“I’ll straight up murder you!” Mei shouted from the kitchen.
“Yes,” Desdomona said after Wallace moved the planchette over the same word on the board. “You were murdered. I knew it! Tell me, O great spirit. Tell me who murdered you. I will seek justice on your behalf and when I have my own TV deal in place, I promise I’ll never forget you. Give me a name.”
The planchette moved again.
“D,” she whispered. “E. S. D. E. M. O. N—”
Thin Man let out a strangled noise. “That spells demon.”
“Really scraping the bottom of the barrel with these two,” Nelson said, eying Squat Man as he stood on a chair, holding his device toward the ceiling.
“A,” Desdemona said as the planchette stopped moving. “That’s not demon. It has too many letters. Did you get all of it?”
Thin Man nodded slowly.
“Well?” she demanded. “What does it say.”
He showed her the pad of paper again.
In blocky letters, the page read: DESDEMONA.
She squinted at it, and then the Ouija board, and then back at the pad of paper as Thin Man turned and pointed the word toward the camera. “That’s my name.” The blood drained from her face as she pulled her hands away from the planchette. “Are you … are you saying that I murdered you?” She laughed uncomfortably. “That’s impossible. I’ve never murdered anyone before.”
Thin Man and Desdemona froze as the planchette began to move without her touching it. She rattled off the letters Wallace paused upon, and Thin Man wrote them down.
“You totally killed me,” Desdemona read off the paper before blinking. “What? I did not. Who are you? Is this some kind of joke?” She bent over the underside of the table before sitting back up. “No magnets. Hugo. Hugo. Are you doing this? I don’t like to be tricked.”
“You’re messing with forces you can’t even begin to comprehend,” Hugo said solemnly.
The planchette moved again.
“Ha, ha,” Thin Man read aloud as he wrote the letters down. “You suck.”
“What are you, ten?” Nelson asked, though he seemed to be fighting a smile. “You need to be scarier. Tell her you’re Satan, and you’re going to eat her liver.”
“This is Satan,” Thin Man said as the planchette moved. “I’m going to eat your diver.”
“Liver,” Nelson said. “Liver.”
“I’m trying,” Wallace said through gritted teeth. “It’s slippery!”
“My diver?” Desdemona asked, sounding confused. “I’ve never been diving in my life.”
The planchette moved again. “Sorry,” Thin Man read as he wrote down the new message. “Stupid autocorrect. I meant liver.”
Hugo put his face in his hands and groaned.
Desdemona stood abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. She looked around wildly. Thin Man was clutching the pad of paper against his chest, and Squat Man had joined them, holding the device out over the Ouija board. It squealed again, louder than it’d been before, the light bulbs across the top bright.
“We are meddling,” Desdemona breathed, “in things we don’t understand.” She put the back of her hand against her forehead as her bosom heaved, and she looked into the camera. “You’ve seen it here first. Satan is here, and he wants to eat my liver. But I will not be intimidated.” She dropped her hand. “Be you Satan or some other demon, you are not welcome here! This is a place of peace and overpriced confectionaries.”
“Hey!” Hugo snapped.
Wallace moved the planchette faster. “You’re the one who’s not welcome here,” he said under his breath, even as Thin Man said the same thing aloud. “Leave this place. Never return.” He paused, considering. Then, “Also, be nicer to Mei or I’ll eat your brain too.”
“Look,” Squat Man said, pointing a trembling finger.
Wallace turned his head to see Nelson standing near the sconces on the wall. He pressed his hands against them, and the light bulbs inside began to flicker. Wallace grinned when Nelson winked at him. The light bulbs rattled.
“Leave,” Wallace said, moving the planchette faster. “Leave. Leave. Leave.” When he finished, he pushed as hard as he could, knocking the planchette across the room. It landed in the fireplace and began to burn. The Ouija board flew off the table, clattering to the floor.
“I did not sign up for this shit,” Squat Man said, backing away slowly. He yelped when he bumped into a chair, whirling around.
Nelson left the sconces and went to the camera. He studied it closely before nodding to himself. “This looks expensive.” And then he knocked it over. It crashed to the ground, the lens cracking. “Oops.”
Hugo sighed once again as Wallace said, “Yes, Nelson. Yes.”
“We need to get out of here,” Thin Man whispered feverishly. He started for the door, but Wallace kicked a chair toward him. It slid across the floor, banging into Thin Man’s shins. He screamed and almost fell down, the pad of paper hitting the ground.
“I won’t have this!” Desdemona exclaimed. “We won’t be intimidated by the likes of you! I am Desdemona Tripplethorne. I have fifty thousand followers, and I command you to—”
But whatever Desdemona would have demanded was lost when Mei burst through the doors, both knives raised above her head, screaming, “I am Satan! I am Satan!”
The last Wallace saw of Desdemona, Thin Man, and Squat Man was their backs as they fled Charon’s Crossing Tea and Treats. Thin Man and Squat Man tried to go through the door at the same time and became stuck until Desdemona crashed into them, knocking them onto the front porch. They cried out when she stepped on their backs and arms to get over them, her dress hiked up almost obscenely. She jumped off the steps and tore down the road without so much as a glance back at the shop, Thin Man and Squat Man managing to pick themselves up, chasing after her.
Silence fell in Charon’s Crossing.
But it didn’t last for long.
Nelson began to chuckle, softly at first, then louder and louder. Mei did the same, a hiccupping cough that turned into a wet snort before she cackled as she lowered her knives.
And then another sound filled the nooks and crannies of the tea shop, one never heard before. This sound caused Nelson and Mei to fall silent, Hugo to walk around the counter slowly.
Wallace was laughing. He was laughing as hard as he ever had, one arm wrapped around his stomach, his free hand slapping his knee. “Did you see that?” he cried. “Did you see the looks on their faces? Oh my god, that was incredible.”
And still he laughed. Something loosened in his chest, something he hadn’t even been aware had been knotted up and tangled. He felt lighter, somehow. Freer. His shoulders shook as he bent over, gasping for air he didn’t need. Even as laughter dissolved into soft chuckles, that lightness didn’t fade. If anything, it burned brighter, and the hook, that damnable thing that never ceased to be, finally didn’t feel like a shackle, trapping him in place. He thought he had, perhaps for one of the first times in his life, done something good without expecting anything in return. How could he have never considered that before?