PREGAME SHOW
Just between you and me, I am a little uncomfortable summoning the dead with something manufactured by the Parker Brothers, but I got my first period four months ago, and I am on a tight schedule. We’ve turned off as many of the lights as we can, and turned on at least twelve LED candles. These are the fancy ones that flicker like real fire would, which probably isn’t necessary, but does lend a certain ambiance to the setting. Mostly we are using them because Uncle Mark has strong opinions about emergency supplies but is also the kind of person who has fancy, nonemergency candles. I wish that was the weirdest thing about this family.
Elizabeth and Drew wrangle their siblings and our assorted cousins into a circle while I open the box the Ouija board is stored in. Like so many other cottage board game boxes, this one is worn at the corners and has definitely been sat on at least once. It’s much older than I am. It might be older than my dad, actually, but I’m not really worried about that sort of thing right now. What I’m worried about is complicated. And also dead. Which is not even what makes it particularly complicated.
Eventually, all eight of us are arranged the way the picture on the box suggests, sitting cross-legged on the old carpet with our knees touching so that we can lean forwards to reach the board. We are all very careful not to touch it yet. The directions are very clear about that part.
We have gathered everything we’re supposed to need. Eight family members in a familiar place to make the call into the darkness. We have escaped from our parents and anyone else who might object to a bunch of kids doing magic. We probably won’t burn the place down, on account of the fake candles, but we have a few buckets of water outside the door in case of emergency. None of us have ever even seen magic before, let alone tried to do it. We might have been born under a family curse, but that doesn’t mean we have any idea how this sort of thing works.
Elizabeth is holding the little booklet, reading the directions one last time. She makes sure the cousins are looking at her, that everyone understands what we’re about to do.
“Remember,” she says. “Only Hayley talks. The rest of us just focus on the triangle thing—”
“Planchette,” Molly interrupts.
“Focus on the
planchette”— Elizabeth barely blinks— “and try to think about family stuff.”
Drew nods at her, and Alex and Jordan lean forwards. Finlay and Isobel look worried, and I am not sure if they’re worried it’ll work or worried it won’t. Molly grins in what I am sure she thinks is a supportive manner. She wants to be an artist when she grows up, so this isn’t as important to her as it is to everyone else. She knows she’s lucky. Elizabeth sets the box down.
“Hands up,” she says, and we all lean forwards to touch the planchette. “Okay, Hayley, whenever you’re ready.”
I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. But we’ve come this far. And the only way we’re ever going to find my great grandfather’s body is to ask his ghost where it is. I think about the smell of ice, the scraping noise when I turn my blades to stop. The sound of the buzzer. The whoosh of the puck. My hair streaming out behind my helmet. My family, all of them, allowed to sit in the stands.
“William Rilko!” I call out. “William Rilko, dead since 1951!”
Elizabeth breathes through her nose, air wheezing slightly. Molly shifts. Finley has her eyes closed.
“William Rilko, lost in a plane crash!” I almost gesture vaguely to the north, but remember at the last moment not to move my hands. “William Rilko, come here to your family, and tell us where we can find your bones.”
Copyright © 2026 by E.K. Johnston. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
