Mysterious Mr.Q
Seventh grade summer, and the whole neighborhood had caught the Ouija board fever.
Five of us gathered that afternoon — close friends, the kind who wandered freely between each other's homes. Among them was Zeya, my neighbor, one of my oldest friends. We didn't have a real board, so we made one. A piece of cardboard, a coin, numbers along one side, letters along the others, and Yes, No, Goodbye in the corner. Homemade, but it felt official enough.
The rules were simple: one person asks the spirit a question meant for someone else. That person stays silent.
When my turn came, Zeya was my partner. We rested our fingers together on the coin and called the spirit in. I had already decided to be mischievous.
Who does Zeya love most?
We all knew the answer — her nana, obviously. But I wasn't asking for the obvious answer. I was fishing.
The coin moved. It drifted slowly toward the letters. O... P... Q.
It stopped at Q. Actually slid past the line, but Q was the closest.
We looked at each other. Nobody said anything.
The rest of the day, I wouldn't let it go. I followed Zeya around, prodding her about some mystery person whose name started with Q. She denied everything, first laughing it off, then growing genuinely annoyed. I played detective — mentally listing every person she knew, running through names, coming up empty. There was no Mr. Q. That only made it more interesting.
The next morning, I found our cardboard board still lying around. Curious, I called my sister over to help me figure it out. I set the board up and explained what had happened, placing my fingers on the coin exactly where Zeya had sat the day before.
I slid the coin toward Q.
And then I stopped.
My fingers, following Zeya's path from yesterday, were pointing directly across the board. Directly at the seat where I had been sitting.
Something rose slowly from my stomach. A warmth that crept up my spine. My face went warm.
I scrambled the board before my sister could work out what she was seeing.
There was no spirit. There was no mystery. Or rather, there was — I just knew exactly who Mr. Q was.
The next time I saw Zeya, she was still annoyed with me. But the moment she saw my face — the sudden awkwardness, the words that wouldn't come — something shifted in her expression.
Her cheeks went red. Her eyes, usually sharp and teasing, went wide and then looked quickly away. She found something very interesting to stare at on the floor, then the wall, then anywhere that wasn't me.
Neither of us said a word about it.
We didn't have to.
Five of us gathered that afternoon — close friends, the kind who wandered freely between each other's homes. Among them was Zeya, my neighbor, one of my oldest friends. We didn't have a real board, so we made one. A piece of cardboard, a coin, numbers along one side, letters along the others, and Yes, No, Goodbye in the corner. Homemade, but it felt official enough.
The rules were simple: one person asks the spirit a question meant for someone else. That person stays silent.
When my turn came, Zeya was my partner. We rested our fingers together on the coin and called the spirit in. I had already decided to be mischievous.
Who does Zeya love most?
We all knew the answer — her nana, obviously. But I wasn't asking for the obvious answer. I was fishing.
The coin moved. It drifted slowly toward the letters. O... P... Q.
It stopped at Q. Actually slid past the line, but Q was the closest.
We looked at each other. Nobody said anything.
The rest of the day, I wouldn't let it go. I followed Zeya around, prodding her about some mystery person whose name started with Q. She denied everything, first laughing it off, then growing genuinely annoyed. I played detective — mentally listing every person she knew, running through names, coming up empty. There was no Mr. Q. That only made it more interesting.
The next morning, I found our cardboard board still lying around. Curious, I called my sister over to help me figure it out. I set the board up and explained what had happened, placing my fingers on the coin exactly where Zeya had sat the day before.
I slid the coin toward Q.
And then I stopped.
My fingers, following Zeya's path from yesterday, were pointing directly across the board. Directly at the seat where I had been sitting.
Something rose slowly from my stomach. A warmth that crept up my spine. My face went warm.
I scrambled the board before my sister could work out what she was seeing.
There was no spirit. There was no mystery. Or rather, there was — I just knew exactly who Mr. Q was.
The next time I saw Zeya, she was still annoyed with me. But the moment she saw my face — the sudden awkwardness, the words that wouldn't come — something shifted in her expression.
Her cheeks went red. Her eyes, usually sharp and teasing, went wide and then looked quickly away. She found something very interesting to stare at on the floor, then the wall, then anywhere that wasn't me.
Neither of us said a word about it.
We didn't have to.
