Chapter 1
I was on my third gin and tonic and thinking about sneaking off for a bath when Rachel produced the Ouija board and Amanda announced she was leaving her husband. She'd been building to this decision all afternoon, drowning her marital sorrows in a bottle of Rioja and moaning about his endless business trips. There wasn't much I knew about Christian Simmons-he worked in construction and in Amanda's Instagram photos he always looked painfully sunburned, but neither of those things necessarily marked him out as a matrimonial disappointment. Mind you, there wasn't much I knew about Amanda either, not having seen her in the flesh for several years. Nowadays, she was much blonder, and self-consciously moderated her northern vowels-she might have changed in other ways, but they weren't immediately apparent, and we were only on the first night of the weekend. It was clear no one wanted to get into Mrs. Simmons's impending divorce, so we all turned our attention to the Ouija board instead; the lesser of the two evils.
The cottage was a converted pub, tastefully renovated. Art prints of various lakes on the walls, wipe-clean leather sofas, a welcome Kendal Mint Cake and a complimentary basket of logs for the fire. There was a big kitchen with two dishwashers, and four double bedrooms with beds that could be repurposed as twins. Perfect for get-togethers, if you didn't mind sharing, which I wasn't sure about. Even though I'd officially known my roommate for forty years, co-habiting wasn't much fun when you were fifty-three and a restless sleeper.
History repeating itself, Rachel was reveling in her role as the rebel of the group, having brought hash brownies to the party, plus twenty Marlboros for old times' sake. The brownies were actually a traybake, which I appreciated as a middle-aged twist on misdemeanor-Martha Stewart meets . . . well, Martha Stewart. Never mind drugs; I was pretty sure the Airbnb was strictly nonsmoking, but as we worked our way through the booze, rules went out the window, along with our coughing exhales. I'd had two fags and I'd never smoked before, not even in school. Chloe (my roomie) had already been sick, and it was only ten thirty, though long past bedtime for all of us. Eight former school friends fueled by various hormones, herbs, chemicals, and tipples. It was a messy regression.
Rachel Lloyd, Amanda Simmons, Chloe Coulson, Min Chiu, Erica Stanley, Holly Griffiths, Bhavini Gupta, and me, Gwen Mortimer. Our Lake District idyll had cost £1,800, plus £500 for a highly alcoholic Ocado order, which meant I'd spent nearly three hundred quid on a weekend I felt deeply ambiguous about. We'd kept in touch intermittently over the years, through an email group called Harpur Harlots, which was what we'd named ourselves when we were sixteen and playing in a field hockey team together against the nearby Bakewell Tarts. It seemed funny at the time.
Why had we kept in contact when so many other friendships had fallen by the wayside? Probably due to Holly, who did something glamorous in PR, was aggressively social, and had established a tradition of round-robin emails between us every Christmas. She'd also organized the whole weekend, finding the cottage and cajoling everyone into booking. Seeing her name flash up on my phone a few months before, I'd answered because it was such a novelty to hear the dry rasp of her voice after all that time, then couldn't think of an excuse on the hop. To get eight out of the original eleven team members together was quite an achievement, really. Danielle Seitzman wasn't there because she lived in New York. Gracie Wagstaff couldn't get childcare. And . . . well, eight was good. An even number. It would be fun, wouldn't it? Apart from weddings and big birthdays, many of us hadn't seen each other in years. Hadn't got together as a group in decades.
"We're in our prime!" party girl Rachel had shrieked, doling out the cigarettes after we'd eaten Bhavini's chili. But we weren't, really. She said it again when she got out the Ouija board, and it sounded like she was protesting too much, but it turned out I hadn't heard her correctly, and she was actually saying "Amazon Prime" in reply to someone asking her where she got the board. It was a flimsy wooden thing, with the alphabet in a semicircle across the top, and numbers in a straight line along the middle. In the top two corners it said Yes and No and at the very bottom it said Goodbye, which I supposed gave the spirit world its way out if it got a better offer. Even fueled by gin, I wasn't sure I really wanted to strike up a conversation with a bunch of dead people, but the alternative was marriage counseling with an increasingly maudlin Amanda. We put our fingers on the planchette and looked to Rachel for further guidance.
"It says you just ask it questions," she mumbled through Lindor, a chocolaty finger tracing the instructions.
