The Board in the Boathouse

Seven years ago, I was a different man. Twenty-two, brash, and convinced that the world was a playground built for my amusement. I spent my weekdays as a junior architect in a sleepy coastal town, and my weekends tearing through the local pubs with a pack of lads who thought that a hangover was a badge of honor. Then came Eliza. She was a marine biologist who had moved into the flat above mine, and her quiet intelligence and gentle laugh made every other woman I had known seem like a caricature. I was falling for her, hard, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to be better. But I had not yet told her, because I was still too afraid of what my mates would say, and too scared of the darkness that had been brewing in me since a night I preferred to forget.

That night, the night that changed everything, started like any other Saturday. After a rowdy session at The Slippery Herring, we stumbled to Marcus’s place—a dilapidated boathouse he had inherited from an uncle, perched on the edge of the salt marshes. The tide was out, and the mudflats gleamed under a sickly moon. We brought a case of cheap lager and a half-empty bottle of whiskey, and we sat on the damp deck, laughing at nothing. It was Marcus who brought up the Ouija board. He had found one in the attic, he said, a vintage set with a wooden planchette, and he had been itching to try it. Most of us scoffed, but his cousin, a wiry, jumpy guy named Tom, claimed he had used one before and that it was real. ‘Come on, it’s just for a laugh,’ Tom said, his eyes glinting with something that was not entirely playful. We were not drunk, not really, just loose, so we agreed.

We cleared the beer cans and set up the board on a wobbly card table. Marcus lit a few candles, and the flames danced across the water-stained walls. We placed our fingers on the planchette, all five of us, and started asking stupid questions. ‘Is there anybody out there?’ Marcus intoned, trying to sound spooky. The planchette did not move. We laughed, took turns mocking it, but then after a few minutes, the planchette gave a jolt—a sharp, deliberate shove to the letter ‘H’. We pulled back, startled, but Tom said it was just our unconscious movements. So we tried again, and this time it spelled out a name: ‘HELEN’. None of us knew a Helen. I felt a cold draft despite the boarded windows, and the candles flickered, making our shadows stretch like tentacles. I wanted to stop, but Tom demanded we continue. ‘Ask her something,’ he hissed. Marcus, egged on by the rest, asked, ‘What do you want?’ The planchette flew across the board, spelling ‘YOUR SOULS’. We laughed nervously, but the laughter died when the board lifted off the table and slammed against the floor. The candles went out. Then we heard a splash from the water outside, as if something huge had surfaced and then dived again.

We grabbed our phones and bolted, leaving the board scattered. Outside, the tide had come in, and the water was now lapping at the boathouse pilings. We ran back to town, trying to convince ourselves it was a prank, but the fear was real. I went home to my flat, and as I unlocked the door, I saw a dark figure standing at the end of the hallway—tall, featureless, like a silhouette made of smoke. It did not move, but I felt its gaze boring into me. I slammed the door and leaned against it, heart pounding. I called Marcus, but he did not answer. I called Tom, and his phone was dead. That night, I did not sleep. I lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the sea—which was a mile away—yet I heard waves crashing against my bedroom wall. And under my door, a thin line of black water crept in, leaving a salty residue.

The next morning, I found out that Marcus had died in his sleep. His heart had simply stopped, the autopsy said, but his face was frozen in a mask of terror. Tom was in a psychiatric ward, babbling about a woman in white who visited him every night and whispered my name. The other two lads refused to speak of it, and one moved away without a word. I was left with a lingering dread, a certainty that something had followed me home. But then I thought of Eliza. I had not spoken to her since that night, but I needed her. I went to her flat, and as I stood on her doorstep, I realized that all I wanted was to hold her and tell her everything. That was when I noticed that my reflection in the glass door did not match my movements—it lagged by half a second. It was smiling, but I was not.

I turned around to leave, and the reflection stepped out of the glass, a perfect copy of me, but with black eyes that wept a clear oil. It opened its mouth, and a sound like a thousand nails on a chalkboard emerged, and I heard my own voice say, ‘You cannot run. You invited me.’ Then it dissolved into a mist that seeped into my skin, and I felt a coldness in my chest. I stumbled into Eliza’s flat, and she found me on the floor, shivering. She held me, and in that moment, the cold receded, but I knew it was only temporary. I told her everything, and she listened without judgment. She brought me tea and stayed by my side, and for the first time in days, I felt safe.

That was six years ago. I have not touched a Ouija board since. Eliza and I married a year later, and we moved inland, far from the coast. But the terror never truly left. Every so often, I see her—Helen—in the corner of my eye, or I hear her voice in the wind, whispering, ‘You owe me.’ And I know that one day, she will collect, and I will have to face her again. But until then, I hold Eliza tighter, and I am grateful for the love that saved me from the abyss. The board is locked in a box in the attic, wrapped in iron chains, but some nights I swear I can feel it pulsing, like a heartbeat, calling me back. And I know that the only reason I am still here is because I have something she can never have: a soul that is bound to another, and a love that is stronger than her hate.