Friday, February 23, 2007

Divine News Giveaway

To celebrate the April release of Whale Song, I'll be giving away a prize package worth over $100.00.

The prize package contains a signed copy of each of my novels, plus some mystery gifts that I know you will enjoy and use daily. :)

To enter, simply subscribe to my Divine News newsletter.

All subscribers' names will be put into the draw and the winner will be contacted by email.
This contest is open to residents of Canada, the US and UK.
The draw will take place on April 16th, 2007.

~Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of Whale Song, The River and Divine Intervention

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Cheryl Kaye Tardif, the New Canadian Author Liaison for Infinity Publishing

Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of Whale Song (April 2007), The River and Divine Intervention, has been made the Canadian Author Liaison for Infinity Publishing, based in Pennsylvania, USA. Cheryl's role will be to increase awareness of self-publishing options and to promote Infinity Publishing, creating a stronger Canadian identity. She is already preparing to speak about Infinity in April 2007 at Authors' Row at the Edmonton Woman's Show and at the Get Publishing Conference, also in Edmonton.

In September 2007, at Infinity's Valley Forge Conference, Cheryl will also be presenting, alongside some soon-to-be-announced big names. Rumor has it, one of her idols may be there. More on that later! ;)

"I am very proud to be affiliated with Infinity Publishing," Cheryl states. "I've been checking them out the past few years and have been very impressed by their growth and their goals. They are a company I can promote, knowing that they offer a superior service at an affordable price."

When asked about self-publishing versus traditional, Cheryl has this to say: "Although I am traditionally published by Kunati Books (which has been very supportive of my new endeavor) and I hope to capture the interest of some of the bigger traditional publishers, I believe that there is also a need for author-originated publishing companies like Infinity, and that it can be looked at as a stepping stone toward the higher goal of being 'picked up' by a publisher like Berkley, Random House, Bantam, HarperCollins, Penguin Canada etc. At Infinity, we want our authors to succeed in all their goals."

Cheryl Kaye Tardif is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Canada, Writers Guild of Alberta and Women in Film and Television Alberta. For more information, please visit her websites: http://www.cherylktardif.com and http://www.whalesongbook.com.

Authors in Canada or the US wishing to speak to Cheryl about publishing with Infinity, please email her at cherylktardif@shaw.ca. She will be holding an Infinity Meet & Greet sometime in March at the Cappuccino Affair on 50th Street in Edmonton, AB.

Be sure to check out Infinity publishing at http://www.infinitypublishing.com

Infinity Publishing
1094 New Dehaven St., Ste. 100
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
1(877) 289-2665 x 24
www.infinitypublishing.com

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Masterpiece Mysterys Trivia Contest



Masterpiece Mysterys successful Monthly Mystery Trivia Contest is back in full swing!

Each month we post a new mystery-related stumper for you to puzzle over, and send out an awesome prize to each month's winner. We've been at it for more than three years, with great response.

Each month will bring something different. The treasure up for grabs on March 14 is a collectible antique Peerage brass wall plate, circa 1950.

We remember these from our childhood as chimney hole covers. With the right answer to our Trivia Quiz, this one could be yours.

This month's Contest is up and running. Drop by - and see what other goodies we're putting up on Masterpiecemysterys.com!

The Masterpiece Mysterys Team

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Cheryl Kaye Tardif "has the write stuff"


Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of the highly anticipated new release Whale Song, was recently interviewed by Edmonton Sun journalist Chad Huculak. The interview was a full page feature in the 'Jobboom' section (page 61) on Sunday, February 18th, 2007.

In the interview titled "She has the write stuff", Cheryl talks about her long road to success, the choice to self-publish earlier in her career and the resulting contract with Kunati Books, an edgy traditional publisher. She also shares how she is inspired, what her week is like, where she likes to go to write, and the process of submitting manuscripts.

And she mentions the upcoming launch party for Whale Song, on April 7th, 2007, held at South Point Chapters in Edmonton, AB.

