Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

The board was already spelling out a name.

Lisa spoke it. “Cole.”

Patrick sat up. “Hey. That’s right.” The others looked around at one another. Now Patrick actually stood, struggling to his feet, swaying a little as he crossed to the table. He looked down at the board, then at Lisa. “You’ve been checking up on me, Marlowe.” But his voice didn’t have its usual tone of light banter.

Lisa tipped back in her chair and looked up at him, defiant. “I don’t know your first name, cowboy.”

Patrick looked at Robin now. His smile was broad, but there was uncertainty in it, too. “Okay, Robin— you wormed it out of Waverly.”

Robin shook her head. Her eyes met his, and for a moment she saw something. Fear?

Patrick laughed a little weakly.

Lisa turned in her chair, looked over at Cain, challenging. “Your turn. Ask.”

Robin had expected a protest. Instead, it was rather dizzying how immediately Cain spoke. His voice was flat, but there was an urgency beneath.

“How did my mother die?”

Robin’s eyes jumped to his, startled, and she saw his set gray gaze for an instant.

It’s started. It’s got us. Quick wild thoughts…

Then the pointer jerked to life. Across the board, Lisa sounded the words out.

Robin drew in a sharp breath. On the couch, Cain was very still. The shadows from the fire leapt wildly on the walls.

Then Cain spoke softly, and the fury of his words dug into Robin’s chest. “That’s fucking clever, Marlowe.”

Lisa shoved back her chair. “Hey. I don’t know what that means.”

Cain looked angry and lost all at once, and Robin knew. It’s true, then. Something really bad happened. How did Lisa know?

And if Lisa didn’t know?

Robin looked at the board. The indicator was still, poised above

She shivered, chilled. Something had changed. There had been a sudden turn of corner. What’s happening?

Her eyes drifted to the edge of the board, the burn marks there, as if somewhere, sometime, the board had burst into flame.

Lisa pushed her hair back, her bracelets clinking faintly. “Somebody ask something else.” She stared around at all of them.

Patrick stood in front of the fireplace, legs braced. “Okay, Zach. What am I thinking right now?”

Even before the planchette started to move, Robin felt a pull of something—fathomless. No! she thought—but too late. Lisa was leaning forward, edgy and tense, breathing out the letters as they came.

Robin gasped as she realized the message.

The logs popped in the hearth, showering sparks. Patrick towered over them, swaying with alcohol. He spoke quietly, dazed. “Who’s moving that?” Then rage swept through him like wildfire. “I said, Who the fuck is moving that?”

It was so not a game anymore. Patrick was beyond drunk, and so angry, a tidal current of fury. Lisa and Robin both sat frozen at the board. He’s so big , Robin thought, unfocused, as if seeing it for the first time. Steroids. Football . She felt suffocated, unable to breathe.

Cain spoke carefully from the couch, not moving. “Take it easy, man.” His voice was so balanced, Robin leaned into the sound with relief, immediately surrendered the situation to him.

Patrick didn’t seem to hear. His face was ruddy, his accent lower, like an older man’s, thick and snarled, almost incomprehensible. “Marlowe, I swear to Christ I’ll make you eat that board.”

Robin jumped as he started toward the table, tossing a chair out of his way.

Cain was instantly on his feet, faster than Robin would have thought possible, blocking Patrick. She felt a wild rush of fear.

And then Martin’s voice came calmly from the back of the room.

“Actually, that was obvious.”

Patrick wheeled around.

Martin sat very still in his chair. Candles flickered over the books in front of him.

Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of shit are you talking—”

“Oedipal conflicts run high in the South. Competitive sports are a classic battleground.” Martin tipped back in his chair, nonchalant, almost lofty. Robin’s pulse spiked with alarm. Oh, careful .

But then Martin shrugged, and spoke softly. “And who hasn’t thought about it?”

Patrick stiffened. He looked at the smaller boy with laser eyes, but everyone knew Martin had given him the courtesy of the truth.

The fire simmered in the hearth. The room was very quiet, everyone looking at Martin. When he spoke, his voice was hypnotic in the moving firelight “You’ve got two intelligent women there. Astute enough to pick up on emotional clues.”

Now that the danger was past Lisa came to life again, shoved back in her chair, agitated. “Except that I’m not moving that piece of wood .”

Martin half-smiled, tolerantly, gestured with his pen. “Your subconscious is. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Induce a high state of concentration, and seemingly uncanny thoughts come out.”

Is it? Robin wondered. Is that all there is? Could one of us have known—somehow, intuitively—that Patrick wanted to kill his father, that Cain’s mother died badly?

She looked at Lisa. Lisa caught her eyes, looked quickly away.

Lisa is smart. Under all that posturing, she doesn’t miss a thing .

Cain moved forward, his face tense in the half-light. He looked at Robin, then Lisa. “Ask, then. Ask what’s doing it.”

Lisa scooted her chair back to the table, put her hands on the indicator. After a moment, Robin did, too. Lisa spoke into the dark. “Zachary, are you…reading our minds?”

Robin tensed as the pointer jerked under their fingers. It circled dreamily, not stopping on anything.

Teasing , she thought.

And then at once, decisively, it began to spell. Lisa leaned over the board to read, her hair falling around her face. The pointer scraped through the silence.

NO ONE WHO CONJURES UP THE MOST EVIL

Martin’s sharp voice interrupted Lisa’s reading. “I want everybody to come back here.”

Patrick turned on him, growling. “What the hell—”

Martin spoke over him. “Just do it.” His face was flushed, excited.

Patrick stared back at him in mild disbelief, bristling. Cain stood still; even Robin was surprised at the authority in Martin’s voice. But after a moment, everyone stood and walked across the long room to the table beside the bookshelves.

Martin pointed to the psych text lying open on the tabletop. “Go on, look at the book. And someone read the passage at the top of the page that it’s open to.”

They all looked at one another, then Robin stepped to the edge of the table and read the small print. “‘No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil—’“ She stopped, startled.

The others crowded in closer behind her to see.

Robin glanced at Martin, who nodded. She looked back down at the page and read the whole passage out, more slowly.

“‘No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.’”

The silence was heavy in the shadowed room. Robin saw Patrick’s eyes dart from Martin to Lisa, wary and appraising.

Martin turned and faced them. “Freud. I was just reading that passage before I came over.”

The fire crackled behind them.

Martin looked at the girls. “Pure thought transference. It was in my mind…and you—one of you—picked it out.”