The Fourth Hand
The board had four hands on it.
Lena counted them twice before saying anything. The wood was smooth, faintly warm from their touch, the letters carved shallow and neat. The planchette sat in the center, its little glass eye staring at nothing. Their hands rested lightly on it. Her fingers, Mark’s fingers, and then—another set. Pale. Thinner. Pressed between theirs as if they had always been there.
She blinked. Looked again.
Three.
Only three.
Mark was watching her. “You okay?”
The kitchen light hummed overhead. It always hummed. She had noticed that the first night she moved in, when she signed the lease alone and told herself she preferred it that way.
“Yeah,” she said. “Just… thought I saw something.”
He smiled the way people do when they think you’re being dramatic but don’t want to say it. “We haven’t even started.”
The board lay on the small table between them. Cheap wood. Faded letters.