Check out the Sunday, Feb. 18th, 2007 Edmonton Sun to learn more.
(This section does not appear online.)

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Dying for Chocolate


If you are interested in performing a murder mystery, whether as a fundraiser, company party, resort, theatre theatre troupe or large group of friends - at least twenty besides six actors, I have the perfect solution for you. My company, Masterpiece Mysteries, is making scripts available for use by other groups.

The scenarios are quirky and clever (if I do say so myself - but actually, many others have said so too) and success is just a gun shot away. Along with each script are detailed instructions on everything you need to know logistically. All hardcopy evidence is provided. The performers will need to supply six cap guns and a few easily acquired props.

As well as Dying For Chocolate, we also have, Drop Dead Disco and Gin Joint available.


Friday, February 09, 2007

Watch A Total Write-Off!

Well, the day has finally come. A Total Write-Off!, that exciting reality show that I was honored to participate in, will be airing shortly and I have promised to get the word out!

So here it is...the official announcement:

Watch writers battle using their creative power in the Edmonton made Comedy Reality Series

A TOTAL WRITE-OFF!
Airs Wednesdays at 9:00pm MT on ACCESS starting February 14

(Edmonton, February 6, 2007) - A Total Write-Off! is the fast-paced and fun television series where two teams of writers match wits in a writing showdown as they compete to create short stories based on spontaneous audience suggestions.

With comedian Barbara North as host and ringmaster, it's a hip Whose Line Is It Anyway meets Just for Laughs for both wordsmiths and fans of the written word.

A Total Write-Off!'s guest authors run the gamut from novelists to screenwriters to journalists- even some not-so-famous writers who collaborate with our pros. Anyone who writes, whether it be novels, grocery store flyers, technical journals or even obits was eligible to enter the fray. The object is to gain what all writers desperately crave - the thumbs up from an adoring public.

Each week for 13 weeks four authors are paired up in front of a live audience to do battle, armed with their creative powers and a laptop. Out of the 52 guest authors on the show 32 are from Alberta and 21 hail from Edmonton. Local authors participating include David Belke, John Acorn, Timothy J. Anderson and Alice Major. (and Cheryl Kaye Tardif :)

Here's how it works - with Barbara interacting with the audience and the writers in their "pit," these impromptu literary masterpieces unfold, based on plot parameters tossed out with wild abandon by audience members. Barbara also interviews the writers to find out where they get their inspiration, how they face the blank page and to hear about their current projects. It's a car wreck of creativity, featuring a ticking clock, cliché alarms and instant reviews of the works-in-progress by literary critic Alan Kellogg.

After "pencils down," the completed short stories are read aloud by the writers - while simultaneously acted out by the comical A Total Write-Off! Mime/Dancers, Kevin Gillese and Matt Alden. And it just wouldn't be a complete write-off without the audience choosing their favourite story to close the show.

A Total Write-Off! is created and hosted by Barbara North, who has appeared on Just for Laughs, CBC, W Network, Canadian Learning Television, and more. She also created and starred in the CBC TV comedy special Army Brats.

A Total Write-Off! premieres in Alberta beginning next Wednesday, February 14, on ACCESS, with its national launch starting on March 14 on Canadian Learning Television (CLT) and on March 16 on BookTelevision.

A Total Write-Off! is a Panacea Entertainment production, produced by Lisa Miller and executive produced by Josh Miller. The series was produced in association with Canadian Learning Television, produced with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund, created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Cable Industry, produced with the assistance of the Government of Alberta Film Development Program, the Government of Canada Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit Program and produced with the participation of Rogers Telefund. Additional interim financing was provided by the CHUM Television Prairie Bridge Fund.

(reproduced with permission from Panacea Entertainment)

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Does this story tweak your imagination?


You gotta love this headline: Psycho-Obsessive Astronaut Drive Cross-Country in Diapers to Confront Romantic Rival. It's a blogger's response to this story. (The link to the blogger doesn't work right now. When I find it I'll add it.)

