The Diviners

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For my mom, Nancy Bray, who taught me to love reading by example

In a town house at a fashionable address on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, every lamp blazes. There’s a party going on—the last of the summer. Out on the terrace overlooking Manhattan’s incandescent skyline, the orchestra takes a much-needed break. It’s ten thirty. The party has been on since eight o’clock, and already the guests are bored. Fashionable debutantes in pastel chiffon party dresses wilt into leather club chairs like frosted petits fours melting under the July sun. A cocky Princeton sophomore wants his friends to head down to Greenwich Village with him, to a speakeasy he heard about from a friend of a friend.

The hostess, a pretty and spoiled young thing, notes her guests’ restlessness with a sense of alarm. It is her eighteenth birthday, and if she doesn’t do something to raise this party from the dead, it will be the talk for days to come that her gathering was as dull as a church social.

Raising from the dead.

The weekend before, she’d been forced to go antiquing upstate with her mother—an absolutely hideous chore, until they came
upon an old Ouija board. Ouija boards are all the rage; psychics have claimed to receive messages and warnings from the other side using Mr. Fuld’s “talking board.” The antiques dealer fed her mother a line about how it had come to him under mysterious circumstances.

“They say it’s still haunted by restless spirits. But perhaps you and your sister could tame it?” he’d said with over-the-top flattery; naturally, her mother lapped it up, which resulted in her paying too much for the thing. Well, she’d make her mother’s mistake pay off for her now.

The hostess races for the hall closet and signals to the maid. “Do be a darling and get that down for me.”

The maid retrieves the board with a shake of her head. “You oughtn’t to be messing with this board, Miss.”

“Don’t be silly. That’s primitive.”

With a zippy twirl worthy of Clara Bow, the hostess bursts into the formal living room holding the Ouija board. “Who wants to commune with the spirits?” She giggles to show that she doesn’t take it seriously in the least. After all, she’s a thoroughly modern girl—a flapper, through and through.

The wilted girls spring up from their club chairs. “What’ve you got there? Is that a wee-gee board?” one of them asks.

“Isn’t it darling? Mother bought it for me. It’s supposed to be haunted,” the hostess says and laughs. “Well,
I
don’t believe that, naturally.” The hostess places the heart-shaped planchette in the middle of the board. “Let’s conjure up some fun, shall we?”

Everyone gathers ’round. George angles himself into the spot beside her. He’s a Yale man and a junior. Many nights, she’s lain awake in her bedroom, imagining her future with him. “Who wants to start?” she asks, positioning her fingers close to his.

“I will,” a boy in a ridiculous fez announces. She can’t
remember his name, but she’s heard he has a habit of inviting girls into his rumble seat for a petting party. He closes his eyes and places his fingers on the scryer. “A question for the ages: Is the lady to my right madly in love with me?”

The girls squeal and the boys laugh as the planchette slowly spells out Y-E-S.

“Liar!” the lady in question scolds the heart-shaped scrying piece with its clear glass oracle.

“Don’t fight it, darling. I could be yours on the cheap,” the boy says.

Now spirits are high; the questions grow bolder. They’re drunk on gin and good times and the silly distraction of the fortune-telling.
Every mornin’, every evenin’, ain’t we got fun?

“Say, let’s summon a real spirit,” George challenges.

A knot of excitement and unease twists in the hostess’s gut. The antiques dealer had cautioned against doing just this. He warned that spirits called forth must also be put back to rest by breaking the connection, saying good-bye. But he was out to make a buck with a story, and besides, it’s 1926—who believes in haunts and hobgoblins when there are motorcars and aeroplanes and the Cotton Club and men like Jake Marlowe making America first through industry?

“Don’t tell me you’re scared.” George smirks. He has a cruel mouth. It makes him all the more desirable.

“Scared of what?”

“That we’ll run out of gin!” the boy in the fez jokes, and everyone laughs.

George whispers low in her ear, “I’ll keep you safe.” His hand is on her back.

Oh, surely this is the most glorious night in existence!

“We summon now the spirit of this board to heed our call and
tell us our fortunes true!” the hostess says with great intonation broken by giggles. “You must obey, spirit!”

There is a moment’s pause, and then the planchette begins its slow migration across the scarred board’s gothic black alphabet, spelling out a word.

H-E-L-L-O

“That’s the spirit,” someone quips.

