Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

"I was talking to your arm."

"Sure you were." When Oren looked up from the last shot, Hannah was unfolding the sheets of paper given to her by the librarian.

"Here." She slapped the pages down on the rim of the table. "I've got science on my side. Read it."

Click, click, click.

Oren read the article's long title, "The Influence of Suggestion in Directing Muscular Action Independent of Volition." This was followed by lengthy text in small type. "Maybe you could just-"

Click.

"You want me to give you the gist of it?" She lined up her next shot. "Your brain's got what's called an executive module. That's what you use to do this." Click. She sank a ball. "But you've got other modules, independent ones, and they bypass the thinking process. I made a suggestion, and they moved your muscles to blow that easy shot. That's how I talked to your arm. And now you know how Alice Friday's witchboard works. A question might suggest an answer, and then all those hands move that little wooden heart to spell out a word on the board. Or maybe, when the players call out a letter, that one suggests the next one. But there's no connection between their fingertips and their brains. I told you-nobody cheats."

"That psychic runs the board," said Oren. "She's a con artist."

"No, she's an idiot."

Click, click, click, click.

When Hannah had sunk the last ball on the table, she straightened up to her full height of four feet, nine inches and faced him down. "Only idiots believe in two-way conversations with the dead, and that woman is a true believer."

"The judge has conversations with my dead mother."

"When he's sleepwalking. That doesn't count."

"And the judge believes in miracles. He even asked my mother for another one."

"When your father's wide-awake, he's no believer in miracles. His perfect god died with your mother when she crashed her car on a rainy night. The judge believes in logical explanations. And you can believe in me when I tell you that Alice Friday has no idea how that board game works."

Oren had ceased to hear her. He was recalling the message spelled out at the séance: Do you still love me? "I'm betting that woman knows how to manipulate the Ouija board and the players. Like my missed shot that was just one of your parlor tricks."

"Of course it was. And I've always explained my tricks." Two by two, she pulled balls out of the slot inside the table and set them back on the felt surface. "I didn't raise you to believe in magic."

True enough. When he was a child, she had always shown him the works and the wires behind her illusions. And, after taking a Ouija board away from two terrified little boys, she had tried to explain the trick to them in terms of expectations and the power of belief in horror movies. She had assured Josh and Oren that the old woman from Paulson Lane, crazy as she was in life, would never curse children from her grave. The dead spoke to no one.

Oren had not believed her then.

Hannah racked up the balls inside the wooden triangle, no doubt sensing that he did not believe her now, either. Her hazel eyes looked up to question him, and then she damned him with, "Oh, never mind." She took back her pages of science and crumpled them into a tight ball. "I can see it was a waste of time explaining the witchboard." Hannah bent over the table once more, poised for the first shot of a new game. "For my next trick, I'll show you how life works."

The outcasts of Peck's Roadhouse had formed a loose union of drunks in the parking lot. And two more bars down the road, they had become an ugly crew as tight as family.

Dave Hardy followed their weaving line of cars, trucks and vans. If he had been in uniform tonight-and sober-this would have been an easy twelve tickets for driving under the influence. The parade swelled in numbers with every little Podunk bar these yahoos had been thrown out of, and he was keeping count on the vehicles.

The deputy reached down to the six-pack on the seat beside him, and then pulled back his empty hand. Maybe he should also be counting his drinks tonight. With a glance at the rifle rack above the windshield of his truck, he opened the glove compartment and pulled out a box of shotgun shells.

When the caravan of drunks pulled into the next bar, he waited awhile in the lot, loading his gun. After replacing it on the rack, he followed them inside, where the men were slowly gravitating toward the light of a television set that seemed to draw them by remote control. On screen was the same old film: Sally Polk was answering the same questions, and William

Swahn was still limping. Long after day had turned into night, the sun was still shining in reruns.

The drunks talked back to Sally Polk and saluted her TV image with raised glasses of beer.

Dave wanted to put his fist through the screen.

In another bar on the other side of the county, Hannah was saying, "I can't help but win this game."

Oren agreed. At least no beers had been bet on this round. It would take Hannah another hour to finish nursing her first one.

When all but a few balls had been sunk into pockets, the only ones remaining in play were the white cue ball, the black eight ball and a solid red. Sending that red ball into the corner pocket would be the easiest shot by far. It was so close to the edge, it might drop in of its own accord. And perhaps that was what Hannah waited for as she held her stick an inch from the cue ball. Seconds ticked by. "I can't lose."

"I believe you," he said. "So sink it."

"Now that's not fortune-telling." She lifted her stick and waved it in small circles. "And it certainly wouldn't take any skill." She leaned down once more to line up the white and the red. "You can see the outcome of this game. It's in the way the balls are laid out. But even God Almighty can blow a simple shot now and then."

Apparently, so could Hannah.

The cue ball wandered far from the mark and connected with the black eight ball, nudging it toward the corner pocket where the red ball was hanging. In Hannah's parlance, the sneeze of a housefly could sink it.

Well, that's life," she said. "Hits and misses. There's a reason for everything, but you don't need to know all the answers. So the next time you hear the judge asking your dead mother for another miracle, just let the old man slide."

"You're throwing the game?"

In answer, she stepped back from the table and lifted her glass for a swig of beer. His turn.

Damn. No, she had not thrown the game. Hannah had simply picked a different way to win. The new position of the eight ball was no accident of a bad shot. It gently kissed the red ball hanging over the corner pocket. In every possible scenario of straight shots and bank shots, the eight ball would follow the red one into the pocket on the same stroke-and forfeit the game.

With resignation, Oren aimed his pool cue.

"Wait." Hannah's voice carried a slight tone of alarm.

Her left hand was raised high, and he followed the point of her finger up to the ceiling-where nothing was happening. He winced. He had not fallen for this ploy since he was ten years old. When he looked back at the table, he saw what Hannah's right hand had been up to. The eight ball had vanished, leaving him with an easy shot and a win.

"It's a miracle," said Hannah.

Sure. He laid down his stick, and lifted his beer.

"Don't you want to win?"

"No, I don't think so. Miracles take all the fun out of pool." He turned his eyes back to the table, where the eight ball had reappeared beside the red one. In what split second of distraction had she managed that? Hannah's sleight of hand reaffirmed his theory that, in her distant past, she had been a magician or a pickpocket.