I read a version of the tale of the NASA astronaunt who drove 1600 kms to track down her rival for the affections of another astronaut. Wearing a wig and a trenchcoat, she tried to get into her car at the airport and doused her with pepper spray.

One of my favorite bloggers, Dr. Sanity, a former NASA psychiatrist wrote the following about the story:

The NASA celebrity culture--like the Washington political culture and the west-coast Hollywood culture--creates these monsters by the uncritical adoration and reverence they give to anyone with a certain job description. Is it shocking therefore that astronauts, politicians, and moviestars behave like the demigods they have been convinced they are? NASA has just had a wake-up call. The powers that be at NASA have always known that astronauts are only human, but over the years they have managed to keep all the bad behavior out of the spotlight and pretend that there is only the good.

Somehow, I don't think they'll be able to pull that off this time around. Their carefully constructed public image of astronauts has come crashing to earth; and NASA has left the Twilght Zone and entered the real world.

Can't you just sense a Hollywood movie coming on...starring Brad, Angelina and Jennifer?

How many of you are eager to start penning the screenplay? Sometimes real life is even stranger than fiction. Have you ever had an experience with a critique group or a reader who tells you, nah, this chapter, this scene is totally unbelievable. This never could have happened. But you tell them, no! this happened blow by blow in real life, just like this.

I have a clipping file for stories like this that I can pull out anytime my imagination needs some jogging.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

What would you do? Part II – “Don’t walk down that dark hallway!”

First of all, thanks for the great suggestions for the ending of this piece.
They were quite ingenious and in many ways came very close to the ending I was using.
And for those with a terminal curiosity, here it is:

*******************
Don't walk down that dark hallway - Part II - Conclusion

The girl stared at menacing black-clad form. She could neither run nor speak. All she could do was to stand, helplessly frozen the to the spot as the figure slowly moved towards her.

Suddenly a flash of an image and her mother’s voice came back to her, snapping through her paralyzed terror.

She had a brief moment of remembrance, of a time when she had wanted ‘oh so badly’ to make the freshman cheerleading squad and had beseeched divine intervention.

“Oh please God,” she had prayed fervently with fourteen-year-old intensity from her pink and gold bedroom, while clutching her favorite girlhood stuffed Pooh Bear for moral support. “Let me make the JV team.”

God hadn’t answered, but her mother had. “Don’t ever call upon the Lord for something trivial and silly. He is quite used to answering important prayers. But let me also remind you my dear, that before you call for divine intervention, keep in mind that, ”The Lord helps those who help themselves.”

All the childhood memories passed through her brain in a split second and seemed to bounce off the inside of her skull as her shaking tongue mouthed the words…” Oh God, please help me.”

Then her childhood memories answered back and she again heard the voice of her mother reminding her, that the lord was most favorably disposed towards those who, “helped themselves.”

The memory broke the scream loose from her throat, and as the black clad form reached for her, she found her voice and screamed…” No!”

The shadow hesitated for a moment, seemingly stunned by the force of the scream…but when only the silence of the dust motes around the forty-watt bulb answered, it came on again.

A hand reached out across the weak hall light, clutched her arm, and the spell of immobility was broken.

Suddenly she remembered a night from last year’s Thanksgiving, after the food and dishes had been cleared away, when amid the laughter and teasing wrestling of childhood, her brother had showed her some army judo moves that he said were “guaranteed to make any horny, rat-bastard, SOB, forget all about‘bothering my baby sister’.”

She had laughed but also listened, and now… she remembered.

As a black gloved hand came out of the glare induced shadows to fasten around her throat, instead of screaming and running away, as every instinct told her to do, she took a step forward, pulled the black gloved hand towards her and fell backwards, letting her own momentum drag her head over heals and away from the apparition.

The respite was only momentary as the dark form twisted and
slithered like some kind of a creature that was part cat and
snake, almost instantly righting itself again.

