• 'Future' mother-in-law speaks from the grave against bachelor’s reluctant wedding
Image: PIXABAY
Diary,
I’ve been searching desperately for a way out of this impending marriage (and probably the gravest mistake of my life). And just when it seemed there was none, my fiancée Harper hands it to me on a truly weird platter.
It all begins with a long phone call between Harper and her mother back in the ol’ US of A, after which Harper approaches me bearing a black box and looking quite forlorn.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“I’m afraid in my excitement about the wedding, I forgot something very important.” She sets the box down on the coffee table and bids me sit on the couch. “You see, the woman you know as my mother isn’t my biological mother—”
“She’s not?”
“—and I totally forgot to ask my real mother how she feels about this marriage.”
“Where is she, your real mother?”
She looks me straight in the face and says, “She’s dead.”
“What?”
She opens the box. “I use this Ouija Board to talk to her.”
Pronounced “wija”, it’s a board with letters, numbers and other signs around its edge, to which a planchette, movable pointer or upturned glass moves, supposedly in answer to questions from people at a séance.
What follows next is a scene straight out of the movie Paranormal Activity. Harper lights some candles, turns off the lights and asks me to hold hands with her. Eyes closed, she begins summoning the spirit of her dead mother. Not much happens save for the slight ruffling of curtains, but Harper pronounces that her mother is in the room with us.
To “talk” to the deceased woman, we both hold the pointer bearing a glass “eye” piece in the middle over the letters on the board.
Harper says, “Mother, do you know where we are?”
Either the pointer or Harper (I can’t tell) drags our hands across the board to the word “YES” in the top left corner.
Harper pulls it back to the middle of the board and continues. “Do you know I’m about to get married?”
This time the pointer moves to “NO”.
Harper sighs. “Well, I am, and this is my fiancé, Tom. Mother, should I marry Tom?”
With some difficulty, the pointer vacillates between the two words before settling on “NO”.
“Are you sure?” Harper presses.
Again, the answer is no.
As the séance comes to an end, I’m doubly relieved. Not only was the idea of communicating with the dead getting freaky, it seems the matter has been settled. Still, Harper takes my silence for bafflement.
“Honey,” she says with a hand on mine, “I’m so sorry about this, but I can’t go against my mother’s wishes.”
Stifling a smile, I say, “I completely agree, dear. It’s so sad that we won’t get married but what can I say? Your mother sounded pretty clear to me.”
Suddenly, Harper turns hopeful. “I know what we’ll do. If we talk to my mother more often, she might change her mind.”
Oh, drat!