“We’ve got to find another way,” I said to Cassie.

“Another way to what?”

“Out of here,” I said. “We’re locked in.”

We spent the next hour or so trying every MacGyver-type tactic we could come up with to pop the locks or pry open the doors. Used furniture to smash the windows, but the glass was reinforced with material that cracked but wouldn’t cave. I damaged my back more than I did those windows. We scoured the rooms for hidden hatches in the floor or vents to crawl through, and found nothing. Even tried shimmying up the chimney, which resulted in nothing more than covering us in soot. At the end, it was enough to make us laugh. Sweating and smeared with soot, taking desperate measures to escape some log cabin that would have been romantic under different conditions.

“You don’t have a phone, do you?” I asked.

She stared at me for a long while. “You don’t think I would have tried to use it before now?”

I sighed, and so did she. I had been scared before. Terrified, in fact. But this was a different type of fear. Part claustrophobia. Part worry for Rox, with the feeling that every second we spent dicking around here put him in more danger. And a heaping pile of paranoia regarding what would happen when we played with that Ouija board. What type of portal it would rip open.

I’m not religious, but am probably more spiritual than I’ll admit. I wouldn’t be worried about demons or spirits or whatever may come through that Ouija board if I wasn’t. Plus, so much of AA is based on having faith in something bigger and wiser than ourselves. Even if it’s just our future, actualized self urging us on. Cassie, on the other hand, basically believes in all religions. She’s like a smorgasbord of faith. She’ll pull verses from the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and the I Ching in a single sitting. Mash ’em all together like some techno groove. She prays, meditates, does yoga, fasts, volunteers. Here, I lay off pizza for a few days and feel I’ve sanctified my body, whereas my wife is basically a holy saint. And yet I waste so much of my time wondering if I could have done better. I deserve every bit of this, I think.

Okay, how bad can it be? Fucking Hasbro makes Ouija boards, the same toy company that makes Mr. Potato Head. It’s not a portal to some spirit world. Solomon and his girlfriend were tripping balls. Tankerson probably had a flashback or caught a contact high. Say Bloody Mary’s name three times in front of a mirror and nothing happens. It’s all superstition and manufactured fear.

“You ever played with one of these things?” I said.

“No. You?”

“No.”