But she had used that instant of pause to good advantage and
vaulted the fourth floor landing railing. She hit the stairs
in between the third and fourth floor and broke into a
desperate, dead run. She ran down the creaking,
wooden treads two and three at a time, too terrified to
look back at what she sensed was behind her.

She reached the second floor landing and now could hear the
pounding of feet just inches from her. A hand grabbed her
shoulder causing her to lose her stride for an instant before
she twisted out of her coat and with a desperate push, rolled
herself over the second floor landing railing - falling heavily
on to the cracked linoleum tiles of the apartment foyer.

She lay there for a moment…stunned, and out of breath. Then as she
desperately pushed herself up on to her knees, she saw to her horror
that the black clad shadow was now between her and the buildings
entrance door. She looked at the now impossible and impassible front
door for an instant and in one final desperate gamble, launched
herself into a dead run down the first floor corridor towards the
apartment buildings back door.
She heard the feet pounding after her and prayed she would make it…
She didn’t.

A black-gloved hand caught her by her long, dark, curly hair and
dragged her down with a short, sharp tug.
She stumbled and crashed down onto the filthy linoleum, knocking
the breath from her. When she looked up again, she was staring into
cold, black, pitiless eyes. She felt something slip around her throat,
constricting her windpipe and slowly but inexorably, start to squeeze.

She tried to scream but couldn’t. She managed to slip two fingers
between her throat and the strangling tool. It brought her a
moment’s respite of air and a tiny, desperate breath, but in the
long run she knew, it would only mean that her fingers would be
crushed, right along side of her windpipe. Her vision was blurring
as she stared up into the two shiny black, lifeless, dolls eyes.

“Dear God…This was it? This was the end?” All the things that she
wanted to do…and had never…or told anyone about, and now never
would. And now…
The blood flow was cut off from her fingers and throat.
She couldn’t fight anymore. She was going out…like a candle
in the wind.

There was a loud thud of footsteps in the hallway. Then a sudden
shift of the weight on her chest and shoulders. A light, shuffling
sound, a click and slam of the back door to the apartment building.
And then…strong arms lifting her up.
The smell of peppermints and Lucky Strike cigarettes. A smell from
her childhood.

She slowly opened her eyes and saw her own gray/blue green eyes
reflected back from the face of the cop hovering above her.
A timeworn, broken-nosed, but still loving face.
Her father.

*******************

Many, many thanks to all those who participated, and be sure to
watch for the next installment of; "What would you do ?"

Thanks

Ric Wasley
Author
Shadow of Innocence
Kunati - April 2007

You can pre-order a copy of Shadow of Innocence from: Amazon.com
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ric_Wasley
http://www.kunati.com/shadow-of-innocence-hip-myster/


Ric Wasley has spent almost forty years wandering through corporate board rooms and honky-tonk bars. He now divides his time between writing mystery novels – Shadow or Innocence – A McCarthy Family Mystery – Published by Kunati, http://www.kunati.com , and observing the really ‘juicy parts’ of the human condition

***************

New from Kunati Publishing: SHADOW OF INNOCENCE - The Newport Folk Festival provides a groovy backdrop for this fun and exciting mystery set in the music and drug soaked sixties. The Baby Boomers and everyone else are sure to enjoy this appealing mystery featuring a pair of musician partners in love and danger. Don't miss Shadow of Innocence! From Kunati Publishing. Available now for pre-order at; http://www.amazon.com/gp/product

And don't forget to check out my fellow Kunati author Cheryl Kaye Tardif and her tragic yet uplifting novel Whale Song, the story of a young woman haunted by the assisted suicide of her mother and the mystery that surrounds her death. Read more about Whale Song at http://www.kunati.com/catalog_whale_song

Friday, February 02, 2007

Short Story: OUIJA by Cheryl Kaye Tardif

Last spring, while packing away my aunt's belongings at her lakeside cottage, I discovered this letter in a box of old party games…
February 13, 2004

To Whom It May Concern:

If you found this letter, it means I'm dead.
DEAD!
Plain and simple.
And if I'm dead it's not by natural causes, I can assure you. I'm writing in haste cause I know I don't got much time.
It’s after me!
What, you're asking. Well, I'll tell you.

