The Board Game of Death
The Rest of Chapter ~ 2
“Who did you get this from anyways?” Jordan asked.
“Mrs. Krendall, she said it was her son’s. He must have moved or something. I haven’t seen him in a while. In fact he has not been around since Carley died.”
“Oh, Brian?” Jordan held the necklace closer to her face for further inspection. “Yeah…I haven’t seen him around either. Didn’t know he was into this sort of stuff.” She then set it down on the game board.
“Isn’t he one of Lucas’s friends?” Shawna asked.
“Yeah…I think he is.” Alexus shifted herself, crossing her legs in front of her, sitting Indian style.
“So you want to give this thing a try?” Shawna asked.
“Yeah…I do. Who wants to go first?” Alexus held out the necklace. “You have to wear this.”
Jordan chuckled, “I’ll go first…I’m not scared.” She took the necklace and placed it over her head.
The necklace was made up of small white stones with green stones in between them. A larger yellow stone marked the front of the necklace. The stones were strung on some type of thin cord.
“You know, that would look better on you if you were wearing your other top.” Shawna commented.
Jordan usually dressed in the same Gothic dress style as both Alexus and Shawna. But her parents were totally against the style. She would have to smuggle the clothes out of her house in her backpack. Which she had in her bag now.
“I guess you are right.” Jordan removed the necklace. “Hang on while I change.”
Jordan reached for her bag and pulled her change of clothes out of it. She took off her dark blue tee shirt and put on a black top with a spider web pictured on the front. Her jeans were next, these were replaced with black chino’s. The finishing touches were a pair of black boots and a black headband with a green bat depicted on it.
“There!” Jordan felt better. She shoved her discarded clothes into her bag and took the necklace form Shawna and put it back around her neck. “Look better? I’ll do the make up later.”
“Yeah…much better.” Alexus agreed. “Okay…how do we do this? Do we need to hold hands or something?”
Shawna moved over to make room for Alexus. “You need to sit over here while Jordan sits on that side. And then we hold hands while Jordan does what ever with the game piece.”
Alexus took her place beside Shawna and joined hands with her.
Jordan took her spot and placed her fingertips lightly on top of the game piece. She closed her eyes. She asked, “Carley, are you there?”
They waited a minute. The game piece did not move. Shawna let out a chuckle.
“Maybe she did not hear you,” Alexus said.
“Carley, where are you?” Jordan asked again.
Another minute went by, but there was still no movement from the game piece.
Shawna broke the silence. “Well at least you only paid a buck for this.”
The game piece moved slowly to the top of the board and over to the left corner to rest on the word Yes. Startled, Jordan removed her fingers from touching the game piece.
“I didn’t do that.” Jordan said with bewilderment. “It moved all on its own.”
“Yeah…right!” Shawna said with disbelief. She stood up. “Let me try.”
Jordan and Shawna exchanged places and they started again after Shawna put the necklace on. She waited until Jordan joined hands with Alexus.
“Carley, how did you die?” Shawna asked. She placed her fingertips on top of the game piece just like she saw Jordan do. She waited.
There was no response.
“Try again,” Alexus instructed. “Maybe you have to ask more than once.”
Shawna was about to take her fingertips from the piece when it began to move. It went to the letter B and stopped there.
“B?” Jordan asked puzzled.
Alexus giggled. “Maybe she can’t remember how to spell.”
The game piece started to move again. This time it moved to the W on the board.
“Okay…so maybe spirits can’t spell,” Shawna agreed. She took her fingers off the game piece.
Alexus remembered the book she found at the flea market last weekend. It was tattered but readable. It had a lot of info in it about occult stuff. She reached for the book, it was on a shelf above where they sat. Opening it up, she began to look for some information on Ouija Boards.
Alexus was puzzled. “Hey the page on Ouija Boards is missing from this book. Like someone tore it out.”
Shawna held her hand out to receive the book. “Let me see.”
She too opened the book to where the page was supposed to be. It was gone. “Well that’s weird. I thought all the pages were here.” She looked around on the floor below the shelf. “Maybe it fell out somewhere.”
They all got up and began to search for the missing page. They couldn’t find it anywhere. After giving up their search, they returned their attention back to the game board. The game piece was no longer on the W. It was now resting on the letter A.
“Jordan, did you bump the board?” Alexus asked.
Jordan looked down at the board. “I didn’t touch the board. Why?”
“Shawna you did not move the game piece…did you?” Alexus asked. She knelt beside the board studying it.
Shawna turned to look at the board. “I left it on the W…Why?”
Alexus pointed to the board. “Look where the piece is now!” She motioned for Shawna to come closer to the board.
The three of them studied the board.
“It’s on the letter A now.” Alexus pointed again to the board.
The game piece began to move on its own. Stopping next to the letter R.
Shawna moved away from the board. “Oh my God! Did you see that? It moved all on its own.” Her voice became a bit shaky.
