The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,59

of the table until she was sitting, her feet under the table, staring down at the Ouija. The planchette rested near the bottom, the dangling needle pointing at the B in “goodbye.”

Thalia had given her the board back when they were in high school. Laurel had never set it up, never once touched the planchette. She reached out with one hand, her fingertips hovering, and then she set them on the edge of the thing. The plastic felt cool under her fingertips. She felt a tug of energy from it, as if it were drawing heat out of her, an electric current running from her core down into the board. It was an open circuit, and she felt instinctively that another hand on the other side of the planchette would close it. Even incomplete, the energy it took from her was gathering, shaping itself. Something was coming. Or someone. She didn’t know who. She snatched her hand back, then tucked both hands under the table, clenched together in her lap. “This is a bad idea,” she said.

Thalia wasn’t there to hear, but Laurel could not shake the sense that she was not alone. She started to stand, but light flashed in the corner of her eye. She looked back toward the house. Thalia had thrown the curtain half open and then shoved at the door, sending it shooting down its track. She stepped through and reached for the curtain. She paused there, her long form a silhouette against the gold light, and then she pulled the curtain closed with elaborate gentleness and the light was gone, rendering her invisible. Laurel searched the darkness, but her eyes had to readjust before she could see Thalia prowling across the lawn toward her.

Thalia scooted past the table corner, sitting down and sliding along the gazebo’s built-in bench until she was directly across from Laurel. She smiled then, but it was her too-big, wolfy smile. Laurel could see all her teeth gleaming in the candlelight.

“Your husband is kind of an asshat,” Thalia said softly, and plopped one hand on the closest side of the planchette. “Grab the other half, and let’s get going.”

“What happened to bunny tails and being fluffy?” Laurel asked. She kept her hands tucked under the table, even though the energy she’d felt a moment ago was gone, eclipsed by Thalia’s crackling anger. “Please tell me you didn’t go down there and pick a fight.”

“I didn’t pick anything. He didn’t even notice I’d come down.” Thalia took her hand off the planchette, too, and stared down at it, as if she expected the intensity of her gaze alone to move it.

“If he had his headset on, he probably couldn’t hear you. He listens to music really loud, or he gets in this TeamSpeak thing where there are other people talking,” Laurel said in a propitiating tone. Thalia could stomach anything but being ignored.

“Can I ask you something?” Thalia said, but she didn’t wait for permission. “Hypothetically, what would it take for you to leave him?”

“Please don’t let’s have this conversation again.” The night outside the pale flickering ring of light was pressing in on them. Laurel could feel it, so warm and dense with moisture that it was like they were sitting inside the hot breath of something awful. “Not out here, Thalia.”

“But if he hit you, say,” Thalia insisted. “Or got addicted to heroin. Or cheated on you, or—”

“Those things won’t happen,” said Laurel.

“Hypothetically,” Thalia said, and ignored Laurel’s exasperated sigh. “What if he had some redheaded slutty thing down in your basement right now, making the beast with two backs. Say I told you, and you went down and saw it with your own eyes. Then would you leave him?”

Laurel felt a headache starting low at the base of her skull, a tingling as if the buzz of cicadas were gathering there. “I wouldn’t even go look. There is no redhead in our basement. There never will be,” she said. “Thalia, we’re happy.”

Thalia snorted and then said, “So this is what happy looks like. I’d always wondered.”

The buzzing at the back of Laurel’s head got louder. “I’m not happy today. Obviously,” she said. “This is the worst week of my life, and that’s another great reason to skip this conversation.”

“You don’t even know what happy means,” Thalia said. She scooted back, pressing her spine against the railing, and then drew her legs up, knees to chest, careful not to bang the table. She boosted herself up to rest her