"Don't we have to open a line of communication?" pondered Chloe, who'd made a miraculous recovery and was back on the whiskey sours.
"How do we do that?" Bhavini, swigging a can of mojito, was simultaneously patting Amanda's heaving shoulder in a comforting manner.
"I'll create an atmosphere," said Chloe, and went round switching off lights. Everyone then grumbled that it was too dark, since Min was deaf and relied mostly on lip-reading, but Chloe was set on the drama. Commanded by chief coordinators Rachel and Holly, Erica lit candles, grudgingly, because she was still pissed off with Rachel for bringing the hash brownies, which had eclipsed her straight carrot cake. Tall and rangy, one of those "natural beauties," Erica fancied herself as a bit of an earth mother-not the kind of woman who would actually wear an apron, but maybe one of those Toast smock-dresses to signify rusticity. She'd bored me rigid earlier talking about her chickens, and her cake tasted vegan. But maybe I just felt guilty because I hadn't brought anything to the party, physically or emotionally. Not so much as a tea loaf.
When the atmosphere had been created, a silence settled, and we all stared at each other in the candlelight. It softened our features, briefly, and I could see the girls we'd been, before life took over and gave us the lines and sags of middle age. Rachel still looked good, probably because she hadn't had children, plus she was leggy and had big hair. Min had also aged well, her blunt fringe framing a youthful, open face. Amanda's blond princess-prettiness was as brittle as the balsa board, but then my own pixie-ish, scrawny look was increasingly difficult to maintain without looking pinched and haggard. Erica was kind of ageless-she could be thirty or sixty, like a smug nun. Chloe had just been sick, so wasn't at her best, but usually she looked well-groomed, like a show pony, thick brown mane swishing whenever she told one of her tall tales. Holly was still sexy in her mussed-up, grubby way and Bhavini was beautiful but had allowed her hair to go completely gray, which made her seem older than all of us. When I thought of the ancient photo Holly sent along with the house details-us in our kit, lithe in shorts and bibs, flushed and carefree and so goddamn young-I felt depressed. We were that much closer to the spirit world already-did we really need to be striking up a conversation with it?
"Are you there?" intoned Rachel.
"Is who there?" barked Holly. "Who are we talking to?"
Rachel shrugged. "Whoever's about. On the other side."
"Shouldn't we have someone in mind?"
"Elvis?"
"Marilyn?"
"Mr. Fogarty?"
We all made sad noises. Mr. Fogarty was, or had been, a favorite geography teacher, kind and gentle. He was also the last person I'd imagine would be hanging about in the hereafter waiting to talk to a group of drunken, middle-aged former pupils.
"Princess Di."
"Geronimo the alpaca."
"Bambi's mum."
"I want to talk to my great-aunt Verity," piped up Chloe. "Ask her why she never put me in her fucking will."
"Let's just ask the spirits who's there," said Rachel firmly. She cleared her throat. "Erm . . . who is there?"
"Why are you talking like that?"
"Like what?"
"All singsong."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are! 'Whooo is theeeerrrre?' Like Madame Arcati."
"Who's Madame Arcati?"
"Philistine."
"Look! It's moving!" Chloe shrieked, nodding frantically at the planchette. Sure enough, it was shifting slowly toward the letters. I couldn't feel anyone pushing, but obviously that was what someone was doing. Having a laugh, stirring things up. Intrigued, I leaned forward for a better view. The little plectrum inched forward until it came to rest with its circle on the letter I.
"Oooh!" said everyone, and I managed not to giggle, imagining what my husband would say if he saw us.
Then, with a jerk, it set off again, right along to the letter S.
"Verity, is that you?" whispered Chloe.
Briskly, the planchette moved back, down the row to the letter A.
"Amanda, it wants you!" Bhavini hissed. Amanda looked up, her face tear-and-mascara stained. As if to contradict her, the arrow headed straight for B.
"I . . . S . . . A . . . B . . ." spelled out Rachel.
I felt myself stiffening, amused grin turning to a rictus. Surely not.
"Isab . . ." intoned Holly. She didn't need to go any further. We all knew what was coming. There was only one person it could possibly be, though it couldn't possibly be that person. We watched, breathlessly, as the planchette moved inexorably to E, L, L, and finally A.
