I thought about how she referred to everyone by initial in her journal. I tried to judge how close her fingers were to the planchette, but it was hard to tell. “Can you tell us more about yourself, S? Can you tell us what year you died?”

The pointer spelled out “7–4.”

Lonnie and I looked at each other. “Are you moving it?” she asked. I shook my head, the truth.

“You guys, this is freaking me out,” Alex said. “You’re not moving it?”

“S,” Lonnie said, ignoring Alex and maintaining eye contact with me. “We want to talk to you. We want you to feel safe. Can you tell us, was your death an accident?”

The planchette moved to “No.”

“Was your death because of an illness?”

“No” again.

“S, did somebody hurt you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry, S. Can I ask if you’re okay now? Are you all right where you are now?”

The pointer moved sharply down and then back and forth along the two words at the bottom of the board: “Good bye good bye good bye.”

“We lost her,” Lonnie said. “She’s gone.”

“This is fucked, you guys,” Alex said.

“I wasn’t moving it,” Lonnie said.

“Me neither.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Lonnie asked, leaning toward him.

“No,” Alex said. “No way.”

“What do you think just happened?”

“I think one of you was moving it.”

“What about you?” Lonnie asked me. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“I don’t believe or not believe,” I said. “In anything. There could be a whole mess of shit we don’t know about, right? I guess I don’t really believe in a soul, though, so I don’t think about ghosts in any traditional sense.”

“You don’t believe in a soul?”

“Well, I think we’re just animals, you know? I think the soul is a word we use to talk about something nonconcrete, like love or hope. Love doesn’t really exist in the way we talk about it. It’s a chemical reaction, it’s hormones, it’s society’s expectations and evolutionary code telling us we have a better chance of survival if we’re not alone.”

“I don’t believe I’m just a body,” Lonnie said. It came out quietly, so I felt bad.

“Maybe you’re not,” I said.

“You think that was somebody really talking to us?” Alex said.

“Yes, that was somebody.”

“You want to try it again?” I said.

We placed our fingers back on the planchette and Lonnie began the same routine, asking if anyone wanted to talk. After a pause the pointer moved to “Yes.” When Lonnie asked for a name our fingers spelled out “W-I-L-L.”

“That’s our baby’s name,” Lonnie said, personable even with ghosts. “What a great name. Can you tell us where you are, Will? Are you somewhere in the room with us?”

C-R-E-S-T