* * *
Two packages under the Christmas tree examined each other psychically from beneath their collective wrappings and tape. Each box had a tag, and each tag had a name. The smaller box, which was perfectly cubical, went to little Jimmy. The larger, which was wider and flatter, was intended for the older and not-necessarily-wiser Sally.
The contents of the two boxes knew about each other since the moment they found themselves within the same vicinity. Each knew what the other was. Each acknowledged the others' existence with detached respect.
It wasn't such a coincidence that both an 8-ball and an Ouija Board were bought for two children who lived in the same house. The coincidence lay in the fact that they each happened to be ancient mystical artifacts with actual psychic power... bought for two children who lived in the same house.
The 8-Ball was in fact a Wiccan death clock crafted by the ancient Druids in the days when Stonehenge was considered advanced computer technology. It had the ability predict the exact time of one's death, which is subject to change according to one's personal habits.
How it had gotten under the Christmas tree involved a complicated series of misunderstandings. After the Druid empire mysteriously vanished, leaving behind only a few choice artifacts, the death clock found its way into the hands of a wandering trader. Over the course of hundreds of years, it spent time as a drum, a weapon, and even a soup bowl. Eventually, a crafty toy maker noticed that the death clock was the perfect shape for a magic 8-ball, and he painted it, filled it with oil and an answer block, and sold it in his shop.
The Ouija board was actually, well, an Ouija board, a real one, made in a time when such things were taken seriously. It was made of the wood from a tree that died of infestation, stained with the blood of a tortured animal, and printed with the ink caps found in a massacred village. The planchette was made from the bone of an extinct sea creature. To top everything off, it was also possessed by a malevolent spirit.
The malevolent spirit was actually a shifty, psychopathic adviser to an Eastern European royal family, who advised exclusively in regard to what he called 'special, sensitive matters.' He was caught for his shady misdeeds and kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. An exorcist was later summoned to the palace after a series of complaints from the royal family that the walls kept leaking blood. The young priest unfortunately ended up banishing the spirit to the nearest spiritual artifact instead, which happened to be the Ouija board. It sat in the palace for several years, spelling out messages promising untold horrors to his murderers if only it could just get out of this spiritual prison, until it was auctioned off to a private toy collector for the modern-day equivalent of three dollars.
The two enchanted artifacts stared at each other from their respective planes of existence. Each were quite well versed on the subject of death. Each possessed powers of divination more powerful than any mortal. And while each had a certain degree of respect for the other, they also hadn't had anybody to compete with until just then.
“Pwesants!” came the voice of a young boy. “Santa came, oh boy!”
There came a dissatisfied grunt from somewhere behind the boy. “Santa is a myth,” the voice said. “It's Mom and Dad, putting them under the tree after you sleep.”
“Now, Sally,” came a third voice, “Let’s not do anything to harm the Christmas spirit, Hmm?”
Sally was a brooding teenager with oversized glasses, a semi-permanent scowl and straight blond hair. She kept her hair in a deliberately simple, unimpressive style because of what she called an active rebellion against fashion magazines' impossible standards (but in reality, it had more to do with the fact that she didn't know where to begin when it came to styling her hair properly). She spent too much time reading the newspaper to care. The hair care aisle at the grocery store frightened and confused her.
“Christmas Spirit?” said Sally. “You mean the commercialized system invented by toy companies so they can stuff their bank accounts every year?”
“Watch your language, young lady,” came yet another, fourth voice. “Jimmy goes first, he’s the youngest.”
By no coincidence whatsoever Jimmy reached for the box containing the magic 8-ball. He felt strangely compelled by it, as if it were reaching into his soul, and his deepest, darkest desires were being yanked to the forefront of his mind.
“It’s a 8-ball!” He shouted enthusiastically. “Whassit do?”
“You ask it questions,” said Sally, “And when you turn it over, a little plastic lump floats to the top with one of twenty pre-packaged and totally inaccurate answers.”
“Sally,” said her mother. “Please, try to let him have some fun.”
“You’re spoiling him,” Sally said. “He has to learn the way the world is some day.”
“Well, you don’t know whether it’s real or not,” replied the fourth voice.
“Come on, Dad-”
“Is there a Santa?” Jimmy asked, shaking the 8-ball. The room went quiet, and the rest of the family stared at its youngest member. For some inexplicable reason, they felt oddly curious about what the sphere would say.
“Well,” said Mother, with a little more inquisitiveness than she meant, “What does it say, Jimmy? Is there a Santa Claus?”
Jimmy’s face was wracked with perplexity. “It says, ‘I can give you any answer you desire. I am the master of divination. The truth of the world is at your fingertips.’”
When Jimmy read from the window of the 8-ball, his voice was clear, his tone distinct. He did not sound like the toddler he really was, more like a studious, focused scholar. Mother and Father arched their eyebrows.
Sally bit her lip. “Well, that’s a bit… uncommon,” she said. “Maybe it’s telling you to ask it again.”
Jimmy frowned, shook the 8-ball, and repeated the question. He didn’t get to read the reply, because his father snatched it from him, and read aloud, without thinking: “Santa Claus was once a real man. He was a toy maker owner in Ireland. The villagers broke into his shop one day and tore open his throat, suspecting him of witchcraft. What you know of as Santa Claus is a mere shadow of this brutalized, tortured man.”
