The Candle Trap

I never believed in ghosts. Not really. I was fascinated by them, sure—read every book in the school library, watched every documentary—but it was like astronomy: interesting, distant, and not something I’d ever touch. That changed the summer I turned twelve, when my cousin Marcus came to stay with us in our grandfather’s old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. The house had been in the family for generations, and my parents had inherited it after Grandpa passed. They decided to fix it up and sell it, so we were stuck there for two months with nothing but fields and silence.

Marcus was a year older and had a wild streak. He found an old Ouija board in the attic, hidden beneath a floorboard. It looked ancient, with cracked paint and a planchette that felt cold to the touch. I laughed when he showed it to me, but there was a thrill in it too. We decided to try it one night in the barn, away from prying eyes.

The barn was dusty and smelled of hay and rot. We set up candles in a circle, not a pentagram—that felt too cliché—but a circle with weird symbols Marcus had drawn on a piece of paper. We sat cross-legged, fingers light on the planchette. Marcus asked, ‘Is there anybody here with us?’ The planchette didn’t move. I smirked. We tried a few more questions, but nothing. Then Marcus got this gleam in his eye. ‘Maybe we need to offer something,’ he said. He pulled out a silver locket from his pocket, one he’d found in the attic too. He placed it in the center of the circle.

I don’t know why, but the air changed. The candles flickered, though there was no breeze. The planchette slid to ‘YES’ with a jolt. I pulled my hands back, but Marcus held his. ‘Don’t be a chicken,’ he said. ‘It’s just moving because we’re pushing it.’ But I wasn’t pushing. We started asking questions: ‘What’s your name?’ The planchette spelled ‘E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H’. ‘Why are you here?’ It went to ‘V-E-N-G-E-A-N-C-E’. My skin prickled. Marcus was laughing, but his face was pale. We asked, ‘What do you want?’ The planchette moved to ‘T-H-E-L-O-C-K-E-T’.

Marcus grabbed the locket and clutched it. ‘No way, it’s mine now.’ The candles went out. In the darkness, we heard a whisper, like a dry rustle, a woman’s voice saying, ‘Then you will stay.’ The barn door slammed shut. We scrambled in the dark, knocking over candles, finally found the door and ran back to the house. We didn’t notice until we were inside that the locket was gone—Marcus must have dropped it in the chaos. But that night, something changed.

For the next week, things started happening. Our reflections would show an extra shadow behind us, a woman with long hair. Doors would gently open and close on their own. The temperature in our room would drop. Marcus started acting strange—he’d have these fits where he’d stare at a corner and whisper in a language I didn’t know. I told my parents, but they chalked it up to imagination. I started sleeping with a nightlight.

Then, one night, I woke to find Marcus standing over my bed, his eyes open but white, not his normal blue. His mouth moved, but a woman’s voice came out, low and gravelly: ‘Give it back.’ I screamed, and he blinked, looked confused, and then fled. The next day, Marcus was gone. The cops searched for days, but they never found him, only his shoe floating in the pond behind the barn.

I never told anyone what really happened. I moved with my parents to the city, tried to forget. But thirty years later, I’m back at that farmhouse, alone, after my parents died. I’m standing in the barn, and the floorboards creak. A wind blows, and the dust forms a shape—a woman, her face half-rotten, holding the locket. She says, not in my ears but in my mind, ‘You came back. You brought the brother.’ And I remember the shoe, and I know I am not alone. In the silence, I hear my own voice, but it’s not mine, saying, ‘We will keep you here forever.’ And the door swings shut.