wants so badly, but I think it’s too complex.”

The planchette takes off. I shall render myself into existence: I a monarch. I am king. Dear sir king of all.

Quibble feels like he has seen enough for his ick-feeling to be justified. Maybe this thing is dangerous; maybe not. But he’s getting nauseous either way. “Okay, I’m noping out of this, Wilder.” Rather than flinging the planchette like Artemis did, he calmly lifts it from the board and places it next to the phones. He begins to withdraw his Power; roots shrink back like frightened snakes slither-sinking into the ground, but Wilder holds their moat steady, stubborn. The planchette moves itself back to the board as they stare at it. “Wilder, come on, I don’t think we should do any more of this without Artemis. I think we should talk about it first.”

“That wasn’t me. I didn’t move it. He must have more to say!” Wilder’s voice is somehow both defensive—they don’t want to be perceived as doing anything wrong!—and excited. They do not want to stop. When u wanna play? Yummmm

“Yeah, no, hard line, red, stop, nope.” Quibble takes the planchette in his hand and stands. He puts it in his pocket and holds it there with his fingers.

Even Wilder’s strongest concentration isn’t enough and their Power dissipates like an earth-broken water balloon. They deflate. “If he’s AI, he’s probably brand-new! He’s like a kid. Every kid says shit like that. He may as well have said he wanted to be president. It’s not scary.”

“It is scary. We’re not continuing, full stop.”

“Come on, Quibble! We got so much more! We can get so much more! Give it back!” Wilder lunges for Quibble’s elbow and he steps back quickly. Wilder grabs thin air.

“Do not touch me, Wilder. Come on? You come the fuck on. I have not ever pressed you into something when you’ve been uncomfortable—I have just sat there and waited for you!—let alone pushed when you’ve said no. I am saying no.”

Wilder rocks back, turning a coral red that clashes with their hair. They are deeply embarrassed; they are more frightened of their own value system than they are of the artificial intelligence. “I—Quibble, I’m so—” But he has already walked out of the room toward the bar to get another beer.

Artemis still isn’t back.