The Ash-Covered Planchette

The old mill house had been leaning into the river for a century, its timbers dark with damp and rot. My cousin Vera and I used to sneak out to its skeleton on summer nights, daring each other to step over the threshold. The place had a history, sure, but the kind you read about in pamphlets at the town museum, not the kind that follows you home.

It was Vera’s idea to bring the board. She’d made it herself from a scavenged pizza box, the letters cut from an old Monopoly game and glued on with flour paste, then covered with packing tape. My friend Dale, who lived in the house that had replaced the miller’s cottage, had the better board, but he was visiting his dad in Ohio. So we sat in the long grass behind my aunt’s barn, the board between us, the river a low grumble in the dark.

‘Who goes first?’ I asked.

Vera rolled her eyes. ‘Just put your fingers on. We all do it.’

We touched the planchette, a heart-shaped piece of pine we’d cut ourselves. I asked the usual: ‘Is anyone here?’ The planchette didn’t move. I tried again, my voice a little sharper. ‘Is anyone here?’

Nothing.

‘I told you this was stupid,’ Vera said, pulling her hand away. I almost did the same, but something made me keep my fingers on. The planchette twitched, just a shiver, like a nervous horse.

‘Did you feel that?’ I said.

‘Feel what?’

I focused, pressing harder. ‘Are you there?’

The planchette began to move, slow and deliberate, as if guided by a hand much heavier than mine. It slid to the letter ‘Y.’ Then it traced a path to ‘E.’ Then ‘S.’ I lifted my fingers, and the planchette kept moving, tracing the same three letters over and over. Y-E-S. Y-E-S.

Vera grabbed my arm. ‘It’s not moving on its own. You’re doing it.’

‘I’m not!’

I put my fingers back on, and it went still. But when Vera touched it too, the planchette shot to the left, off the board, and landed in the grass. We stared at it for a long moment. Then Vera whispered, ‘It wants us to follow.’

We followed the riverbank, past the mill house, to a clearing we’d never noticed before. In the center was a burned patch of earth, about the size of a small car. The grass around it was dead, and a faint smell of smoke hung in the air, like a memory of something burnt long ago.

‘This is where the old mill burned down, right?’ I said.

Vera shook her head. ‘No, that was on the other side, near the bridge. This is… I don’t know.’

I knelt and touched the ash. It was cold, but a tingle ran up my arm, as if I’d touched a live wire. ‘There’s something here,’ I said.

Vera knelt too. ‘What kind of something?’

Before I could answer, the planchette in my pocket began to vibrate. I pulled it out. It was spinning in my palm, faster and faster, then it flew out of my hand and landed on the ash, pointing toward the river.

I looked where it pointed. A shape was moving in the water, just below the surface, a dark silhouette that might have been a log, or a body. It drifted toward the bank, then stopped.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Vera said, her voice cracking.

But I couldn’t move. The ash around my feet was swirling, forming patterns, writing letters in the dirt. I read them aloud: ‘HELP THE CHILD.’

Vera pulled my arm so hard I nearly fell. We ran back to the barn, slammed the door, and leaned against it, breathing heavy. The planchette was still in my hand, but it was still and cold.

The next day, Dale came back early. He found us huddled in the barn, and we told him everything. He laughed, but his laugh was forced. ‘You found the spot,’ he said. ‘The old miller’s girl drowned in that river, back in the 1800s. Her name was Anna. She was trying to save her brother from the fire, but the river took her.’

‘So the fire was here?’ I asked. ‘But you said the mill burned down across the bridge.’

Dale looked at the ground. ‘That’s what everyone says. But the truth is, the miller’s cottage burned first, right here. The family got out, but Anna went back for her doll. She never came out. They buried her where she fell, right on this spot. But they moved the grave later, to the churchyard.’

‘Then why did the planchette say ‘help the child’?’ I said.

Dale’s face went pale. ‘Because the grave was moved, but her thing is still here. Her doll. She’s been looking for it for two hundred years.’

We searched the clearing that evening, sifting through the ash and dirt. My fingers closed around something small and hard. I pulled it out: a porcelain doll, cracked and charred, its painted eyes staring up at the sky. As I held it, I felt a cold breath on my neck, and a voice, like a child’s whisper but too close, said, ‘You found me.’

I dropped the doll. It hit the ash and crumbled to dust. The wind picked up, and the ash swirled around us, forming a shape, a girl, with hollow eyes. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, the planchette in my pocket shot out and flew into the shape, and the ash collapsed inward, and then it was gone.

We stood there, breathless. The clearing was silent. The river gurgled. Then I saw something moving in the water again, a small hand, reaching up, holding a doll. It sunk back under, and the river was still.

We never spoke of it again. But sometimes, when I’m near water, I hear a child’s laugh, and I find myself looking for a porcelain doll, and I feel the ash between my fingers, and I remember that some things are better left buried. But the worst part? The worst part is that the planchette never left me. It’s in my pocket right now, and it’s warm. And I know, one day, it will move again. And I’ll have to answer.