It all started with that gawdforbidden Ouija board. The board that my best friend and I found in her attic.
Liza and I had been friends and neighbors for more than 45 years. We even buried our husbands within 2 years of each other. And no, we didn't bury them in the backyard.
Let me make somethin clear, first off. I'm not crazy. I'm of sound mind. Maybe not sound body though. I'm not crazy and neither was Liza. I'm as sane as you, whoever is reading this, and what I'm about to tell you is true. TRUE! Not one word is a lie.
My phone rang a few nights ago.
"Liza," I said. "It’s 3 o'clock in the gawddamn morning!"
"You gotta come over, Sharon. Quick!"
"Why do I have to come over now? Can't it wait until morning?"
There was silence.
I sat up in bed and turned on my lamp. "Liza, you there?"
"I hear voices," she whispered. "There's someone in my attic."
She sounded scared, more scared than I ever heard her before, and her voice gave me a chill up my spine.
"Maybe you should call the police," I said.
"No, it's not that kind of voice."
Aw crap! There was only one other kind of voice that Liza heard.
Ghost voices.
"Be right over," I said.
Liza had been hearing ghost voices all her life. She heard when little Jimmy Barton called from Mr. Porter's well. The police found his body the next day. Jimmy had somehow fallen in and drowned…three days before. Liza also heard Mrs. Morgensteen calling to her one night to let her cats outside. When my friend got to the old lady's door, she could smell something rank and awful. The police found Mrs. Morgensteen dead on the floor. The newspapers said she had been dead almost a week.
Anyways, I have to tell you this so's you can see I'm telling the truth. So you'll believe me when I tell you what happened next.
After Liza called, I dressed quickly then stepped outside. There was a full moon and a fog had settled over our lane. I remember thinking how strange the weather was.
Ghost weather.
Crossing the street, I walked down the sidewalk to the corner. Liza lived less than a block from me. When I got to my friend's house, I saw her lights were out. Everything was black. The least she coulda done was put the porch light on for me. So in the glow of the moon I crept up toward her front door, not knowing if I should ring the bell or walk right in.
The door opened with a groaning creak and I jumped.
“Don’t scare me like that!” I hissed, then stood with my mouth open.
Liza Plummer, from 1842 Walker Lane off Aurora Lake, looked like death warmed over. My friend’s thin gray hair was a mess, her eyes were sunken in like she hadn’t slept in a month and she was wearing her natty old housecoat, the one she refused to throw away.
Liza’s a packrat. Can't let go of anything.
"Its coming from the attic," she whimpered.
We closed the front door and made our way upstairs. In the ceiling of the hallway there was a trap door. That's how you got to her attic. Using a broom, we hooked the rope handle and pulled it toward us. The trap door opened and―lo and behold―a set of steps appeared, ending almost two feet off the ground.
Now Liza and I, we aren't in the prime of life anymore. She's 58 and I'm 61. So getting up the first step took a bit of trying. Liza refused to go ahead of me so I put my foot in her hands and she boosted me to the first step. Then I leaned down and hauled her up behind me. A few minutes later, we were up and poking our heads into the pitch-black attic.
"Dontcha got a light in here?" I asked her.
She reached into her housecoat pocket and then passed me something. "Use this."
I flicked on the flashlight and we held our breath, waiting for the light to reveal some hidden evil, some specter from the past. We didn't see nothing except cardboard boxes piled in one corner and an old, empty picture frame leaning against the wall.
The floor was lined with boards and I tested one with my foot. "Can we walk on these?"
Liza nodded and clamped her hand on my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin as I took a step forward. I kicked at one of the boxes and it slid to the floor with a crash. Its contents tumbled out. Monopoly, Snakes & Ladders, Yahtzy and some other games.
"For crying out loud,” I huffed. “There's nothing here. No voices."
"B-but I heard someone up here,” she said. “I swear I did.”
"Well, there's those Poker chips you was looking for last month."
Liza swallowed hard. "How’d they get here? I'm never in my attic."
I rolled my eyes at her, thinking that maybe she came up to her attic lots of times. Maybe she just didn't remember. She’d been having a lot of memory lapses lately. Some days I wondered if she was suffering from Old Timers Disease.
“Nothing here,” I sighed, patting her on the shoulder.
It was when we were putting the games back in the box that we did find something.
A Ouija board.
"It's eeee-vil," Liza said, refusing to touch it.
I scowled. "Whatcha mean, evil?"
"It's the devil's board game."
When Liza said this, the attic grew colder than the cemetery in the middle of February. I looked down at the Ouija board, then picked it up. It appeared harmless enough. Wasn't too heavy either. I don't know what got into me but all of a sudden I was overcome by curiosity.
"I wanna see it," I said stubbornly.
I took the game downstairs, much to Liza's dismay, and put the box on the scratched coffee table. I turned on a lamp then pulled out the board and set it on the table. Tipping the box, I watched a small piece of wood tumble to the floor.
