Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

The board was centered neatly on the table, with the pointer poised over

Robin gasped, staring down. Cain stepped quickly to her side. She looked at him, stricken. Cain started to shake his head, then something thudded behind them and they both spun.

Patrick stood in the doorway, holding a beer. He stared around at the mess. “Whoa…”

Cain ground out, “Park it. We know you did it.”

Before Robin could protest that she thought no such thing, Patrick was speaking, staring at Cain. “Get out. You didn’t?”

Cain laughed humorlessly. “I don’t believe this shit.”

Patrick spread his arms, the picture of innocence. “Hey, it wasn’t me, man. Maybe Marlowe.”

“Right. Little Lisa moved all this stuff.”

Behind Patrick, Lisa and Martin walked in together. They both stopped still in the doorway, with an almost comic double take as they registered the chaos of the room.

“Oh my God,” Lisa breathed.

Patrick turned to her. “Zach left us a present.”

Martin looked around, taking in the damage, eyes blinking behind round glasses. Then he looked straight to Patrick.

The implication wasn’t lost on Cain. “Yeah, that’s what I think, too.”

Patrick turned on Cain, pointing at Martin. “It coulda been him, you know. Or the two of them together.” He waved his hand to include Lisa.

Martin looked to Robin. “You guys didn’t do this? It isn’t a joke?”

Robin looked at him, then at the others, slowly. “I don’t know.” They were silent in the dim hush of the room.

Lisa pushed her hair back. “Well, I know. Show them.” She nudged Martin—a surprisingly proprietary gesture. Martin took the newspaper from under his arm and unfolded it to the sports section to reveal a headline. He displayed it like an attorney with Exhibit A:

Patrick gaped. “Alabama by fourteen. Fuck me backwards.” He grabbed the paper, scanned the article.

Robin was reeling. We couldn’t have known that. Not any of us .

“Now tell me how we just happened to call that, dude .“ Lisa gloated.

Cain’s face had gone very still. He glanced at Robin sharply, and she looked back, bewildered.

Lisa was already pulling out a chair, seating herself at the table in front of the board. “Okay, Zach. Time to wake up.” She looked up at Robin expectantly. Her eyes gleamed in the muddy light.

Patrick looked up from the newspaper, glancing around at the rest of them. “How the hell did someone know that?” His eyes came to rest on Lisa.

Lisa smiled at him, catlike. “We didn’t. Zachary did.”

Cain spoke, his voice hard. “Bullshit.”

“Interesting, though, isn’t it?” Martin said. “I for one can’t think of any logical explanation for any of us knowing those game scores. Which leaves us with two alternatives: Coincidence…” He paused importantly.

For effect , Robin thought.

“Or…we actually achieved some kind of precognition. Perhaps through our mutual concentration on the board.”

Lisa sat back in her chair and laughed. “We could keep blatantly ignoring the obvious. Or we could just ask him. Zachary.”

Cain laughed shortly, shaking his head. “It’s your game. Go on and play.” His glance grazed Robin, and for a moment she thought he would say something more, but he merely walked out through the arched doorway, leaving the four of them in the dim paneled room.

“Robin,” Lisa urged from the table. Robin took a step forward.

“I’ll do it,” Martin said abruptly, and brushed past Robin to sit across from Lisa. The two reached simultaneously over the board to put their hands on the planchette, and Robin noticed again that they seemed strangely comfortable with each other.

Patrick moved in closer. He caught Robin’s eyes for a moment, then looked away.

Lisa pressed her fingertips into the wooden pointer. “Zachary, are you there? We want to talk to you.”

The room was silent. Robin found herself holding her breath. The trees outside the tall windows swished in the wind.

But the planchette was motionless under Lisa’s and Martin’s hands.

“Zachary, did you move the furniture?” Lisa demanded.

The planchette was still over the black letters. Lisa shifted in her chair, wheedled suggestively. “Please won’t you come talk to us?”

Nothing.

Robin moved closer to the table, impatient. It won’t work with Martin. He knows that—we saw it last night.

Lisa looked up at Robin, as if reading her thoughts. Martin looked at the two girls, then stood reluctantly, ceding his seat to Robin.

Robin sat, extended her hands to the pointer.

Lisa met her eyes, pressed her fingers into the wooden piece. “Zachary…”

Beside the table, Martin and Patrick watched, everyone holding their breath.

Robin leaned forward slightly, trying to feel…something. “Zachary…”

The planchette was still and dead under her fingers. Lisa looked at Robin.

Robin shook her head slightly, spoke to the others. “He’s not here.”

Martin nodded, looked at the girls, at the board, thoughtfully. “The conditions aren’t right. Why?”

Robin took in the other three against the shapes of tumbled furniture. She didn’t know how, but suddenly she knew. “Cain. We need everyone.”

The rain poured down monotonously outside.

Lakes formed in the lawns of the faded mansions; muddy rivers churned in the footpaths under the drenched and drooping trees.

In the window seat of her room, Robin had a book open on her lap, as if to fool herself that she was studying. But her gaze was fixed on her spiral notebook, where she was doodling a rather romantic sketch of the pale young man from her dream.

She wrote, “ Zachary .”

She paused for a moment, then wrote the letter Q .

She stared down at it, traced it, trying to remember the rest of the strange word that the board had spelled last night. Qloth? Qiloth?

But the word evaded her. She frowned, then wrote:

The shells?

The shelves?

????

She could feel the icy wind through the glass of the window, scratching at the building to get in. She pulled the comforter closer around her, looked up, brooding.

The wind swirled the trees outside, shaking the branches, bending the old trunks. Robin shivered, disturbed by the violence of it. There was an anger there, an anger at exclusion.

Something interrupted her thoughts, and she turned her head back into the room, suddenly listening.

There was someone in the corridor outside.

She could feel rather than hear at first. Footsteps, muffled by carpet, barely audible… approaching… stopping at her door…

Robin looked at the door, waiting for a knock.

Silence.

Robin tensed. After a moment, she pushed the comforter off her and stood. She moved to the door, reached out—

Something prickled on the back of her neck and she stopped, her fingers inches from the knob. She spoke aloud, wary. “Hello?”

There was no response. She was listening. But it felt like someone was there.

Panic tightened her chest. She stood paralyzed, her heart pounding.

She grabbed the knob, twisted it, pulled the door open.

The corridor was empty.

She looked both ways down the dank hall, then slammed the door. Simultaneously, there was a rattling behind her.

She turned with a gasp—to see something slide very fast down the wall on the opposite side and crash to the floor behind Waverly’s desk.

Robin stood frozen, her pulse racing, her throat tight with fear.