Penni Jones - Suicide Souls

“Luke! Snap out of it.”

He turns to face me.

“We’re not finished here,” I say.

Luke nods. “But what are we supposed to do now? Alex knows I’m here and she’s not crying.”

Alex is back in the living room with a Ouija board in tow. I’ve never been on this side of a Ouija board.

“We’re not doing this in front of Eben,” Daisy says.

“Why not, Mom?” Eben sticks out his chin.

“It’s late. You need to go to bed and this is creepy.” Daisy stands up and motions for him to do the same.

Eben roots further into the couch cushion and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Like I’ll be able to sleep when I know you two are out here talking to my dad.”

“He has a point,” Alex says.

“Is she the kind of dad you would have been?” I ask Luke.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The ‘fun one.’ Always leaving Daisy to do the heavy lifting.”

“I don’t think we’ve seen enough of their daily lives to establish that she always does anything.”

I don’t know if he’s more uncomfortable thinking about his cousin raising his child, or with the fact that the Shadow might show up at any second to suck us away.

“Fine. You can stay. But you’re not putting your hands on this thing,” Daisy says. She turns to Alex. “You know this makes me uncomfortable. Ouija boards are evil.”

Bojangles whines at the sight of the Ouija board and exits the room. Daisy notices and her body responds with a shiver.

“They’re only evil if you’re Baptist.” Alex smiles slyly, and I can see why Daisy went gay for her.

Alex and Daisy sit crossed-legged on the carpet in front of the coffee table where the Ouija board sits. They perch their fingers on the triangle thingie, a plank, a pirouette, what the fuck ever.

“My friends and I tried to make one of these when we were in junior high so we could contact Michael Landon,” I say.

“Michael Landon seems like an odd choice.”

“My friend Becky had daddy issues.” She married the high school basketball coach two years after we graduated. He was attractive, but at least thirty-five by then. I want to tell Luke that part of the story, but he’s no longer interested. He’s staring at the women again.

“Luke, are you with us?” Alex asks.

“You’re up, Cobain,” I say, just in case he’s gone into another fugue state.

“What should I do?”

“I don’t know. Talk to them? Maybe that will make your cousin all nostalgic and weepy.”

“Okay.” He walks toward the table like it will make a difference. Maybe it will. It’s not like I know.

Luke puts his hands over theirs. If they feel a shift in temperature, they don’t let on. He moves the planchette—that’s it! A planchette. He moves it to “yes.”

Both women gasp and Eben leans forward to get closer to the action. His hair is sleep-messy and his eyes are wide.

“Why are you here?” Alex asks.

Luke looks at me, and I shrug.

“You can’t really explain that in a one-word answer,” I say. “Try to pull at their heart strings. Tell them you miss them.” I’m proud of myself for coming up with that, but Luke only nods solemnly like I asked him if he cried when Shannon Hoon died.

He puts his hands over theirs again and starts moving the planchette.

“I,” Alex reads. “M-I-S-S Y-O-U. I miss you.”

Tears pour from Daisy’s eyes so quickly it seems they are on an urgent mission to escape from her head. She lets go of the planchette to wipe her eyes with her hands. She wipes her wet hands on her tatty T-shirt before putting her fingers back.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks.

Daisy nods. Eben sits on the couch transfixed. He has tears in his eyes.

“You have to make Alex cry. Tell her you miss her, too. Be specific. She’s obviously the tough one in the group.”

I would have made a good boss. Too bad I didn’t stick around long enough to make upper management. I need to translate these skills when I get my new body. Maybe life coaching or something.

“But if I single her out, Eben and Daisy will feel left out,” he says.

“Spell all of their names then. Just fucking get it done before we run out of time.”

“I know what to do!” he says.

“Great. Fucking do it.”

“T-H-A-N-K,” Alex reads aloud again. “Y-O-U A-L-E-X. Thank you, Alex.”

And it finally happens. Her chin starts to tremble. It’s as beautiful as a double rainbow with a halo of blue birds. A single tear falls from each eye. She pulls Daisy into her arms and Eben joins them on the floor. They become a blubbering mess of a family right there on the shitty shag carpet.

This is my family, and they are gutted because of me. I can’t tell which one of them is crying the hardest. They’re a mess of trembling flesh and sobbing. It’s almost too much. I’m intruding on an emotional family moment. But the moment is also my fault.

I don’t have to watch for long. The pull is finally happening.

Naomi and I grab hands and submit to the irresistible force.

I had zero expectation of where we would end up, but this place still seems weird. It’s not the food court. But it’s also not another house or mobile home.

“A waiting room,” Naomi says. “I think we’re about to see Doris.”

“Who?”

“She’s the caseworker.”

I want to know more but I’m too tired to ask. It’s weird to be tired when you’re only a soul with no body to influence your feelings.

We both take a seat in the retro orange plastic chairs that line the walls. Canned elevator music plays from somewhere. It sounds like the soft version of a Go-Go’s song.

Even though I’m exhausted, I feel good. I’m finally out of the lurking phase of my death. The spying, manipulating, and grief-inducing phase.

We are the only two souls in this room.

“I miss Edgar,” Naomi says.

“Yeah. It’s kind of weird to be in a spot like this without him.”

“What do you think happens next?” She inches closer to me. Our shoulders are touching. It feels more real here than it did on grief watch, but not by much.

“I don’t know.” I wish I could give her an answer. She looks like she really needs one.

“This should be it, right? Our chance to try again.” Her eyes meet mine and she says, “You do want another chance now, right?”

“Yeah. The Edgar thing scared me straight. No Oblivion for this guy.”

It’s hard to tell how much time has passed before a door that we didn’t notice before opens. A woman walks out. She’s tall in the way I perceived my teachers to be when I was a child. Imposing. In charge. She carries two manila files.

Even in death, people are reduced to manila files.

“Naomi, Luke, come with me.” She motions toward the door and we stand to follow.

It feels like we’re in trouble. Like we’re being led to the principal’s office. I can’t imagine a scenario during my life that I would have co-conspired with a girl like Naomi. I would have liked to, though.

“Please, have a seat.” The woman motions to two plush leather office chairs in front of a large wooden desk. Oak, maybe. If it was actually a solid thing. “Good to see you, Naomi. Luke, I am Doris, your caseworker. As you know, your mentor is no longer with us.” She doesn’t look up from the files.

“Yes, we know,” Naomi says quietly, any trace of her sarcastic smart-ass bravado is in hiding.

“Why didn’t he help us more? I could have finished earlier. If he had been allowed to tell us things, he would still be around.” The injustice of Edgar’s horrific demise gives me the nerve to stand up to this woman.