"What's this for?"
Liza explained how you rest your fingers on the wood and ask the spirits a question. She told me that the spirits would push the piece of wood and spell out the answers on the board. I thought, this I gotta see. But Liza wanted nothing to do with it. So me being a good friend and all promised to make her favorite carrot cake if she played the game with me.
We put our fingers on the wood and stared into each other's eyes.
"What should we ask it?" Liza’s voice trembled with fear.
"Who are you, Great Spirit?" I asked in a spooky voice.
I tried hard not to laugh at the horrified expression on my friend’s face while we waited for an answer. Nothing happened. I was gonna take my hand off when all of a sudden the piece of wood shot out from beneath my fingers.
N.
"Liza,” I scolded. “You pushed it."
My friend shook her head, her face whiter than bleached cotton.
I rested my fingers back on the wood and we waited again. We were mesmerized when it moved across to the A.
NA.
Then it moved to the T. Then the A again.
NATA.
Liza leaned forward. "You think it's Natalie Brown from down the road? You know, the lady who died last Sunday."
I shook my head. "Dunno. Let's ask it another question instead."
Me and my big mouth.
I asked the board if it had a message for us. When we read it, Liza and I gasped. Then we shoved the board into the box and stuffed it under the couch.
You're probably wondering what the Ouija board said.
It said: DEATH BOBBY T.
Bobby Truman was the only Bobby T. we knew. And the very next day, he was hit by a train when his truck stalled in the crossing. He was only eighteen years old when he died.
The day after that, Liza phoned me and said we had to get rid of the Ouija board. She couldn't have anything that evil in her house. So I met her on the corner and we took the board to the dumpster behind the laundromat and left it there. That was that!
Or so we thought.
Later that night I got a phone call. Liza was hissterikle. "Come over, quick!"
When I got to my friend's house, I saw that every light in her house was on.
"What's going on?" I asked when she pushed me into her living room.
And then I saw it.
Right there, in the middle of the coffee table, was the Ouija board.
"Jesus Murphy!" I muttered. "Why'd ya go back and get it?"
Liza swore up and down that she never went back for that board. It had just showed up on her table after suppertime. It still smelled like garbage and laundry soap.
"We have to find out what it wants," I told her. "Then maybe it'll leave you alone."
When we asked, the board came back with…DEATH SERENA U.
Serena Underhill was a girl I taught piano to. She was only 16.
I stared down at the board then said to Liza, "Pack it up."
We left her house just after 8. She was holding a plastic bag with the board in it. She held it out in front with her fingertips as if she was holding fresh dog crap. We walked four blocks down to Ling’s Noodle House and shoved the bag into a trashcan just before the garbage truck came. We stood there and watched as all the trash was compacted.
The next day Serena Underhill drowned in Mears Creek.
And by suppertime the Ouija board was back on Liza's table, reeking of sesame oil.
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that Liza went out and got back that board. I admit it. I was thinking the same thing. So when she called me that night, I went over and got the board. Then I took the bus to the ocean by myself. I walked along the boardwalk on the water's edge and flung that Ouija board out as far as I could. I waited while it was dragged out to sea and I stayed there until I saw that gawddamn board sink into the ocean.
Half an hour later, I got home and found Liza sobbing on my front porch. In her hands she held a sopping wet Ouija board.
Oh my Jesus, and all that's above! I was more than shocked. For the first time in my life I was deathly afraid.
Realizing that we had no choice, we sat at my kitchen table with the board between us.
"What on God's green earth do you want?" I yelled.
My fingers tingled as the wood slowly slid across the board.
U.
I thought of Ursula Bigelow or Ugene Pierce.
The wood stayed where it was.
"U?" Liza moaned. "What does that mean?"
We waited for the board to spell more but the wood didn’t move.
Liza bit her lip. "We asked what it wants. I-I think it wants us."
Suddenly the room vibrated and we heard a wicked laugh echo through the house. We snatched back our hands and watched the wood race around the board.
LIZASHAR―
"We gotta get rid of this thing," I said.
"We tried that!" Liza cried. "But it just keeps coming back."
When I glanced at the fireplace in my living room I got an idea. We built us a fire and when it was blazing hot we fed it pieces of the box.
"Put another log on the fire," I sang bitterly, tossing the wood piece into the flames.
Together we threw the Ouija board into the fire and watched as it slowly crumpled on the edges. When it ignited, we let out a sigh of relief. Me and Liza stayed there, arm in arm, watching the letters slowly fry until the board turned to ashes. And then the smell hit us. The stench of rot and decay was awful―like an Easter egg long forgotten after Easter.
That was the night before last.
Yesterday morning, I found Liza on her front lawn―dead of a broken neck. Beside her lay the Ouija board with one small scorch mark on its edge.