Jordan reached down and lifted the game piece off the board for better inspection. A cricket ran off the board. Jordan laughed, “It’s nothing but a bug.”
Shawna laughed too nervously.
“Hey, does anyone know what time it is?” Alexus asked. “It must be getting close to supper time. We should go check in with my mom. We can leave this here for now…put it away later.”
“Sound good to me,” Shawna agreed eagerly.
“Alright…” Jordan brushed off her pants and followed them down the ladder and out of the barn.
The sun was not so high in the sky now. Alexus believe it had to be close to 4 o’clock. She found her mom in the kitchen preparing supper.
Alexus stood and while Jordan and Shawna took a seat at the small table in the kitchen.
“Wha cha making, Mom?”
“Oh, we’re having chicken pot pies tonight.”
“Do you need any help?”
“Naw…I’m all set,” her Mom replied. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour…’Kay?”
“Alright…” Alexus moved toward the hallway, “we are gonna be up in my room then.”
“’Kay…”
The three girls went to Alexus’s room. It was up at the top of the stairs off to the left of the hallway. There was a guest room up here along with her parents bed room, a bathroom, and a room that was being used for storage.
Alexus’s brother was off to college, so her parents made his room into a guest room for now.
“What do you want to do for an hour?” Alexus asked as she took a seat on her bedroom floor.
Jordan took a seat in the tiger striped bean bag chair, while Shawna took a spot on the floor near Alexus.
The walls of her room were scattered with posters. The one above her bed was that of a pentagram while the others were of dark angels, gargoyles, and some sort of tree of life. A few posters of grunge bands were amongst the mix.
Her bedroom window gave a perfect view of the barn in the back yard. Small glass red bead curtains covered her window. They filtered the sunlight coming in the window, changing the hue of the light to an odd reddish color.
“Wanna try using that board again?” Shawna asked.
“I think we should go get it.” Jordan agreed.
“Let’s do that after supper. We need to find out how to use the thing.” Alexus replied.
She got up and went over to her book shelf and let her black fingertips drag along the spines of the books on the shelf until they came to rest on a certain book. A book by Margaist himself. She hoped he could shine some light on the subject.
She opened the book to the table of contents and found a section on the board. The first passage she found she read out loud. “It says here…what not to do…hmm…I wonder what he means when he says to make sure you close the board when you are done with your session….Also says…the board is not to be used as a toy, but a tool.”
She sat back down on the floor with the book still open in her hands.
Alexus said bewildered,“says…this thing is supposed to work…no matter who made it…Wow!”
“You mean…that thing really lets you talk to the dead?” Shawna asked.
“Yeah…says it works better if we use candles and incense to set the mood,” Alexus explained. “It’s got a whole chapter on dangers…we can read that later…after we try it again…I wanna see if we can talk to Carley…it can’t be that dangerous to talk to a dead kid.” Alexus handed the book to Jordan, she had her hand out to receive it.
Shawna peeked over Jordan’s shoulder so she could see the pages of the book too. “I don’t know…there seems to be an awfully lot of stuff written about the board being dangerous.” Shawna replied nervously.
Jordan looked over the pages of the chapter a bit more before saying, “says most of the dangerous stuff comes with extended use. We haven’t used it long enough to worry about getting into trouble with it. I don’t see any harm in contacting Carley. She was our friend anyways, she wouldn’t hurt us.” Jordan closed the book and handed it back to Alexus to put away.
“After supper I will see if I can find some candles. I think I know where mom keeps them.”
All the while time had passed while they sat looking for answers in the book about how to use the board. Alexus’s mom called them to dinner. They decided to tell Alexus mom nothing about the strange feature of the board, if she asked about it.
The pot pies were good. But Alexus’s mom always made great chicken pot pies. They were small homemade ones. Her mom would buy the little pie plates and make her own. She said she liked her own crust better than the store bought crust.
During dinner, Alexus’s mom asked Shawna and Jordan about their families. She asked how they were and if any special events were coming up, like weddings or family additions. But, neither girl had anything spectacular to report.
The town of Ashland is a small town. Small enough for all of its residents to know each other. It was common for most of the residents to show up for each others weddings or christenings.
After dinner, the girls excused themselves from the table. Mrs. Bordaine allowed Alexus to take the night off from doing the dishes.
Shawna and Jordan ran off to the barn to collect the game. They packed it up to bring it to Alexus’s room.
Mean while Alexus went in search of candles and some sort of incense. She planned on asking her mom tomorrow, if she would take them to the New Age Store in Mirtle Bay tomorrow. She could buy some incense there along with some real candles.
She looked under the bathroom sink. She remembered seeing some sort of candle being stored there. The were kept for when the power went out.
There they were in the back, large candles in jars. One smelled like pine cones and the other smelled like lavender.
She took them to her room and set them up on her desk. She placed her fake skull head in between the two candles.
In the hall closet she found a jar of potpourri and the little pot to put it in. It used a small tea light candle under the little pot. She took a couple extra tea lights to use for more candle light.
