Claire intervened. “Okay I’m ready to stop now. That’s enough for me.” Annie didn’t object and Zelda just stared at the board. 

Claire went to roll up the board but Zelda snapped out of it, “Wait.” Annie and Claire looked at her. “We have to say goodbye. That’s what they did in my book.” Zelda took the glass and put it on the circle, “Come on.” Annie and Claire took up their positions on the glass. Zelda paused.

“Well?” Claire asked.

“We’re going to close this door now. Goodbye,” declared Zelda. Nothing happened at first and then the glass spelled out “goodbye.” Annie caught herself worrying about what it was feeling and shook that off as foolish.

The rest of the night was normal enough. Zelda quickly went back to being herself and she, Annie and Claire watched movies until the sun started to show. No one talked much about what had happened with the board. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that they had gone a little far and all three were keeping to themselves about their feelings.

On the way home, Annie walked slowly, lost in thought about the night’s events. It was late in the afternoon. They had slept in late and Zelda’s mom did not disturb them thinking they had probably been up talking all night. Annie hadn’t called her parents. If they were looking for her they would call and knowing she was at Zelda’s they were free to go about their preoccupations. It’s a good thing she was such a good kid, Annie thought. She had a lot of freedom to get into trouble.

When she got home, Annie had a sandwich and went up to her room. Her parents weren’t home and she didn’t feel like finding out where they were. She felt exhausted and couldn’t get thoughts of the ouija board out of her head. It was so unreal, the way it moved and the way it seemed to know them. Annie didn’t know how it was even possible and kept imagining the sound of the glass moving across the table. 

She laid on her bed to listen to some music and drifted off to sleep even though she had slept all day. Annie’s dreams were disorienting and she felt like she did when she was waking up from having her wisdom teeth out, foggy and sluggish. In one of her dreams she was chasing Zelda but Zelda was just out of reach. It was hard to run, like her legs were in molasses and she called out to Zelda but Zelda just laughed and kept going. It was innocent enough but Annie felt a sense of fear and foreboding. 

She was in and out of sleep long enough for it to get dark and finally came out of it. She could hear her parents downstairs and decided to go down and see them when something fell off her bookshelf with a thump. Annie got up to look and saw her copy of The Diary of Anne Frank on the floor. It was weird because she thought she had tucked it in between her other books but figured that it must have been balanced on the edge of the shelf instead and finally fell. Annie put the book back and made her way downstairs.

“Oh! I didn’t know you were home,” her mom looked startled. She and Annie’s dad were in the kitchen and Annie had the feeling she had walked in on something. Both were surprised and a little flushed. She wondered if they had been arguing by the sense of the tension in the air.

“Yeah. I got home a little while ago. I had the weirdest dreams.” Annie tried to break the ice.

“How was Zelda’s? I thought you were staying the weekend?” Annie’s Dad asked. 

Annie couldn’t remember what she had told her mom and answered with a vague “We didn’t feel like it.” Something had caught her eye on the table, an official looking stack of papers on the kitchen island. Her dad followed her gaze before he nearly snatched them up and headed for his home office.

“Well, I hope you had a good time,” offered her mom. Annie had the impulse to tell her what had happened. Her mom was present for that moment, patting her shoulder and nearly approachable before she turned away abruptly and followed Annie’s dad into the other room. Annie sighed, resigned to her mother’s inconsistency. 

Annie called Zelda later.  “We have to talk,” she said.

“About what?” Annie couldn’t believe how dense Zelda was acting.

“You know. About what happened.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on. We can’t keep pretending like it didn’t happen.”

“I can. I’m totally creeped out. I’ve been following my mom around the house all night, afraid to be alone and now I’m in my room with my back to the wall. I’m terrified.”

“I’m feeling a little weird too,” Annie admitted. She noticed that she too was on the bed with her back to the wall. “I keep asking myself if all that really happened.”

“Well, it did and I want to do it again.”

“What? You just said you were terrified.”

“I know but I want to find out more about my Grandma. Maybe it really knows something.”

“I think it’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous how? What could happen?” Annie didn’t have an answer, just a feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I don’t know. I just think so. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Okay so don’t. I gotta go. My mom’s calling me.” With that, Zelda hung up and Annie wondered if she was just making an excuse to get off the phone.

The rest of Annie’s weekend was pretty average. She did some homework and read and decided to just get what happened with the board out of her head. She had a big project coming up and wanted to focus on it. It was a writing piece for English that asked her to write a diary like Anne Frank. Annie wasn’t sure what she had to say that would be so very interesting. Ms. Huber had assured them that what they were trying to do was just recreate what it’s like to be an American teen right now. Annie thought about social media and bullying and pressure in school but to her it felt petty compared to The Holocaust. 

Monday morning she found Claire and they headed to class. Annie looked everywhere for Zelda but she was nowhere to be found. 

“Did you hear from Zelda this morning?” She asked Claire.

“No, and not the rest of the weekend. I haven’t heard from her since we left her house.”

“Weird. I’ll text her now.” Annie grabbed her phone out of her backpack and texted Zelda “Are you coming to school?”  quickly before Mrs. Smith saw. She had to put her phone away and didn’t see an answer. 

The day wore on, English, then Math and Social Studies. Still no word from Zelda. Annie texted again, “Hey! Where are you?”