“What is your name, o great spirit?” the hostess insists.

The planchette moves quickly.

N-A-U-G-H-T-Y-J-O-H-N

George raises an eyebrow mischievously. “Say, I like the sound of that. What makes you so naughty, old sport?”

Y-O-U-L-L-S-E-E

“See what? What are you up to, o naughty one?”

Stillness.

“I want to dance! Let’s go uptown to the Moonglow,” one of the girls, a pouty drunk, slurs. “When’s the band comin’ back, anyway?”

“In a minute. Don’t have kittens,” the hostess says with a smile and a laugh, but there’s warning in both. “Let’s try another question. Do you have any prophecy for us, Naughty John? Any fortune-telling?” She casts a sly glance at George.

The scryer remains still.

“Do tell us something else, won’t you?”

Finally, there is movement on the board. “I… will… teach… you… fear,” the hostess reads aloud.

“Sounds like the headmaster at Choate,” the boy in the fez teases. “How will you do that, old sport?”

I-S-T-A-N-D-A-T-T-H-E-D-O-O-R-A-N-D-K-N-O-C-K

I-A-M-T-H-E-B-E-A-S-T

T-H-E-D-R-A-G-O-N-O-F-O-L-D

“What does that mean?” the drunken girl whispers. She backs away slightly.

“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s gibberish.” The hostess scolds her guest, but she feels afraid. She turns on the boy with the reputation for trouble. “You’re making it say that!”

“I didn’t. I swear!” he says, crossing his heart with his index finger.

“Why are you here, old sport?” George asks the board.

The planchette moves so quickly they can barely keep up.

I-H-O-L-D-T-H-E-K-E-Y-S-O-F-H-E-L-L-A-N-D-D-E-A-T-H

W-R-A-T-H-I-S-C-O-M-E-A-R-M-A-G-E-D-D-O-N-B-A-B-Y-L-O-N-W-H-O-R-E

“Stop it this instant!” the hostess shouts.

W-H-O-R-E-W-H-O-R-E-W-H-O-R-E the piece repeats. The bright young things remove their fingers, but the piece continues to move.

“Make it stop, make it stop!” one girl screeches, and even the jaded boys pale and move back.

“Stop, spirit! I said stop!” the hostess shouts.

The planchette falls still. The party guests glance at one another with wild eyes. In the other room, the band members return to their instruments and strike up a hot dance number.

“Oh, hallelujah! Come on, baby. I’ll teach you to dance the Black Bottom.” The drunken girl struggles to her feet and pulls the boy in the fez after her.

“Wait! We have to spell out good-bye on the board! That’s the proper ritual!” the hostess pleads as her guests desert her.

George slips his arm around her waist. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of Naughty John.”

“Well, I…”

“You know it was the old boy,” he says, his breath tickling her ear sweetly. “He has his tricks. You know how that sort is.”

She does know how that sort is. It was probably that wretched boy all along, playing them for fools. Well, she is nobody’s fool. She is eighteen now. Life will be an endless swirl of parties and dances.
Night or daytime, it’s all playtime. Ain’t we got fun?
Her earlier fears have been put to bed. Her party looks like it will rage into the night. The carpets have been rolled up, and her guests dance full out. Long strands of pearls bounce against drop-waist dresses. Spats strike defiantly at the wood floors. Arms thrust out, pushing against the air—all of it like some feverish Dadaist painting come to life.

The hostess stashes the board in the cupboard, where it will soon be forgotten, and races toward the parlor with its bright electric lights—Mr. Edison’s modern marvel—and joins the last party of the summer without a care.

Outside, the wind lingers for a moment at those lighted windows; then, with a gusty burst of energy, it takes its leave and scuttles down the sidewalks. It twines itself briefly around the cloche hats of two fashionable young ladies gossiping about the tragic death of Rudolph Valentino as they walk a poodle along the East River. It moves on, down neon-drenched canyons, over the elevated train as it rattles above Second Avenue, shaking the windows of the poor souls trying to sleep before morning comes—morning with its taxi horns, trolley cars, and trains; the bootblacks buffing the wingtips of businessmen in Union Square; the newsies hawking the day’s headlines in Times Square; the telephone operators gazing longingly at the new shawl-collar coats tempting them from store windows; the majestic skyscrapers rising over it all like gleaming steel, brick, and glass gods.