THE SURFACE
Chapter Eleven
"Lexi, I don’t know what to
do. You know I cannot afford nightmares," Ashley said as she wiped the
tears from her eyes. "If I get Jack, that woman will haunt me until my
dying day! What the hell was her name? Is she even related to me?"
"Ash, it’s all about
you." Lexi sighed, wishing she could somehow help. "But I’m grounded
from all civilization forms, remember?"
Ashley nodded sadly. "What
to do?" she asked.
"Look, ignore this woman.
What did you say her name was?" Lexi smoothed her cousin’s hair out of her
face to better see her. She was a mess. Ashley shrugged her shoulders and more
tears formed in her eyes.
"Oh." Lexi leaned into
her fluffy pink boyfriend pillow, wishing she wasn’t grounded. "Look, why
don’t you go clean yourself up and we’ll try to sort this thing out.
Okay?"
Ashley nodded and went to take a
shower. A half hour later, she came back to Lexi’s room, who had taken a Ouija
board from her closet. "Say what?" Ashley looked at the
strange-looking board.
"It’s a Ouija board; it
helps communicate with the dead. You just put your fingers on the letters and
spell out your question, and the spirit moves your fingers around the board
spelling out the answer for you. I got it at a thrift shop in San Francisco
when I was nine and never really used it, but I think it could really come in
handy now. Let’s use it in your room, since that is where the occurrences
happen most."
They went into Ashley’s room and
closed the door. They sat on the plush lime green area rug that covered the
hardwood floor. "Get a pen and paper so you will be able to understand
what whoever shows up is saying."
Ashley got into the top drawer of
her desk and grabbed her metal ballpoint pen and a notepad to take notes.
"Let’s get started."
"One question. Will this work?"
Ashley clicked her pen open and shut.
"It will if you stop
clicking your pen! Actually, I’ve never touched this thing, because I’ve been
scared of what it could do."
Ashley nodded her head
skeptically, knowing that Lexi had probably used it before in California to
bring back the dead, just judging by the outgoingness of her character.
"Whatever. Let’s get going." Lexi placed her fingers on the letters,
concentrated, and asked a question.
"Is there anyone by the last
name of DeWitt Bukater or Calvert who wishes to communicate with us?" Lexi
asked the air. Suddenly, her fingers went over the letters. Ashley wrote down
the letters it stopped at and it spelled out yes.
"So, anything?" Lexi
whispered to Ashley. She nodded her head. "Yes. That’s what it spells.
There is someone who wants to have a talk with us."
"What’s your name?"
Lexi asked. Her fingers moved around the board over the letters R U T H D E W I
T T B U K A T E R. Ashley spelled it out and showed it to Lexi.
"Who is that?"
Ashley shrugged, keeping silent.
"Who are you? What is your
relation to me?" Her fingers moved over the letters G R E A T G R E A T G
R A N D M O T H E R. W E H A V E M E T B E F O R E.
Lexi looked at the board with a
quizzical look. "Have we?"
Y E S I H A V E M E T A S H L E Y
B E F O R E. K E E P A W A Y F R O M R O S E!
"Does that answer your
question of who came into your room earlier?" Lexi asked Ashley. She
nodded her head slowly.
"Why do we need to keep away
from Rose? Is she dangerous?" she asked the board.
N O, the board answered. Ashley
looked to make sure that was the correct answer.
"Then why do you want to
keep us away from her?"
B E C A U S E I K N O W T H A T J
A C K I S A L I V E. D O E S T H A T A N S W E R Y O U R Q U E ST I O N?
Suddenly, the board spelled out another
message. D O N O T L I S T E N T O H E R L E X I A N D A S H L E Y. F I N D J A
C K.
"I think we need to do some
research. We’ll be back, so just leave this." Lexi got up and dusted her
legs of any small particles, even though there were none.
Ashley went on the computer while
Lexi did the boring bookwork. This is what I get for being grounded…
"I found something!"
Ashley yelled. Lexi came to a sliding stop at the computer desk behind Ashley.
She had typed in the search engine DeWitt Bukater and came up with a page of
the family history.
"Our great-great-grandfather
was one hell of a gold digger…" Ashley pondered aloud as she read on.
"Hockley…Re-Google his name
and see what comes up." Ashley reopened her Internet to another page and
typed in the last name. Lots of articles about the Hockleys came up, so many
that Ashley and Lexi were confused.
"Go back to the board and
spell out Hockley. Those two know something, I’m sure." Lexi went back to
the board and spelled out Hockley, just as Ashley had asked of her.
H O C K L E Y... C A L E D O N O
R N A T H A N?
"Uh…let me check on
that." Lexi sprinted back to the computer room, where Ashley was
downloading an article or something.
"Hockley, Caledon or
Nathan?"
"There are two? Oh, well.
Both, I suppose." Lexi jogged back to the Ouija board and spelled out the
word both.
N A T H A N H O C K L E Y W A S C
A L E D O N S F A T H E R. C A L E D O N W A S R O S E S F I A N C E. MONEYR I
C H; H E W A S H E I R T O H O C K L E Y S T E E L.
W H E R E A B O U T?
P H I L A D E L P H I A.
Lexi got her information and went
back to the computer room. "Here." Lexi threw the notebook on the
glass-topped desk. Ashley read it over and then typed Hockley Steel into the
computer. More articles came up, confusing Ashley.
"Come on. More info is
needed. Get back to the board!" Ashley shooed her out of the room.
M O R E A B O U T H O C K L E Y S
T E E L.
B U I L T A L M O S T A N Y T H I
N G M A D E O F S T E E L, I N C L U D I N G T I T A N I C. A B A N D O N E D I
N 1930S C A L K I L L E D H I M S E L F . D O E S N ’T A S H L E Y H A V E A P
O R T A B L E C O M P U T E R ?
Lexi left that questioned
unanswered. She, for one, had no idea who was answering her, but she was pretty
sure it was Rose. Who else would have given her all this information?