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“No, it’s poetry. Paradise Lost. I used to love it back in college but now I can’t get through a single page. I don’t have the patience anymore. It’s like motherhood ruined my attention span.”
“I have the first Harry Potter in my cottage. I got it out of the library, to read it to Teddy, but you can borrow it if you want.”
Caroline smiles like I’ve said something amusing. “I think I’ll just turn in. It’s getting late. Good night, Mallory.”
She goes inside the house and I make the long walk across the yard to my cottage. Once again I can hear footsteps padding around in Hayden’s Glen—more deer or drunk teenagers or dead people, who knows—but the sound doesn’t frighten me anymore.
Because I’ve decided Adrian is right.
I don’t have to be afraid of Anya.
She’s not trying to hurt me.
She’s not trying to scare me.
She’s trying to tell me something.
And I think it’s time to bypass the middleman.
15
The next morning, I tell Teddy that Adrian is coming to the house for a lunchtime pool party, and we get to work preparing a mighty picnic feast: grilled chicken sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Teddy proudly carries everything out to the pool deck and I open the patio umbrellas so we can dine in the shade.
I’ve already briefed Adrian on the plan, and he’s agreed to babysit Teddy while Mitzi and I attempt to use the spirit board. He arrives promptly at noon, dressed in a swimsuit and a red Scarlet Knights T-shirt, and Teddy runs across the pool deck to welcome him. Even though Teddy is less than four feet tall, he’s somehow figured out a way to open the child-proof gate. Then he puts on his maître d’ act, welcoming Adrian to our “restaurant” and escorting him to our table.
Adrian marvels at all the food on display. “I wish I could stay here and eat all day! But El Jefe only gives me an hour. After that he’ll come looking for me, and that won’t be good for any of us.”
“We’ll eat fast so we can swim,” Teddy tells him. “Then we can play Marco Polo!”
I give Adrian a ton of instructions. I repeatedly remind him that Teddy must wear his floaties, that the water’s too deep for him, even in the shallow end. I’m too nervous to eat anything. I keep glancing over at the cottage, where Mitzi has been working for the last hour or so, preparing for “the gathering.” She’s not positive the plan is going to work. Under ideal circumstances, she says, Teddy would sit beside us at the spirit board. But she agrees that having Teddy some twenty yards away might be close enough, and that’s the only shot I’m willing to take.
Teddy is anxious to swim, so he eats only half a sandwich and says he’s not hungry anymore. And Adrian knows I’m ready to get started, so he eats quickly, then uses a single arm to scoop Teddy off the ground.
“Are you ready, Mr. T?”
Teddy shrieks and screams with delight.
Now for the tricky part:
“Teddy, would you mind if Adrian watched you for a little while? I need to do something in my cottage.”
As I expected, Teddy goes totally bananas. He runs to the far end of the pool deck, waving his arms like a maniac, absolutely thrilled that Adrian—Adrian!!—is going to babysit.
“Please watch him carefully. You can’t let him out of your sight. Not for a second. If anything happens to him—”
“We’ll be fine,” Adrian promises. “It’s you that I’m worried about. Is this your first time using a Ouija board?”
“First time since middle school.”
“Be careful, okay? Yell if you need anything.”
I shake my head. “Don’t come anywhere near the cottage. Even if you hear us screaming. I don’t want Teddy to know what we’re doing. If he tells his parents, they’ll flip out.”
“But what if there’s a problem?”
“Mitzi says she’s done a hundred of these things. She says they’re totally safe.”
“What if Mitzi’s wrong?”