The muscles in my back spasmed, prickles running down the nape of my neck. One of the candles blew out, and Bhavini gasped, putting a hand to her mouth. The room felt suddenly cold, despite the fire we'd lit to ward off the spring chill.
"Holy shit," murmured Min.
"Who did that?" I demanded, pulling my hand away.
A series of denials.
"Maybe . . . Isabella . . . ?" Chloe gestured toward the board.
"Don't be stupid," I said. "She's not . . . she's alive."
"Yes, obviously," murmured Holly, clutching her throat.
"Are you sure?" said Rachel, in a stage whisper.
"Yes, of course," I snapped, but my own throat felt dry and I could feel a guilty burn beginning in my cheeks as they all turned toward me. "She's . . . just . . . you know, kind of AWOL."
"But where?" Chloe breathed, the candlelight of scandal in her eyes. "None of us have seen her in forever. She never replies to emails. She's not on social media. She's just . . . gone. What if she is dead?"
"She's not," I said stubbornly, taking a slug of gin. "We'd know if she was." It was true. There would have been some sort of somber announcement, somewhere, and the news of it would have trickled down to us, some of us, one of us, eventually. Me. I'd feel it in my bones. Though really, she'd existed in a weird limbo for so long that maybe the Ouija board was the only way we would be able to contact her.
"Well, you should know," said Amanda. "You were her friend."
It hit me like a body blow, another light snuffed out. I blinked back whatever was swilling around in my eyes and tried to smile.
"You know how it is," I croaked. "People drift apart. She moved away, I think. New job. She . . . wanted to make a fresh start."
Everyone was staring at me skeptically as I choked out my nonsense, all the while thinking of that hockey snapshot-Isabella at the end of the row, head back, laughing, young and lovely, with no contemporary version to challenge the image. How had she aged? Was she crumpling into her fifties or fending it off, was her hair gray, did she have crows'-feet, bumps and lumps, a partner, children, hopes and dreams that weren't dulled by the years? My memory of her was unlined but faded, like a sepia portrait.
"I tried to track her down," mused Holly. "For this weekend. Drew a total blank. Gave up in the end."
"How long's it been?" Rachel lit another cigarette, and blew atmospheric smoke over us all. "Since anyone saw her? Ten years?"
"More like fifteen," I mumbled. The length of time was startling. How had it been that long? The blink of an eye, and a huge gulf. I needed a drag of Rachel's fag, but my lungs were too old.
"Is that you, Isabella?" demanded Erica, turning back to the board. Chloe giggled nervously, winding a lock of hair around her finger.
"Don't be stupid."
"She's just messing," said Rachel soothingly. "Of course Izzy's fine. She's just MIA. Could be any number of reasons." She handed me her Marlboro and I took it, my fingers shaking.
"What about Chloe's aunt . . . who was it? Emily?" asked Min. Her gaze darted nervously between me and the disgruntled descendant. "You could ask her about the money?"
Chloe snorted. "My great-aunt Verity. She was such an old bitch! My gran hated her. We could talk to them both, see if they're still having a go at each other."
And then someone pushed the planchette again, and everyone screamed and they started trying to make contact and the little heart-shaped plank moved this way and that, occasionally veering off, but I had no idea what messages we were receiving, because I was gone, to my own netherworld, remembering and wondering and tipping between anger and guilt with a great blanket of fogginess enveloping it all. Like someone waking from a long sleep, groggy and disoriented, waiting to snap out of it. But that might have been the hash brownies, which were potent and unpredictable. Isabella Harris was obviously not contacting us from the other side, someone was just stirring, and I should just forget about all of it. When I finally tumbled into my single bed, parallel to a comatose Chloe, I'd drunk just enough to muzzle the sound of Izzy's laugh in the photo, that dirty cackle I longed to hear again.
The next morning, jaded and grumpy, directed by a brisk Erica, we waded into the freezing Lake Windermere together as fifty-something women must, holding hands and shrieking as the water reached our waists and then plunging in, washing away the excesses of the night before. As I swam, I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, a resolve hardening under the bright April sky. The lake wasn't really a lake at all, it was a "mere"-shallow in relation to its size-which meant the depth I sensed beneath me wasn't that significant. Nothing to it.
Copyright © 2025 by Beth Morrey. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
