Chapter One
# Chapter One: Thrift Shop Theology
The Ouija board was wedged between a broken toaster and a ceramic cat with unsettling eyes in the back corner of Second Chance Thrift on Maple Street. Dylan found it, because Dylan always found things that should have been left unfound. "Twenty bucks," he said, holding it up like a trophy. "This is at least a hundred years old."
"It is a mass-produced novelty item from the 1890s," said Ava, who was pre-med and therefore constitutionally opposed to fun. "Also, ghosts are not real." "Then you have nothing to worry about," Dylan replied, which was the kind of logic that sounded reasonable until you were sitting cross-legged on a dorm room floor at midnight with the planchette moving under your fingers and spelling out words nobody was pushing it toward.
The first message was polite: *HELLO. MY NAME IS THOMAS. I DIED IN 1887. THANK YOU FOR SPEAKING WITH ME.* The second message was helpful: *YOUR ROOMMATE LEFT THE STOVE ON. YOU SHOULD CHECK.* (The stove was, in fact, on.) The third message, which came two hours later after they had all gone to bed, was written in condensation on the bathroom mirror: *I AM NOT THOMAS. BUT THANK YOU FOR OPENING THE DOOR.*