Heart-Shaped Box

“Jude,” Georgia said, then corrected herself. “Justin. Don’t quit on this. Try again.”

Jude. Justin.

He stared at his fingers on the planchette, the board beneath, and tried to think what wasn’t right, and in another moment it came to him. Georgia had said that true names had a charge in them, that the right words had the power to return the dead to the living. And he thought then that Justin wasn’t his true name, that he had left Justin Cowzynski in Louisiana when he was nineteen, and the man who got off the bus in New York City forty hours later was someone different entirely, capable of doing and saying things that had been beyond Justin Cowzynski. And what they were doing wrong now was calling for Anna McDermott. He had never called her that. She had not been Anna McDermott when they were together.

“Florida,” Jude said, almost sighed. When he spoke again, his voice was surprising to him, calm and self- assured. “Come on and talk to me, Florida. It’s Jude, darlin’. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I’m calling now. Are you there? Are you listening? Are you still waiting for me? I’m here now. I’m right here.”

The planchette jumped under their fingers, as if the board had been struck from beneath. Georgia jumped with it and cried out weakly. Her bad hand fluttered to her throat. The breeze shifted direction and sucked at the shades, snapping them against the windows and darkening the room. Angus lifted his head, eyes flashing a bright, unnatural green in the weak light from the candles.

Georgia’s good hand had remained on the pointer, and no sooner had it rattled back to rest on the board than it began to move. The sensation was unnatural and made Jude’s heart race. It felt as if there were another pair of fingers on the planchette, a third hand, reaching into the space between his hand and Georgia’s and sliding the pointer around, turning it without warning. It slipped across the board, touched a letter, stayed there for a moment, then spun under their fingers, forcing Jude to twist his wrist to keep his hand on it.

“W,” Georgia said. She was audibly short of breath. “H. A. T.”

“What,” Jude said. The pointer went on finding letters, and Georgia continued calling them out: a K, an E. Jude listened, concentrating on what was being spelled.

Jude: “Kept. You.”

The planchette made a half turn—and stopped, its little casters squeaking faintly.

“What kept you,” Jude repeated.

“What if it isn’t her? What if it’s him? How do we know who we’re talking to?”

The planchette surged, before Georgia had even finished speaking. It was like having a finger on a record that has suddenly begun to turn.

Georgia: “W. H. Y. I….”

Jude: “Why. Is. The. Sky. Blue.” The pointer went still. “It’s her. She always said she’d rather ask questions than answer them. Got to be kind of a joke between us.”

It was her. Pictures skipped in his head, a series of vivid stills. She was in the backseat of the Mustang, naked on the white leather except for her cowboy boots and a feathered ten-gallon hat, peeking out at him from under the brim, eyes bright with mischief. She was yanking his beard backstage at the Trent Reznor show, and he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from shouting. She was dead in the bathtub, a thing he hadn’t ever seen except in his mind, and the water was ink, and her stepfather, in his black undertaker’s suit, was on his knees beside the tub, as if to pray.

“Go on, Jude,” Georgia said. “Talk to her.”

Her voice was strained, pitched to just above a whisper. When Jude glanced up at Georgia, she was shivering, although her face was aglow with sweat. Her eyes glittered from deep in their dark and bony hollows… fever eyes.

“Are you all right?”

Georgia shook her head—Leave me alone—and shuddered furiously. Her left hand remained on the pointer. “Talk to her.”

He looked back at the board. The black moon stamped on one corner was laughing. Hadn’t it been glowering a moment before? A black dog at the bottom of the board was howling up at it. He didn’t think it had been there when they first opened the board.

He said, “I didn’t know how to help you. I’m sorry, kiddo. I wish you fell in love with anyone but me. I wish you fell in love with one of the good guys. Someone who wouldn’t have just sent you away when things got hard.”

“A. R. E. Y. O….” Georgia read, in that same effortful, short-of-breath voice. He could hear, in that voice, the work it took to suppress her shivering.

“Are. You. Angry.”

The pointer went still.

Jude felt a boil of emotions, so many things, all at once, he wasn’t sure he could put them into words. But he could, and it turned out to be easy.

“Yes,” he said.

The pointer flew to the word NO.

“You shouldn’t have done that to yourself.”

“D. O. N….”

“Done. What.” Jude read. “Done what? You know what. Killed your—”

The pointer skidded back to the word NO.

“What do you mean, no?”

Georgia spoke the letters aloud, a W, an H, an A.

“What. If. I. Can’t. Answer.” The pointer came to rest again. Jude stared for a moment, then understood. “She can’t answer questions. She can only ask them.”

But Georgia was already spelling again. “I. S. H. E. A….”

A great fit of shivering overcame her, so her teeth clattered, and when Jude glanced at her, he saw the breath steam from her lips, as if she were standing in a cold-storage vault. Only the room didn’t feel any warmer or colder to Jude.

The next thing he noticed was that Georgia wasn’t looking at her hand on the pointer, or at him, or at anything. Her eyes had gone unfocused, fixed on the middle distance. Georgia went on reciting the letters aloud, as the planchette touched them, but she wasn’t looking at the board anymore, couldn’t see what it was doing.

“Is.” Jude read as Georgia spelled the words in a strained monotone. “He. After. You.”

Georgia quit calling the letters, and he realized a question had been asked.

“Yes. Yeah. He thinks it’s my fault you killed yourself, and now he’s playing get-even.”

NO. The planchette pointed at it for a long, emphatic moment before beginning to scurry about again.

“W. H. Y. R. U….” Georgia muttered thickly.

“Why. Are. You. So. Dumb.” Jude fell silent, staring.

One of the dogs on the bed whined.

Then Jude understood. He felt overcome for a moment by a sensation of light-headedness and profound disorientation. It was like the head rush that comes from standing up too quickly. It was also a little like feeling rotten ice give way underfoot, the first terrible moment of plunge. It staggered him, that it had taken him so long to understand.

“Fucker,” Jude said. “That fucker.”

He noticed that Bon was awake, staring apprehensively at the Ouija board. Angus was watching, too, his tail thumping against the mattress.

“What can we do?” Jude said. “He’s coming after us, and we don’t know how to get rid of him. Can you help us?”

The pointer swung toward the word YES.

“The golden door,” Georgia whispered.

Jude looked at her—and recoiled. Her eyes had rolled up in her head, to show only the whites, and her whole body was steadily, furiously trembling. Her face, which had already been so pale it was like wax, had lost even more color, taking on an unpleasant translucence. Her breath steamed. He heard the planchette beginning to scrape and slide wildly across the board, looked back down. Georgia wasn’t spelling for him anymore, wasn’t speaking. He