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.