Part 44: heavy-breathing sittings with the ouija board…

Penelope spent long, heavy-breathing sittings with the ouija board on her lap

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Penelope woke from her befuddlement and shouted: “I must confess!” But she couldn’t. When she’d been too clever for those pompous fools—her employer and the law enforcement—she couldn’t simply let them triumph.

Two and a half months had passed since Olive’s disappearance. Sometimes, it seemed a week and a half—other times, stifling centuries. Curious stuttering studies had blunted Penelope’s willpower. She’d spent long, heavy-breathing sittings with the ouija board on her lap, when, during the midnight hours, she had fancied that tables had tapped and spirits had rattled the windows.

Now, as the fourth month of seclusion crept into view, she admitted to herself that she had too little initiative to carry out her plans for going to South America. Last summer, she’d boasted to herself that she would emerge from hiding and go there, leaving a twisty trail. But oh! It was too much trouble; her newfound life of piety had bogged her down. She’d lost the delight in play-acting that had carried her sister, Olive, through her preparations for flight. In truth, she couldn’t tell if she was still acting or whether Penelope’s personality was her natural self.

She had killed Olive for a miserable little pile of paper money and had become a festering recluse!

She hated her loneliness, but even more, she hated her only companions, the members of the All Saints Brethren—that shrill dressmaker, that morose farmer, that tight-lipped housewife, that old man with the rotten teeth. They were so wearisome. Their meetings were all alike; the same persons rose in the same order and made the same trip to the altar fence to receive the Holy Communion and announce to the Deity that they alone were his elect.
 
To be continued… 
The real world:
 
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Like to know more about Alf, Bert and the rest of the gang? You can read their chaotic history in What on Earth.
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