He looked at his wife. “Dearest,” he said in his nice-nice voice, a little more loudly than he probably should have, “I think... Santa... might have gotten the wrong 8-ball, don't you think?”
“I don't see how,” said Mother testily, also a little too loud. “Seeing how I... he got it from the same... workshop that... the elves told her to go.”
“Is Santa... sure about this?” Father asked.
Sally thought that her parents were behaving oddly, as if their banter wasn't for their benefit, but someone else in the room. “Oh, drop the Santa Claus façade,” she said. “I'm going to open my present now.”
Both Mother and Father stared into each other, and if anybody had been watching them, they would have thought that the two of them knew something that the children did not. Father placed the 8-ball on the coffee table, where the pouting Jimmy, who had been crying for his new mystical artifact, seized it. He stared hungrily into its glass eye.
“Oh,” said Sally unenthusiastically when she was done unwrapping her present. “An Ouija board. As if we don't have enough mass-produced occultist crap laying around the house.”
“Language!” hissed her mother. “And didn't you ask for an Ouija board? In your letter to Santa?”
“You're referring to the email I sent you,” said Sally. “Five years ago.”
“Well, I think someone should be showing a little more gratitude to... Santa,” said her father. “After all, Santa had to go to three different toy stores... workshops to find one.”
Sally recognized that she was going a bit far. She was not a bad person, merely cynical, entitled, and, most importantly, a teenager. She put on her best fake smile. “Thanks, Mom and Dad,” she said. “It's great. It's made of wood and everything, it looks really nice.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked her father, who had no
ticed that something was odd about the 8-ball incident, “Ask it something, and see what it says.”
Sally laid the board down on her lap, and the whalebone planchette on top of it. She gently rested her hands on top of it. “All right,” she said, “What-” she didn't have time to finish, because the planchette suddenly started moving on its own accord, zipping this way and that across the letters like a bouncing pinball. Sally did her best to follow what it said, mouthing the letters as the planchette's single possessed eye moved over them.
“Ah, it must be one of those motorized ones,” said her father. “Looks like the technology has come a long way.”
“What is it saying, darling?” asked Mother.
The planchette stopped. Sally knew that the planchette moved too fast for her to read every letter, yet still she could see the message in her head, clear as day. When she looked up, she was surprised, perplexed, and offended. “It said, 'Pay no heed to that toy of a billiard ball. You are in the presence of a wizard!”
“Ha ha,” said Father. “I wonder why it said that... 'billiard ball,' It can't actually know.”
“It's magic!” shouted Jimmy.
“It's not magic,” said Sally cynically.
“My 8-ball! It sezzits magic!”
“Of course it says that,” said Sally, “It's printed right there on the box.”
“It says in the window” said Jimmy. “It says, 'The forces of the Dark are at my every whim. Let us see that useless plank do that!'”
“Ah, okay,” said Father, “I think it's time to open another present, eh?”
“Yes, let's,” said Mother. She grabbed a package with her name on it, and tore it open. It was an attractive golden watch. “Oh, it's lovely, dear!” she said. “And it's probably not magic.”
Her husband approached her, and kissed her on the cheek. “Of that, I can guarantee you,” he whispered to her. “Glad you like it, babe.” He turned to his children “Hey kids, look at this watch that I... Santa brought your mother.”
The children would not respond. They were sitting on the floor cross-legged, staring into their spiritual artifacts, utterly transfixed. Jimmy, in a controlled and careful motion very uncharacteristic of a six-year-old, held up his 8-ball, speaking deeply and clearly. “I will pay no attention to your worldly trinkets,” he said in a voice very much unlike his own. “I seek only the superior enlightenment of the Death Clock of the Lost Druids.”
“Ah,” said Mother. “Well, perhaps you would like to work on that enlightenment with one of your other gifts from Santa?”
“How dare you insult my abilities?” interrupted Sally, watching her Ouija board and speaking in a distant tone. “You speak of trinkets? Look no further than yourself, you insolent rock.”
“Kids, you don't have to fight,” said Father. “If you want to blow off some steam I'm sure Santa has brought some nice video games...”
“Ah,” said Jimmy, still reading off his 8-ball, still droning in a foreign voice, “The father. Head of the household. Master of the family. You will suffer a tragic loss soon.”
“That's not a nice thing to say to your father, Jimmy,” said Mother. “You take it back.”
Father swallowed. “Tragic loss, huh? Very funny, son.”
“Mother,” said Sally, reading from the Ouija board, “Beware of a tainted offer from someone you know. It will lead only to loss and pain.”
“Kids,” said Father. “That's enough. Now put down those toys and open your presents.”
For a moment, nothing happened. And then, in a seemingly uncomfortable action, Sally and Jimmy tore their gaze away from their toys. “What happened?” asked Sally.
“Oh,” said Mother, feeling relieved but not completely recovered, “You were just having some fun with your new presents. Now, open some more!”
“My turn!” shouted Jimmy excitedly, as if nothing had happened. “Me next!”
“That's my little scamp,” said Father.