bells tolling a total of five times. Repeating itself in a distinct pattern. After watching the same combination of bells, I began to suspect that this wasn’t just random ghostly ringing.
It seemed like a code. As if the bells—or whatever was controlling them—were trying to tell me something.
I dug the Ouija board out of the trash, wiping away a stubborn splotch of oatmeal before placing it on the kitchen table. As the bells continued their insistent pattern, I studied the board in front of me. I realized that if I assigned a letter to each bell, I might be able to decipher what the bells were trying to say.
A wall-size Ouija board.
I began with the first bell on the first row. That was A. I continued matching bells to letters for the first row, which ended in L. Then I started in on the second row, beginning with M. The only wrinkle in this theory of mine was that the alphabet has twenty-six letters but the wall had only twenty-four bells. To solve that problem, I assigned the last bell on the second row the last three letters of the alphabet.
XYZ
I had no guarantee it would work. I assumed it wouldn’t. It was ridiculous to think a ghost was spelling out words for me to decode. Then again, it was also ridiculous to believe in ghosts at all. Since I’d long ago gotten over that impossibility, I decided to keep an open mind.
The first bell rang. Eighth from the left on the first row.
H
The second bell was also on the first row, five spots from the left.
E
Next came the bell that always rang twice. Last one on the first row.
LL
By the time the sole bell in the second row rang, I’d already matched it to its corresponding letter, spelling out the full word.
HELLO
“Hello?” I said, ignoring the absurd fact that not only was I right about a spirit spelling out words, but I was now also speaking aloud to said spirit. “Who is this?”
The bells rang again, this time in a different configuration.
Third from the left on the first row.
C
Fourth from the right on the second row.
U
Various bells continued to ring, spelling out the name I’d already suspected.
CURTIS CARVER
“Curtis, did you speak to my daughter last night?”
The last bell on the second row chimed. Two more followed, one on the first and one on the second.
YES
“Did you tell her she was going to die here?”
The same three bells rang in the same order.
YES
I took a gulp, bracing myself for the question I didn’t want to ask but needed to.
“Do you plan on killing my daughter?”
There was a pause that might have only lasted five seconds but felt like an hour. During that time, I thought of what Curtis Carver had done to his daughter. The pillow over her face while she slept. How horrible it must have been for her if she woke up, and I’m certain that before the end came, Katie Carver did wake up. I pictured the same thing happening to Maggie and became seized with panic.
Then a bell rang.
Second row.
Not at the very end but on the other side, second from the left.
N
The bell immediately to its right chimed next.
O
I exhaled—a long, heavy sigh of relief in which another question occurred to me. One I’d never considered because I thought I knew the answer since before we even moved into Baneberry Hall. But after seeing those two bells tilt out their song, I began to doubt that what I’d been told was true.
“Curtis,” I said. “Did you kill your daughter?”
Again, there was a pause. Then two bells rang—the last sounds any of them would make for the rest of the day. But it was enough. Curtis Carver’s answer was absolutely clear.
NO
Eighteen
I didn’t know you wrote the original article about Curtis Carver,” I say.
“I did.” Brian Prince grins in a way that makes my stomach turn. He’s proud of this fact. “It was my first big story.”
I return my gaze to the article, preferring the picture of the Carver family over Brian’s morbid smugness. “How much do you remember about that day?”
“A lot,” Brian says. “Like I said, I was fairly new to the Gazette, even though I’ve lived in Bartleby my whole life. The paper was bigger then. Every paper was bigger in those days. Because a lot of the older, veteran reporters were still around, I was relegated to fluff pieces. Dog shows and baking contests. I interviewed Marta Carver a few days before the