The sky is blood-red over the lake and the air tastes like death.
I have to hurry. I don't think I got much time left. The board said both of us, so I know it’s coming for me next. I’m so afraid but I have to try to get rid of this thing one last time and I have to let everyone know the truth. I was the one who opened Pandora’s Box. I’m the one who needs to close it.
Just so its clear, Liza and I tried throwing the Ouija board in a dumpster and a trashcan. I threw it in the ocean and when that didn’t work, we both watched it burn in the fireplace. Each and every time, the gawdawful evil thing ended up back at Liza’s.
Then again, Liza never could throw anything away. A pack rat. That’s what she was.
And my best friend.
I'm writing this letter and watching the Ouija board burn. This time I soaked it in lighter fluid, and when it's done burning I'm gonna take the ashes and bury them by the lake.
When we asked it that first night what its name was, we should have waited. Actually, we never should have asked in the first place.
NATA―
I know now that only one other letter was missing and that if I held a mirror to it, the word would read backwards―the devil of all evils. SATAN!
He’s coming for me. I can feel it in my bones. It’s all my fault. I was curious. And you know what they say about curiosity.
I have to get these ashes to the lake.
Be back later…I hope.

Sharon Kaye


On February 13th, 2004, my aunt Sharon was found lying near Aurora Lake, her gaping eyes frozen in fear and her hands blistered and burnt. The coroner said she drowned. But I think something else killed her―something insidious and older than time.
While packing away my aunt's belongings at her lakeside cottage, I discovered this letter in a box of old party games. Curious, I read the letter and then reached into the box, pulling out something damp and slightly scorched.
You know what they say about curiosity…

~*~

Copyright © 2004 Cheryl Kaye Tardif