Detective and mystery stories; Wise, Pennington (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
It embittered Eve that her earnestness and her implicit belief in the
supernatural made it more difficult for the others to look upon her as
entirely disingenuous. She resented this, and was a little morose in
consequence. Norma Cameron, herself an avowed 'sensitive,' had had no
spiritistic visitant in the haunted room, and Eve thought Norma had
doubted her word.
At last after trying all the others that she wanted, Vernie persuaded
good-natured Mr. Tracy to move Ouija with her, and the two sat down with
the board between them.
Few and flippant messages were forthcoming, until, just as Vernie had
laughingly declared she would throw the old thing out of the window, a
startling sentence formed itself from the erratic dartings of the
heart-shaped toy, and Vernie turned pale.
"Stop it!" ordered Tracy, "I refuse to touch it again!"
He removed his hands and sat back, but Vernie, glaring at the letters,
held it a moment longer. "To-morrow! it says to-morrow!" she cried. "Oh,
Eve, I told you so!"
"What, Vernie? What is it, dear?" and Eve Carnforth came over to the
excited child.
"Ouija, Eve! Ouija said that to-morrow at four, two of us are to die! Oh,
Eve, you know every death in this house has occurred at four o'clock in
the morning! Mr. Stebbins said so. And now, two of us are to die
to-morrow!"
"Nonsense!" cried Mr. Tracy, "don't listen to that rubbish! The Ouija ran
off its track. Maybe Vernie pushed it,--maybe I did."
"Now, Mr. Tracy, I _didn't_ push it, and you needn't try to make anybody
think _you_ did! You never'd push it to say a thing like that! Why, it
spelled it all out as plain as day! Uncle Gifford, do you hear! Two of us
to die to-morrow!" Vernie's voice rose to a hysterical shriek.
"Hush, Vernie! Hush, child. I'll take you away from here to-morrow. We
ought never to have brought you," and Gifford Bruce glowered at the
others as he clasped the sobbing child in his arms, and took her from the
room.
"You're right," agreed Mr. Tracy, "and Braye was right. He said a fright
or shock would upset that child's nerves completely. But she must have
pushed the board herself. It flew round like lightning, and spelled out
the message, just as she said. I tried to steer it off, but she urged
against me. I felt her doing so. I don't mean she made up the message to
create a sensation, but I think the ghost last night affected her as a
warning, and her mind is so full of it, that she unconsciously or
subconsciously worked up that 'message.' At any rate, I've had about
enough of this, if she's to be here. It isn't right to frighten a child
so, and Vernie is little more than a child."
"That's so," said Norma, thoughtfully. "I've had enough, too. If the rest
of you want to stay on, I'll go down to New York to-morrow, and take
Vernie to stay with me for a while. We'll go to the seashore, and I'll
see to it that she has no psychic or supernatural experiences."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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